AUT: Iraq

[andrew robinson <ldxar1@xxxxxxxxx>]

"to push a democratic capitalism,
which
is a certain mode of accumulation in which capitals
discourse with each
other for the sake of maximizing production, bringing
about changes in
the
broader society that are well-known as bourgeois
liberty values."

This is NOT what the US is doing in Iraq, or anywhere
else!  HAITI and VENEZUELA are excellent examples.
Venezuela they engineered a coup to get rid of an
elected leader and impose military rule, and the
military were in the process of suspending the
constitution and declaring martial law when Chavez got
reinstated.  Haiti they again overthrew an elected
leader and there's been death squads massacring
leftists ever since, with US support.

The mode of accumulation America want in Iraq is
direct expropriation of local resources by western
corporations, with as little cost as possible.  The
same they want in all the "Third World".

"Your analysis seems almost Maoist to me, i.e.
that
the US is a vampire sucking up resources from the
third world, and that
it
cannot change the composition of capital, because of a
stasis that is
unbreakable...reminds me of the decadence theory."

What's decadence theory?  Do you mean dependency
theory?  If so, this is basically where I'm coming
from - Frank and Wallerstein.  And Chomsky.  It's not
that the US CANNOT change the composition of capital;
it DOESN'T WANT TO, because the current situation
benefits the US elite above all, and ensures the US
state global dominance!

"The US has proven that it has the will to change
the
composition of countries in the past towards
democratic capitalism, for
whatever that's actually worth.  Japan and Germany are
two prominent
examples though neither were third world.  I'd say
South Korea is
another
example."

Japan and Germany are a LONG time ago - this was the
Cold War era, and everything America did was geared
towards fighting Soviet influence.  Today is a
different world.  As for South Korea, America backed
military dictatorships for decades.  Korea only
democratised after a wave of popular unrest, led by
the local workers, in the 1980s.  I'd like to see any
evidence you have that America was pushing for
democratisation!!!  In any case, Korea is now
backsliding with US support - witness the new law
banning public sector unions for example.

"Now, I'm not arguing that these are desirable
societies, I'm
just
arguing that yes, the composition of the third world
can change, shaped
just
as much by the will of its own bourgeoisie as the will
of the current
hegemon."

Now you're sounding like Walt Rostow.  Well, there are
only two real examples of "development" - the first
being the four Asian Tigers (Korea being the biggest),
which just relied on niches in capitalism and were all
small countries; the other being the oil-rich
countries, which resulted from standing up to the US.

Perhaps you would like to explain exactly how a
country burdened with massive foreign debt, which
spends most of its tiny government revenue on repaying
this debt and which produces mainly a single export
commodity which fetches abysmal prices on the world
market (the situation of most of the "Third World") is
going to alter its position.  Or why America would
allow it to do so without interfering militarily.
(Chavez has done very little, but still pissed off
America enormously).

"And in many ways, the US intervenes in the civil war
already
underway in the Middle East and tries to galvanize
those reformist
sections
of the regional ruling class to the side of
pluralistic, democratic
capitalism."

This gets more and more absurd the longer it
continues... America is supporting a pluralistic
ruling class in Iraq?!  But hang on, Allawi is a
Saddam stooge!  And what about the tyrants they
support in Saudi Arabia?  And Kuwait?  And Uzbekistan?
 And their support for Israeli violence against the
Palestinians?

"What you've just said here, if you re-read it, is
just
anti-imperialism."

Yeah.  [Marlon Brando posture]  So what?

"without a coherent project behind the
de-stabilization of
the
'world system' that seeks to emancipate the
revolutionary subject, the
ruptures close up, mini-systems take over and wind
together.  This is
the
history of nationalism and incidentally, the project
of fascism, a
negative
project against hegemony based on a unipolar
opposition."

There is no singular "revolutionary subject", only a
multiplicity of subjectivities of desiring-production
seeking to escape repressive overcoding.  And yeah,
mini-systems are also a problem, and need to be
overthrown too.  But it is not INEVITABLE that
resistance to imperialism will lead to mini-systems of
a microfascist type.  In fact, the coalescence of such
systems is strongest precisely WHERE imperialism
rules, because it uses such systems to maintain
itself.

Your understanding of fascism is very strange.  The
Nazis for instance were not operating against a
"single hegemon" but in a pretty much multipolar
context.  Their main target was not the USA or even
the UK, but the USSR - hated for ideological, not
geopolitical, reasons.  They hated Jews, "anti-social
elements", liberals, leftists...  It wasn't about
anti-imperialism at all.

"Here's my question: what makes one democracy a
'pseudo-democracy' and
another not? "

Saddam held elections too, you know.  He always won
them, as well.

"To me it makes no difference if stupid Allawi gets
elected, or whoever,
what's more important is how capitalism is re-shaping
itself, how this
re-shaping changes society and what weak points
develop in its
assemblage."

That would be fair enough, if you had the foggiest
idea how global capitalism is operating.  It really is
NOT the case that America is bringing any
"progressive" kind of change to Iraq.  How capital is
reshaping itself, is right now more and more
imperialistic.

"But quite
simply,
in Iraq, yes, you get arrested and from there who
knows, but in other
Middle
Eastern countries, the punishments are MUCH more
severe and if they're
not
always visible it's because dissent has often been
silenced or
opposition
killed.  I shouldn't have to reference what discipline
was like under
Saddam."

Oh, that's OK then.  All you have to do is be better
than the worst regime one can find, and that makes you
worthy of support!

And of course, let's just ignore the links between
American imperialism and all these neighbouring
states, not to mention the little problem of economic
and social wellbeing...  Let's just compare the
"formal" freedoms declared officially, even though we
know they are going to be breached.  Progress
schmogress.

BTW remember America is also constrained by other
pressures that Saddam was not, such as avoiding bad
publicity at home.  THIS is the only reason they don't
instantly shut down the press, shoot the bloggers etc.
And THIS is why they want Iraq to be "independent"
ASAP.  Cos in Vietnam, all of this happened with US
support.  Look at Colombia too - the way the US is
bankrolling the most retrograde forces in Colombian
society to wage a dirty war in order to destroy the
welfare state, silence dissent and ensure
unconstrained resource extraction through means such
as assassination, torture, forced displacement,
chemical bombardment, etc.

"I'm sorry, the Iraqi proletariat is not going to get
to 'choose' if the
Americans get forced out of Iraq, that is nonsense.
The Iraqi
resistance is
heavily armed, there are arms caches all over the
country, _under their
control_ and much comes over the border."

And most of the Iraqi workers are IN the frigging
resistance, or else related to people who are.  And
there are guns EVERYWHERE - someone who wants a gun
can get one from somewhere.  For any one resistance
faction to seize power, it would have to literally
massacre the other factions, like in Iran after the
revolution.  All quite unlikely I think, when power is
basically fragmented and localised.  It is more likely
that there will be a coalition and partial disarming
alongside informal regional autonomy, like in Lebanon.
 Which also had a disastrous invasion and civil war,
and is now comparatively peaceful, stable, liberal and
secular.  AFTER Hizbollah and various others managed
to ass-whup the Israeli imperialists.

And an interview with ONE guy involved in the
resistance, proves very little.  If he's even involved
in the resistance.  He's a Pakistani general for fucks
sake.  This is just his wet-dream.  It says nothing
about Iraq on the ground.  Even the members of
Islamic-based militias may not really be Islamists,
they're just looking to hit at America.

What we need to hope for I think, is that more benign
resistance factions emerge, which are at the very
least secular and democratic - Kassemists perhaps - or
better still, leftist factions linked to groups like
WCPI.

Andy


		
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