The collapse of the eastern bloc, imperialism and the 1992 Balkan War
Jan 13 2008 15:10
#182
Lurch wrote:
the following link, from Britain’s Sunday Mirror newspaper, ‘proves’ nothing and suggests a lot.[url=Enter URL here]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20060514/ai_n16369216[/url]
Lurch - what exactly does that article suggest to you? Unless you wrongly take the title literally - "CIA turns to Michael Collins for help." - and believe Collins and the CIA were ever in contact (which is never suggested in the article), the article doesn't back up any "proxy army" or other claims made in this or other threads. We can assume that the CIA incorporated useful techniques from friends and enemies alike into their training manuals. So what? Another example of crudely trying to make reality fit the preferred belief?
Jan 13 2008 19:40
#183
The idea that "the politics of Northern Ireland are by and large internally driven and extremely isolated from wider world politic, a shitty little historic anomalie of a province trapped in a fucking time warp" is intriguing. While it doesn't seem defensible empirically, theoretically or in any other way, at least it's some sort of position. The basic question to put would then be: how are the various political, military, social formations to be understood? To do this without situating agriculture, the linen, shipbuilding, aerospace and other heavy industries in the context of British and world capitalism would be a staggering achievement. Yes, there are some anomalies (the 50 years of a Stormont parliament for a population less than Birmingham and environs, for example) but these are not internally driven but the result of the action of outside forces. Globalisation properly understood is a process going back more than 150 years and the north of Ireland is no exception
Jan 13 2008 21:53
#184
Thankyou trenchone for reminding us of the Casement episode - Sir Roger Casement was captured by the British in 1916 just before the Rising, as he was put ashore from a German submarine (he was supposed to have accompanied a shipment of German weapons but the ship in which they had been sent was sunk). This is a necessary reminder of one fundamental point in all this: whatever the internal politics may be, it is impossible for a small power (or would-be power) to defend its own interests without seeking to ally itself, or put itself under the protection of, a greater power. Actually IMO this is fundamental to understanding imperialism in general since the beginning of the 20th century and it is true not just for the IRA but for all countries, even important ones. If we take the example of Britain, it is very clear that in the 1930s the British ruling class was beginning to realise that it could no longer stand aloof as the world's greatest empire but was going to have to make a choice between alliance with Germany or with the United States, and worse still that neither of these would be an equal alliance. There were definitely fractions within the British who thought that Nazism looked like a good bet (including the erstwhile King Edward VIII).
To get back to the IRA, it's worth quoting in this context the 1916 Declaration of the Provisional Government:
Quote:
Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom (...) having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
Once hopes of help from Germany disappeared, the IRA basically relied on financial and material help from the United States, and the strong ties between the IRA and elements of the Irish-American community in the US. The most recent expression of this is of course NORAID which has funneled substantial sums of money from the US to the IRA. Nobody in this debate denies this as far as I can see: one question that anyone should therefore ask is therefore a) could the US government have stopped NORAID, and b) if it could have done so, why did it not?
Well of course I'm not privy to all the secrets of the US government, but on the face of it, it seems to me probable that had it wished to do so, the US government could easily have cut NORAID funds going to Ireland. So the question then is, why did it not?
The idea that the US would not do so because Britain is such a loyal ally and there is a "special relationship" between the two is simply naïve (does anybody actually think this??) in my view - but that would be another discussion in itself. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to suppose that the US government turned a more or less blind eye to money and even arms smuggling on the grounds that it never does any harm to hold a stick over your allies (of course, another element in this is the relationship between the US, the Eire government, and the IRA - which has changed over the years especially since Eire started getting rich thanks to EU funding, but that also is another question).
