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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: cd619@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hank Roth)
- Subject: "Humanitarian" cover for occupation.
- Message-ID: <1992Dec15.060957.16333@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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- Organization: ?
- Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 06:09:57 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 394
-
- <<< via P_news/p.news >>>
- {From WORKERS VANGUARD, December 11, 1992}
- "Humanitarian" Cover for Imperialist Occupation
- U.S. GLOBAL COPS OUT OF SOMALIA!
-
- President Bush has ordered a massive military
- intervention into Somalia, code-named "Operation
- Restore Hope." With public opinion horrified by
- the images of Somali children slowly starving to
- death as local warlords seize most of the food
- aid, Bush promises to use the U.S. military to
- ensure that the desperate population is fed.
- President-elect Bill Clinton quickly gave his
- enthusiastic support to a military intervention
- whose purpose is supposedly not strategic gain
- but humanitarian relief. But behind this feigned
- concern by the racist American rulers for
- starving black Africans is the sinister reality
- of U.S. imperialism, which is using the famine in
- Somalia to justify direct military intervention
- in Africa.
-
- While TV is filled with heart-rending scenes of
- Somali children with distended bellies and sucken
- eyes, followed by shots of Mad Max road warriors
- roaming around in their "technicals" (pickup
- trucks with mounted machine guns), this is the
- excuse for sending in a colonial expeditionary
- force of 28,000 to 35,000 U.S. troops. To
- distribute food? To put down gangs armed with
- AKs? Hardly. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
- Staff General Colin Powell explained that it had
- to be "a large enough force that we could
- dominate the entire country," and "these numbers
- may go up considerably" (NEW YORK TIMES, 5
- December).
-
- The media are trying to sell the lie,
- particularly to black people in this country,
- that the imperialists are "coming to the aid" of
- the impoverished people of war-torn Somalia out
- of "humanitarian" concern. Nonsense. The famine
- in Africa is CAUSED by imperialist exploitation,
- which drives the population into conditions of
- poverty that are below the minimum level for
- survival. Deprived of food and currency reserves,
- the African nations are decimated gby natural
- disasters like drought, or political and economic
- crises. In Somalia, mass starvation has resulted
- from the breakup of the country, a by-product of
- the capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet
- Union. After coming to power at the end of the
- 1960s, murderous Somali strongman Siad Barre was
- able to play off the USSR and the U.S. to obtain
- financial aid and sophisticated arms until he was
- overthrown in early 1991.
-
- Now Washington claims it is going to fix the
- situation in Somalia. General Powell says that
- the U.S. army is going to Somalia "like the
- cavalry coming to the rescue" (CNN, 5 December).
- The idea of the U.S. military, which droped the
- atomic bomb on Hiroshima, raped Vietnam and
- trained generations of torturers in Latin America
- and elsewhere, as a force for humanitarian relief
- is grotesque! For over a year after Somalia broke
- down into clan warfare and famine, the imperilist
- leaders turned their back on the mass starvation
- there. And virtually nothing is being proposed
- to assist the more than a dozen other African
- countries which, faced with the worst drought in
- a century, are being wracked by starvation.
-
- What interests the imperialist in Somalia is that
- they see it as an ideal military base,
- strategically situated astride the sea lanes of
- the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, providing
- a forward base for intervention in the Near East.
- Indeed, according to the WASHINGTON POST (4
- December), the Pentagon is planning to set up
- modern port and airfield facilities in the Somali
- capital of Mogadishu.
-
- The imperialist rulers are tryig to pretend that
- this is going to be a quick operation, but in
- reality they are preparing for a prolonged
- military occupation of Somalia. President Bush
- piously vowed that U.S. troops would not seek to
- influence Somalia's political crisis, and General
- Powell is talking about withdrawing U.S. forces
- "in a few months." But Powell quckly hedged
- saying that U.S. Marines would remain stationed
- off the Somali coast as a "posse," ready to
- intervene again, and that "a few units" of ground
- forces would remain in Somalia indefinitely to
- support UN "peacekeepers."
