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On 11/12/14 10:15 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
Dear Nicola Nasser,
You article
(https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-endgame-of-the-us-islamic-state-strategy/)
on how ISIS sprang from the womb of American imperialism is really
fascinating:
"The IS was the illegitimate fetus born and nurtured inside the uterus
of the US – engineered political process based on a constitution
legalizing a federal system based in turn on sectarian and ethnic
sharing of power and wealth."
I think that your methodology could be the wellspring of a new way of
conducting historical research. It could persuade one given to leaps of
the imagination that Nazism sprang from the womb of British imperialism
since the onerous conditions of the Treaty of Versailles made economic
misery in Germany inevitable.
A useful comment on this from my old friend Reza:
If everything under the sun is ultimately caused by imperialism, then
there is no need for any analysis. Everything is caused by imperialism.
Period. What's the point of analysis then? What is there *to* analyze?
But more importantly, such 'analyses' that start and end by saying "It
was caused by imperialism" simply make themselves look redundant after a
while. As we used to say, "In the final analysis," this may be true.
But, from here to the final analysis there are tons of explanations that
still need to be taken into account.
Civil Engineers, for example, do not resort to 'gravity' as the main
explanation for everything. Maybe it's time our social commentators
followed some scientific (i.e., rational) guidelines for providing
explanations, rather than the "final analysis" shorthand replacing
complex and more real explanations.
reza f.
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