There was apparently (according to Tim Pat Coogan's voluminous work The IRA) a change in line during the 1980s when the Thatcher/Reagan "special relationship" (ie the British government throwing itself wholeheartedly behind the US big brother in the Cold War) led to a number of FBI stings being run against IRA gun-runners. However, according to Coogan again (writing in 1995), this changed when Clinton came to power (ie more or less at the same time that the British started to distance themselves from the US in an attempt to assert their own imperialist interests:
Quote:
Good contact has been established between the Irish-Americans and the Clinton administration. To my knowledge Clinton has assured leaders of the Irish-American community that there would be 'no more Joe Doherty cases', and there is tangible evidence of the FBI being reined in.
A final point: the ICC sentence on the "proxy army" should be treated more as a polemical shorthand than a literal "truth for all time", and of course history is more complicated than that (isn't it always?). But the essential points which the ICC is making remain true: that the IRA was always ready to be a tool of other imperialist powers (it there has never been anything remotely "anti-imperialist" about it), and that the US is the most powerful of those powers to which the IRA could turn, and finally that the USA has always had an interest in "running" the IRA - the article that Leo quotes seems to me to demonstrate perfectly clearly that the situation changed after 9/11 when the US needed British help: canning the IRA militarily was something that the US could "bring to the table" to buy unequivocal British backing for the wars to come.
And lastly - it's very nice to see that revol68 is so concerned for a "nuanced" view (though he's not very "nuanced" about Northern Ireland: "a shitty little historic anomalie of a province trapped in a fucking time warp"!) then why does he not let us all profit from his doubtless profound knowledge and insights into Irish history?
Jan 14 2008 22:24
#185
Still waiting for an answer, Lurch, on the Collins/CIA article; considering that Collins died in 1922 and the CIA was formed in the 1940s, there couldn't be any great collaboration, could there? I guess we'll have to assume Lurch's comment is just another piece of historical nonsense, attempted lazy misuse of facts in the service of speculative dogma. I suppose you googled, saw the headline, didn't bother to read the article but rushed to add it to the 'evidence'. Which, as already illustrated umpteen times, is typical of how the ICC camp deal with history.
One might account for the ICC's behaviour as a symptom of the extreme ideological conformity present in the grouplet, where critical self-reflection is long since replaced by long winded generalisations and sermonising presented with a Moses complex.
But my own research has uncovered the real explanation of this almost incredible behaviour. In fact, the ICC was formed and has been bankrolled by the North Korean and Albanian intelligence services as a weapon to totally discredit left communist ideas in the eyes of the international proletarian masses. As we can see, they have become extremely skilled and successful at this. Their nonsensical presentation of historical data is only one aspect of this mission. They function as an ideological proxy army.
By their own criteria, the fact that this revelation cannot be proved is no barrier to accepting it as truth; and neither does the fact that some evidence is inconsistent with this conclusion cast doubt on its truth. As their agent "Demagog" has already pointed out above in a clever counter-bluff, any evidence to the contrary is simply part of the typical state-manipulated 'deliberate inconsistency' used to mask the real conspiratorial aims of such shady organisations.
Jan 15 2008 09:11
#186
Jolly funny, Ret, but it does "suggest" that you analyse the ICC in very similar terms as you would the bourgeoisie. But that's hardly news
In any case, the point of referring to this article surely wasn't to either suggest or prove that the CIA backed Collins, which as you say would be a historical anachronism. Certainly there is an ambiguity: it just be an example of how could the CIA studies all kinds of 'subversives' simply in order to know their enemy. But we also know that the CIA is as practised in using 'subversives' as it is in opposing them. The two are often interchangeable, in either direction (al Qaida being a case in point).
And there is also the small matter of this long standing identification with the Irish 'freedom struggle' within the US bourgeoisie and its propagandists. Why did the CIA study Collins in particular? Could it be that they shared some of his (imperialist) aims as well as being interested in his methods?
The underlying point we have made in this thread - about the historical reality of imperialist conflict between the US and Britain - is somewhat relevant here and has yet to be taken up by any of the ICC's criitics.