-
- Moreover, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-
- Ghali insisted that, in addition to distributing
- food relief, an aim of the intervention is to
- "maintain security in the region" and
- "reconciliate" warring clan chiefs. A CIA report,
- summarized by the NEW YORK TIMES (2 December),
- estimates that the prospects for setting up a
- stable Somali government are bleak, and proposes
- a UN protectorate or trusteeship by which a
- country (unnamed) would rule Somalia on behalf of
- the UN until the territory is ready for self-
- government." Thus, Somalia would be recolonized
- in the name of "the white man's burden" of
- bringing "peace" and "civilization" to Africa.
-
- WASHINGTON DELCARES "SUPERSOVEREIGNTY"
-
- As the imperialists arrogantly asert their right
- to intervene as they wish anywhere and at any
- time, columnist William Safire waxed eloquent on
- the need for the "only standing superpower" to
- have a "new sovereignty":
-
- "When do the world's responsible powers have
- a right to intrude on what used to be an
- impenetrable sovereignty? Anarchy offers
- the obvious invitation to intervene, as is the
- case in Somalia--but what of cases of genocidal
- tyranny, as practiced by Iraq in its portion of
- Kurdistan, or by the Khmer Rouge as it plots
- new savagery in Cambodia, or by Servia as it
- readies for its final solution in Kosovo?"
-
- NEW YORK TIMES
- 30 November
-
- As Safire put it: "By virtue of being the
- superpower, we have a superinterest." And so U.S.
- imperialism arrogantly asserts
- "supersovereignty," to intervene when and where
- they want. This is the same doctrine that the
- White House and Supreme Court use to assert the
- "right" of the U.S. to kidnap anyone, from
- Panamanian heads of government to Mexican
- doctors, in the name of "justice."
-
- "Operation Restore Hope" in Somalia is of a piece
- with Bush's supposedly humanitarian "Operation
- Provide Comfort" last year, when the U.S. set up
- a "security zone" for Kurds in northern Iraq. In
- the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War--in which
- the Pentagon wantonly slaughtered over 100,000
- Iraqis--Kurds and Shi'ites rose up. After Hussein
- put down the revolt, the U.S. flew in food and
- medicine to Kurdish refugees in the north while
- U.S. warplanes prevented Iraqi military attacks.
- In return, Washington demanded that the Iraqi
- Kurdish organizations cooperate with the
- reactionary Turkish regime in repressing fighters
- of the Turkish PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). So in
- the interests of imperialist "divide and rule"
- policy, Iraqi Kurds massacre Turkish Kurds!
-
- Washington is throwing massive firepower into
- Somalia: artillery, tanks, armored cars and
- helicopter gunships, with an aircraft carrier
- battle group offshore for reinforcements and
- possible bombing missions. In addition, there
- will be several thousand troops from half a dozen
- countries, including France, Canada, Egypt, and
- Somalia's former colonial ruler, Italy. Facing
- untrained and undisciplined bands armed with
- light weapons, most U.S. officials agree with the
- military analyst who estimated that "this ought
- to be a piece of cake" (LOS ANGELES TIMES, 30
- November). Meanwhile, the racist U.S. ambassador
- to Kenya warned: "If you like Beirut, you'll love
- Mogadishu."
-
- No doubt many in Somalia and elsewhere believe
- that the U.S. presence can only be beneficial
- since things could scarcely get any worse. Of the
- African regimes, only the Sudan has opposed the
- U.S. intervention in Somalia. Yet ultimately,
- direct American military intervention in Africa
- can only result in increased oppression and
- exploitation of the African people. The U.S. was
- the main supporter and arms supplier to Somali
- butcher Siad Barre from the late 1970s, when
- President Jimmy Carter wooed him away from being
- a Soviet client, until the late 1980s, when the
- end of the Cold War made the Horn of Africa lose
- much of its strategic interest to Washington. But
- since the Gulf War, the U.S. is intent on
- reinforcing its strategic presence in the region
- vis-a-vis its imperialist rivals.
