webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Tue Mar 08 2011 - 23:48:01 EST
HUMANITARIAN IMPERIALISM
Using Human Rights to Sell War
*by Jean Bricmont
Translated by Diana Johnstone*
------------------------------
“In this stimulating book, Jean Bricmont effectively deconstructs
‘humanitarian interventionism’ and makes a good case that leftists who
support it are the ‘useful idiots’ of imperialism. He also provides a
broader critique of the Western left and offers a number of constructive
suggestions. This insightful book is chock full of enlightening case studies
and provocative arguments.”
*—Edward S. Herman*, Professor Emeritus of Finance, Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania
“Jean Bricmont’s provocative and carefully argued book deserves to be widely
read and debated in the progressive, ecological, peace, and human rights
movements. It may not be the last word on this subject but the issues
Bricmont raises cannot be ignored.”
*—Alan Sokal*, Professor of Physics, New York University
Since the end of the Cold War, the idea of human rights has been made into a
justification for intervention by the world's leading economic and military
powers—above all, the United States—in countries that are vulnerable to
their attacks. The criteria for such intervention have become more arbitrary
and self-serving, and their form more destructive, from Yugoslavia to
Afghanistan to Iraq. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the large parts of the
left was often complicit in this ideology of intervention-discovering new
“Hitlers” as the need arose, and denouncing antiwar arguments as appeasement
on the model of Munich in 1938.
Jean Bricmont’s *Humanitarian Imperialism* is both a historical account of
this development and a powerful political and moral critique. It seeks to
restore the critique of imperialism to its rightful place in the defense of
human rights. It describes the leading role of the United States in
initiating military and other interventions, but also on the obvious support
given to it by European powers and NATO. It outlines an alternative approach
to the question of human rights, based on the genuine recognition of the
equal rights of people in poor and wealthy countries.
Timely, topical, and rigorously argued, Jean Bricmont’s book establishes a
firm basis for resistance to global war with no end in sight.
------------------------------
*About the Author*
*JEAN BRICMONT* is professor of theoretical physics at the University of
Louvain, Belgium. He is the author of *Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern
Intellectuals' Abuse of Science* (with Alan Sokal) and other political and
scientific publications.
------------------------------
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----