Jan 15 2008 10:11
#187
Quote:
Jolly funny, Ret, but it does "suggest" that you analyse the ICC in very similar terms as you would the bourgeoisie. But that's hardly news
But Alf, surely you won't deny that the state has infiltrated proletarian organisations throughout the history of the workers movement? Launched cointelpro operations, black flag ops, inserted agents provocateurs into protests? The machiavellianism of the bourgeoisie knows no limits. You have admitted the widespread acceptance of the 'strategy of tension', yet for some reason seem unwilling to entertain any notion of the idea that left communist organisations might themselves be the proxies of minor imperialist actors on the world stage.
Jan 15 2008 10:39
#188
Certainly wouldn't deny that the state has infiltrated proletarian organisations, which isn't the same as turning them into proxies of the capitalist state.
if you are seriously suggesting that there are 'left communist organisations' which are working for the state, we can discuss that, but it's not really the purpose of this thread.
Jan 15 2008 11:11
#189
Except that the ICC and its sympathisers have presented evidence for their assertations. You can disagree with the conclusions drawn from the evidence, or say the evidence is weak, that's your perogative. But to suggest that the claim that the IRA has been a pawn in imperialist power games has no evidence whatsoever is simply disingenuous.
Ret has made what must be the most impressive effort at distorting his opponent's argument on this thread so far when he implies that my previous point about "plausible denial" is an excuse for no evidence whatsoever. Not so. There must still be (a) some evidence of collusion and (b) motive. The problem then comes with inconsistencies across the state machine's approach in such situations which I explained as follows:
"The unity of the bourgeoisie is always a temporary, contingent phenonmena and this goes for the state too. The fact that other arms of the state appear to stand against particular operations can spring from any number of reasons:
1) The need for plausible denial.
2) They don't follow the "party line" because the originating agency or fraction has kept this secret, due to the importance of keeping the operation secret.
3) Genuine differences of orientation with one group seeking to stymie or expose the activities of the other."
So the form of my argument is that if Action A indicates a particular strategy of the state on a certain question, how can Action B (which appears to be contradictory) be explained in the light of this. Action A must still exist and there are many such Action As as far as the US and the IRA is concerned.
The Action A that I presented previously is the fact that NORAID were allowed to operate with impunity within the US even after the State Department forced them to acknowledge that their contributions were being given to the IRA in 1981 - even after the IRA launched their "Tet Offensive" in the 80s, there seems to have no effort made to curtail NORAID despite forcing this acknowledgement from where the money was going! Other contributors have pointed to other connections.
Ret on the other hand offers no evidence at all for his assertation that the ICC is a proxy of North Korea and Albania, making the two arguments completely incompatible. So we can add the use of false analogies to the 7 pages of nitpicking over the now infamous two words "proxy army" which - as LongJohnSilver so excellently put it - was nothing other than "polemical shorthand".
Jan 15 2008 12:56
#190
Demagog wrote:
Ret on the other hand offers no evidence at all for his assertation that the ICC is a proxy of North Korea and Albania
Ah, but you would say that, wouldn't you, Demagog? A typical 'plausible denial'. Which only adds to the evidence; that you feel obliged to deny the claim only adds to its credence.
And Alf called the 'proxy army army' claim first a 'hypothesis' then retracted and admitted it shouldn't have been presented as fact - which is quite different from 'polemical shorthand'.
You have presented evidence of a relationship between the US state and IRA, which few would've ever denied (though you imply otherwise) - interpretation of the actual relationship is another matter. Read more carefully - I never said there was no evidence at all - you continue to confuse evidence with proof. That is your distortion - again.
Jan 15 2008 13:38
#191
Who on Earth is talking about "proof"? We're not talking about abstract mathematics here. We're talking about what is a reasonable intepretation of the actions of different factions of the bourgeoisie, on the basis of the nature of those actions, their historic and strategic interests, what we know they've done before.
It has been your barrack-room lawyer attitude that has distorted this whole discussion. You and your supporters have fixated entirely on the phrase "proxy-army" which has been repeatedly acknowledged to be too strong and needed to be rephrased. I myself did this on the first page of this discussion!
