Give Up Blog

Monday, May 08, 2006

The next intervention

I've been reading a lot about this new breed of South American leftists like Morales and Chavez, and I can't help thinking about this post on the nature of U.S. intervention as described by Stephen Kinzer.

If his hypothesis is correct, that the nature of U.S. interventions is a three part process including these steps:

A leftist/nationalist in a foreign country nationalizes a resource or in some way pisses off an American company
Those corporations complain to the U.S. government, and they starting making noise about human rights violations or a spreading communist threat etc.
The U.S. then invades/sponsors a coup to remove said leader, ostensibly for political reasons but truly at the behest of pissed business leaders.

For many of our interventions it seems quite plausible, and this weekend reading about Chaves and Morales in the Guardian, I can't help thinking these guys' days are numbered, and we're going to be behind what ever awful thing happens (and the subsequent pro-US dictators that emerge). Both are nationalizing resources, and damn good for them. US corporations should have known that contracts made with dirty, lying dictators or corrupt lying bureaucrats should be considered risky investments. This will be true for the Nigerians as well when they finally take their national resources back from the oil companies that have been poisoning their land for decades to profit corrupt politicians and at the cost of the poor peons trying to live off the land.

The question is, is recent noise from Condi and Rummy that Chavez is, "the most dangerous man in the world" (ha ha) and "like Hitler" a sign of future US intervention against Chavez? I think it certainly is, and he has good reason to be paranoid that we'll sponsor (another) coup against him, and Morales should probably be careful too. I for one am glad to see countries taking back their resources from imperialistic corporations. Those resources belong to the people, not Exxon, no matter what dictator signed the rights over. I can't help but think that the noise against Chavez I read about in the WSJ editorial page and from right wing op-eds in other publications are just so much bullshit designed to lay the basis for a strike or US-sponsored military action. So keep a lookout, let's start exposing the bullshit for what it is. Chavez might be crazy, but he's certainly not "the most dangerous man in the world." It's unlikely he's even the most dangerous man in Venezuela, and he's certainly not a dictator...yet.

6 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder to what degree our capacity for making awful things happen has been diminished by stretching our military to the breaking point in Iraq. We probably have an infinite capacity for remote strikes (a'la cruise missiles and planes), but remote strikes alone won't de-nationalize any oil fields.

What would be the absolute minimum number of troops a guy like Rumsfeld would think needed to be free to support any overt action in South America? Even he would put that number in the tens of thousands. As far as I understand it, pulling tens of thousands of troops out of Iraq would pretty much break the occupation. We’d at least have to alter our strategy to giving up on almost everything except the Green Zone and the oil fields.

So Condi & Rummy are saber-rattling, but I'm not so sure there's really a saber in there right now. Reestablishing the presence of a saber would be a long and politically painful process. I can’t see Venezuela, Iran, or anyone else showing a modicum of fear or restraint until we back away from Iraq, at which point they’ll all be up to their elbows in political bargaining chips.

-JE

3:36 PM, May 08, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

Yet another good reason to get the hell out.

I'm also evaluating a give up argument that the wrecking of Americas finances is a good thing because it might force us to cut back on military budgets and interventions.

6:34 PM, May 08, 2006

Anonymous said...

No one seemed to mind that the current Iraq war was financially untenable. Or, at least, that it was financially untenable in conjunction with massive tax cuts.

I assume that the Give Up philosophy is designed to slide into remission once rational people control the government. At that point it will be reasonable to openly fight with the minority again. If that's true, the consequences of creating a national depression must be worth resisting right now as well, because a national depression will also hurt the blue states. Sure it will hurt the blue states less, but I can't come up with the Give Up argument that favors non-resistance towards programs like the one described in the above paragraph.

-JE

PS: I must be a fair-weathered, or part-time Give Upper. Maybe I just love the blue states too much.

8:11 PM, May 08, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

No, it's not good for anybody. Give up is not a "good" philosophy, it's a defensive mechanism of powerless smart people in the face of total idiocy.

It's like raising a teenager. It would be great if they listened to their parents when told they will regret that haircut in a few years, but that does little good. Pretty much the only course of action is to chill out, save the picture of your stupid kid's mullet, and torture him with it when he is 25 and sane.

3:24 PM, May 09, 2006

Anonymous said...

Oh boy. I really, really, really hope your example comes from the annals of personal experience.

-JE

5:38 PM, May 09, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

Ha!

No, I have never had a mullet. Definitely had some stupid haircuts though.

I like the examples of teenagers as representing Republican voters/red staters though because they seem to have all the same problems right now.

For one, they don't know nearly as much as they should, but they think they know everything. A teenagers moral certainty is rarely tempered by humility or tolerance for different opinions.

Two, they don't believe in listening to people smarter or more experienced than them, all answers have already been determined by the teenage mind.

Three, they do really stupid shit, and then when confronted with the reality of it, simply regress into a state of denial.

I think that sums up the behavior of the 32% that still believes Bush is doing the right thing. And the Give Up correlate of this understanding is the knowledge that nothing said can change the teenage mind, so you might as well give up. Only experience, and a series of horrible consequences of stupid decisions eventually tempers a teenager into an adult.

7:26 PM, May 09, 2006