The Dirty Business of Imperialism was Re: [Marxism] Iraq: starving the people into democracy

[<g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The dirty business of Imperialism has just been carried out 
in Fallujah. There is nothing new about any of this.  To 
paraphrase Marx, Imperialism comes dripping blood and dirt 
from every pore.  Nor is there anything particularly new 
about the mandate of heaven that Bush & his fellow butchers 
are claiming.  Thus the renegade and traitor Josephus writing 
about the First Roman-Jewish war of 66-73 CE said this to the 
Jews who still resisted:

"Fortune, indeed, had come from all quarters passed over to 
them [the Romans], and God who went the round of the nations, 
bringing to each in turn the rod of empire, now rested over 
Italy...You are warring not against the Romans only, but also 
against God...the deity has fled from the holy places and 
taken His stand on the side of those with whom you are now at 
war (cited in Crossan, 1994: 31).

Then as in Fallujah, Satan had a face and he was in 
Jerusalem.  The Roman general Titus slaughtered and crucified 
thousands and flattened the temple.  Meanwhile Josephus was 
busy at work translating for the Romans and prophesying a 
great future for Titusâ father - Vespasian.

But away from the dirty work of the empire the poets and 
intellectuals, then as now, were justifying the conquest and 
urging the murderers to ever greater frenzies: all in the 
name of law & order and good government of course.  Thus the 
poet Virgil urged the Romans

Romans, remember by your strength to rule
Earthâs peoples â for your arts are to be these:
To pacify, in pose the rule of law,
The spare the conquered, battle down the proud
(cited in Crossan, 1994: 39)

There was an exception to this rhetoric of the powerful, and 
although it has been quoted before on this list but it is 
worth giving in full.  The Roman historian Tacitus framed 
this speech for the Scottish rebel Calgacus:

Robbers of the world, now that earth fails their devastating 
hands, they probe even the sea: if their enemy have wealth, 
the have greed; if he be poor, the are ambitions; East nor 
West has glutted them; alone of mankind they covet with the 
same passion want [poor lands] as mush as wealth [rich 
lands].  To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they 
misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace 
(cited in Crossan, 1994: 39).

Once more we are witnessing desolation being made.  Truly 
these are dark times. Once more we are âdining between 
massacresâ, as Brecht put it.  It is reported that the Arab 
leaders and the Iranians are meeting in fear and trembling to 
seek new ways to appease the American monster.  The Guardian 
recently reported on how the Syrian secret police had set up 
a sting operation to trap Islamic militants volunteering to 
fight in Iraq. The Ayat Allah Ali Sistani has covertly 
supported the slaughter in Fallujah.

All these are signs of the power of the American Military 
machine.  The power seems absolute. So great is their 
confidence that General Wesley Clark now boasts - "we [the 
Americans] do not lose".

But if we are reaching the zenith of Imperial power, the rot 
and decay of that power is also at work.  The current wave 
of âdestroying the city in order to save itâ, may now move on 
to Samarra.  But for every city destroyed, there will be many 
more.  The hatred that has been sown here, will combine with 
the pulse of freedom and the American Empire will one day 
join the Roman Empire in the dust-bin of history.

As Josephus might have put it:

It cannot be otherwise.

regards

Gary

Source: John Dominic Crossan, Jesus- A revolutionary 
Biography, Harper San Francisco, 1994


Gary
_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism