Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>It can't be that Iraqis can't believe Iraqi resistance fighters
>would kill other Iraqis -- they know that resistance fighters have
>and will kill collaborators who work for the occupier as
>politicians, soldiers, policemen, translators, and so forth.
>Christian Parenti must have meant that many Iraqis attribute the
>sort of attacks that will make it difficult to unify Iraq to the
>work of US or Israeli intelligence agents. That is promising. They
>may turn out to be correct, and if they don't, they still have a
>usable myth.
Doug Henwood replied:
No that's not what Christian meant. (How is it that you & Carrol know so well what people really mean?) He doesn't have a high opinion of the Iraqi resistance in general - he describes them as nihilistic, willing to destroy Iraq completely to deny victory to the U.S. They don't care about killing innocent bystanders in a car bomb attack on a police station. They don't have any developed vision of what kind of Iraq they'd like to see if they drive the Americans out; he interviewed fighters who said they believe in "Islam and Ba'athism," but when he asked what that meant, they couldn't say much more. They're absolutely right to resist, and the U.S. has to be punished for invading Iraq, but that doesn't make the resistance good guys in any sense.
I'll be posting the interview later today or tomorrow.
Doug
~~~ <paraphrase?> "...they believe in "Islam and Ba'athism," but when he asked what that meant, they couldn't say much more."
Plug "Christianity" and "The American Way" into this quote, and you can see how it absolutely lacks anything resembling unique vision or insight into the mind of an Iraqi resistance fighter.
So what's the point... That Mr. Parenti cares more for the Iraqi people and interests than the Iraqis themselves?
How... Arrogant, and unlikely to be the truth.
Of course the Iraqi resistance doesn't represent everyone in Iraq... But to wait for some Iraqi national consensus before acting?
In it's current state of chaos *enforced* by our very presence?
Iraq may as well roll over and play dead... or play along?
Many nations that have been invaded over the years kill their traitors. Innocents are killed and maimed...and scorched earth? What of it?
It was one of the factors that broke the Nazi backbone in WWII Russia.
It's a tried and true strategy, and the Iraqi resistance is entitled to use it whether Parenti thinks it sucks... or not.
Civilians die in wars... sometimes stupidly.
I think Christian Parenti's comments above exemplify the reason why intellectuals are so often the first to be lined up and shot...
<Doug> "They're absolutely right to resist, and the U.S. has to be punished for invading Iraq, but that doesn't make the resistance good guys in any sense." ~~~~~~
If they succeed, the more atrocious deeds will be forgiven by the people of Iraq over time. They will be considered "good guys" that had to do bad things for their country.
If they don't succeed, there will be show trials and executions.
Leigh Meyers leigh_m at sbcglobal.net