What is missing from this posting is an analysis of what the "realist" wing of the US ruling circles expect to get out of the Libyan intervention. Without this, the posting seems unlikely to reassure those elements of the international community who oppose the intervention.
Professor Eissenstat touches on the key issue where I and some commenters differ with his otherwise excellent analysis, when he says:
" Just as important is the sense among the AKP’s inner circle that all Western intervention is ill-intentioned. Turkey’s leaders make clear that they see any EU or NATO involvement in Libya as nothing less than a variant form of imperialism."
This is a sense that many of us share!
After watching US "humanitarian" intervention in Haiti, only the latest in a long history, one has to ask: when has the intervention of an imperial power ever helped those intervened upon? When has it failed to strengthen imperial control, and strengthen forces prone to collaboration with the imperial power? World War 2, where many progressives would have supported the Allied side, shows clearly that it is only countervailing power (China, Yugoslavia, Vietnam) that prevents the imperial power from accompanying its aid with control.
Naomi Klein's book "Disaster Capitalism" describes in detail how imperial powers make use of crises to their own advantage.
Professor Eissenstat raises the issue: I believe it deserves much fuller, and serious consideration. This will not be the last time where the question of imperial "humanitarian" intervention arises.
I absolutely did not understand this sentence:
"The Muslim Brotherhood is to anti-imperialism what Ben & Jerry’s are to ice cream, and even they are supporting NATO!"
I must be missing some cultural element, could you spell out what this means?
What is missing from this posting is an analysis of what the "realist" wing of the US ruling circles expect to get out of the Libyan intervention. Without this, the posting seems unlikely to reassure those elements of the international community who oppose the intervention.
Professor Eissenstat touches on the key issue where I and some commenters differ with his otherwise excellent analysis, when he says:
" Just as important is the sense among the AKP’s inner circle that all Western intervention is ill-intentioned. Turkey’s leaders make clear that they see any EU or NATO involvement in Libya as nothing less than a variant form of imperialism."
This is a sense that many of us share!
After watching US "humanitarian" intervention in Haiti, only the latest in a long history, one has to ask: when has the intervention of an imperial power ever helped those intervened upon? When has it failed to strengthen imperial control, and strengthen forces prone to collaboration with the imperial power? World War 2, where many progressives would have supported the Allied side, shows clearly that it is only countervailing power (China, Yugoslavia, Vietnam) that prevents the imperial power from accompanying its aid with control.
Naomi Klein's book "Disaster Capitalism" describes in detail how imperial powers make use of crises to their own advantage.
Professor Eissenstat raises the issue: I believe it deserves much fuller, and serious consideration. This will not be the last time where the question of imperial "humanitarian" intervention arises.