[Marxism] Files proving Venezuela role in Farc revol are like WMD claims vs. Iraq
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == - www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/05/iraq-venezuela-iiss-dossier Iraq dodgy dossier authors strike again Posted by Francisco Dominguez - 12 May 2011 17:08 Venezuela FARC files must be read with the same scepticism that WMD claims deserved. A report launched this week risks repeating the mistake of the dodgy dossier that justified war on Iraq. Launched by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) the dossier claims it looks in detail at Colombian guerrilla group FARC's relations with Venezuela and Ecuador by assessing files allegedly found on computers seized by Colombian government from FARC in 2008. It has already received widespread coverage in the New York Times, the Times, the Guardian, FT, CNN and BBC to name a few. Although police organisation Interpol has explained that the handling of the computer data by Colombian authorities did not conform to internationally recognised principles and that its computer forensic examination of the files was not about verifying the accuracy and source of the user files, this has not prevented all sorts of lurid allegations being made by IISS. If the name IISS rings alarm bells, it may be because you remember the role it played in events that led to the publication of the dodgy dossier justifying war on Iraq. Worryingly for the Continent, the same people and organisation now appear to have turned their attention onto Latin America. The report was launched against the backdrop of intensified efforts from the Republican Right to target Venezuela. The Republican's electoral victory in the US Senate and Congress elections last year placed some very right wing figures in charge of influential foreign affairs bodies. Republican Congressman Connie Mack of Florida has said that as the new Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere he will seek to get Venezuela placed on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism. Fellow Republican and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen backed this agenda. Many fear the timing of this report is also to torpedo the détente underway between Venezuela and Colombia. Until recently, US military bases were being prepared in Colombia that would surround Venezuela, but this agenda is now on the backburner. The IISS report may well form part of a strategy that achieves in provoking a new round of hostilities between the nations. The IISS has such a record in playing its own part in the rush to the war in Iraq. Whilst it claims to be independent, owing no allegiance to any governments or any political or other organisations, the IISS has ties to many neo-cons. Trustees and Council members include Robert D Blackwill, a former Deputy National Security Advisor to George W. Bush; Dr John Hillen, formerly Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs under Bush administration; Dr Eliot Cohen, Condoleezza Rice's former senior adviser on strategic issues and Dr Ariel Levite, a former Deputy National Security Advisor. From Britain it involves Sir David Manning, a Foreign Policy Adviser to Blair in the lead-up to the Iraq war, as well as Lord Powell of Bayswater, former foreign policy advisor to Thatcher. The IISS role in the creation of the dodgy dossier on Iraq is clear. In September 2002 it launched the IISS: 'Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Net Assessment which made spurious claims on the threat posed by Iraq's programmes to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons as well as ballistic missiles including that the retention of WMD capacities by Iraq is self-evidently the core objective of the regime. Ominously it warned: Wait and the threat will grow; strike and the threat may be used. Clearly, governments have a pressing duty to develop early a strategy to deal comprehensively with this unique international problem. The Daily Mail seized upon this dossier as the most compelling evidence yet that Iraq is... building up a lethal arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and could be months away from building a nuclear bomb. Even the BBC ran the headline UK hails new report. As Kim Sengupta explained in the Independent: The IISS dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, published on 9 September 2002, was edited by Gary Samore, formerly of the US State Department, and presented by Dr John Chipman, a former Nato fellow. It was immediately seized on by Bush and Blair administrations as providing proof that Saddam was just months away from launching a chemical and biological, or even a nuclear attack. Large parts of the IISS document were subsequently recycled in the now notorious Downing Street dossier, published with a foreword by the Prime Minister, the following week. Worryingly, John Chipman is now the
Re: [Marxism] nuclear power doesn't scale ???
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well... I'm sorry if I'm not educated enough (I'm from Brazil you know, we study by the trees with monkeys throwing bananas at us - or haven't you seen The Simpsons?), but when I want to cool a beer, I throw it in a big bucket of ice and water and swirl it around. Maybe if I had access to the vacuum-freezers you have in the U.S. I would think otherwise. By the way, did you guys notice my other e-mail, about semi-slavery conditions work conditions in the biggest University in Brazil? And their struggle? The strike? I got one reply (thanks, Dan! The articles you sent me inspired a lot of people over here!), vs. three now. Helping semi-slave workers in their struggle? Pfft. I should be studying the Second Law of Thermodynamics! It's clearly what Marxists are studying nowadays! 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
Re: [Marxism] nuclear power doesn't scale ???
