more on violence in libya

i am intentionally going to try to be limited and careful and precise in what i am going to say here.

a number of undoubtedly genuinely committed socialists websites are taking a variety of positions in relation to the struggle and war in libya,and indeed elsewhere.

some make critical comments about alex callinicos.i have no axe to grind in relation to him,and no reason to either attack or defend him.he is however a leading intellectual of the left,im just a militant,a "footsoldier".

however,whilst he may not have expressed it,i have no reason to believethat comrade callinicos wants to see others,particularly amongst the working class die in a massacre or anything else.

might i carefully suggest that most of us are committed to a genuine humanitarianism,and working class politics.we want to see a victorious working class and an entirelky new social order for human need.comrade callinicos makes the point that whatever we(he,me,you,the workking class)do,whatever we demand,wh have to muster our forces to make it happen,when we cant enforce genuine,open,deomcratic working class politics on those who rulke over us,or approach or even pass the "tipping point"with our political forces,we can only argue for a genuine humanitarian approach.in the struggle for ideas and for change we can make the content of that class humanitarianism that would be different to the pretensious,empty,lying,hypocrisy of the ruling classes.we need to be ruthless in our criticism of them at every step and all along the way.we need to defend our thinking,thoughjtful and ideological hegemony.would this not nbe part of building the alternaticve,working class hegemony that gramsci and others discuss?

we need to build and develop our clasa indepedence whilst being carefulk but not precious about it.

the reality does seem to be that the numbers of dead might be less than in a massacre,so perhaps it comes down to argueing over numbers.the principle seems less clear.i do not want to see volunteers of the rsistance killed because of their military stupidity in the fog of war-air warfare is never as precise as it is claimed to be,and anyone firing at a jet fighter is likely to be treated as a target in the said fog of war.

it also looks like some of the pro-quddaffi civilian supporters/forces are less enthusiastic than is assumed.many innocent,or simply silenced civilains who happen to be living in the regimes sphere of influence haved already been incinerated as collateral damage of the coalition attacks.

what is also clear is that we need to at least raise our voices and be inventive inn organisinbg other solidarity in support of the resistance.surely we can argue our independece of any and allthe acvtions of our clas enenies.d

at the same time,it seems some are falling over themselves to defend a regime based on military takeover 40 years ago,not the result of liberatiion lat alone class struggle and genuine reviolutionary.

then there are those of us on the left who rather than face upo to the limitataions of our own capacities and actually largely impotent to do more than a little turn on each other and scream hysterically about otehrs stupidity,centrism,stalinism and worse and more.

wev have aresponsibilty to work to do better than this.such sectarianism might make us feel self righteously better but it does nothing else.we have to be able to do better than this.

i want to think and work to create a better world,not get emboiled in this secdtarian nonsense.such shrill screaming influences nio one,saves no lives and advances the class struggle not one milimetre.

lost

04/04/2011

i left out a further consideration in my last post on this issue although i have sdaid elsewhere in yet earlier posts,that the debats amongst the powers about interventiion in libya hasw shiufted the centre of political and geographical gravity,if not westwardsthen to the imperialist countries.

india,china and russia are also key powers nut they are alsoimperialist in outlook and no more acting in working class interest than the rest.

they will all go on hiding their hypocrisy,their interest in oil,their power plays unless we make and take every opportunity however small to challenge it and them.our optential power lies elsewhere.we have to rediscover it and use it.independently.

their actions undoubtedly provide cover for moe brutality elswhere-bahtrain,egypt,yemen...on and on.we should be making those points at every opportunity and inj ever inventive ways.

sectarianism is not principled and clear disagreement.it neither sharpens our ideas our practice nor makes any of those points.

lost

04/04/2011

at face value,tonights bbc news 24 television channel is reporting that the recently appointed commander of the resistance forces is criticising the coalition for not raiding/bombing misrata over the 40 days seige by quadaffi regime forces.

the coalition may well have some military or political excuse but having claimed it is responding to expessed needs of the resistance,boasting about its capacity and hiow easy it would be it is already failing that resistance.they cannot hide behind military logistics or the limitations of unsupported air power.neither can they makje political excuses abiout the fragility of either the region or the coalition itself,given the commitment made and the claim to international legality.

the military commander of the resistance forces both appears to have the military competence previously largely missing from a rag tag army of hotheads and enthuisiasts.i do not mean to criticise their undouted commitment and courage only that such enthusiasm alone wins little in a long haul.the commander would seem to have no other reason than experience and truth to criticise the coalition,especially given his depoendence oin their actions.

i cannot of course state that i am right but if what is being described is true then how many have died in what must be 40 days of seige and how doews that constitute effectively stopping a massacre.

nothing is simple or easy any more,if it ever was.the coalition must match actual sprotection to the civilian population.any faiure reduces it to empty words and continued death.the esistance needs if not an absoluetly decisive end and resolution then an outcome in which the tipping point geographically and politically is weighted in their favour.the coalition cannot be allowed to shift the goalposts.it cannot fail the oppressed people of libya.ther are no excuses and the international working class must hold them to detailed and ruthless account.this is a time when simple effort-trying-is not enough.

i sgtill reject thweir iuntervention but now they are there they have to meet their promise that they presented as simple.we can only build practical and idealogical solidarity with the resistant people-the workers and soldiers of libya.whiost we cannot actually shift the ruling classes that make upthe coalition we can seek to hold it to account,with facts and arguemnts.

lost
06/04/2011