Too often I notice when a nation in the global south is targeted by the imperialists there are all sorts of people rushing to proclaim "critical support" for the said nation, even if it has no left-wing bent at all or is openly anti-communist. There are two problems with this.
First, all support should be critical support. Uncritical support is anti-Marxist and against the spirit of "ruthless criticism of all things". It breeds dogmatism which is poisonous to critical thinking. There is a reason why Mao railed so hard against dogmatism.
Second, it frames the discussion as to whether the said country is good or not, which is not the point of the political line. We do not support global south countries like Iran just because, especially if they are not socialist. We should not be centring the governments that are affected, but the imperialist actions themselves.
I see discussions about this where people end up talking over one another. After seeing someone proclaim 'critical support', someone else will point out said countries faults and as to why they are worthy of support. The first person will then say that because that country is under attack we should support them. These discussions usually go nowhere because both people are technically right, it's just that they are misunderstanding each other.
This is where my idea of replacing "Critical support to countries affected by US imperialism" with "Unconditional opposition to US imperialism in all its forms" comes in. The second slogan allows a lot more flexibility in thinking, instead of committing to supporting countries, you commit to opposing imperialism and nothing more. Your support for various reactionary anti-imperialist causes starts and ends with their opposition to imperialism. As soon as they stop you stop supporting them. If they do awful things you don't have to support them on that basis as it's not relevant to opposing imperialism.
What do you think?
I disagree. If you oppose military intervention in Syria, that's going to be equated to supporting Assad anyway, and if you hem and haw about that then it looks like a deflection. It also opens the door to "why do you hate the global poor" type criticisms, where it may look like your position is that Assad is a brutal evil dictator and we could liberate the Syrian people and save a bunch of lives, but you'd rather have free college, or you just think war is bad without looking at context or nuance.
Personally, I'd rather own it. I'd rather say, "Yes, although I don't like him, I think that Assad should remain in power because the alternatives are worse." This comes across as less about an idealistic grand principle that imperialism is bad, and more about having analyzed the situation and being willing to make a tough call based on the actual conditions. People (Americans, anyway) generally respond better to the latter than the former, we like tough calls and pragmatic decisions and we hate those ivory tower elites who don't know what the world is really like. Imo, your approach comes across as high minded and theoretical, which allows the libs to take the pragmatic line. Better to be a little edgy and let them piss and shit over "supporting dictators" and then when they're done you can calmly explain that actually, you agree that he's a bad guy, but you just don't want ISIS to come back or to have a repeat of Iraq.
Did people equate opposing the Iraq war to be support for Saddam Hussein? I do genuinely think that you can oppose intervention and attempts are regime change without support for the regime independent of imperialism.
Nah if someone is arguing that US military intervention in a country is good for the sake of the global poor then they are an imperialist CHUD and you should just tell them to fuck off. There's no convincing people who unironically think that "US world police" concept is a good thing.
Um, yes? Absolutely? Well, I guess more accurately it was equated to supporting Al Qaeda. Are you forgetting what the political climate was like post 9/11 when Bush had 90%+ approval ratings? When everyone was saying, "You're either with us or against us?"
This strikes me as really, really dumb. I'm sorry, but your whole way of thinking seems off.
Wasn't this whole post about being more persuasive towards people who support imperialist projects? If you're writing all these people off, then it doesn't matter if you alienate them by saying you critically support dictators. So what's the point then? If all you're trying to do is preserve your own moral purity, that's lib shit.
That aside, it's absurd to write people off for buying into that narrative. There's tons of propaganda pushing that narrative and it's easy to fall victim to it. In fact, you don't even need the propaganda, you just need to not be well informed about the history of US intervention. After all, these dictators are legitimately bad, and it's easy for a rational, well-intentioned person to think that intervention could solve the problem. Most people like that are just naive and misinformed.
So, like, I think your take is shit, sorry.