*General McChrystal Must Not Stand Alone- All U.S. Troops Out Of Afghanistan Now!

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for old time Marine Corps General Smedley Butler mentioned in the entry below.

Markin comment:

In the normal course of events the question of who, that is which military figure, is running an American imperial war, like that of the question of who is running the American imperial state is strictly a secondary question for anti-war activists. However, with the “Rolling Stone” magazine expose around the antics of now ex- Afghan commander, General Stanley McChrystal and his senior staff, I get a “teachable” moment. (By the way what the heck are generals and their buddies doing talking to “Rolling Stone” any way? I know that the magazine is not as of old, back in the halcyon 1960s, but still it is not exactly “Time” or “Newsweek”.) Moreover, I get a chance to once again make a fervent pitch for American (and international) withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Although the American bourgeois republic was founded on the principle of civilian control of the military, and that principle represented an important accretion in the chain of human progress at the time, it has always been a near thing. The annals of American history are filled with leaders who became president via some military prowess, earned or otherwise. At one point it was virtually impossible to obtain presidential (or other) election if one did not have some military service under his belt, even a “desk jockey” job like ex-president Ronald Reagan.

Still there has always been a great deal of pressure, many times behind the scene, to put forward a military candidate for the role of Bonaparte, a “national savior” in times of crisis, and sometimes with far less reason than that. The case of famed Marine Corps General Smedley Butler (see link above) in the 1930s comes readily to mind. He turned the “conspirators” down flat. But there has always been a subterranean current in the military that has “pined for” a military dictatorship to solve the problems of the country. With the enormous American military budget and bloated military bureaucracy it would be bizarre if that were not the case.

That said, it brings up an important point for militant leftists and anti-war activists. Yes, we want a socialist, and eventually a communist society, but we are not blind to the practical virtues of working for our goals in a bourgeois republic rather than a military dictatorship. Thus, if an attempted military coup, or other type action, took place to threaten that status we would fight, and be front line fighters at that, in military defense of the republic. While fighting politically, and fighting hard to show that our path is better. I take the case of the Spanish revolution in the 1930s as an exemplar of that position.

Since this latest “dust-up” between the American civilian and military elites has not reached that point we are left with this. In the words of a fighting soldier, a "grunt", so eloquently quoted as having asked, after losing a buddy in a firefight in Afghanistan, the now deposed General McChrystal this question- “What are we doing here?" Here is my answer; here is the ground that I will fight on. General McChrystal must not stand alone- Obama, Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S/Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan!