The following is an expanded version of remarks I made a few days ago on the marxism list. I think I have mentioned Sartre's "On Genocide" in other posts. His core argument was that the Vietnam War was fought not primarily over Viet Nam but over Latin America, which is and always has been the very core and foundation of U.S. Imperialism. In contrast to the French in Algeria, the labor and economic wealth of which was at the heart of the conflict, Vietnam had little intrinsic interest to the Empire, and thus the U.S. could follow a genocidal policy there with the primary purpose of teaching the people of Latin America a lesson. The ferocity of the U.S. response to the tiniest anti-imperialist developments in Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Panama, Haiti, etc. (not to mention the large threats such as Chile) is an index to how impossible it will be (has been) for any Latin American country to declare even partial or limited independence without being prepared for the most god-awful response from the U.S. Could it be that the current attack on Yugoslavia fits Sartre's analysis? That wherever U.S. bombers or infantry or CIA spooks go, it is really Latin America which is at stake? Something like this would make sense of various U.S. actions (including even Iraq, despite the oil there) which actually make little sense on straight "economic" grounds. (And certainly the declared motives of U.S. foreign policy can be dismissed out of hand without bothering even to debate the point.) Included in this core motive would be that (which seemed to figure prominently in Bush's motives for the Gulf War) of dissolving the so-called "Vietnam Syndrome," which must have been a highly repugnant drag on the freedom of action of the U.S. ruling class and its lackeys. Carrol
