From: "Lawrence Phillips" <lawrence-AT-lphillips.freeserve.co.uk> Subject: RE: Thoughts on Said's "A Stupid War" Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 17:25:30 +0100 Ben, I find the distinction you are attempting apply here -- for 'offensive defense' against colonialism -- rather naïve if you will forgive me saying so. Arguably the British in the nineteenth century didn't occupy Afghanistan out of an urge to colonize but to protect its interests in India from incursions from the Russians, just as it occupied Aden (Yemen) to provide a coaling and refueling station on the way to India as well as naval station to protect its trade route. In the same way Britain ultimately occupied Egypt to protect its interest in the Suez Canal and Hong Kong was extorted from the Chinese to protect trading interests (especially Opium) in China. Moreover the British occupied the three Ottoman provinces that would become modern Iraq towards the end of the First World War to deny the oil fields to Turkey and protect them for themselves. The British didn't entirely leave the Iraq it created until the 1950s. It is a matter of historical note that the European empires of the 19th century grew in this way and were emulated by the US after the 1898 Spanish-American War from which it gained military bases stretching from Cuba to the Philippines. This was another war that was justified on the basis of 'liberation', in this case Spain's repression of its colonies' right of self-determination -- a very pertinent conflict given current events but oddly not mentioned at all. Compare the pronouncements of Bush and Rumsfeld (and the neo-conservatives in general) with the aggressive expansionism of Theodore Roosevelt; another US president who firmly espoused the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike. Compare also how long the US occupied the Philippines denying the people the very self-determination over which the war had been ostensibly fought. Many other examples about the way the British Empire protected its interests could be cited, but the point is all of these 'occupations' were no doubt interpreted as 'offensive defense', protecting the vested interests of the British but history has recorded them as straight up colonialism, or perhaps better imperialism. Like the British before them (and again), the US's imperialistic intervention in Iraq on the spurious claims that the regime would pass weapons of mass destruction onto terrorists is rather thin, especially given the lack of evidence for this on the ground. What is certain is that when the US does eventually leave Iraq, it will leave in place a friendly government and will retain military bases to protect its interests in the region (principally oil) as it has done in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Lawrence Phillips, Goldsmiths College, University of London -----Original Message----- From: owner-postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu [mailto:owner-postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu] On Behalf Of Ben Sent: 16 April 2003 16:11 To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Subject: Re: Thoughts on Said's "A Stupid War" Thanks for the welcome Mohammed :) (this would have been posted yesterday but I reached my daily limit! gasp.) I think personal political stances are relatively irrelevant to ideological discussion, but for the record I was for the war (offensive defense) but am against colonialism; in other words the US occupying forces need to get the hell out immediately as soon as the chemical trucks and all that are destroyed (and there's no need for them to stay behind in already-surveyed cities). As for finding nothing wrong with anti-colonial hate speech, I have to admit that I find such a notion appalling. I'm assuming that you have equally no problem with [the existence of, not the message of] pro-colonial hate speech, or hate speech for or against any other issue? I'm just personally inclined against any so-called 'hate' (ie, one-sidedness, ideologically-irrelevant ad hominem attacks, unwillingness to hear the point of view from the other side, advocation of violence and prejudice towards any with differing beliefs, etc); I think such discourse is virtually useless for any kind of enlightenment. Thanks again for the welcome! :) Ben __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo http://search.yahoo.com --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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