"US Involvement can hardly make it worse"

[Rusty Shackleford]

I'm pretty indiferent to it, Assad caused it, it hardly can't get worse, no matter what people say this isn't Iraq 2.0 this is lebanon or Balkans, US involvement can hardly make it worse and my "opposition" would be pointless posturing.



In the interest of preserving the foundation of the original thread I decided to take this here.

I am genuinely curious about how US (broadly meaning NATO) involvement could not make the situation in Syria any worse. Also, how did NATO bombs on Yugoslavia not make the situation worse? This 'bombing only' style of intervention is what was used to pummel Iraq for a decade between the ground wars and it sure did cost a lot of lives.

In Yugoslavia, factories were bombed, hospitals were bombed, bridges were bombed, and electric and water infrastructure were bombed, but surely this didn't make a bad situation worse?

[Sasha]

"hardly" being the magic word you still managed to quote in the title but then conveniently forget further on, sure it really sucks if you are one of the people getting bombed but on the massive slaughter that is the civilwar now the causalities of an US punishment bombing (they already made it pretty clear it will probably be a purely retaliatory/symbolic strike, not an sustained campaign to support the rebels or something) will be insignificant to the amount of people getting killed there daily.
I find it rather typical that supposed leftist, some who positively cheered the slaughter till now, who actively cheered foreign involvement from Iran and Hezbollah because it was on Assads side, suddenly are completely up in arms about "evil imperialist ameriKKKa" going to war!!!!! it is already a war, that the US wants to wave their dick around too for a bit sucks but wont probably be a game changer.
its the selective outrage i cant stand, either we oppose all foreign shit stirring in syria or none.
i already said i dont support the US involvement but i sure not going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the neo-nazi's waving Assad posters over it like the courageous anti-imps keep doing here and probably over where you are will do too without giving it a second thought..

you live in the US, you can protest all you want, if the dutch army gets involved i might too, but you cant demand of me to give a fuck over the US getting involved if your party actively cheered for the butcher Assad while he slaughtered more than 100,000 syrian civilians...

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

you're making it as black and white as some of the hard-line anti-imps, ironically enough.

6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I seem to remember reading that the Third International, organized by Lenin, the famous Comintern, held that it was the special responsibility of workers in the imperialist states, to oppose military attacks by "their own" governments, on other countries. Now that the US is planning to pummel Syria, and planning that attack in broad daylight, so that everyone on earth knows the US is going to launch deadly attacks on Syria soon (to demonstrate US opposition to attacks on Syrians, they claim), I hope US workers will step up to the plate and oppose "our" government's war plans. It appears that demonstrations are already being organized here in the US. One other thing that occurs to me is that if Syria were North Korea, there would not be any US attacks on Syria; instead, there would be prolonged negotiations, which leads one to believe that the one thing the US government respects, is nuclear power, in any amount.

[Zealot]

"hardly" being the magic word you still managed to quote in the title but then conveniently forget further on, sure it really sucks if you are one of the people getting bombed but on the massive slaughter that is the civilwar now the causalities of an US punishment bombing (they already made it pretty clear it will probably be a purely retaliatory/symbolic strike, not an sustained campaign to support the rebels or something) will be insignificant to the amount of people getting killed there daily.
I find it rather typical that supposed leftist, some who positively cheered the slaughter till now, who actively cheered foreign involvement from Iran and Hezbollah because it was on Assads side, suddenly are completely up in arms about "evil imperialist ameriKKKa" going to war!!!!! it is already a war, that the US wants to wave their dick around too for a bit sucks but wont probably be a game changer.
its the selective outrage i cant stand, either we oppose all foreign shit stirring in syria or none.
i already said i dont support the US involvement but i sure not going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the neo-nazi's waving Assad posters over it like the courageous anti-imps keep doing here and probably over where you are will do too without giving it a second thought..

you live in the US, you can protest all you want, if the dutch army gets involved i might too, but you cant demand of me to give a fuck over the US getting involved if your party actively cheered for the butcher Assad while he slaughtered more than 100,000 syrian civilians...

So your frustration with the "anti imps" is making you indifferent to US imperialism. What kind of a position is that? You're only going to protest if the dutch get involved? :lol: How generous of you.

[Sasha]

sweet strawman man, keep it up, maybe you want to tell the syrians how bad you are suffering "under the dominion of the fourth reich", i'm sure they can do with a good laugh.

[Zealot]

sweet strawman man, keep it up, maybe you want to tell the syrians how bad you are suffering "under the dominion of the fourth reich", i'm sure they can do with a good laugh.

