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Tony Abdo | 25 Aug 2001 20:31
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US Military Secretly Intervening in Uganda, Mali, Mauritania, Chad, and Niger

So assured is he that the antiwar movement will not object (or even take 
notice), that US General Wald talks openly about these operations to a BBC 
reporter.    Luckily, the Libertarian site..antiwar.com.. did take notice.   
  It illustrates the need to expand the antiwar movement beyond just being 
focussed on Iraq.

Tony Abdo
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US to increase African military presence
By Martin Plaut
BBC regional analyst

Gen Wald: The US is involved in the fight against Uganda's rebel LRA
The US military interest in Africa has been transformed by its determination 
to win what it calls the war on terrorism in the wake of 11 September.
General Charles Wald, the US general who is in charge for African 
operations, told the BBC that the US plans to increase the number of 
facilities across the continent.

He said the facilities are vital if the US is to intervene in Africa's many 
conflicts.

"The distances are huge, the problems are multiple, and we need multiple 
options to respond to those problems," he said.

He said most of the facilities will not be full scale bases, but rather 
airfields with guaranteed access to fuel.

Home-grown defence
He said the US is willing to back African efforts to produce pan-African
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Tony Abdo | 26 Aug 2001 22:29
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The Militant and Who Cares?

This list never seems to tire of following what The Militant is up to! The 
Militant and March 20; The Militant and Venezuela, The Militant and Haiti... 
and so on. But who on earth cares?  Does anybody on this list actually 
excpect that the SWP will rise from its self-made grave of the last quarter 
century? So what is the perverse interest in continuing to follow these 
people in this wierd sect?

The SWP left reality some time back in the late '70s.  From being a leader 
of the womens rights movement and the antiwar movemen of that time, the 
ENTIRE organization made the curious decision to begin chasing pots of gold 
at the end of rainbows. The rainbows were community groups like the NAACP, 
and trade unions.

In order to do that, the SWP convinced itself that the antiwar movement 
should only be a solidarity organization with the people of Vietnam, and 
that the women's rights movement should be primarily focused around 
legalizing abortion. That was the real extent of the commitment to the 
issues where they had led struggles.

Instead of broadening the antiwar movement out to demanding a dismantlement 
of the US military machine, the SWP accepted the dismantlement of the 
antiwar movement instead.  And when the womens movement grew in leaps and 
bounds within the confines of the National Organization of Women, the SWP 
disappeared!

That was all a very long time ago.  So why on earth do comrades insist on 
continuing to waste  time and energy on putting the latest scroll of 
Militant bs under the microscope?  Isn't it far time to put this group 
behind us (and everybody else, too)?  To not do so is rather unseemly, and 
gives a character of stuffy and stale irrelevance to this list.  It's just
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Tony Abdo | 29 Aug 2001 15:53
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RE:The Militant and Who Cares?

Jose Perez wrote..
<<I think Marvin Gandall's explanation that the reason so many radical
groups exploded, imploded or became hopeless sects is that objective
conditions were just too unfavorable undoubtedly has a grain of truth to
it -- but only a grain.>>

Actually, I find that 'victory' was the disorientating element for the SWP, 
as I believe it ultimately was for the USSR. To say that conditions are just 
too oppressive for a revolutionary movement to hold together is kind of 
remarkable actually. It is usually precisely those conditions of repression 
that are most favorable to revolutionary organizing. The naked face of 
Rightist brutality is never very appealing for much length of time, and 
people rebel against that.

What revolutionaries have trouble with is power... having it.  Then people 
can begin to resent the socialiists with power... and usually do.  Or, the 
socialists with power can begin to think that that getting more power will 
just naturally flow in their direction, when that is not really the case.  
In both the Sandanistas and the SWP, post US withdrawal from Vietnam, one 
could easily notice a certain arrogance and belief that their successes were 
just natural to have happened, and that the next step would be just as 
successful no matter what action might be taken!

<<The fact is that despite the differences between them, all these groups
suffered from a series of vices that were considered to be the essence
of "Leninism" at the time (and still are, by some). Chief among these is
the idea that "the" party is defined by a sacred doctrine which it must
preserve pure and unadulterated, and of course, at the center of the
doctrine was the dogma of the all knowing party, the cult of the
organization.>>
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