Pinter: bang on, or just banging on?
Unsure whether I really wanted to comment on Harold Pinter's vitriolic attack on the US, as I felt to do it properly would require more time than I had available today. I did have a quick look around the 'blogosphere' to amuse myself with the disgust I knew it would have provoked, though was disappointed to find little mention of it. The scraps I did come across seemed to indicate a general feeling of contempt for Pinter's opinions.Citing Nicaragua, Greece, Chile, and many other examples of US intervention in foreign affairs, Pinter argued the US "supported every rightwing dictatorship in the world since the second world war" in the ruthless pursuit of Empire. While I'm no fool, who believes the world would be just fine if the US role in international affairs was suddenly withdrawn, I do believe that most conflicts the US now seek to resolve were actually either engineered or supported by them in the first place. In fact, I think it beggars belief that an American imperialist control of the world could be denied. The US government has, as Pinter points out, used secretive methods of stirring up trouble in order to tighten its grip on world affairs. He observed:
"Direct invasion has never been America's favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low-intensity conflict'. Low-intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death, the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say democracy has prevailed."
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Call me fool, but I think this is a pretty accurate analysis of US foreign policy. You only need look at their blatant disregard/contempt for international law. The US government has such a firm grasp of power they no longer need to pretend to observe the lilly-livered laws of the international community which they preside over.
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But anyway, I need to be elsewhere, I'll just leave you with a link to a discussion concerning the speech in the Harold Pinter website forums, which is good for a laugh.
posted by Phu @ 3:50 pm
3 Comments:
An associate reckons the US is always right in its meddling, and that it only interferes with countries that are dangerous potential enemies of the west.
Like Venezuela, perhaps? I'd have thought they constituted no particular threat to us. Blocking the sale of arms from Spain to Venezuela doesn't really seem to be looking out for the interests of the west, either. Spain IS in the west, isn't it?
Self serving control is what it is. And that's not a healthy way for the leader of the free world to operate, now is it?
America behaves like super powers always behave - in their own self interest. Britain did the same thing when it was a super power. Though I'm not arguing that that makes everything okay.
The issue I have with the anti-imperialist argument is that it tends to completely ignore the evils of other countries. They've got plenty to say about Bush, and never a word to say about Saddam. There's a kind of idea that the world would be a place of fluffy bunnies if only America stopped going around killing everybody.
We have a real worldwide problem with islamo-fascism at the moment, but the anti-imperialists cannot seem to see that. Even when they kill us with aeroplanes and suicide bombers, somehow that is "our" fault, never theirs. As an anti-fascist however, I don't see an issue about being honest about wrongs that America, or Britain, have commited.
But as you know, I support the war in iraq, and so this is something we probably won't find ground to meet on.
Well, to be honest I was never anti-Iraq, although I do have an issue with the treatment of civillians (which I would have an issue with in any conflict, whoever the parties involved.
This is a good point -
"The issue I have with the anti-imperialist argument is that it tends to completely ignore the evils of other countries"
It really pisses me off too. I like to moan about everyone, and Bush is actually below the Islamo-fascists on my list, as I hate pretty much everything about the way certain Muslim countries are dictated.
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