Why the left cannot cheer this liberation

I am not of the "left" -- I am an iconoclast.

But it seems to me that in order to "celebrate a victory" one should have a victory.

Anyone who thinks that what happened in Iraq constitutes a "victory" should have his or her head examined.

As I said, I am not of the left -- but I suspect that the people on the left who are not celebrating -- are not celebrating because this disgusting misadventure has no right to be called a "victory" and because anyone not feeling sadness at this time is probably psychopathic.

It is not people that prefer corrupt and tyrannical rule, but the tribal leaders that this rule impose do. No one has ever asked the plain commoners of Africa whether they would prefer Idi Amin, Joseph-Desiré Mobutu or Jean-Bedel Bokassa instead of British, French or Belgian governor-general. In most of cases the leaders of the so called national liberation movements were the tribal chiefs that wanted a larger chunk of power for themselves and that cared of their own people even less than the White colonizers did.
It happened in Africa, in the Arab world and everywhere the anti-colonial movement existed. Even Gandhi belonged to the priviledged Hindu caste of Brahmins... The left-wing people that supported the liberation of the Third World from the colonial rule, in fact, supported transfer of power to the most cruel, bloodthirsty and opportunistic oppressors of their own people.

Yeah, Steissd. That rotten "left-wing" sure needs to be told that they are pond scum.

It really is amazing how many folks like to stereotype individuals who are different in some way from what the stereotypers consider "the right way to be" -- and then dump on them or even worse.

Hummm...now what does that remind me of?

Left-wing, IMO, are not rotten. They are not flexible enough to change their doctrines when the latter do not pass the reality test.
They have good intentions, but the road to the hell is usually paved by these.

Sounds like nothing more than stereotyping in a different direction.

Still reminds me of something...but, what???



Ahhhh...that's good. Give 'em a compliment and twist the compliment into a dig.

That's like saying -- "Ohhh, they're smart and they're acheivers, but...."

Know what I mean?

Compare me to a left-winger again, Steissd, and we ain't gonna be friends no more.

As to the "hint" -- if the anvil fits, tie it around your neck.

(ANOTHER HINT: I think it fits!)

i am the left winger steissd.

Re: Why the left cannot cheer this liberation
I have a few problems with this text, and they start really as soon as the author begins providing the first of his two answers.



Though it is true that a true liberation struggle comes from within, that doesnt mean true liberations, period, can not take on the form of an outside army as well as of an inside guerrilla achieving it. The liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi German occupation was no less real for its lack of self-achievedness.

It is also untrue to suggest that any liberation at the hands of an outside army is per definition "unlikely to do more than substitute one tyrant for another or, perhaps worse, lead to anarchy". To skip over the obvious example of WW2 this time, why not pick one of the three names from the introduction: Pristina.

For sure, an examplary civil society it is not. But both tyranny and anarchy have been succesfully avoided by the co-operation of OSCE, foreign armies and Kosovar politicians. The worst mark on the score card would be on ethnic relations, but even on that score the improvement on the preceding tyranny in the province is notable. Many Serbs have left, but many have stayed. Though there is nothing better than a state of tension between them and the Kosovar majority, there isnt anarchy - and the Serbs are actually numerically overrepresented in parliament and government. To cut my argument short: no anarchy; no tyranny. A change for the better apparently can be achieved by a liberation at someone else's hands.

I find it surprising that the leftist countercase suggested so often in the anti-war discourse involves so much emphasis on national sovereignty. Though anti-colonialism has been a staple of leftist tradition, a great attachment to the sacrosanct status of borders hasn't. The principle of applying pressure - whether it is from the grassroots level or by governments - to dictatorships elsewhere has been prolific in leftist political action - remember the boycots of South Africa. There has never been a conviction that change needed to come from within only as a matter of principle. What the disagreement then is about, when defining what backup from abroad to accord for the native opposition against a dictatorship, is merely what means are legitimate, not the principle itself.

The author seems to suggest that fighting a war on behalf of a country's repressed opposition is out, per se. Yet leftist governments have themselves rarely hesitated in offering military support to oppressed 'brethren'. The Nicaraguan government supported the El Salvadorian guerrillas with arms and trainings. Angola did the same with the Namibian freedom fighters, way back when. It can be said that they at least supported already existing native opposition - but the same can be said about the US supporting the cause of the Afghani Northern Alliance, or the Kosovar KLA.