-
- With Bush giving a "democratic," "humanitarian"
- facade to the pursuit of imperialist interests,
- liber Democrats are positively ecstatic. Liberal
- columnist Murray Kempton effusively declares of
- Bush:
-
- "Now we can say goodby, grateful for his having
- lifted himself and his countrymen up to this
- one great moment that transcends all of his
- and our lesser hours...We have assembled our
- battalions not to fight but to save a people
- we do not even know and who can offer us no
- spoil except the sense that we have done
- a good action for no material boon."
-
- LOS ANGELES TIMES
- 12 December
-
- Liberals would like to cloak U.S. imperial
- interests in the rhetoric of "do-goodism." But
- when the Carter administration installed a "human
- rights junta" in El Salvador in a U.S.-sponsored
- coup in the fall of 1979, it opened the road to a
- decade of bloody repression. And Carter's "human
- rights" campaign over Afghanistan and Poland was
- the opening salvo in Cold War II, which
- ultimately saw the collapse of the Soviet
- degenerated workers state into capitalist misery
- and natinalist bloodletting.
-
- WESTERN IMPERIALISM AND THE YUGOSLAV BLOODBATH
-
- There is also pressure to intervene further in
- Yugoslavia in the name of supposedly
- "humanitarian" concerns. The communal civil war,
- with "ethnic cleansing" carried out on all sides,
- has created more than two millin refugees, and
- continues to do so at a rate of more than a
- thousand a day. The UN estimates that more than
- 400,000 people could die this winter of cold,
- disease and starvation. While publicizing Servian
- war crimes (an ignoring those of the fascistic
- Croatian regime), the U.S. and West Europe are
- refusing to accept more than a handful of
- refugees from slaughter.
-
- During the election campaign, Democrat Clinton
- criticized Republican Bush for not intervening
- more forcefully in Yugoslavia. He talked about
- providing arms to Muslims in Bosnia and hinted at
- bombing attacks against military targets in
- Servia. Having whipped up nationalist conflicts
- in Yugoslavia in the intersts of capitalist
- counterrevolution, the imperialists now seek to
- contain the nationalist furies. Restoring
- imperialist "stability" in Yugoslavia is being
- seen as a"test" of Bush's New World Order.
-
- While Pentagon generals think the occupation of
- Somalia will be a cakewalk, they know that
- intervention into the Balkan cauldron would be
- very differnt. Here they would be facing not
- lightly armed bands but formidable military
- forces--the Yugoslav army and Serbian militias--
- with a long tradition of fighting foreign
- invaders. Yugoslavia has become the Lebanon of
- Europe, with myriad conflicting
- national/communalist forces and shifting
- alliances. And if the U.S. or other Western
- "peacekeepers" try to work out a deal with the
- Serbs, they risk being attacked by the Croats,
- Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, Albanians, etc.
-
- The bloody breakup of Yugoslavia is interwined
- with INTERimperialist rivalry. The secessionalist
- regimes in Croatia and Slovenia--before World War I
- provinces in the Austro-Hungarian Empire---were
- set up in the summer of 1991 as clients of the
- newly reunified German Fourth Reich. Serbia, on
- the other hand, is historically a Balkan ally of
- British and French imperialism.
-
- Although Washington politicans now ritually
- denounce Serbian "aggression," and the American
- media even compares Belgrade nationalist
- strongman Slobodan Milosevic to Hitler, U.S.
- imperialism is not fundamentally hostile to a
- strong Serbian state. Thus the Bush
- administration gave special dispensation for an
- American millionaire of Serbian extraction, Milan
- Panic, to become prime minister of the rump
- Yugoslav state. The U.S. rulers would like to
- have a more pro-Serbian posture, provided that
- Milosevic is replaced by pro-Western "democrats,"
- that is, direct agents of Wall Street and
- Washington.
