Is this Stalingrad?

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well said, nicely put, Chris,

Lesser evil , indeed.

We do have an American tradition of rooting for the underdog. There's even a
play called "Damned Yankees" where the devil helps the last place baseball
team beat the New York Yankees for the championship.

Charles


From: Chris Burford



The hegemonic coalition forces are not going to get encircled and be

forced to surrender, but Fallujah is arguably the Stalingrad of this

war - the advanced point that the invaders could not take, the point

where they found their logistical, and in this case, particularly

their political, lines of communication gravely over extended. They

have run out of time and space.

How to express it?

In practice, ever since Sep 11 2002 everyone on any internet list I

have seen has been remarkably self disciplined in what they write.

Really it amounts to self-censorship.

If one believes that ones own country is an aggressor, and aggressors

should be punished, it is hard not to rejoice at a defeat for

aggression. But how to express it tactically? Logically until the

aggressors withdraw, every extra death of a coalition soldier adds to

the pressure for withdrawal, but one cannot celebrate this in the

middle of Time Square, without being shall we say, misunderstood.

Also defeatism for the hegemons will not automatically mean

revolution, though it could dent hegemony internationally very

substantially over the next decade.

So a progressive policy cannot necessarily be called "revolutionary"

defeatism, and it must not come over that it is a good thing for

ordinary soldiers to die in an imperialist war, out of some sort of

moralistic blood atonement. I believe Lenin suggested that it is in

this sort of situation that the term "lesser evil" is relevant.

So to avoid getting outflanked by enemies, how should polticians like

George Galloway in Scotland, or Kucinich in the States, comment on the

public record about Iraq's Stalingrad?

And how should we?

Chris Burford

London