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Caio, you make the snide remark about beer and now you are being defensive because some of us replied in kind. No, personally, I didn't see your post on slavery in Brazil. I will look for it. There are a LOT of posts here... As it happens Brazil has an advanced nuclear energy program, with scientists and engineers trained at Brazilian universities, by Brazilian professors and scientists. They have advanced physics departments at various institutions around the country. This is *your country*, Caio. Interestingly, since you brought it up, US academic Louis Henry Gates, Jr, did a serious of documentaries on being Black in Latin America. He visited Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Brazil. He raised the issue of the debate surrounding the implementation of affirmative action to raise the number of Blacks among the student population there. What are your comments on this? David 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
[Marxism] Cuba's New Socialism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Counterpunch Weekend Edition May 13 - 15, 2011 Lobster is For Tourists Only Cuba's New Socialism By RENAUD LAMBERT Fidel Castro's brother Raúl is taking a pragmatic approach to economics in his presidency, but how far will he be able to correct Cuba's situation? In 1994 Raúl Castro, then defence minister, voiced a rare disagreement with his brother Fidel: The main threat is not American guns, it's beans - beans the Cuban people can't get. Fidel opposed liberalising agriculture, which would have boosted food production. But since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, GDP had fallen by 35%, the US had tightened the trade embargo and Cubans were suffering from malnutrition. Raúl was certain that if things did not change, he would have to bring the tanks out. At the end of the year, the government authorised free farmers' markets. Raúl is president now and maintains Cuba is still not out of the special period . In 2008 three hurricanes caused $10bn worth of damage to infrastructure (equivalent to 20% of GDP) and the international financial crisis hit the strongest sectors of the economy, especially tourism and nickel. Unable to meet its obligations, Cuba froze foreign assets and restricted imports, although this slowed the economy further. In 2009 agricultural production fell by 7.3%; between 2004 and 2010 food imports soared from 50% to 80%. In December 2010 Raúl told the National Assembly: We are treading a path that runs along the edge of a precipice; we must rectify [the situation] now, or it will be too late and we will fall. The president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón (once rumoured to be a prime candidate to succeed Fidel Castro) said: Yes, Cuba will open up to the world market - to capitalism. Building socialism in one country is not easy, especially if its domestic market is small, so would Cuba abandon the revolution? Alarcón dismissed the idea: We will do our utmost to preserve socialism; not the perfect socialism we all dream of, but the kind of socialism that is possible here, under the conditions we are facing. And we already have market mechanisms in Cuba. full: http://www.counterpunch.org/lambert05132011.html 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
[Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Comrades, Can anyone point me to info on any program of CPUSA to send members into factories during the '20s or '30s and approx numbers? Red Arnie 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
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, 13 May 2011 16:06:22 -0400 Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Vivian Gornick's Romance of American Communism has a terrific chapter on a couple of middle class CP'ers who went into auto. Their experiences were similar to the millions of SWP'ers who went through a similar absurd experience. Millions? Really? That must have been some organization. -- -- Michael J. Smith m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.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
[Marxism] Is Trotsky mentioned in the re-issue of Mary McCarthy's novel the Group?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/29/the-group-mary-mccarthy?INTCMP=SRCH 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
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Tetragazillions, actually. But that counts the YSA, too. ML 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
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 5/13/11 4:48 PM, Michael Smith wrote: Millions? Really? That must have been some organization. And here I thought you were the mordant wit. 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
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It was really quite an organization. Its peak dues paying membership was over 100,000 and many historians have said that over a million were at one time or another in the USCP during the 1930s. --rod On May 13, 2011, at 1:48 PM, Michael Smith wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, 13 May 2011 16:06:22 -0400 Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Vivian Gornick's Romance of American Communism has a terrific chapter on a couple of middle class CP'ers who went into auto. Their experiences were similar to the millions of SWP'ers who went through a similar absurd experience. Millions? Really? That must have been some organization. -- -- Michael J. Smith m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/ options/marxism/rholt%40planeteria.net 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
[Marxism] cave of forgotten dreams
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == If you want to be astonished at what human beings could do more than 30,000 years ago, see the film Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It is a documentary by Werner Herzog, whose team was given access to the Chauvet caves in southern France. If this rock art doesn't blow you away, nothing will. See a trailer at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cave_of_forgotten_dreams/trailers/11133088 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
Re: [Marxism] nuclear power doesn't scale ???
