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Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996
Sender: Nicholas Treanor <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cj#614> ZAIRE AND YANKEE IMPERIALISM (fwd)
On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, Richard K. Moore wrote:
> The question I ask, assuming credibility for the analysis, regards
> the scope of the actual U.S. objectives. Do the U.S. "imperialist
> interests", whatever those might be, fully explain the promotion of
> large-scale genocidal inter-tribal warfare? Could genocide itself, as
> suggested in "cj#603> 'The only good Injun is a dead Injun' still", be a
> covert objective?
According to the analysis, the American interests and influence are with
the Tutsi (the present group governing Rwanda). The most recent genocide
in this area was undertaken by Hutus _against_ Tutsi. The question you
should be asking, I think, is whether the government of France, which is
actively involved (according to the analysis) with the Hutus, may have
genocide as a covert objective. It wouldn't surprise me, judging by how
little regard for humanity in general the French government recently
demonstrated in its south Pacific nuclear tests.
Nick.
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Dear Nick,
Well, I wouldn't defend the French policies here, and clearly
France and the U.S. are both major leaders in the drive toward neoliberal
globalization. It's even possible France & the U.S. are acting in concert,
playing at geopolitical games for other purposes.
But my intuition tells me that France is more tangled up in
traditional imperialist policies and national-pride issues, and isn't
playing any deeper game. I suspect the U.S. of taking the more strategic
position, viewing France's policies as a given, and choosing its own policy
on the basis of how it will interact with France's, and what consequences
that will lead to.
This intuition arises partly from my reading of David Stockman's
"In Search of Enemies", which described how the Angolan civil war got
started. Basically what happened there is that the U.S. surveyed the
various factions and picked one to back based on how effective they'd be in
stirring up trouble. There was no concern with their ideology or
likelihood of success, but rather the concern was for making as big a civil
war as possible, so as to maximize the economic loss to the Soviets in
backing the other side.
And again, in the case of the Kurds, the U.S. repeatedly, over
decades, alternated in backing them and abandoning them, as a pawn in
playing off Iran and Iraq against each other, and more recently in making
points with Turkey. Kissinger acknowledged this situation, and
characterized it with some off-hand comment at the level of omelettes and
broken eggs.
The French may show "little regard" for humanity, but the U.S.
seems more adept at outright cynical manipulation.
Thoughts?
-rkm
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Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - Wexford, Ireland
Cyberlib: www | ftp --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib
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