JUNE 5, 2022
The U.S. Left and Empire
Image by Jp Valery.
In 2019, a U.S. airstrike in Syria killed 70 civilians, including women and children. This May, after conducting an “internal” investigation of what occured, the U.S. military concluded it won’t be necessary for any charges to be brought forward, and for anyone involved to face any consequence for what was essentially, a war crime.
In due time, the rest of the world shall condemn the U.S., bring up sanctions. Major companies shall flee our borders, of course. The colors of flags of countries like Iraq, countries we’ve nearly helped destroy, will be emblazoned on billboards along New Jersey Turnpike and online as you purchase another box of masks from Amazon.
“We’re a rogue state, the leading rogue state by a huge dimension — nobody’s even close,” the famous linguist and anti-war activist Noam Chomsky stated in a recent interview with The Intercept, “And yet we can call for war crimes trials of others, without batting an eyelash.”
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, the reality of the destructive impact that U.S. foreign policy has wrought on much of the world has been overshadowed in mainstream political discourse. There is instead, wall-to-wall coverage of reporters on the frontlines, speaking of valiant resistance fighters in Ukraine, treating the carnage of war as a director of a big-budget Hollywood movie. There are politicians from across party lines eager to fund the U.S. military at even a more exorbitant rate. Citing the Russian invasion and the “China threat” looming from thousands of miles away, the Biden administration and its allies have increased military funding by another 4%. This, despite the fact our military at over $800 billion is larger than the military budgets of the next ten major countries combined, including Russia and China, who are more or less regional powers.
Currently, the U.S. has over 800 military bases scattered across the globe, with troops at the ready to be deployed or to “assist” our allies to suppress, disappear, and coordinate attacks on disruptive elements, like selfish peasants and workers wanting access to arable land and water. China, so far, has one overseas military base in Africa. Clearly, the U.S. and the conservatives its policies embolden are in a vulnerable state.
Austin Gonzalez has served on the Democratic Socialists of America International Committee for the past two years, along with Luisa Martinez. Both had been instrumental in emphasizing the need for the IC to speak out against what has been the major obstacle between humanity and a more just future for all: U.S. imperialism.
“It is our unique responsibility as leftists, as socialists in the U.S. to recognize the U.S. war machine as the biggest obstacle to world peace, as having a presence globally that other countries just don’t have,” Gonzalez explained to me while in Puerto Rico, his ancestral home and also a U.S. “territory”. He added, “It is our responsibility to challenge the U.S. empire because of how large it is. How it impacts countries across the world.”
The IC has drafted statements on U.S. foreign policy, including its continued military and tactical support for regimes like the Saudi Arabia, which has been leading a brutal bombing and blockade of Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. So far, the death toll over the last several years has been over 377,000 people, far exceeding the death toll in Ukraine.
The IC has also sent delegations to other countries affected by U.S. “intervention”, which includes sanctions on left-wing governments and support for conservatives and the local right-wing.
“Sometimes, leftists in other countries are so shocked that leftists from the U.S. decided to come and meet them,” Gonzalez exclaimed, laughing.
Luisa Martinez who grew up poor in the U.S. has been to Venezuela, strengthening ties with comrades from a similar background as hers. In recent years, Venezuela has endured U.S.-led sanctions, which has caused inflation and other economic issues. Not to mention the U.S. has also supported right-wing political figures, such as Juan Guaido, who comes from a political party that holds a handful of seats in parliament, who represents the wealthiest districts.
“It’s evident to Latin Americans who are making life miserable down south. It’s the same small minority in the United States who deny basic dignity to people living in this country,” she said, “Yet what’s extraordinary is how Latin Americans are able to make the distinction between the US government and the US people. And this shows how great the potential is for meaningful international solidarity. We just have to get the US left on board.”
