Pham Binh the Cruise Missile Socialist

The moderators of the website North Star, Pham Binh,  and Clay Claiborne, have been advocating for United States military intervention in the Middle East, for the past year. Such people, if claiming to be socialist, are referred to as "cruise missile socialists."

The problem with this position, is that the same arguments the cruise missile socialists use for U.S. military intervention in Syria, was used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This would require those who support U.S. military intervention in the region, as a positive development, to renounce  their previous opposition to the Iraq War.

This has been accomplished with a recent article in North Star:  10 Years After The Iraq War: The Inevitability of Failure — and of Success, by Chris Cutrone, March 23, 2013. Cutrone conveniently overlooks the fact, that the reason the armed resistance against the U.S. occupation ended, was the result of the mostly Sunni resistance fighting two wars. They were fighting U.S. forces, plus engaged in a civil war with U.S. backed Shia forces. Even then they stopped fighting, after a truce, not a surrender. The mostly Sunni resistance fighters, kept their arms, and were paid by the U.S., as a sort of militia.

Further support of the cause of cruise missle socialism, by North Star is allowing the comments section of this article, and another article, Reflections on the Anti-War Movement, to be dominated by supporters of this position. One of the comments, supporting cruise missile liberalism is as long as an article.

The cruise missile socialists conveniently leave out the terrible costs to the Iraqi people. The number of Iraqi deaths are estimated, as low as 100,000 and as high as 1,000,000. The number of Iraqi refugees, both in Iraq and abroad number between 1 million and 2 million. There is also the cost to the U.S. of close to 5,000 deaths and a cost of over $1 trillion. That's a thousand billions.

The cruise missile socialists conveniently leave out the economic goals of the U.S. occupation. This was  spelled out by, Paul Bremer, the first U.S. Pro Consul of Iraq. In his infamous "100 orders" which included privatization of the banks, fully privatized health care system, and the end of benefits such as unemployment insurance and old age pensions, Bremer's goal was to reintroduce laissez faire capitalism to Iraq.

Pham Binh started out, first trashing the entire left, then adopting cruise missile socialism, and now advocates the left to run candidates in Democratic Party primaries. There are those on the Left who consider Pham Binh,  his mentor Louis Proyect, and Clay Claiborne, (who was resurrected from political obscurity by Louis Proyect),  as "comrades." Do not include me in that group.

Peter Camejo and What Is To Be Done

The North Star web site, www.thenorthstar.info, as well as leftist bloggers, Pham Binh and Louis Proyect, moderator of Marxmail www.marxmail.org, advocate that all current Leftist organizations are useless in the cause to advance working class struggles and a should be disbanded. Binh and Proyect claim that organizations claiming to be Leninist are instead actually, "Zinovievist."

The late Peter Camejo (1939-2008), is held as a model of emulation by Proyect and Binh. Camejo advocated the US left use the Cuban July 26 Movement, and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, as models. What Camejo, Proyect, and Binh overlook, is that these movements came to power as the result of armed struggle, with no explanation how this applies to US conditions. The point of unity of both the Cuban and Nicaraguan movements was the overthrow of a particular dictatorship, not Socialism. Proyects irrelevant response to this contradiction is "read Lars Lih." Many of us find Lars Lih hard to read. The only effect Lih's writing has had for me was to cure my inflight insomnia. Thanks to Lars Lih, for the first time in my life, I can sleep during air travel.

The North Star Network, set up by Camejo, is held as a model of effective Socialist organizing. I was in the San Francisco Bay Area, during the short life of Northstar, the name sake of the North Star web site. The North Star Network, was for all practical purposes, a personality cult around Camejo. The organization disbanded, in 1988, not as the result of a democratic vote, but single handedly by Camejo. That says it all.

Camejo's supporters project Camejo as a dissident in the Socialist Workers Party. He was part of the inner membership until 1977, when he  began to develop differences with the leadership of the party. The time for Camejo to present his disagreements with the SWP leadership, would have been during pre convention discussion leading up the the 1981 convention, and at the convention. Instead Camejo decided to take what he claimed was a temporary leave of absence to "think thing out,"  at his family's estate in Venezuela,  prior to the beginning of pre convention disussion, in early 1981. The proper time for "thinking things out" would have been during the  pre convention discussion.

 The maximum leave of absence in the SWP was usually 3 months. There may have been exceptions to this. During a leave, members were still expected to pay dues, and if during a convention, pay the convention assessment that all members paid. Camejo did not pay any dues during his so called leave, nor did he pay convention assessment. Camejo was not expelled from the Socialist Workers Party. Camejo cut and ran, rather than participate in the 1981 convention. The claim that he was still a member during his almost year long hiatus, is the result of either hubris or arrogance on his part.

In 1983 someone I knew asked Camejo, why he didn't share all his disagreements with the membership. His response was, "I wanted this discussion restricted to the leadership." This response , along with Camejo's style of "leadership" and his unilateral disbanding of the North Star Network, would indicate that Camejo supported an elitist form of leadership.  This is hardly a model  that bears emulation.

Camejo's positive contribution was his ability as a public speaker who could articulate socialist concepts in popular language. His ability as an organizer did not measure up to his speaking skills. This is no great sin. No one should be required to be talented in everything. This is why having an organization, with divisions of labor, where the contributions of all can be utilized is so important.