The ebb and flow of the wardrive

Scan page 13

in SO 154 completely misunderstands Alan Thornett's background piece in SO 153 to such an extent one wonders whether the comrade had read the paper.

At least Mick accepts that there is now a new post-Vietnam world-wide imperialist offensive thus reducing his difference with Alan Thornett to one of an assessment of how the 'Falklands Factor' affected this surge.

In this sense he at least distances himself from the moralistic approach of the lead article of SO 152.

Middle-class This lead article, which does not mention imperialism, is full of good English middle class anger over the 'criminal' invasion of a Commonwealth country by Reagan.

The conclusion of this article was to limit the struggle against the invasion to protest inside the Denis Healey could possibly have written the whole of the lead article. The writer's theme was summed up by That should see off what's left of the Falklands Factor in British politics."

Objectively

Unfortunately the Factor was not limited by the nationalist boundaries of Britain, and Reagan shot to the top of the US popularity polls.

Reagan knew what the outcome of the invasion would be. He had seen the impact of the Malvinas war upon the fortunes of Britain's most unpopular Prime Minister.

He lived in the real world of deeds and not in the demimonde of Guardian readers' dreams.

Thornett explained: "After Carter under pressure from Pentagon generals® stepped up the US war drive, and drew the line. The US was not prepared to see El Salvador go next. Carter began to escalate military intervention in El Salvador. The same policy was echoed and amplified by Reagan. It was against this background that Thatcher's war in the South Atlantic had a major international significance.

In other words, Comrade O'Sullivan's catalogue of the steady build up of American arms prior to the Malvinas invasion was known about by everyone, including Alan Thornett (and Fred Halliday), but not by our leader writer.

The imperialist war drive is not some carefully controll operation under the command some imperialist in the sky.

Ebb and flow

There is an ebb and flow. And sometimes an unexpected break and the whole world has changed. Of course one can go back and say that there was this preparation made or this portent, but the most important thing is to grasp that change has taken place.

This lies at the difference between how a revolutionary wrestles with reality in order to change the world and a reformist describes the world in order to accept. For a reformist it is already written.

The US did not react the same way in Grenada as they previously reacted towards the struggles in Afghanistan, Angola, El Salvador, Surinam or Jamaica.

Difference

That is the difference Thornett is focusing on.

Atter Malvinas all has changed. No longer is there old fashioned destabilisation or aiding a few reactionary guerrillas. Today the US imperialist goes in with bombers and nuclear submarines. Real bombs are dropped killed.

One percent of the population of Grenada has been slaughtered in the invasion. The buildup has changed to war.

Nicaragua and Cuba are directly threatened by this new development. In the Middle East any opposition to the US policies is now threatened by the most heavily armed war fleet in the history of the world. We now know the US is not shadow boxing, they mean business.

Rambling

Comrade O'Sullivan's article shows in his descriptions of the build up of US military might how much he has broken from the long and rambling denials of such changes made by John O'Mahony during the Malvinas war.

He must make that extra effort to break from a method which denies sharp changes in the world. The beginning of understanding for workers is to face this new situation and to mobilise the working class in a struggle for power.

Not to make this break is to be part of the problem of working class leadership and not to be part of the solution in the struggle to reconstruct a new socialist vanguard.

These are world-wide tasks and must for members of the Socialist Organiser Alliance involve increased discussion and cooperation with socialist groups throughout the world in order to gather the forces which can turn the imperialists' offensive into their graveyard.

Wetoo have to make a leap in understanding if we are to survive upon the planet.

GARTH FRANKLAND, Leeds.

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The lead article predic- ted the exact opposite, but