[Debate] Trita Parsi on Libya, Syria, and Iran

[grinker at mweb.co.za]

I never claimed to speak on behalf of anyone. I merely followed your own example of producing hearsay evidence of what people are thinking about intervention in Libya. Of course the considered views of your worthy lefties no doubt carry more weight than those of my "sans-culottes". Nor did I ever claim that there was the basis for independent intervention in Libya. Neither, in my view, was there any possibility of influencing imperialist intervention in a progressive direction. Surely the disaster of Western intervention in Iraq (and all those bloody interventions that preceded it) are sufficient to prove that? Or is the study of history just an academic exercise for your seminar groups? 





From: rangreen at sn.apc.org
Sent:2011-08-30 06:38:58
To: debate-list at fahamu.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [Debate] Trita Parsi on Libya, Syria, and Iran
A perfect example of a bogus argument: those on the left who supported 
the UNSC resolution, called for a specific response to a specific 
threat - clearly localized in time and space - based on the total 
inability of local and regional (AU, Arab League) to do anything about 
the prospect of massacre. The 'independent outlook' of those opposing 
intervention was completely useless in preventing that (or doing 
anything else on the ground). Sometimes inaction may be better than 
wrong action, but being massacred by your 'own' forces is poor 
alternative to 'western intervention' by the 'battalions of 
imperialism", and bombastic rhetoric in the name of imaginary 
'ordinary people' does not improve it one bit. 

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 9:48 PM, wrote: 
> Depressing as it is, Ran is probably right. Most people purporting to be 
> left-wing or progressive, both on this list and elsewhere, despite all 
> contra-indications based on bitter historical experience, did seem to 
> support western intervention in Libya, always of course under conditions 
> which they hadn't a hope in hell of enforcing. I reckon that pretty much 
> indicates the pathetic state of the self-declared left. It is entirely 
> lacking in an independent outlook and ultimately dependent on the big 
> battalions of imperialism. 
>
> Interestingly, a large proportion of ordinary people I've spoken to have no 
> trouble understanding just how foolish it is to allow the West even a toe in 
> the door anywhere in Africa, no matter how appalling current local rulers 
> happen to be. 


-- 
Ran Greenstein 
Johannesburg, South Africa 
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