The disagreement then, thus, would be merely about the motivations with which the US do it; or the extent to which it goes - marching into the other country's capitol for the opposition in question. (Though, again, the Vietnamese army did exactly that when it drove away the Red Khmer - and though here the argument about one tyranny replacing another does hold, it was still for the better. And much more than being for the better is not claimed by the moderate proponents of the wars the author mentions - Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq). Again - by this time we are no longer talking fundamental principles anymore, merely disagreements on strategy and distrust of motivations. Additionally, though it's obviously true that non-violent, native-effected change yields better results than its counterparts, that line of argument leaves the question open of what to do in cases where such avenues are not available - in dictatorships as totalitarian as Iraq's, for example.

That the disagreement isn't as principled as the author suggests is no surprise because the anti-imperialist argument only holds water to an extent. I already noted that I am surprised by the left's current concern with national sovereignty. But self-determination has been a traditional cause, it's true. The author uses the cause to argue that the Arabs have an overriding right to "determine their own future", whatever it is they may determine about it. But here we enter the minefield. For whose self-determination are we talking of? Why suddenly a pan-Arabic one, instead of that of this or that people? What if the "Arab street" is furious at an invasion, but - should this be true - the Iraqi dissidents and oppositionists are glad?

Regarding Kosova we knew this to be true. The invasion of NATO troops into the Balkans to safeguard the Kosovars' liberation may well have seemed like a "humiliation" to Slavs and Greeks in the Balkans. But they came at the explicit invitation of Kosovar leaders - and it was the Kosovar-inhabited territory they entered. So whose sef-determination are we talking about? Should "the Arabs", collectively, have a natural right in a leftist's eyes to override a potential wish of one or the other Arabic people to "be liberated"? Not necessarily making the case for "Iraqi liberation" here, just suggesting that the proposed opposition between neo-colonialist "liberation" and Arab self-determination isn't as clear-cut and easy to define in a case like this as he makes it out to be.

Don't misunderstand me - I agree with most of the arguments of the author. Of course we should target non-violent, native change over hegemonical redrawing of political maps. And all the arguments of his second point are beyond doubt, to me. But being a leftist doesnt necessarily mean one should at all times reject the option of liberation-from-outside, and many leftists have, in fact, "happily joined the euphoria over" Kosovo's liberation with pride. That makes the author's attempt at finding a global leftist argument against such ventures perhaps redundant. More practical would be to take his points in the second part of his article, and use them as benchmarks to evaluate case by case whether we are seeing a "true liberation" or not. They would show clear differences between the cases of Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

A Liberal War
What the Left Won't See

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030406

Poor conservatives.

The left owns them body and soul.

<deleted, double post>

To my surprise I fnd myself in some agreement with steissd here. It is true, I think, that the way the decolonialisation movement has wedded the left to the principle of national self-determination - in contrast with the older socialist tradition of workers without borders - has in many cases led leftists to hail new national leaders in the Third World who in fact meant little good for the common folk, for whom a true socialist should really have fought, in the country in question.

Well, not to worry. Colin Powell tonight on the PBS Lehrer show said quite firmly that while we want Syria to keep its borders closed, stop with the WMD (those again), not to harbor anybody, the president does not have a war plan for them. But he strongly suggested that the head of Syria runs a tight ship which is not democratic, and we are not happy with them. No mention - yet - of Iran, the Saudis.....

I am left, what I consider a modeate liberal. Heaven knows all those years I considered Saddam Hussein evil, and did not understand why Bush pere did not finish the job. But there is a little more than colonialism involved, when we start telling more than one country how to run its sovereign state. It begins to sound like something else. Next thing, we'll go from that all volunteer army to the draft, because we will start stretching our human resources.

And doesn't this also have a ring of constant wars will keep the public's mind off what is happening on the home front? It's rather difficult to keep a stiff upper patriotic lip when we're marching into one country after another, regardless of anything resembling a good reason.

We have not liberated a nation, we have destroyed it. Now, we have to rebuild it at a time when our economy at home is in flux. We have won nothing except the right to drape our beloved American flag over S. Hussein's sculptured head.

Meanwhile, both sides still have to bury their dead and give solace to their injured. We have won nothing but another notch on our Cowboy's belt.

I was replying at length on another thread and realised I was still also replying to this one, really - in any case, the thread might be of interest, period - see http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6453&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=50

Very well said, William.

steissd one could argue that the current regime at home is turning the USA into an ugly nation where we liberate Iraqui's and are patient with their demonstrations while shooting demonstrators at home with rubber bullets and building dossiers on average citizens who disagree with our new policies and legislation in the name of "patriotism".

If this is true, and I realize that our country is not oppressive on the level of Saddam Husein, and if we are being viewed by a great majority of the world now as a rogue nation, how would you feel if a coalition of the willing started landing on our shores in the name of "liberation"?

Like me, not too damn good probably.