If you were approaching this with anything approaching honesty, we could have moved past that and had an illuminating discussion but instead you continue hammering on this point long after the nail has been reduced to subatomic particles, motivated entirely by what? Obviously we can't possibly ask where this monomaniacal obsession with pursuing this point when it's been conceded 6 pages ago because that would be a typical ICC deflection. God forbid anyone should even suspect it may come from any kind of ulterior motive at all!
Jan 15 2008 13:42
#192
Calm down, Demagog, you're emoting all over the page.
Jan 15 2008 13:42
#193
I didn't retract the idea that it was a hypothesis. I recognised that Baboon had not presented his point as a hypothesis.
Is the hypothesis the argument that the IRA is nothing more than a secret wing of the US state? No. It has its own interests and they can also come into conflict with the needs of US imperialism.
Does the entire hypothesis stand or fall on an unconditional defence of the term 'proxy army'? No. If this term causes confusion, then we're happy to find another. It's just not the issue.
This is indeed nitpicking, Ret, and indeed it has an ulterior motive. You still have had nothing to say about the substantial issues under discussion here: the subordination of the IRA to the manoeuvres of imperialist states and the reality or not of imperialist conflicts between the US and the UK. Answer on those points, Ret and it's worth answering you; carry on nitpicking and I will do my best to ignore you.
Jan 15 2008 14:20
#194
Quote:
Who on Earth is talking about "proof"? We're not talking about abstract mathematics here.
Some of us are - as something more than mathematical (or other) abstraction. There's surely a necessary relationship between evidence and proof. Otherwise never talk of facts or try to convince us of anything. My interest here has been in the mode of discourse more than its topic - that is as legitimate a subject as any. As for "substantial issues" - I have commented on evidence presented here, and possible alternative interpretations of it.
Feel free to ignore me, Alf - coming from you, I take it as a complement. 
Jan 15 2008 16:18
#195
"My interest here has been in the mode of discourse more than its topic". Oh that discourse! This is probably where the difficulty lies. An interest in "mode of discourse" is bound to come up against any serious attempt to establish a method that can be used by the working class.
For example, trying to understand the roots of any phenomena is not easy to do outside of a historical framework. To return, for instance, to the strategy of the Provisionals in the 1970s - its roots can be traced back more than a century,
After the American Civil War the American Fenians tried to provoke Britain and the US into a war by making raids into Canada in 1866, 1870 and 1871. As it turned out, the US authorities did not rise to the bait. In June 1866, for example, it turned a blind eye to British military incursions on to US territory to capture and slaughter Fenian forces. The US saw no advantage in conflict [and was also happy, in due course, to collect $15.5 million for British 'non-neutrality' in the Civil War].
Engels (in a letter to Bernstein 26 June 1882) examined the sitiuation in retrospect and thought that "Had it come to a war, Ireland would in a few months have been part of the United States or at least a republic under its protection". He emphasised the very limited circumstances in which an Irish rising could be successful. "Without war or the threat of war from without, an Irish rebellion has not the slightest chance; and only two powers can become dangerous in this respect: France and, still far more, the United States." Irish nationalism would need support from a major power. Engels didn't see any reason for any immediate US action - although thought the situation would be different 20 years further on. Assuming the possibility that he might also be wrong he went on "However, if there should be danger of war with America, England would grant the Irish open-handedly everything they asked for - only not complete independence, which is not at all desirable owing to the geographical position"
Geography! That's the reason that Britain retains its attachment to the North of Ireland, and why Irish nationalists and Britain's imperialist rivals court each other. That Ireland is a potential springboard for an invasion of Britain is still relevant, even in the age of the inter-continental missile.
