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.