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I have already argued, following Bhikhu Parekh's ideas about the limits of humanitarian intervention, that given the budget constraints and national interests of the parties that comprise NATO, it cannot likely repel the Taliban backed offensive without causing an intolerable level of civilian casualities. It's far past time for a full reckoning of the innocent lives lost due to the drone attacks, and the US governmental refusal of a full reckoning is inexcusable. Still many more lives will be lost due to the Taliban offensive in Afghanistan and its repercussions in Pakistan, and those lives--the lives of Indian foreign workers in Afghanistan (road workers have been killed, and the Embassy attacked twice), Afghanis and all kinds of innocents in Pakistan--are just as innocent, though the American left has hitherto ignored them and shed not a tear for them. All these narcissistic children are interested in are the lost brown lives that will justify reallocating money back to the programs that they only think are more important for themselves. In fact it may well be that the new troops will reduce the percentage of the innocent dead killed by NATO as opposed to anti-governmental forces if Obama keeps to his campaign pledge to replace aerial attacks and drones with more ground troop involvement. Still the price will be too high, and Obama's resolve will weaken soon. That means the region is likely headed for a descent into chaos. We can stop the third worldist fantasizing that once imperialism is repelled, the lost Garden of Eden will re-appear. What is intolerable are the Rachel Maddows and Katrina Van den Heuvel's not setting up a proper debate between Ahmed Rashid, Tariq Ali, Sumit Ganguly, and various Afghani voices. And their blindness is shared by several people on this list. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