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Our Black communities were already different people under the law— until the 1960's when gradually Jim Crow laws were repealed. There were laws. Real legal laws that were enforced. Affirmative Action is just recognition of an existing state of affairs, a recognition that is *supposed* to say that it is illegal to discriminate. Of course poverty is the problem, … or maybe it is unemployment. If decent jobs were available, poverty would surely shrink almost away. But this is utopian because capitalism needs the reserve army of the unemployed visible to the workers to remind them of where they will end up if they misbehave. And why hire a child when the boss can hire a full grown man for the same price? --rod On May 13, 2011, at 11:10 AM, Caio Rearte wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == David, I'm sorry if I was too defensive. Affirmative action doesn't attack the real issue: poverty. Poverty is what leads to school evasion, not having the opportunity to study (because when your parents earn minimum wage - or less - you need to enter the workforce at 10, 11, or younger), and even if you do get a grade, you get paid less than the white fella working next to you. Plus, affirmative action segregates, because it turns people with different skin colors into different *people *under the Law*, *who are entitled to different rights - rights that should be universal, like access to education. Caio Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/ options/marxism/rholt%40planeteria.net 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
[Marxism] Perry Anderson on the revolts in the Arab region
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=articleview=2883 Perry Anderson ON THE CONCATENATION IN THE ARAB WORLD Editorial The Arab revolt of 2011 belongs to a rare class of historical events: a concatenation of political upheavals, one detonating the other, across an entire region of the world. There have been only three prior instances-the Hispanic American Wars of Liberation that began in 1810 and ended in 1825; the European revolutions of 1848-49; and the fall of the regimes in the Soviet bloc, 1989-91. Each of these was historically specific to its time and place, as the chain of explosions in the Arab world will be. None lasted less than two years. Since the match was first lit in Tunisia this December, with the flames spreading to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Oman, Jordan, Syria, no more than three months have passed; any prediction of its outcomes would be premature. The most radical of the trio of earlier upheavals ended in complete defeat by 1852. The other two triumphed, though the fruits of victory were often bitter: certainly, far from the hopes of a Bolívar or a Bohley. The ultimate fate of the Arab revolt could resemble either pattern. But it is just as likely to be sui generis. 1 Two features have long set the Middle East and North Africa apart within the contemporary political universe. The first is the unique longevity and intensity of the Western imperial grip on the region, over the past century. From Morocco to Egypt, colonial control of North Africa was divided between France, Italy and Britain before the First World War, while the Gulf became a series of British protectorates and Aden an outpost of British India. After the War the spoils of the Ottoman Empire fell to Britain and France, adding what became under their calipers Iraq, Syria, the Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan, in the final great haul of European territorial booty. Formal colonization arrived late in much of the Arab world. Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, the Subcontinent, not to speak of Latin America, were all seized long before Mesopotamia or the Levant. Unlike any of these zones, however, formal decolonization has been accompanied by a virtually uninterrupted sequence of imperial wars and interventions in the post-colonial period. 2 These began as early as the British expedition to reinstall a puppet regent in Iraq in 1941, and multiplied with the arrival of a Zionist state on the graveyard of the Palestinian Revolt, crushed by Britain in 1938-39. Henceforward an expanding colonial power, acting sometimes as partner, sometimes as proxy, but with increasing frequency as initiator of regional aggressions, was linked to the emergence of the United States in place of France and Britain as the overlord of the Arab world. Since the Second World War, each decade has seen its harvest of suzerain or settler violence. In the forties came the nakba unleashed by Israel in Palestine. In the fifties, the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt and the American landings in the Lebanon. In the sixties, Israel's Six-Day War against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In the seventies, the Yom Kippur War, its upshot controlled by the us. In the eighties, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and crushing of the Palestinian intifada. In the nineties, the Gulf War. In the last decade, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. In this, the nato bombardment of Libya in 2011. Not every act of belligerence was born in Washington, London, Paris or Tel Aviv. Military conflicts of local origin were also common enough: the