Summary? Hard. But it comes down to how the UK and US sabotaged communist lead underground movements in Greece, Yugoslavia and northern Italy. The allies failed in Yugoslavia. The biggest story in Davidson's book was the liberation of Genoa. Communist lead undergrounds took Genoa in the last weeks of German hold out. They then drove south and invited the US Army in. The USA was stuck somewhere south. Once the Americans and Brits took over they demanded the Italians disarm and put as many non-communists into local government as they could under allied authority.
Wilfred Burchett writes very similar stories. His work is here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/burchett/index.htm Burchett moves around both in Europe and Asia. He's obviously a communist. That gives him access to the other side, especially in Berlin and Vietnam. What you get is an insight into the foundation of the cold war which was in the works in 1943-5. I don't know how to explain this. Between Davidson's Special Operations Europe, and Burchett's work, it completely dissolved my concept of what WWII was about. If you are interested in this history, these guys will blow your mind. They were both long gone before Iraq and Afghanistan, but their work as journalists puts these wars in perspective. The whole spectrum of US wars become typical rather than atypical. To cap them off, you can read Homer Bigart, Forward Positions. Bigart was an American and not political. He reports during the same period in late WWII through Vietnam and basically finds the same duplicitous positions of the US. The last few reports of this book come from early Vietnam, Spring 1962. This last report just took me away. I was twenty in drawing class and wondering about the stupid war somewhere thousands of miles away. It took me awhile to realize that war was absolute bullshit. But Bigart was already reporting it as such. The current point is that these same policies and techniques are being used against the popular movements of the Arab Spring. While the populism is not communist led, it doesn't matter. The US will do all it can to make sure so-called liberal as in neoliberal rotten capital will stay within the heart of these places. The Egyptians et al. can not make deals with the US or Europe or else they will end up like Haiti. Summary. The US will use up all its power, resources, and people to make the world safe for US business. That's all we are. There is no more. I know it's been said a million times. But after reading these journalist accounts of war, I finally realized that's the way it has always been. It's another way to say the obvious. Popular democracy is incompatible with capitalism. What these journalists report, reflects exactly that conclusion. CG CG _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