Over the last fifty years, discussions over U.S. imperialism, how it impacts people across the world and within the U.S., has been virtually non-existent in the mainstream press and political policy debates. There have been critiques of U.S. actions overseas, which even Barack Obama when he was a senator eyeing the White House had been willing to voice on the invasion of Iraq during the George W. Bush administration. But even then, the invasion was not condemned as part of a broader critique of unjust U.S. power but rather, seen as a bumbling, stumbling “error in judgment”. As something that was somehow at odds with U.S. foreign policy generally.
“It’s never a ‘war crime’ when our country does something in the service of imperialism,” said Margaret Kimberley, veteran reporter, and Coordinating Committee member of Black Alliance for Peace.
Indeed, this is how major outlets like the New York Times can report on airstrikes in Syria while also calling on the Biden administration to organize an “independent” war crimes tribunal for Russian actions inside Ukraine. The U.S., unlike Russia, never means to hurt anyone and much like how the local law enforcement is portrayed, anything that is too egregious, such as the killing and massacring of entire villages in Vietnam and later, Afghanistan are the result of perhaps, “bad apples”, or soldiers who simply lost their minds in the heat of combat.
In reality, U.S. foreign policy has always been in service of the most conservative and reactionary. It has always been in service of money and profit, and control. The U.S. itself would not have existed if it weren’t for Europeans stealing land, killing native tribes and nations. This worldview didn’t magically disappear once various tribes succumbed to illness, and resistance gradually declined following the end of the U.S. Civil War. Instead, conservative and liberal politicians wedded to U.S. exceptionalism, major business interests (i.e. extractive industries such as sugar and oil) and segments of the working classes steeped in white supremacist thinking, willing to collude with their bosses for better scraps from the master’s table, were ever more emboldened to expand their interests overseas.
The aptly named Spanish-American war, between a declining Spanish empire and a rejuvenated U.S., allowed for the U.S. to gather possessions overseas, including Puerto Rico, which to this day, is still under U.S. dominion. Puerto Ricans who have the nerve to live on the land their ancestors have been on for generations also do not have the right to vote for representation in congress or for the presidency either.
After WWII, as Europeans picked through the debris of their own undoing, the U.S. was relatively unscathed. Even the U.S.S.R., as it pushed into the rest of Europe, liberating those languishing in concentration camps across eastern and central Europe, lost millions of its own people.
It was during this era that the U.S. formed the C.I.A. and in turn, developed relationships with conservatives, anticommunist liberals, local “entrepreneurs”, various religious fundamentalists/”freedom fighters” (i.e. Islamist gangs willing to murder fellow Indonesians who were affiliated with the godless commies), and anyone willing to trade in their country’s resources and some control in exchange for their right to dominate groups that were “undeserving” of power, from the poor willing to speak up for their own interests to communists fighting to undo centuries of oppression and colonial extraction.
From the 1950s onwards, the U.S. and its local allies have helped empower extreme right-wing forces across all sectors of society, including among the working classes, in Indonesia, Iran (where we allied with monarchists in the name of liberty), Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, the Philippines, Pakistan (the U.S. supported its Islamist military general Huq in the 1980s), Israel, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Japan, Italy, Greece, Northern Ireland, the Democrat Republic of Congo, South Africa (during apartheid), and the list grows. In Latin America, the collusion of the C.I.A. with local right-wing groups helped engineer brutal military regimes disappearing, demeaning, detaining, and murdering anyone against their efforts to privatize what should be public resources (i.e. education and water), and to allow existing conservatives, like the clergy, to maintain their domination of others, especially the indigenous populations.
According to John Coatsworth, a leading scholar on Latin America quoted by Chomsky in Who Rules The World?, “[…] from 1960 to ‘the Soviet collapse in 1990, the numbers of political prisoners, torture victims, and executions of non-violent political dissenters in Latin America vastly exceeded those of non-violent political dissenters in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.’”
