The IMT centrists are nice observers without a revolutionary program

Yossi Schwartz ISL (The RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 17.01.2024

Master Alan Woods knows how to use nice words and describe some quite well complex situations and sometimes even accurate facts, but as already German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once summed up his philosophical project with the words ‘So much the worse for the facts’. It was an audacious argument in favor of theory and against the journalistic concerns of the day.

In his article “The Middle East on the Brink: imperialists pour petrol on the flames” he relates the war between Imperialist Russia and the Ukraine. However, to avoid the necessary revolutionary position he refers to Russia as capitalist without any reference to the fact that it is an imperialist state, and by doing so, he does not support Ukraine in the military conflict without giving it political support. He writes:

“Biden is a sad remnant of the era of the Cold War when the USA was confronted by the power of the Soviet Union. With the collapse of that power, a section of the American ruling clique was captivated by the illusion that the United States, as the sole remaining superpower, could impose its will on everybody else without much difficulty.

At that time, the former Soviet Union was in a state of prostration, unable to assert itself on the world stage and led by the likes of Boris Yeltsin, a drunken comedian who behaved like a servile lackey, always ready to dance to Washington’s tune, like one of the dancing bears in an old Russian fairground.

But history moves on and much has changed since those days. Russia today is no longer weak and impotent. True, it is a capitalist country run by a voracious and corrupt oligarchy with a gangster standing at its head. But weak and defenseless it certainly is not”. [1]

Since in his description Russia is merely a capitalist state and Ukraine is a capitalist state there is no need to defend Ukraine against a capitalist-imperialist state.

Most of his article deals with the attack of the Anglo-American imperialists on Yemen.

“On the morning of 12 January 2024, the United States and the United Kingdom, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, launched a series of cruise missiles and airstrikes against Yemen.

The assault was announced in a blaze of publicity. It was presented to the public as an isolated action in response to alleged Houthi aggression against international shipping in the Red Sea. This is false on two counts.

Firstly, the argument deliberately propagated by Western propaganda, that the attack on Yemen was an isolated incident – a flash of lightning from a clear blue sky – is a deliberate lie.

The fact of the matter is that there has been a spate of airstrikes carried out by the Americans and Israelis against targets in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria – especially the last-named country – in the last few weeks. But all this was kept shrouded in secrecy.

The attack on Yemen was merely the culmination of these aggressive acts.

Moreover, it forms part of a pattern of aggression that has not yet reached its ultimate target.

There is another, even more blatant falsehood, namely, that this action had nothing in common with the Israeli attacks, which have resulted in over 23,000 mainly civilian deaths in Gaza.

Here once again he uses many words to describe how foolish the attack is but not one word on the need to defend the Houthis in the war without giving them political support”. [2]

It is not by chance that he stops the article in the middle without revolutionary conclusions like the need for the Arab revolution and without raising demands that will advance the revolutionary struggle of the masses in Yemen and in the Arab states Like armed revolutionary committees and councils nor does he call on the Arab states to join the war on the side of Hamas and Ansar Allah.

Kick out the Anglo-American imperialists’

Victory for the Houthis!

For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!

Endnotes:

[1] https://www.marxist.com/the-middle-east-on-the-brink-imperialists-pour-petrol-on-the-flames.htm

[2] Ibid