Sweet diversion man. Where is the strawman?

[Sasha]

Sweet diversion man. Where is the strawman?

Right there:

So your frustration with the "anti imps" is making you indifferent to US imperialism.
My indifference to a possible US involvement is not caused by anti-imp idiocy, in sharp contrast to all those people here who got an hard on for Assad based solely on anti-imp idiocy.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

"hardly" being the magic word you still managed to quote in the title but then conveniently forget further on, sure it really sucks if you are one of the people getting bombed but on the massive slaughter that is the civilwar now the causalities of an US punishment bombing (they already made it pretty clear it will probably be a purely retaliatory/symbolic strike, not an sustained campaign to support the rebels or something) will be insignificant to the amount of people getting killed there daily.
I find it rather typical that supposed leftist, some who positively cheered the slaughter till now, who actively cheered foreign involvement from Iran and Hezbollah because it was on Assads side, suddenly are completely up in arms about "evil imperialist ameriKKKa" going to war!!!!! it is already a war, that the US wants to wave their dick around too for a bit sucks but wont probably be a game changer.
its the selective outrage i cant stand, either we oppose all foreign shit stirring in syria or none.
i already said i dont support the US involvement but i sure not going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the neo-nazi's waving Assad posters over it like the courageous anti-imps keep doing here and probably over where you are will do too without giving it a second thought..

you live in the US, you can protest all you want, if the dutch army gets involved i might too, but you cant demand of me to give a fuck over the US getting involved if your party actively cheered for the butcher Assad while he slaughtered more than 100,000 syrian civilians...

To be fair "evil imperialist ameriKKKa" does have a place in global capitalism that neither Iran nor Hezbollah does, and American intervention in the region isn't unrelated to why the current circumstance exists in the first place. Hell, perhaps the Islamic Republic wouldn't exist if the U$ and its puppet the Shah hadn't wiped out huge sections of the Iranian left, for example. I'm speculating, but I'm sure you see my point. Secondly, assuming there are things one can practically do to oppose U$ imperialism if one is an American that one can't (or shouldn't, as the case may be) do as regards the other players in this situation. Like, I think it's pretty "Communist Practice 101" to oppose your own nation's military endeavors, like, always.

I would agree that cheerleading Assad is bad politics, but I don't think that's implied by this.

[Rusty Shackleford]

the spanish civil war did involve intervention by communists and anarchists and maybe a few decent liberals (orwell) and it was not to be opposed.

Iran and Hezbollah being involed does not make them imperial powers. Iran is a regional power, yes, but its hardly exporting capital and so on on the scale of even Turkey. Hezbollah does not actually totally control a state apparatus.

Russia's involvement goes back to the cold war, but Russia is not anti-imperialist. It has its own economic interests at stake. Russia supposedly wanting to strike Saudi Arabia if Syria is attacked*(Saw a title, but article would not open so i am assuming it is not true, but for a hypothetical situation) is just a bit ridiculous.

Very few people type America with Ks btw, and of those people ive seen, only or less than 50% were white. (which would also explain a dynamic of national oppression).

Ill say "Team Assad" mostly to piss people off but he is a bourgeois nationalist. Qadhaffi is more special than him, by a long shot. Not because either's claim to socialsim but their regional efforts.

This is some straight up hyperbolic liberalism right here tbh.


Some sections of the rebels may actually be pretty cool if they were in power, but they are dwarfed by the 'resistance fighters' of the islamist brigades.

[Jimmie Higgins]

"hardly" being the magic word you still managed to quote in the title but then conveniently forget further on, sure it really sucks if you are one of the people getting bombed but on the massive slaughter that is the civilwar now the causalities of an US punishment bombing (they already made it pretty clear it will probably be a purely retaliatory/symbolic strike, not an sustained campaign to support the rebels or something) will be insignificant to the amount of people getting killed there daily.
I find it rather typical that supposed leftist, some who positively cheered the slaughter till now, who actively cheered foreign involvement from Iran and Hezbollah because it was on Assads side, suddenly are completely up in arms about "evil imperialist ameriKKKa" going to war!!!!! it is already a war, that the US wants to wave their dick around too for a bit sucks but wont probably be a game changer.
its the selective outrage i cant stand, either we oppose all foreign shit stirring in syria or none.
i already said i dont support the US involvement but i sure not going to stand shoulder to shoulder with the neo-nazi's waving Assad posters over it like the courageous anti-imps keep doing here and probably over where you are will do too without giving it a second thought..

you live in the US, you can protest all you want, if the dutch army gets involved i might too, but you cant demand of me to give a fuck over the US getting involved if your party actively cheered for the butcher Assad while he slaughtered more than 100,000 syrian civilians...

