Social-Imperialists Dilemma And Their Ostrich Solution To It

In a post a couple of days ago, the social-imperialist AWL's Jim Denham wrote on his blog,

“Biden’s decision poses a real dilemma for those of us on the left who support Ukraine’s right to fight the invaders and to obtain the weapons it needs in order to do so.”

But, their solution to that dilemma is that of the ostrich, i.e. to bury their head in the sand and pretend it will go away. Denham, therefore, responds to the dilemma by instead engaging in an exercise of whataboutery attacking instead the Morning Star's criticism of the US decision, by pointing to its hypocrisy given that Russia has also been using cluster munitions in Ukraine, and has done so, in the past, in Syria.

But, the reality is that no such dilemma should exist for the AWL and other like minded social-imperialists, if they apply the logic of their argument consistently. As Denham says, above, as petty-bourgeois nationalists, who prioritise the rights of nations not proletarians, and who look to the state as their saviour, they argue that the nation state has the right to defend itself and to obtain the weapons it needs from wherever it can get them. But, on that basis, it is not just a matter of weapons from wherever it can get them, but whatever weapons it can get to achieve that goal, which logically not only means cluster munitions, but WMD, as well. But as petty-bourgeois moralists that leads them into a reductio ad absurdum, because they are, then, led to have to justify the use of these weapons to achieve their goal. Of course, Denham, refuses to face up to that dilemma as do the social imperialists in general. He ducks the issue, and instead launches into evasion and apologism.

So, he begins with the whataboutery, setting out the use of cluster munitions by Russia in Ukraine and Syria. Then he engages in sophistry and apologism.

For example, he says,

“In nearly all those cases, they were dropped indiscriminately, without regard to the lives of civilians. In fact, in some cases it’s clear that very often the intent was to attack the civilian population as well as enemy combatants. That is not the type of war Ukraine is fighting: on the contrary, the Ukraine government is fighting against an invasion. It seems highly unlikely that Ukrainian forces would use cluster bombs indiscriminately amongst their own population.”

Except that is not true. The invasion is, now, history, much as its history that Zionists long ago established the state of Israel, and its, now, an accomplished fact. Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine more than a year ago, and has now annexed that land, just as the Zionists occupied the land in Palestine, to create the state of Israel. Of course, some Palestinian nationalists, and petty-bourgeois, “anti-imperialists”, refuse to accept that has happened and continue to treat the land as Palestine, and so could likewise justify attacks on it in similar terms, but I doubt that Denham would support such a stance, and I certainly would not.

But, the argument is the same. The territory annexed by Russia, is not, currently, being invaded by Russia; that is history. It is now annexing it, not invading it. De facto, if not de jure, it is, now, Russian land, not Ukrainian land, and it is, now, Ukraine that is in the process of invading it, i.e. the much vaunted counter-offensive, not Russia. So, as I wrote the other day, the argument that Ukraine would not use cluster munitions on this de facto Russian territory, does not stand up.

And, Ukraine has already repeatedly used indiscriminate methods of attack. It undertook the car bomb attacks in Russia, and the bombing of a café that killed civilians; it used drones to attack Moscow, residential areas, it has shelled the Zaporozhia nuclear plant, where Russian troops are stationed, risking causing a nuclear accident, and it used HIMAR missiles, last December to attack the Nova Khakovka dam, damaging it, and was likewise, probably, responsible for the last attack on the dam that caused it to breach, resulting in widespread flooding of the surrounding areas. So, as with the social-imperialists whitewashing of the corrupt, illiberal, anti-working class nature of Zelensky's regime, so too Denham's response, here, is simply apologism, and painting in rosy colours the reactionary nature of the regime when it comes to its military methods.

Denham further justifies the supply and use of illegal munitions by arguing that they are needed because Ukraine has been using munitions at a prodigious rate, and is in danger of running out, because NATO has been reluctant in providing them. All nonsense. Not only has Ukraine been provided with the latest NATO military hardware, but, as the leaked US Defence Department papers showed, NATO Special Forces have themselves been fighting in Ukraine, and they would not have been doing that without adequate equipment. In fact, as numerous reports have shown over the last year, Ukraine has been receiving munitions from NATO countries at a rate faster than those countries can produce them, even leaving some of those countries short of equipment themselves.

Of course, where all that equipment and money goes when it reaches Ukraine is another matter, which I will examine tomorrow.