[lbo-talk] The Occupation

Willy Greenfields filthydirtyunwashed at yahoo.com
Tue Dec 21 13:19:21 PST 2004


Luke:


>Quoting Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>:
>>
>>
>>They're absolutely right to resist,
>>
>Why? So they can drive the bodycount up? I
>suspect most Iraqis wouldn't mind the US presence
>if we'd been able to provide security--the principle
>aim of the insurgency has been to make this
>impossible.

Approaching this differently, the advertised principal aim of the occupation is providing stability (or 'democracy,' though the attack on the country was not requested subsequent to an Iraqi plebiscite requesting same; nor were the appointments of Bremer or Allawi). Stability is manifestly absent in much of the country. Therefore why not revolt against an invading and occupying foreign force - one, incidentally, that quite likely has killed a friend or family member and whose very presence is an affront?

Why show anything but violent ('nihilistic' in Parenti's word) contempt for an army of occupation that can't even deliver the stability provided by the displaced authoritarian regime - one that was at least home-grown and therefore unlikely to provoke an outraged nationalism, a sentiment the Bushites never apparently considered.

I think yours may have been a tenable position months ago, when it looked as if the available public opinion surveys lent it creedence.

A related question, isn't anti-American sentiment fantastically widespread in Korea, where US military presence and support for paternalistic/repressive post-war regimes was far less bloody than anything visited on the hapless Iraqis? Why wouldn't our more violent preemptive actions provoke proportionally violent reactions?

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