Yemeni civil war in the sixties, the Moroccan seizure of Western Sahara in the seventies, the Iraqi attack on Iran in the eighties and invasion of Kuwait in the nineties. But Western involvement or connivance in these was also rarely absent. Little in the region moved without close imperial attention, and-where necessary-application of force or finance, to it. 3 The reasons for the exceptional degree of Euro-American vigilance and interference in the Arab world are plain. On the one hand, it is the repository of the largest concentration of oil reserves on Earth, vital for the energy-intensive economies of the West; generating a vast arc of strategic emplacements, from naval, air and intelligence bases along the Gulf, with outposts in Iraq, to deep penetration of the Egyptian, Jordanian, Yemeni and Moroccan security establishments. On the other, it is the setting in which Israel is inserted and must be protected, as America is home to a Zionist lobby rooted in the country's most powerful immigrant community, which no president or party dare affront, and Europe bears the guilt of the Shoah. Since Israel is in its turn an occupying power still dependent on Western patronage, its patrons have become the target for
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, 13 May 2011 16:48:31 -0400 Michael Smith m...@smithbowen.net writes: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, 13 May 2011 16:06:22 -0400 Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Vivian Gornick's Romance of American Communism has a terrific chapter on a couple of middle class CP'ers who went into auto. Their experiences were similar to the millions of SWP'ers who went through a similar absurd experience. Millions? Really? That must have been some organization. You would think that an organization of that size would have succeeded in making a revolution. Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math -- -- Michael J. Smith m...@smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com Groupon.com Official Site 1 huge daily deal on the best stuff to do in your city. Try it today! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4dcdcc3164f563f96ebst04vuc 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
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == OK, first, yes, come by and see me when you are in the Bay Area, the Holt Labor Library is open Mon-Fri, 9am to 4pm. We have *tons* of stuff including The Militant and the People's World going to back to when Hoover was President. Among other things. The question was a legitimate one asked by Red Arnie. The question on the CP during it's formative years and, comparisons with, say, the SWP later, are, however silly and a-historical. There is no comparison. The CP did build fractions in targeted industries. They didn't do it by sending in people, however. They did it by *recruiting workers* in industry. They recruited whole fractions that way. In some cases, such as in Maritime, the Profintern took an early position that communists should dominate the maritime trades internationally. This is detailed somewhat in Jan Valient's Out of the Night (1940). There are other references to this in various other accounts of the period. I also personally knew one of the Comintern's US organizers in Maritime who noted that the Maritime fractions in the US were specialized and not like other fractions. So they did send people in this way as well. But even here it was the organizing ability of the CPers and their anti-racism that helped recruit, most notably in the NMU. But by and large they used regional organizers to go to factories or use union organizers to do dual recruitment, not unlike the way the Socialists did it prior to and during WWI. Workers basically just joined. I might add this applies to the Trotskyists as well. With the success, for example, of the organizing drive among truckers in Minneapolis in 1934, the Trotskyists parlayed that into the first area wide contract in IBT history, the Central Conference of Teamsters. Where the Teamsters organized locals, a branch of the Communist League and later the SWP was sure to follow, so that the SWP had IBT branches in places like Fargo, ND, Lawrence and Witchita, KS, and so on. So actual 'colonization' wasn't what the CP was about (or other left groups). That was a 60's thing and became the dominent way of organizing in factories by the far left (including the CP) into the 1970s and early 1980s. Some groups, most notably in the anti-Revisionist strain, often did quite well in this regard and recruited out of it. David 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
Re: [Marxism] History of CPUSA
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 10:35 PM, DW dwalters...@gmail.com wrote: ... So actual 'colonization' wasn't what the CP was about (or other left groups). That was a 60's thing and became the dominent way of organizing in factories by the far left (including the CP) into the 1970s and early 1980s. Some groups, most notably in the anti-Revisionist strain, often did quite well in this regard and recruited out of it. David To add a query to the original questionI'm curious as to whether any comprehensive (or attempts at generalised) histories exist addressing these attempts at 'colonization' among the revolutionary left as a whole, from the late 60s thru the 80s. I've read various accounts - from individuals from different political tendencies - of attempts to build locally within, for example, the auto industry, mining, and within the teamsters. Of course, some of these are more focused on the issue of building rank and file groups within the Unions and others provide accounts related to the various party building efforts. But if I could be directed to any broad survey histories, or even histories focused on particular industries/ unions - but with a national focus, during this period, It'd be appreciated -aaron NYCSOCIALIST.ORG 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
