>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Collins" <richard_collins1 at yahoo.com.au>
> To: <aut-op-sy at lists.village.virginia.edu>
> Sent: 11. april 2003 02.37
> Subject: Re: AUT: "Anarchy" in Iraq.
>
>
>
> Richard; I do not think it is that easy. You should not
> confuse how Bush & Co exploit these images and the
> very intense emotions arising in Iraqis when seeing
> and knowing the symbols of seemingly all-present
> figure and all-seeing eyes of Saddam being crushed.
> If the advocates of U.S_Brtish "liberation" had wanted
> to see, they would also noticed how they were
> being mocked in different ways.
>
> Also for the most frequently broadcasted scene, I have
> been told, right or wrong, that Iraqis had themselves all
> on their own struggled for hours to tear the column down
> before the U.S tanks were called for. Another thing, all
> the reports I have seen or heard tells about protests
> when U.S flag was was brought up, and similarily
> cheers when replaced with the old Iraqi flag. Not the
> one used by the Baathist regime.
> An Iraqi girl here, as firmly opposed to the war and
> the US.-British occupation as ever, expressed in her low,
> intense but not at all aggressive voice, the emotions
> these pictures brought forth in her: That while being
> strongly opposed to capital punishment, she wanted to
> see Saddam Hussein chopped into pieces bit for bit.
> Not a slow death but a drawn-out and tortured one.
>
> Whether we like it or not, these images represnted a truly
> historic moment. The end of a 35 years nightmare and war! Time
> to fight the (not so) new murdering Masters, exploiters and oppressors!
> It is possible to recognise this, wihout hating this war and
> occupation, and the years of sanctions which also assured
> and fortified the power of the Baathist regime, any less.
>
> Harald
>
>
>
>> Michael_E_Jackson at brown.edu wrote:
>> >A lot of my defeatist left/liberal friends have, in private, been
> expressing vague >bummed-outedness about the widely disseminated
> spectacle
> of statues of Saddam >being ripped down and the general liberation of
> repressed anger and desire, as it >plays into the idea that the US
> military
> is a liberating force.
>>
>> >I think it's really great. And I'm on the edge of my seat to see how
>> the
> US and UK >militaries attempt to "restore order," which they have to do
> as a
> condition of >UN/NGO aid...
>>
>> Surely people don't really think this is great? Its not about
> revolutionary defeatism. Its about understanding there's a difference
> between ordinary people rising up and smashing the Berlin Wall, or
> parading
> the head of a Stalin statue through the streets and ordinary people
> cheering
> while US tanks pull down a statue of Saddam.
>> The PM here in Australia has actually compared the toppling of that
>> statue
> to the toppling of the Belin Wall!!
>> The Iraqi people are not liberated. You can understand them cheering.
>> I'd
> cheer and smile at the US troops if I was about to go off to loot
> Saddam's
> palaces!
>> I see this celebration at the end of Saddam as the mirror image of
> defeatism. It reminds me of Sparts who say we should defend the Soviet
> invasion of Afghanistan cause the Soviet regime treated women better than
> the Islamists. There are no winners out of this other than the US
> military
> machine and right wing politicians in Britain and Australia. I see
> nothing
> to feel good about.
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --- from list aut-op-sy at lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
-- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy