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I agree. However, the "proxy" need not be limited to ideological or capitalist/socialist conflicts. The war in Syria seems to be a religious one between the Sunnis and |Shia, which makes the choosing of sides by the U.S. particularly stupid. ________________________________ From: Marv Gandall <marvga...@gmail.com> To: alnh...@yahoo.com Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2013 10:02 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] What is a Proxy War? | Darth Nader On 2013-06-16, at 9:44 AM, Allan Harris wrote: > A proxy war has sometimes been compared to Vietnam and Korea. Both countries > were "proxies" for the U.S. (South V. and South K.) and the Soviet Union and > China. > > The Syrian government would be the proxy for Russia and Iran, the Syrian > rebels would be the proxies for the U.S. > > On 2013-06-15, at 11:30 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > >> What is a Proxy War? >> Posted by DarthNader ⋅ April 13, 2013 ⋅ 2 Comments >> >> Is what’s happening in Syria today a revolution, a civil war or a proxy war? The reference to a "proxy" war obscures, often deliberately so, the deeper revolutionary character of these mass struggles. It also blurs the very important differences between the socialist-led struggles of yesteryear and today's Islamist-led movements. The Vietnamese, North Korean, and other movements were consciously anticapitalist and and overturned existing property relations during and following the conquest of power. The populist Islamist-led movements, beginning with Iran, have been more deformed ideologically and have nowhere aimed at, much less, completed the same fundamental social transformations. How dependent on outside support were the indigenous socialist and Islamist revolutionary movements in each instance is a matter of conjecture. But again that shouldn't obscure the consequential differences flowing from the fact that the left-wing movements received assistance from comparable anticapitalist regimes, ie. the USSR and China, while the Islamists, except in the case of Iran, have been mainly dependent on aid from the Western powers and Gulf states. ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 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
