Still fascists versus fascists

At the risk of sounding like a "moderate", I would like to caution
against taking what either self-interested group of participants says
(NATO on the one hand and pro-Milosevic forces on the other).

I have heard pronouncement bordering on the ridiculous, such as:
"Actually, the pro-Milosevic forces have only killed a few dozen
people"  or on the other hand, "As many as 50,000 or more have been
murdered by the pro-Milosevic forces."

The number is probably in the thousands -- a terrible, terrible thing,
but NOT comparable to the extermination by the Nazis of half the Jews in
the world, for example.

On the other hand, someone posted an anti-NATO message that made some
good points, but included the following quote from the "International
Action Center" out of New York::

=======================================================
"The Yugoslav government is presented as being akin to Adolf Hitler.
This is the same
rhetoric that is reserved for Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Manuel Noriega
earlier in Panama.

The truth is that these governments have in one way or another resisted
the designs of the U.S. military and economic establishment to turn
their
countries into semi- colonies ruled by puppet governments."
=======================================================

This is partly true but partly nonsense. It is true that the U.S. and
other European powers are fighting to control Iraq, the Balkans, (and
Panama) as part of their general strategy to militarily protect and
economically  control resources, labor, and markets. It's true that
there is nothing humanitarian motivating the U.S./NATO, since they have
no problem with the rather larger numbers of murdered Kurdish &
Colombian people, to name just two.

BUT-- TO SOMEHOW IMPLY THAT MILOSEVIC, SADDAM HUSSEIN, OR NORIEGA ARE
ANTI-IMPERIALIST HEROES IS OUTRAGEOUS!  They have murdered thousands of
working class people, they have gotten rich off the working class, they
have murdered working class organizers, including marxists and
communists. And they are, or soon will be, puppets of one or another
major imperialist power. The US/NATO alliance  isn't the only
imperialist alliance in the world. Others are developing. The
post-modern myth that nations are all dissolving is only partly true.
Out of the dissolved mess comes new agglomerations, and nationalists who
resist U.S. imperialism will eventually find themselves allied with some
other developing imperialist alliances. Look at  history. This isn't the
first time alliances crumbled and the death of nation-states and
competing alliances was predicted prematurely!

If Russia develops an imperialist alliance counter to the U.S., should
anti-imperialists support it? I hope not. And what about GERMANY? or
JAPAN? It's not impossible that they might bump against U.S. imperialism
in a big way in the coming five-twenty years. How about supporting them?

It becomes like a joke! Especially when some use the rhetoric of Marxism
to justify their alliance with capitalists.

On the one hand we see: "MARXISTS FOR NATO!"   and on the other hand,
what will we see?

Maybe;   "MARXISTS FOR SADDAM?" or

                "MARXISTS FOR GERMAN IMPERIALISM BECAUSE IT OPPOSES THE
US!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Certain things are indefensible, if true. Is the U.S. dropping cluster
bombs -- anti-civilian weapons, on Yugoslavia? Are they using hardened
uranium bullets, which do leave a radioactive residue capable of causing
cancer in the civilian population for years to come? We can, and should
condemn the racist, anti-working class discrimination that oppressed
Kosovar working class people; we can and should condemn KLA nationalists
who are only interested in building their own bougeois, capitalist
enclave; we can and should condemn the Milosevic campaign of murder to
destroy his political opponents, and we can and should condemn NATO
bombing which might end up killing MORE civilians than the numbers
killed by Milosevic's supporters.

But if you ally with any group of capitalists, including the so-called
"socialists" of Europe or pro-imperialists who may or may not call
themselves "socialists" in the U.S., if you ally with any of them "just
for now--just until we can get past this crisis" -- then you are
repeating the mistakes of the past and are laying the basis for another
series of crises down the road.

>From Colorado to Kosovo to the Ku Klux Klan, capitalism IS in crisis.
The longer we wait for others to build a movement to completely end
capitalism, the more terrible the destruction will be.

Alan Spector
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