Whether to support fighters for national liberation or simply call for an end to the colonial war was a question during the Vietnam War, the Algerian War, and so forth.
That is not the case today with regard to Iraq, and no one in United for Peace and Justice has proposed that the coalition "support 'the resistance,'" for the simple reason that there is no coherent national liberation front that even makes a claim to political leadership in Iraq yet. I have all communications of the UfPJ steering committee and UfPJ Iraq working group to prove that such a question has never even come up. In the age of the USA Patriot Act, the trial of Lynne Stewart, and so on, I feel compelled to set the record straight here.
The question that did come up in UfPJ was whether to simply call for an end to the US occupation of Iraq or to call for an alternative occupation under the aegis of the United Nations or some such entity. I've discussed how that discussion went in some detail here: "Out of Iraq," October 4, 2004, <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041004/022379.html>; and "Rahul Mahajan on the Collapse of the Antiwar Movement," October 7, 2004, <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20041004/022681.html>.
In principle, the nature of Iraqi resistance fighters is not relevant to the question of whether to simply call for an end to the US occupation of Iraq or to call for an alternative occupation under the aegis of the United Nations or some such entity. The nature of US imperialism and roles played by such international bodies as the United Nations to further it are.
As a practical matter, however, even the question of US imperialism is irrelevant. The question is whether anyone -- from the nations in the USuk coalition or others -- really wants to go to Iraq to kill Iraqis and get killed. The reality is that no one is lining up to replace US soldiers, and a number of nations in the USuk coalition have already withdrawn or indicated that they will do so soon. The main body of the army of occupation in Iraq will be US soldiers, and ask yourself how long you want to force working-class American men and women to stay there, at the casualty rate of 9% or higher. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>