I think some of the pro-Assad arguments are wrong about what the rebellion represented and the role of US imperialism. I think the US is much more interested in containing and managing where the pieces fall rather than taking explicit sides or some of the arguments I've heard trying to paint the rebellion as just some ploy. The US had a semi-stable set up of client regimes and deals (and Assad was definitely part of that) but the popular unrest in many of these regimes keeping the puzzle together has disrupted that. The US would have been fine dealing with Assad, or Gaddafi, Mubarak and so on, but now with instability and unrest from below they are trying to assure that no matter who comes out on top that US hegemony can remain.

But US direct involvement will make the situation worse in a couple of ways (not even considering the real damage US bombing will do). For one thing it will help the US have a lot more ability to ensure that pro-US figures and groups will have more sway in the rebellion - muting any growth of more popular and independent elements. Second it will set a precedent for any future uprisings in the region for the US being able to police the situation before any real popular movement can actually develop. Third (and slightly lesser) domestically it helps rehabilitate the idea of military intervention as "humanitarian" (and this will be the likely effect in the US as anti-war sentiment has melted in the face of Obama).

I doubt that anti-war sentiment will spontaiously appear when it's been absent through all the spy-shit and drone-shit and exaccution-shit done by Obama, but for those of us in the US, I think it is important to support any protests on principle as well as in an effort to try and connect to anyone who is against intervention and try and argue why even if outcry is small now, we need to try and rebuild some sentiment and action against US imperialism because it's only going to get worse as the economic crisis creates more instability (and more uprisings) as well as increased competition among the bigger powers.

[Devrim]

Ill say "Team Assad" mostly to piss people off but he is a bourgeois nationalist. Qadhaffi is more special than him, by a long shot. Not because either's claim to socialsim but their regional efforts.

Could you explain this, please.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Like, I think it's pretty "Communist Practice 101" to oppose your own nation's military endeavors, like, always.

When you say always here, do you really mean that this always applies. For instance would you say that communists in Iran should say the same thing, or that communists in Lebanon should have said the same thing in the last war with Israel?

Devrim

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

When you say always here, do you really mean that this always applies. For instance would you say that communists in Iran should say the same thing, or that communists in Lebanon should have said the same thing in the last war with Israel?

Devrim

Sorry, as always (wink), generalizations are dangerous. Obviously, communists need to work out the specifics of their situations, and I'm neither Lebanese nor Iranian.

I would guess, however, from my interactions with Iranian communist exiles, that probably supporting the Iranian military (esp. in light of fucked up "An Arab invasion! Oh noes!" or "Jews eat babies!" rhetoric as the case may be) is bad politics . . . but that's a world away from KKKanada, so who am I to say?

So, to revise:
Communists in the imperial centre should oppose their nation's war efforts, always.

[Devrim]

I would guess, however, from my interactions with Iranian communist exiles, that probably supporting the Iranian military (esp. in light of fucked up "An Arab invasion! Oh noes!" or "Jews eat babies!" rhetoric as the case may be) is bad politics . . . but that's a world away from KKKanada, so who am I to say?

Well there are groups who argued that Iranian communists should support their own state. The Cliff current was one of them with the UK Socialist worker arguing things like:


we have no choice but to support the Khomeini regime...it would be wrong to strike... socialists should not call for the disruption of military supplies to the front… should not support actions which could lead to the collapse of the military effort


So, the revise:
Communists in the imperial centre should oppose their nation's war efforts, always.

I agree with your first statement. Communist should never support their 'own' states in wars.

Devrim

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Iran and Hezbollah being involed does not make them imperial powers. Iran is a regional power, yes, but its hardly exporting capital and so on on the scale of even Turkey. Hezbollah does not actually totally control a state apparatus.


Iran is still imperialist even if it has less capital to export. Poor Imperialists are still Imperialists.



Ill say "Team Assad" mostly to piss people off but he is a bourgeois nationalist. Qadhaffi is more special than him, by a long shot. Not because either's claim to socialsim but their regional efforts.


What, like helping Idi Amin invade Tanzania? Or do you mean invading Chad?

[Rusty Shackleford]

Like carrying on, in a way, the idea of kwame nkrumah, a united africa. Im not saying he's golden. I'm saying hes had a bit more of an international impact than Bashar al assad. Green socialism and the whole tribal shit was a joke though.