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roachboy · 03-20-2011, 07:59 AM

i have to say that i support what the un is doing with gadhafi but it feels strangely to do it. it follows from (a) my visceral support for the revolutionary movement (and i think it's safe to call it that) that's gone furthest in tunisia and egypt--that's still underway, that's still uncertain and feeling its way along--which is linked to what's happening in yemen bahrain, saudi arabia and to a less extent (but still important) in morocco and algeria and jordan and (maybe, hopefully) syria and (b) the nature of the rebellion in libya, which i think should be supported politically and ethically.

i'm ambivalent about the neo-colonial powers being at the front of a military operation that's to protect the lives of people who are rebelling against the kinds of states that neo-liberalism (successor to the cold war) has wrought. and i don't buy the "ethical" arguments coming from any of these nation-states at all.

if they had been serious about the ethics, there'd have been a no-fly zone over gaza.

if they had been serious about the ethics, there'd have been intervention in rwanda in 1994. there'd have been intervention in eastern congo. the international community would have taken the idea of making an institutional framework that enabled international law and/or treaties and/or conventions have some teeth by providing them and enforcement capability.

the obvious problem would have followed for regimes like that of cowboy george and his neo-con confederacy of dunces for which taking a dump on the united nations seemed part of their strategy to be military hegemon in a post-cold war world. read pnac. it's noxious stuff, but it gives the line.

and the elephant in the room question about libya really is

what's next?

and....there's already criticism coming from the arab league about the initial attacks. the criticism is that the no-fly zone was supposed to be about stopping civilian casualties not substituting multiplying the sources of them. this is going to be a real mess, tactically. and strategically i am not sure that there is a clear objective here. is it to stop gadhafi or to force him to stand down? for france and the uk and us, it seems the latter. for other members of the community, it's the former. these result in quite different campaigns, obviously. so i don't know....it's complicated.

by the way have you noticed the re-emergence of the fried hardware school of war photograph over the past 24 hours? it's mostly blown apart tanks and partial view of charred remains, aspects of the video-game approach to war as a visual problem that we were subjected to back in the days when people in the entertainment-security complex still thought iraq photogenic as war goes, before the unfortunate realities kicked in and those same people decided it was better to pretend the iraq debacle didn't exist visually, to the greatest possible extent. hard to photograph that sort of unfortunate reality. but shit that's been blown up.....why that's the ticket. look at the front page of the ny times.

03-20-2011, 07:59 AM	#21 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i have to say that i support what the un is doing with gadhafi but it feels strangely to do it. it follows from (a) my visceral support for the revolutionary movement (and i think it's safe to call it that) that's gone furthest in tunisia and egypt--that's still underway, that's still uncertain and feeling its way along--which is linked to what's happening in yemen bahrain, saudi arabia and to a less extent (but still important) in morocco and algeria and jordan and (maybe, hopefully) syria and (b) the nature of the rebellion in libya, which i think should be supported politically and ethically. i'm ambivalent about the neo-colonial powers being at the front of a military operation that's to protect the lives of people who are rebelling against the kinds of states that neo-liberalism (successor to the cold war) has wrought. and i don't buy the "ethical" arguments coming from any of these nation-states at all. if they had been serious about the ethics, there'd have been a no-fly zone over gaza. if they had been serious about the ethics, there'd have been intervention in rwanda in 1994. there'd have been intervention in eastern congo. the international community would have taken the idea of making an institutional framework that enabled international law and/or treaties and/or conventions have some teeth by providing them and enforcement capability. the obvious problem would have followed for regimes like that of cowboy george and his neo-con confederacy of dunces for which taking a dump on the united nations seemed part of their strategy to be military hegemon in a post-cold war world. read pnac. it's noxious stuff, but it gives the line. and the elephant in the room question about libya really is what's next? and....there's already criticism coming from the arab league about the initial attacks. the criticism is that the no-fly zone was supposed to be about stopping civilian casualties not substituting multiplying the sources of them. this is going to be a real mess, tactically. and strategically i am not sure that there is a clear objective here. is it to stop gadhafi or to force him to stand down? for france and the uk and us, it seems the latter. for other members of the community, it's the former. these result in quite different campaigns, obviously. so i don't know....it's complicated. by the way have you noticed the re-emergence of the fried hardware school of war photograph over the past 24 hours? it's mostly blown apart tanks and partial view of charred remains, aspects of the video-game approach to war as a visual problem that we were subjected to back in the days when people in the entertainment-security complex still thought iraq photogenic as war goes, before the unfortunate realities kicked in and those same people decided it was better to pretend the iraq debacle didn't exist visually, to the greatest possible extent. hard to photograph that sort of unfortunate reality. but shit that's been blown up.....why that's the ticket. look at the front page of the ny times. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-20-2011 at 08:09 AM..