Re: [A-List] US imperialism: Henry Liu's analysis

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Chris Burford writes:

One of the gritty implications is that I would not see the need for the
peace movement immediately to prioritise a demand that the US forces get
out of the Kurdish areas if, for entirely hegemonic reasons, the US is
objectively at present deterring an attack by Turkey on the Iraqi Kurds,
especially if Saddam makes a strategic retreat from Kirkuk and Mosul.

------

One of the gritty implications of any US presence anywhere in the world is
the likelihood (based on copious historical evidence) that those being
"protected" by the US will be betrayed, bargained away at some convenient
moment (e.g. Kurds in 1976). The US is still obsessed with the territorial
integrity of Iraq (the excuse for leaving Saddam Hussein in power in 1991)
and so an independent Kurdistan is way down the list of US objectives, if it
rates at all as one of these.

The Kurds themselves are very clear about who they rate as unwelcome: the
Turkish army and state are much worse than Saddam. Meanwhile, to imagine
that US troops are on anything like a humanitarian mission, or that we can
somehow take comfort in their presence as having humanitarian side-effects,
is to legitimate this wholly unjustified and violent act of imperialism.
Troops out, period.

You conclude:

A cease fire remains an urgent and entirely reasonable demand. Even if the
US forces take Baghdad with the slaughter with which Berlin finally fell,
the call for a cease fire and stopping the war will be proved to be even
more relevant. It is also cheaper. On the lives of the working people of
the world, and the profits of finance capitalism as a whole.

------

This is more tortured than any US prisoner of war held in Iraqi custody.
Never mind a ceasefire -- unconditional withdrawal is the only proper demand
we should be making of coalition forces in Iraq.

Michael Keaney