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OK, but we're not thousands of miles away from the US government and have a responsibility here to deal with it as American citizens. Thus while the dissidents in Libya may have understandable reasons based on their realpolitik for calling for aid from whomever they can get it and we certainly shouldn't demonize them or judge their political character solely by that, assuming they are a homogenous group that speaks with one voice. It is an entirely different matter, however, for us as Americans of Brits to support that: to support our own government's military adventures; there were "South Vietnamese" that wanted us in their country as well or Korea, contras in Nicaragua etc etc. so what? The equities may indeed favor the dissidents over Gaddafi, there are conflicts all over the world in this vein, many more compelling: yet they do not and should not result in imperial military intervention. Again, in self serving fashion Yemen and Bahrain are ignored by our rulers and their media. Moreover, what do we really know about what's going on there? What CNN or USA has told us over a few days or weeks. Let's not get stampeded into a knee jerk reaction in support of own government. C'mon, you say this is somehow unique. It isn't to this extent at all: every imperialist war, particularly by the US and Britain has been preceded by sanctimonious horror stories and propaganda about how evil the target is and how humanitarian and ethical imperatives mandate intervention and how we're fighting for freedom and democracy against tyranny, whether in Vietnam, Nicaragua wherever. Let's not give a left cover for that; there are plenty of guys like Christopher Hitchens out there to do that already. There may be true in an extraordinary situation like World War 2 which I don't see that we have here or in Bosnia (my view) after months and years of conflict had revealed certain horrors. Here, both my "marxist" and ordinary citizen parts tell me that this adventure should be opposed and the Libyan people allowed to sort this out for themselves. We're not the cops of the world. Moreover, we know the whole history of Libya and how the imperialists have been harassing it for decades, how Gaddafi was bombed in 1986 and his own infant daughter killed. On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 3:34 AM, Marv Gandall <marvg...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > n 2011-03-21, at 2:06 AM, Tom Cod wrote: > > > > How about this: HANDS OFF LIBYA! > > > *http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-03-21-Benghazi21_ST_N.htm > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tomcod3%40gmail.com > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