Hitler was well aware of the strategic importance of Ireland, in particular as a base for attacks on the ports and industry of NW England and Scotland. In December 1941 he mused that "The occupation of Ireland might lead to the end of the war". Earlier that year a diversionary German paratroop attack on Northern Ireland was planned (to coincide with German attacks on the southern English coast). Before the idea was shelved, a date was chosen - in April, the 25th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
In Churchill's autobiography there is a famous passage (1922ish) where he muses on the things that had changed since the Great War and those that will always be the same: ‘whole empires had disappeared in that great cataclysm… the boundaries of many countries have been re-drawn… But when the floodwaters have subsided and we look across the landscape, we see again in all their glory, the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone. Only the integrity of their quarrel remains undiminished…’ As someone who had participated [!]more than most in Irish affairs Churchill had an axe to grind. He tried to make out that the 'quarrel' began and ended on the island of Ireland. Showing how so-called backwaters fit into the global picture is a difficult but important task.
Jan 15 2008 16:48
#196
Quote:
"My interest here has been in the mode of discourse more than its topic". Oh that discourse! This is probably where the difficulty lies.
You mistake my conscious choice for an unconscious error.
Quote:
An interest in "mode of discourse" is bound to come up against any serious attempt to establish a method that can be used by the working class.
No - one doesn't necessarily exclude the other. But do carry on teaching the working class the method. The revolution will only arrive with ideological conformity and when we all talk like ICC clones.
Jan 15 2008 17:42
#197
I think it's simplistic to see IRA bombs as against British imperialism on one hand and IRA "peace" on the other as, perhaps, somehow neutral. There's an idea expressed in the post of Devrim and revol above that "peace" is somehow not part of imperialism - the pacifists would agree with that one, in fact that's their position.
The peace talks were as much, if not more about US manouvres against British imperialism as the bombing campaign. Just read all the papers at the time and you will be easily able to verify who was running the "peace process" against the interests of whom. Gadaffy wasn't in charge of the Irish "peace process", the US State Department was. "Peace", capitalist peace, is, and has always been, just as much a part of inter-imperialist rivalries as war. So too for Ireland.
And as for understanding "national liberation movements", I think it incumbent on revolutionaries to recognise the stinking corpse of nationalism when it's rotting right under your nose - no matter how many books you[ve read or what your university degree was.
Jan 15 2008 21:44
#198
I'm open to correction - but after reading through this thread I still don't know what Ret Marut actually thinks about all this. I've gathered that he thinks the ICC is wrong... but what does he actually think himself about what the IRA represents and the reasons behind the various twists and turns in its history? And the relationship between the IRA and the US government (which clearly existed at some level or other).
I get the impression - and again I'm open to correction - that there is a sort of general unwillingness amongst those who are opposed to the ICC position to consider the idea that secret "conspiracies" do exist - if by that you mean that there is a lot goes on under the surface that it is extremely difficult for us to know about until long after the event. I remember in my long-lost youth reading the Pentagon Papers (anyone remember those?) - you wouldn't believe the degree of deviousness (at least I couldn't in my young and innocent days). More to the point, what goes on under the surface is often the direct opposite of what we are presented in the official version: I mean, if the ICC told us that the US government sold weapons to an enemy power in order to finance an illegal gun-running operation to drug-traffickers in South America, then revol & Co wouldn't believe them, I imagine. And yet it happened! Dohh! 
Surely this is one of the things that revolutionaries are supposed to do: to strip away the false surface of the bourgeois world and reveal the sordid reality underneath. One of these myths is the so-called "special relationship" between the US and Britain which was largely an invention by the British for the benefit of wartime propaganda - they desperately needed US help at the time of course, but they were not going to hand over the empire just like that. It was only after being stitched up by the US over the Suez business in 1956 that the Brits more or less decided that "never again will we do anything without the Americans" - but that doesn't mean they liked them or trusted them, nor does it mean that the Americans liked or trusted the Brits (not 100% anyway - the Brits were the only country in the world that ever got given a nuclear bomb).
By the way Ret, I don't want to be rude... but haven't you noticed how much like clones so many anti-ICCers sound? Though I admit they don't all have revol's witty way with the vernacular. Perhaps it's time to stop worrying so much about the language and talk about substantives...