The invasion of Iraq, therefore, has not been the norm. We often prefer to let our allies do our dirty work while we supply them with money, weaponry and goodwill. Henry Kissinger, then U.S. secretary of state in the 1970s as military regimes festered across Latin America, greeted Augusto Pinochet, the military junta leader of Chile, with praise, informing Pinochet that the U.S. was on his side. This meant shielding Chile from international condemnation, sharing “intel” on “subversives” across the region.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the feminist anti-imperialist Code Pink, which had been formed during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, expressed, “We don’t want to minimize the horror of what’s going in Ukraine, but we want to recognize that the U.S. has committed horrific war crimes for much of our history, and there was never ever any consequence for what our government has done.”
Growing up, my grandmother rarely spoke to me about her time in India. Why should she? It was mainly unstable, oftentimes draining. Over time, however, she would start to open up, as one does when their skin becomes more wrinkled, when their mind begins to cave. Sometimes, she’d join me, while watching the news. As a kid, my parents instilled in me the importance of knowing what was going on in the world. They both grew up in and around West Bengal, where reading and writing was encouraged, where the communist party that kept winning the popular vote insisted people read as much as they can, and pay attention as much as they can to what was happening within their borders and beyond.
“Bad man,” my grandmother once said, her face twisted, like she’d eaten something sour. I was still a teenager, and my grandparents were visiting us in the ‘burbs. On television, news about the “liberation” of Iraq played, and an image of George W. Bush behind the lectern, fumbling his words, laughing, the press laughing with him, filled the screen.
“Bad man,” my grandmother repeated, and pulled her shawl over her, as if a draft of wind had spilled through even though it was the summer, and I was melting into the couch.
It was only later, after my grandmother had passed, that I’d learn from my mother about some of the experiences they had while still in India, especially during the war of independence that was waged by Bengalis across the border in what would be known as Bangladesh. Bengalis had been frustrated with Pakistani rule and desired autonomy and then, independence. The Pakistani state, fed with weapons and training by the U.S., pursued a policy of extermination instead. They sent in troops, armed pro-Pakistani militias, led a scorched-earth tactic in which millions fled, and millions perished by the violence, or starved. Since the Bangladeshi freedom movement was led by socialists who received aid from the Soviets, the U.S. chose to ally with far right elements inside Pakistan. Kissinger and Richard Nixon despised the Indians and the Bangladeshis, very much willing to turn a blind eye to the murder and chaos that was being inflicted on the civilian population.
My grandmother, apparently, remembered those days, reading the news about Bangladeshi refugees escaping from the countryside, the militias at their heels, their homes turned to ash. Their memories of home distorted, mangled.
I remember in the 2016 democratic party primaries, during a primary debate, when Hillary Clinton regarded Henry Kissinger as a “close friend”. In recent weeks, George W. Bush has been giving speeches on the importance of condemning Russia’s invasion because after all, invading other countries is morally wrong.
Over the last few weeks, Gonzalez has tried to spend his time on Puerto Rico wisely. Spending time getting to know people on the island, sharing jokes with them, sharing beers. Sometimes, he likes to go to the beach, dig his feet into the sand, and try to let his mind drift away. But nowadays, it’s become almost impossible, even as music would float in from the neary homes, their windows glowing at night. Instead, his chest feels tight. He grits his teeth even as he tries to laugh at something he heard while passing by.
But it’s difficult not to remember that the island his family has called on for generations remains a colony of the U.S. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to not think about the news lately, at how the U.S. has been once again, propped up as a moral example by those in the mainstream news, and politicians across party lines. He sees the people daily, plodding off buses, heading home, as another blackout rolls through, as the island is looted by private companies after another natural disaster hits.
“It can feel ridiculous and surreal,” he said, chuckling again.
Despite the best efforts of the IC, and groups like Code Pink and Black Alliance for Peace, the U.S. military budget grows, and pro-U.S. media frameworks get reinforced. Fortunately, most Americans are not necessarily pro-war, pro-”intervention”, as they once had been but currently, there is a lack of an anti-imperialist presence in U.S. politics generally. Even progressive members of congress have voted for more military spending and aid.