-
- If, despite these factors, U.S. and/or West
- European troops do intervene in Yugoslavia,
- revolutionaries must give military support to
- Serbia against the imperialist invaders. While we
- support no side in the present communalist
- bloodletting, we resolutely oppose the
- imperialist blockade and any attempt to bring the
- "new world order" to Yugoslavia. This would only
- further inflame national hatred among the Balkan
- peoples, as well as intensify their exploitation
- by Western capitalism.
-
- The myth of a "humanitarian" imperialism has
- captivated various rad-libs, as well as the
- social democrats of IN THESE TIMES, who call for
- military intervention in Yugoslavia. In Europe,
- Alain Krivine, leader of the French section of
- the United Secretariat, likewise signed an appeal
- calling for European imperialist intervention in
- Yugoslavia. In sharp contrast, the International
- Communist League makes no concession to the so-
- called "democratic" bourgeoisie. We fight to
- mobilize the working class to bring down the
- imperialist system through international
- socialist revolution.
-
- MILITARY "SUPERPOWER" WITH A BANKRUPT ECONOMY
-
- U.S. imperialism is seeking to play the role of
- "cops of the world" with a debt-ridden financial
- structure, an obsolete industrial plan and a
- population whose living standards have been
- driven downward for the past two decades.
- Washington is trying to assert its global
- leadership through a massive military apparatus
- which rests on a decaying economic base. No
- longer able to compete effectively with Japan and
- Germany in the world market as it is presently
- organized, American capitalism will be driven to
- use the Pentagon war machine to carve out its own
- exclusive trade zones and spheres of
- exploitation.
-
- Over the past decade the U.S. has reasserted its
- "superpower" status through military adventures
- on the cheap against poor Third World countries--
- the rape of the tiny black West Indian island of
- Grenada, terror bombing of Quaddafi's Libya, the
- invasion of Panama, Operation Desert Slaughter
- against Iraq, and now the occupation of famine-
- stricken Somalia. However, American imperialism
- cannot reverse its decline by taking over small
- and impoverished Central American or east African
- countries. The Pentagon's military power can
- change the real balance of economic forces of the
- world only if it is successfully directed against
- Japan in Asia and against Germany in Europe: a
- replay of World War II, only this time STARTING
- with nuclear weapons.
-
- Today, the U.S. military must act as cops of the
- world, because Wall Street banks and Fortune 500
- corporations EXPLOIT THE WORKING PEOPLE OF THE
- WORLD, from South Korea to South Africa, from
- Central America to Central Europe. Only if the
- capitalist bloodsuckers who run this country are
- overthrown by the working class, allied with the
- black and Hispanic poor, can the drive toward a
- new world war be halted and America's productive
- capacity be made to serve the genuine interests
- of humanity.
- ----------------------------------------------
- DISCLAIMER: P_news on Fidonets and p.news on
- Peacenet serve as conduits for articles from
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- [necessarily] represent the position of P_news or
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- informational purposes ONLY. The LEFT is not a
- monolith and various divergent views are held not
- only by individual groups but also by individual
- members of groups and independent socialists and
- anarchists. The facilitator, <Hank Roth> of these
- two conferences does not FORMALLY endorse any
- specific group or publication and we will
- endeavor to continue to provide other views from
- our conferees and their favorite *LEFT* wing
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- and your comments to p.news and P_news. If you would
- like more information about how to access either
- conference, send e-mail to me at: <Hank Roth>
- odin@world.std.com ---- or on Fidonets at 151/101.
- ----------------------------------------
- WORKERS VANGUARD is the Marxist Working-Class
- Biweekly of the Spartacist League of the U.S.
- (the U.S. Section of the International Communist
- League [Fourth Internationalist])
- Information and subscriptions available from WV,
- Box 1377, GPO, NY, NY 10116
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