Jan 15 2008 23:36
#199
LJ Silver wrote:
I get the impression - and again I'm open to correction - that there is a sort of general unwillingness amongst those who are opposed to the ICC position to consider the idea that secret "conspiracies" do exist
Where has anyone expressed that here? It is the standard ICC defense and dismissal of specific criticism to claim so - and it may serve the grouplet self-image to imply that criticisms of and disinterest in discussing your conspiracisms are based on a naivety about the covert state and a softness on nationalism. But that's not the case here. Your observations that states and nationalist groups are devious and enter into various opportunist relationships are not, IMO, as great a revelation nor as key to understanding capitalism as you appear to think (as Khawaga & Bugbear pointed out on the 'machiavellian' thread). There are plenty of right wing conspiracists.
For example, I put this in the library in 2006; http://libcom.org/library/allied-multinationals-supply-nazi-germany-world-war-2 - and I found it very interesting, but I'm not going construct a political identity out of it, make it that central to my analysis of capitalism, or attempt to patronise others due to my 'possession' of that knowledge. That would be naive.
Jan 16 2008 03:18
#200
trenchone wrote:
Quote:
Hitler was well aware of the strategic importance of Ireland, in particular as a base for attacks on the ports and industry of NW England and Scotland. In December 1941 he mused that "The occupation of Ireland might lead to the end of the war". Earlier that year a diversionary German paratroop attack on Northern Ireland was planned (to coincide with German attacks on the southern English coast). Before the idea was shelved, a date was chosen - in April, the 25th anniversary of the Easter Rising.In Churchill's autobiography there is a famous passage (1922ish) where he muses on the things that had changed since the Great War and those that will always be the same: ‘whole empires had disappeared in that great cataclysm… the boundaries of many countries have been re-drawn… But when the floodwaters have subsided and we look across the landscape, we see again in all their glory, the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone. Only the integrity of their quarrel remains undiminished…’ As someone who had participated [!]more than most in Irish affairs Churchill had an axe to grind. He tried to make out that the 'quarrel' began and ended on the island of Ireland. Showing how so-called backwaters fit into the global picture is a difficult but important task.
Hitler was so well aware of the strategic importance of Ireland that he quickly forgot his plans to invade.
Churchill also keenly aware of the strategic imporance of Ireland threatened to invade then offered reunification to de Valera for the Republics abandoning of neutrality.
De Valera, more concerned with the Irish language and green post boxes, declined reunification as Churchill hadn't conslted with the Unionists!
More bizarrely, for those who mechanically see some unified singular direction to interimperial conflict and to the interests of British imperialism is evidenced in the British state hand over of the treaty ports to the south in 1938.
Cutting out snippits of history does not cut it. I suppose I'm handing the ICC current ammo in pointing out that once america got involved in WWII Northern Ireland became a base for thousands of American troops - something that the neutral south of Ireland declared as an invasion!
Most of British imperialist feeling was in favour of home rule within the empire for Ireland before the start of and into the early 20th century - the supplanting of the IPP with Sinn Fein in the south and Unionist opposition to Home Rule (both in terms of opposition to Irish Nationalism and to Westminster) put paid to that.
If anything WWII woke Westminster up to the significance of the geographic location of Northern Ireland particularly at the start of the Cold War after a period of complacency and wanting to keep Ireland, particularly the north, at a distance.
As for the US and the peace process consider that Unionists in all likelihood secretly wished 9-11 and Americas new-found 'anti-terrorism' had happened a decade earlier, then, the reasoning goes, they may have been given the resources and a free hand to really take their war to their 'terrorists'.
Well, It could be argued that (and I don't argue it because I don't know enough about the situation) the IRA was a aligned with the US as an army after the 90s but the US wanted a serious proxy party instead of a proxy army, especially because of the terrorism thing so it told the IRA to decommission. US making IRA start taking decommissioning seriously after 9/11 is something that strengthens the argument about IRA being aligned to the American imperialism. Besides obviously no one is arguing that US is using the IRA as a proxy army now as the provo IRA doesn't exist as an army anymore as far as I know.