Hence, when reading the contemporary political landscape, it is crucial for U.S leftists to be unequivocal about our support for anti-U.S. imperial politics. Russia is indeed ruled by an autocrat, his chieftains, and the Russian Orthodox Church passionate about restoring the positive imagery of the Tsar and hating gay people. However, Ukraine is receiving aid and support from other major powers, including the U.S. And as demonstrated, the U.S. negative effects on the globe, from collusion with anti-democratic forces to organizing a global capitalist system, has never been addressed, let alone condemned formally by other major powers and international organizations.
Thus, it is critical the U.S. left continue to condemn and organize against U.S. imperial power, despite Russia’s invasion.
“Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is wrong and the ones who will suffer greatest are indisputably working class Ukrainians and Russians,” Martinez added, “It is also difficult to ignore the absence of an outcry from USAmericans for those in the global south, clearly darker and poorer than the average Ukrainian, who have suffered from generations of U.S. violence.”
The U.S., ironically, condemns so-called authoritarian regimes such as Maduro’s Venezuela, all the while supporting far worse regimes in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf, and now, have been the strongest allies for right-wing governments in India, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. The Venezuelan government, with all its imperfections, provides basic resources to most of its poor and working class, and yet, continues to face sanctions, sanctions that were made harsher under Trump, that hurt its ability to do so more effectively.
“Working class Venezuelans have critiques about their own government as any healthy democracy would. But they also understand the shadow cast on them by the U.S., how their daily life has been impacted by the U.S.,” Martinez said, having spoken to Venezuelans face-to-face.
Black Alliance for Peace was founded in 2017 on April 4, the same date Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke out against the U.S. war in Vietnam in 1967. In the speech, as Kimberley explained, King called out the U.S. “adventure” in Vietnam as morally unjustifiable. King, who had his critiques of the Soviet Union, was bitterly condemned by so-called liberal “allies”, both within the Johnson administration and those within the civil rights movement who were afraid to confront a president and who saw their struggle as being about them in the U.S., not something tied to the political fate of others abroad, especially as far away as Saigon.
“But King knew he had to speak up against what he called ‘the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,’,” she said.
As an American fighting for justice, King knew it was a priority for him to speak against what the U.S. was doing in Vietnam, how it had sided with colonialist forces and conservatism. How it was pushing against the peasantry fighting for socialism and self-determination.
After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States’ influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem’s methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.
U.S. imperialism also impacts people inside the formal bounds of the U.S. The elements that most benefit from the U.S. empire, from major corporations to segments of the labor movement that have been more willing to collude with the C.I.A., are the same forces opposing left-wing politics in the U.S. As Nikhil Pal Singh details in his work, America’s Long War, law enforcement officials have been sent abroad to train and help detain our allies, and soon after, return to do the same on U.S. soil, from blacksites in Chicago to disappearing activists in Portland during the recent Floyd protests.
Finally, the crisis of climate change, which affects everyone who needs clean air to breathe and food to eat, cannot be handled without the ending of U.S. presence globally.
“If you have 800 military bases around the world you’re going to have, by definition, a major obstacle in solving climate change,” said Kimberley, “The U.S. military is the biggest polluter in the world, which affects all of us materially, as Americans, and as people across the world.” She would add, “If you have the military being so active across the world, you are also going to keep seeing a ramping up of militarization of the police, as the Defense Department provides them with surplus equipment which inevitably leads to more brutality.”
