Subject: Re: HAB: obiter dictum
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:28:49 -0500


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Ali,  thanks for your response.
    
     The point regarding the mercenary character of the US effort is exactly right-  not just regarding troops,  global critique,...control of oil.  And not just regarding the "Afghan allies".  US is very thin at effective combat troops.  The "special forces," literally, mere  hundreds, are the only ones willing to use their weapons aggressively to engage and advance on the ground.  The rest joined for "professional" considerations in a bargain that did not contemplate anything near so extreme as hazzarding life or limb or even health; and thence, the near total US reliance on bombing.  So "terror" and "high-tech, remote bombardment" are in one sense unexceptionable, the logically necessary modalities of the repsective theses of the bloody dialectic.
     However, your  "merely political",  on the nature of the war, puzzles me.  Surely, there's a righteousness in a society's desire (1) to control the factors, political-economy,  of its material existence,...precedent over the G-7 & clients rapacity?...and (2) much more,  the point of the OBL group, its fight for spiritual existence, tradition, preservation of cultural identity,... against the imposition of Western nihilism? Surely the proper name for this latter, is jihad...?

bob
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Ali Rizvi
  To: habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 5:51 AM
  Subject: Re: HAB: obiter dictum


  "...Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared to prepare the public for
  possibly large numbers of casualties among non-combatants, specifically the
  families of Qaeda or Taliban fighters who are with them.
  He said the civilians were there "of their own free will, knowing who they're with
  and who they're supporting and who they're encouraging and who they're assisting."
  
  bob.
  
  This is exactly the argument of Al Qaeda for (their justification) for killing
  non combatant Americans. Plus they have additional excuse of compulsion,
  since they are technologically so inferior  to America they can have no
  other choice but to attack on its soft belly (so to say). My point is if
  Rumsfield's line of argumentation is correct then why not Al Qaeda's as
  Well? [this all presuming that there is such an entity as Al Qaeda, which
  I doubt very much. It seems to me like Orient of Edwerd Said. Any way].

  America can reduce civilian casualties, she has all means, and technological
  capabilities to do so. Then why it does not do so? The simple answer is
  that it will increase number of its own casualties making impossible to
  sustain the ongoing crusade in the long term. America is fighting a mercenary war
  in Afghanistan, buying soldiers from different warlords, and
  hence minimising the risk of its own casualties. Can America continue to do
  so successfully? I doubt it very much. No civilisation can defend itself with the
  help of mercenaries for an extended period of time and it is already becoming clear
  as every keen observer of the current situation would know.
  
  This proves my point that current debacle is political and should be treated
  as such. To moralise it is very dangerous and would not benefit us in understanding
  the situation. Of course bourgeoisie has always try to veil its
  real ferocious use of power and politics under the garbage of its morality but the
  reality is political and not moral in the sense that the capitalist morality can not
  be overthrown without overthrowing capitalist power regime.
  
  The political question is that there are people who are angry at American policies in
  the Middle East particularly the presence of its troop and struggling against it. They
  are demanding American expulsion from the peninsula. They are struggling for it. This is
  a political question. Of course America does not want to go out. It has political
  interests to stay there. Fair enough. But others have their interests too and they
  are struggling to pursue those interests. So this is a struggle, real struggle,
  a political struggle. There is no morality involved in it. The success of struggle
  would be determined by the levels of sacrifices at the end, not through any moralisation.
  America wants to stay, it can, it should, but it would have to pay price.
  There are people who want to contest the hegemony of Americ! a. They can and
  they should, but they would have to pay price too. Struggle would be decided by
  the question of who can pay the price for how long?
  BEST REGARDS
  ALI

  
  The bourgeoisie (was) perfectly well aware that a new constitution or legislature
  will not suffice to assure its hegemony; it relise(d) that it has to invent a new
  technology ensuring the effects of the power of the whole social body down to its
  smallest particles. And it was by such means that the bourgeoisie not only made a
  revolution but succeeded in establishing a social hegemony which it has never
  relinquished. This is why . . . inventions (like panopticon) were so important, and
  why no doubt Bentham is one of the most exemplary inventors of technologies of power.
  Foucault The Eye of Power in Power Knowledge p. 156.



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----- Original Message -----

From: Ali Rizvi

To: habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 5:51 AM

Subject: Re: HAB: obiter dictum

"...Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared to prepare the public for
possibly large numbers of casualties among non-combatants, specifically the
families of Qaeda or Taliban fighters who are with them.
He said the civilians were there "of their own free will, knowing who they're with
and who they're supporting and who they're encouraging and who they're assisting."
 
bob.
 
This is exactly the argument of Al Qaeda for (their justification) for killing
non combatant Americans. Plus they have additional excuse of compulsion,
since they are technologically so inferior  to America they can have no
other choice but to attack on its soft belly (so to say). My point is if
Rumsfield's line of argumentation is correct then why not Al Qaeda's as
Well? [this all presuming that there is such an entity as Al Qaeda, which
I doubt very much. It seems to me like Orient of Edwerd Said. Any way].

America can reduce civilian casualties, she has all means, and technological
capabilities to do so. Then why it does not do so? The simple answer is
that it will increase number of its own casualties making impossible to
sustain the ongoing crusade in the long term. America is fighting a mercenary war
in Afghanistan, buying soldiers from different warlords, and
hence minimising the risk of its own casualties. Can America continue to do
so successfully? I doubt it very much. No civilisation can defend itself with the
help of mercenaries for an extended period of time and it is already becoming clear
as every keen observer of the current situation would know.
 
This proves my point that current debacle is political and should be treated
as such. To moralise it is very dangerous and would not benefit us in understanding
the situation. Of course bourgeoisie has always try to veil its
real ferocious use of power and politics under the garbage of its morality but the
reality is political and not moral in the sense that the capitalist morality can not
be overthrown without overthrowing capitalist power regime.
 
The political question is that there are people who are angry at American policies in
the Middle East particularly the presence of its troop and struggling against it. They
are demanding American expulsion from the peninsula. They are struggling for it. This is
a political question. Of course America does not want to go out. It has political
interests to stay there. Fair enough. But others have their interests too and they
are struggling to pursue those interests. So this is a struggle, real struggle,
a political struggle. There is no morality involved in it. The success of struggle
would be determined by the levels of sacrifices at the end, not through any moralisation.
America wants to stay, it can, it should, but it would have to pay price.
There are people who want to contest the hegemony of Americ! a. They can and
they should, but they would have to pay price too. Struggle would be decided by
the question of who can pay the price for how long?
BEST REGARDS
ALI

The bourgeoisie (was) perfectly well aware that a new constitution or legislature
will not suffice to assure its hegemony; it relise(d) that it has to invent a new
technology ensuring the effects of the power of the whole social body down to its
smallest particles. And it was by such means that the bourgeoisie not only made a
revolution but succeeded in establishing a social hegemony which it has never
relinquished. This is why . . . inventions (like panopticon) were so important, and
why no doubt Bentham is one of the most exemplary inventors of technologies of power.
Foucault The Eye of Power in Power Knowledge p. 156.

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