The biggest problem for humanity today is imperialism, U.S. imperialism, its military, economic and political control of most of the world. This is the greatest political cause of death in our world now. The United States is the greatest danger to the whole world today, as the Germany was under the Nazis. Germany in WWII was a world power. The U.S. is the only world power in the conflicts in Yugoslavia or Iraq. The analogy to the example (made in the post below) of Clinton's actions in internal U.S. politics would be that the U.S. is (are) the "Republicans" of the world, the greater of any two evils anywhere when considered in the whole world / larger historical context. A different sort of analogy from recent history would be Lyndon Johnson's contradictory program of War on Vietnam , yet domestic War on Poverty ( although Clinton's domestic program has been a war on the poor compared to The Great Society). Clinton's foreign policy is as imperialist as Johnson's was, especially when viewed in today's total world picture. U.S. foreign policy under Johnson claimed, as today, to be humanitarian, then saving people from communist murder. This big lie has not changed under Clinton , except that the anti-communist rationale has been rendered inoperative by the fall of the Soviet Union. In this overall context, any U.S. imperialist victory is anti-humanitarian. Concerning body counts, any lives saved in the short run will be neutralized by loss of more life in the long run, as it is capitalist imperialism which creates and executes, directly or indirectly, the overwhelming majority of mass slaughters in the world today, whether by deadly force or deadly blockade. The complex tragedy in the Balkans overall is mainly the result of imperialism's success in destabilizing socialist Yugoslavia. U.S./NATO victory in its current war on Yugoslavia will lay the groundwork for the mass slaughters and exploitation of the future. This prediction is based on the facts on U.S. imperialism and neo-colonialism (The Cold War against Eastern Europe , Korea, Viet Nam, Guatemala, Congo, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Angola, etc., etc., etc.) which have been posted at length to this list and related lists against the current U.S. actions. The U.S. and its comprador regimes are , straigh! t up, responsible for the largest BODY COUNT since WWII. This fact makes it very unlikely that the ultimate effect of U.S. "humanitarian" aggression will be to save more lives than it causes to be lost, even if some people are saved in the shortrun. Analyses concluding that U.S. war will serve humanitarian purposes are based on historical and geographical tunnel vision. Naivete , ignorance or DENIAL on the Left about the predominant perniciousness of the U.S. world system marks the defeat of clarity on this issue; clarity that the overwhelming majority of the U.S. Left had achieved in the anti-Viet Nam War era. Humanity needs most the end of the U.S war machine. Charles Brown >>> "Nathan Newman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/11/99 06:41PM >>> -----Original Message----- From: Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I am very appreciative of all the intelligent analysis I am reading on >this list, although I am a loss to see how anyone in their right mind >could credit Clinton and company with some humanitarian concerns. >Remember Ricky Rector and Welfare "Reform"? I don't think saying that NATO intervention can have a humanitarian end is the same as saying Clinton et al are sob sister moralists. If the theory is that Clinton cannot do anything that has a humanitarian end, then the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, signing the minimum wage increases, vetoing the Contract on America, or any number of other acts that were better than the alternative is inexplicable. His motives may be seeking power and buying off and defusing his left flank, but the result is still to the good. It is quite reasonable to argue that Clinton's motives in Kosovo are to show to Muslims around the world, unhappy with the bombing of Iraq, that he will bomb white Christians in defense of muslims. Or that he is buying off the international human rights community, so they will be softer in their criticism of his trading off rights for trade with China. But in either of the cases, bad motives could lead to a humanitarian end. We may disagree that those ends are involved here at all (obviously), but just as you argue good human rights people could be supporting the wrong means for a good end, Clinton could be pursuing humanitarian ends for the wrong reasons. In pretty much all phases of policy, pushing leaders to do the latter is what grassroots forces are attempting most of the time. Why leftists accept that basic fact in pursuing domestic policies but don't in foreign policy perplexes me. It is reasonable to argue that in foreign policy, the executive is more immune to domestic pressure and that tactic by grassroots actors is less effective, but that is different from the assumption of your question. --Nathan Newman