The U.S. left must be explicitly focused on ending the U.S. empire, Kimberley argued, as it poses the greatest danger to the world. Ukrainians have been supported by major world powers like the U.S. What would be our contribution if we don’t continue to raise concerns that matter to Palestinians, Yemenis, Kenyans, Nigerians, South Africans, Kashmiris, Venezuelans, Bolivians, Peruvians, Cubans, Haitians, Indonesians, Filipinos, Egyptians, Saudis, Pakistanis, Indians, Thai, and Libyans among others? In each of these countries and regions, the U.S. supports policies and constituencies that oppress and exploit vast majorities of the population. What use would there be for the U.S. left if we simply add to the chorus of liberals and conservatives in condemning Russia and China, while the Saudis bomb, the Israelis steal land, the Indians steamroll over Kashmiris, policymakers inside the U.S. steer funding away from social programs and for the purposes of war at the expense of most working people who now have to balance multiple jobs, or go further into debt on their credit card to pay their rent, to maintain some semblance of a normal life under late-stage capitalism.
There is no global peace and security, ultimately, if the U.S. empire remains undiminished. There is no dignity and joy for much of the world if the U.S. can continue to embolden conservatives across the world, paying lip-service to so-called principles of democracy and liberty all the while supporting efforts by certain constituencies to dominate those who’ve been oppressed and exploited already for generations.
What use is there for a U.S. left that shirks its responsibility, a responsibility it once took far more seriously decades ago, to the people impacted by our country’s devastating foreign policy agenda?
“We have rallies planned, protests,” said Benjamin, however admitting that the intensity of the anti-war, anti-imperialist left has been missing. “We need to get more people involved, quickly,” she added.
Martinez and others at the IC have organized a seven-city tour of the U.S. by Venezuelan socialist feminists who will talk about illegal sanctions by the U.S. as well as how Venezuelans have resisted such as developing networks between existing communes and campesinos to produce what the people need to survive amidst U.S. sanctions. The purpose of this is to have U.S. leftists in the DSA get to know their counterparts globally and to also, identify and learn from as well. Hopefully, these types of interactions renew more interest among U.S. leftists, leftists in the belly of the beast, on U.S. foreign policy and on viewing their struggle for justice as intertwined with justice worldwide.
“We desperately need more humility on the left, a willingness to learn from revolutionary movements particularly those in the global south,” Martinez stressed.
Even as the left grows power inside the U.S., and starts to tackle systemic issues emerging from right wing politics and capitalism, such antidemocratic forces will retain their level of power if they can simply go to another country anyway that remains open to them. Long-term, for leftists to gather power in the U.S. would require us helping leftists gathering power everywhere, especially against those emboldened by U.S. foreign policy.
But this type of clarity too has been nearly overtaken by other domestic issues or by the lack of momentum among leftists groups like the DSA still caught in the post-Bernie haze. Nevertheless, it still matters how we organize and challenge contemporary U.S. power, domestically and internationally. It still matters that we educate and organize ourselves and others, spearheading renewed efforts in draining those who currently dominate the U.S. political discussion/space where foreign policy gets drawn and “debated”.
“We can do this,” said Gonzalez, as another breeze hits, sweeps through the island, as another blackout is impending. “We have to,” he stated.
Growing up, I remember watching cartoons with my grandmother, as she’d sit on the floor, covered in newspaper, slicing up eggplant and mango on her cutting board fixed with a curved knife. Sometimes, she would watch Spider-man too swinging between the buildings, spewing corny one-liners, and she would mimic him fighting the “bad guys”.
“Da-shoom, da-shoom,” she would’ve said, miming punching the air, copying the sound of people punching each other from Bollywood films. I’d laugh with her as I jumped from one couch to another, as my mom would roll her eyes, and continue peeling some carrots.
In Venezuela, Martinez had the chance to visit some of the communes where working class Venezuelans worked collectively to produce what their communities needed, like food and medicine, and clothing. She’d seen the people, many of them women, take on this task of working for the social good, and also seen them, laughing with each other, arguing over sports and movies. Sometimes, she’d see some taking cigarette breaks, perched on some steps, their faces shiny with sweat. They would sit there, allow the acid in their limbs to recede, preparing themselves to continue.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten