MIM Notes 230                   March 15, 2001

German Green leader smiles while Uncle Sam bombs Iraq

by mim3@mim.org

Green party leader and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer met 
with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell February 20th regarding 
the U.$. bombing attack on Iraq on February 16th. Fischer posed 
for a photo opportunity for Powell, smiling and shaking hands.

The German Green was not able to condemn the attack but instead 
came out in the press saying while Germany did not support the 
attack, it "understood" the attack.(1) MIM covered Fischer's past 
in the armed struggle movement and his sellout with the Greens in 
the July 1, 1999 issue about the U.$. attack on Yugoslavia.(2)

To get an idea how bad this Green is, the relevant comparison is 
that U.$. lackeys in Egypt and Jordan condemned the attack, 
likewise, Turkey.(3) Meanwhile, outright imperialists France, 
Russia and China who are permanent members of the U.N. Security 
Council said the attack had no legal basis. Iran, which had a war 
with Iraq in the 1980s, denounced the attack's "'carnage.'"

Somewhat scientific for an imperialist, British Labour Party 
parliamentarian George Galloway said U.$. and English policy is 
"boosting his [Saddam Hussein--MC5] standing around the world 
rather than reducing it."(3) Such a well-behaved imperialist in 
contrast, this Green Joschka Fischer stood there and smiled with 
Colin Powell.

As in the Green inability to oppose the attack on Yugoslavia, MIM 
says that this incident proves why struggle for scientific 
principle and anti-militarist vision is necessary in the movement, 
including purges of movement leadership and members who stray from 
basic anti-militarist principles. Fischer should have been purged 
from the Green organization before he was able to corral support 
for actions opposed to the alleged principles of original Green 
movement organizers. These organizers worked hard only to have the 
political momentum and culture they built up stolen from 
underneath them.

Many imperialist country middle-class activists put pressure on 
MIM to water down and tone down its line and they call us 
"sectarian" when we struggle for principle. It is not sectarian to 
struggle for principle. It is only sectarian not to unite all who 
can be united on behalf of the international proletariat or any 
oppressed group. In other words, if arguments over principle 
become bitter and obvious unity in action suffers, then there are 
people guilty of sectarianism, which Mao defined as putting an 
organization's interests above that of the proletariat. In our 
case, it would mean putting MIM self-interest above that of the 
proletariat. It means there is no excuse for failure to unite 
around opposition to U.$. war against the Third World or in 
support of the Vietnamese workers being super-exploited in Samoa, 
no matter our differences on other questions.

Recently, a signatory on our W.E.B. Du Bois birthday celebration 
accused MIM of sectarianism--not for failing to act with him 
despite our disagreements--but for talking principles with this 
persyn on a one-on-one basis. The signatory said MIM did not "play 
nice" while telling MIM in private that we were for "infinite 
repression," and we should learn from Khruschev on liberalization.

There are no two ways about MIM's stance on the dictatorship of 
the proletariat and capitalist restoration after Stalin in the 
Soviet Union. MIM is going to have bitter disagreements with 
anyone who comes our way and consciously calls the USSR after 
Stalin "socialist." Sectarianism is not a matter of tone, rudeness 
or scientific principle. Sectarianism is what happens after bitter 
struggle. One of the signatories who was working with us before 
the question of Khruschev came up in private discussion no longer 
works with us and called us sectarian for his breaking from us. 
Yet it was not us that ceased a course of action in areas of 
unity. Hence, we should be aware that most sectarianism actually 
has a Liberal backdoor, but many Liberals are propagating their 
wares in the name of fighting "sectarianism."

The pre-scientific middle-class activists of imperialism are going 
to put pressure on MIM, just as the lumpen-proletariat is going to 
put anarchist pressures of another sort on MIM. The German Greens 
are proof why we cannot listen to these petty-bourgeois activists 
who think it is possible to tone down the struggle over principle. 
One day Fischer was supposedly throwing bombs against the German 
state and another day he is shaking hands with Colin Powell in 
"understanding" of the bombing of Iraq. To get from one place to 
another, Liberalism greased the skids.

Notes:

1. USA Today 21Feb2001, p. 11a.

2. MIM Notes 189, 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn189/greens
.txt

3. Christian Science Monitor 21Feb2001, p. 1.