Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Yemen – America’s second Afghanistan and third Vietnam

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Yemen – America’s second Afghanistan and third Vietnam

An essay of recent US invasions in the Mid East by Uri Avnery in Redress Information & Analysis.

I agree with much of what he writes (especially about "terrorism"), except his take on these invasions as a product of American naiveté. On the contrary, even though the invasions create a lot of chaos and destruction, they are intentionally planned to insure US ruling class domination of the resource rich Middle East and thus the world. I think a case can be made that they deliberately create chaos in these countries the better to control them and to justify a long term presence. All the media propaganda about Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and terrorists is mostly for public consumption to justify US aggression and the cost in lives and weapons of war that working people have to pay for.