[Marxism] Nir Rosen - Al Qa’eda was always a fringe group with no roots in the Arab world
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Al Qa’eda was always a fringe group with no roots in the Arab worldhttp://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1520/who-cares-about-osama Nir Rosen clip - A flight from Istanbul to New York the day after Usama Bin Ladin was assassinated is an inopportune time to write about what it all means, but I would be thinking about little else anyway between the security checks, the turbulence and the guy at customs asking me what I was just doing in Iraq. Last night thousands of Americans took to the street waving flags to revel in what was both righteous justice and jingoism. That same day hundreds of thousands of communists, leftists and workers took to the streets of Istanbul and Ankara to commemorate May Day and demand more rights. Some sang an old communist guerilla song about taking to the mountains to fight. Some saluted martyred student socialist leaders from the 1970s. Others shouted “long live the worker’s struggle!” and “hunger, poverty and us, this is your capitalist system.” While taking isolated chance incidents in different countries to make deductions can make one sound like Thomas Friedman, to me the two demonstrations symbolized two different trajectories the East and the West are taking. On the one hand throughout the Middle East in what is being called an awakening, leaderless popular movements take to the streets to demand secular and leftist notions of universal rights, undermining dictatorships favored by the US, religious extremists opposed to the US as well as American hegemony. It turns out Arabs understand democracy better than we do in the stagnant west, they proved that leaders rule only with the consent of the governed and if the people demand their rights they cannot be stopped. On the other hand America, a nation in economic and political decline but perpetual war, was engrossed in right wing conspiracy theories about where President Obama was born only to receive a nationalist fillip by an assassination ten years and trillions of dollars in the making. For the last ten years American foreign policy has been dominated by war with Muslims out of fear of a phantom threat. My own career has been entirely a result of these wars. Bin Ladin’s thousands of innocent victims will be happy to learn of his belated demise, but the industry the September 11 attacks spawned may come to miss him. Following those attacks Americans engaged in little introspection about its relationship with the third world and what it had done to provoke such resentment. Instead the nation embraced a self righteous narrative about a Muslim world that hated us for our freedoms and had to be taught a lesson, (“suck on this,” as Thomas Friedman explained). Americans sought revenge in Afghanistan and Iraq, they backed dictators and warlords, they abandoned the pretense of international law, declaring a global war, dispensing with civil liberties. America’s wars in the Muslim world killed tens of thousands of innocents. And still Americans clung to belief that they were the good guys fighting for freedom. The exaggerated American reaction to the killing of one man makes it seem as if a war was won, or a powerful enemy defeated, inflating the importance of one aging extremist hiding in Pakistan. Thanks to an industry of overnight experts and celebrity pundits al Qaeda was viewed as a social movement with roots in the Arab world. They advocated a battle of ideas as if al Qaeda was a dominant phenomenon and not a marginal group of a few hundred men out of one billion Muslims. Others justified American support for compliant dictators because democracy in the Arab world would lead to religious extremists taking over. These so called experts mixed only with elites in the Arab world and all they knew of al Qaeda was translations of pro-jihadist websites or videos. They did not spend time living and working with normal people to know what their real concerns were. They viewed Muslims as robots programmed only by Islam without the same mundane concerns and aspirations as the rest of us. Some supported “deradicalization” programs so they could put install new programs into the robots’ minds. They worried about challenging al Qaeda’s narrative. They worried that if the U.S. acknowledged its war in Afghanistan was pointless and pulled out then “what would Bin Ladin say?” They spent more time watching al Qaeda videos than any Arab I ever met and worried about Bin Ladin’s victory video. full - http://nirrosen.tumblr.com/post/5232614788/my-article-on-the-bin-laden-killing 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
