Maybe this sounds minor, but I think it's relevant. If we want to condemn or support something, we need serious knowledge of local circumstances, not just abstract anti-imperialist reflexes. I have always opposed US imperialism and NATO interventions. But there are situations where non-intervention is also a political choice with catastrophic consequences. In Bosnia, the US and the West knew exactly what was happening from 1992 onward — ethnic cleansing and mass killings in Eastern Bosnia, Republika Srpska. They monitored it in real time and did nothing. When intervention finally came in 1995, I supported the bombing of military positions of Republika Srpska, and I believe it should have happened earlier — in 1992 — to stop the aggression, bombe not civilians, but military forces.They can do it when they want it. Instead, the West avoided calling things by their real name — genocide — invented the term “ethnic cleansing”, delayed intervention, and ultimately recognised Republika Srpska, a political entity created through genocide. They consistently pushed ethnic partition in a country where people were deeply mixed, with disastrous consequences. My point is this: opposing US imperialism should not mean ignoring or relativising the repression of local regimes, or dismissing popular protests as merely “foreign-inspired”. That leads to moral blindness, not Marxist analysis. Concrete situations demand concrete analysis — including recognising when people are genuinely resisting an oppressive state, even if imperial powers later try to instrumentalise that resistance.
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