councilor.org
| Source | Michael Perelman |
| Date | 01/06/03/23:46 |
| Nathan, the KLA were like the FARC only if you see the Serbians as the bad
guys. We went over that fight already. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 09:09:45PM -0400, Nathan Newman wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Louis Proyect" > > >Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in > >Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation > >Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions > >but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey > >Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the > >demonization. > > The comparison to Kosovo is a bit off, since while various groups may have > warmer or cooler attitudes towards the FARC itself, the more interesting > comparison is to attitudes towards the KLA, which like the FARC was the > rebel movement involved there. Many folks (including Lou) happily demonized > the KLA, accusing them of everything from murder to drug running, exactly > the kinds of compromising actions almost any rebel movement makes. > > In the case of Columbia, the US is on the side of the central government in > putting down rebels, while in Kosovo it was on the side of the rebels. Now, > it is perfectly valid intellectually to support the central government in > Serbia and oppose it in Columbia, but the fact is that Milosevic had the > full resources of a state and committed full throated human rights > violations when it had other alternatives. It is hard to compare the > "demonization" of such actions against the choices faced by rebel groups. > > Frankly, the Columbian government (as opposed to the whole apparatus of > parmilitaries that undergird it, a fine distinction but somewhat real, and > likely to become more real if the Right takes full power in elections as > looks more likely) is a more attractive government than Belgrade's, but I > would bet that almost all groups and individuals who had critical support > for NATO intervention against Milosevic are opposing Plan Columbia. > > Strict "anti-imperialism" politics and simple comparisons between situations > just don't work very well in a world of multiple alliances and complicated > class tensions. It would be interesting to try to integrate > "narco-capitalism" into a simple class analysis of individual countries and > of how that then plays out in conflict between nations. I am sure Lou can > deliver such a simple analysis where all the good guys end up on one side > and bad guys on the other, but it seems clearer that narcocapitalism has > played an incredibly complicated role in both upholding the worst death > squads of Latin America AND funded some of its biggest resistance. And it > is clear that at points the US's anti-communism and anti-drug policy have > been in direct conflict, the whole point that the exposes of CIA conflict > with the DEA has shown. This micro agency conflict has played out more > broadly across the expanse of Latin America conflicts both within US policy > and within many of those nation;s politics as well. > > And trying to map those divisions onto simple divisions among the US left is > even less easy to make > > Nathan Newman |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho