Naomi Klein knows better than to pander to these sorts. Bringing Najaf to New York is not only a non-sensical equation, its a morally offensive one. If the people of Najaf and Iraq could aspire sometime in the near future to an enth of the personal and political and religious and sexual and workplace freedoms enjoyed by New Yorkers how terribly much better they would be.
Better to bring New York to Najaf.
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It would be cheap and easy to pounce on Cooper for this but it would be pointless because the sentiment he expresses is fairly common in mainstream American left circles.
What nearly everyone wants to see is a series of peaceful demonstrations against occupation and some version of the work Ghandi and company performed in India – or at least, that movement as we imagine it to have been.
There is a kind of thick-headedness at work here – a refusal (perhaps an inability) to acknowledge the cause and effect chain unraveling in Iraq.
The Sadrists shoot at Americans because the Americans are shooting at them. Recall the way the Sadrist insurgency started a few months ago – Bremer publicly calling for al Sadr to be “killed or captured” after shutting down a movement newspaper and arresting several of his lieutenants. Things rapidly escalated. Each provocation has its origin in American actions. The causal chain is easy to follow if we only have eyes to see.
Al Sadr opposes the occupation because he is, as Juan Cole describes him, an “Iraqi nationalist.” The fact that he also happens to be a theocrat and command the loyalty of a rough and ready group of fighters whose ideas are distasteful to us is irrelevant. Whatever action the Sadrists choose to take against occupation in their own goddamn country is entirely their business since it’s their country that’s been invaded.
We can approve or disapprove (I’m not attracted to the allure of hero worship so I don’t see a need to lionize – though courage in the face of superior metal must be acknowledged) but our opinions are of little consequence.
Americans – including many lefties - cannot reconcile the raw reality of violent resistance with the fact it’s our countrymen and women who’re facing the business end of guerilla action. So we focus on the theocratic character of the Sadrist movement – it gives us something to hold onto as a pivot for criticism – and we declare these men to be terrorists.
They’re fighting Americans after all and this isn’t Vietnam – the young who called for NVA victory in ’68 are mothers and fathers now; mortgage payers who see the need for stability at home and support it abroad regardless of the circumstances. But stability is not always possible and the relentless push of American violence leads – inevitably – to counter violence.
This is an incredibly simple point but over and over again many of us refuse to grasp it. I think Tariq Ali said it best: “the occupation is ugly, how we can expect the resistance to be beautiful?”
American conservatives will continue to blabber on about bringing peace and freedom to Iraq and many on the left will continue to sweetly expect all Iraqis to stage lunch counter sit-ins when laser-guided bombs are falling on their cities.
Meanwhile, Iraq will evolve into whatever new thing it will become – morphing around and through the American presence.
The back and forth debates of Americans on the righteousness or evil of the Sadrists fade into the coming long night’s background noise as we slowly slide into complete irrelevancy.
.d.