[lbo-talk] Iraq, the left and the 'resistance' (Geras blog)

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Feb 11 06:23:42 PST 2004


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> Seth Ackerman sethia at speakeasy.net, Tue Feb 10 20:45:58 PST 2004:
>
> [clip]


> >In Palestine, the armed factions don't target other Palestinians.
> >That's more like Abu Nidal's style, a madman who didn't deserve
> >support.
>
> "Palestinian militias summarily executed hundreds of collaborators
> during the first intifada" (Suzanne Goldenberg,

Bernard Fall, in one of his reports from Vietnam, mentioned that the French Resistance killed 4 or 5 fellow French for every German they killed. (I haven't looked this up again, and don't really remember the exact numerical ration; some data monger might check it out.)

In any case, for U.S. citizens to talk of supporting or not supporting this or that Iraqui faction makes about as much sense as proclaiming they do or do not support the presidential ambitions of Franklin Pierce. This is the absolute height of armchair pontificating.

The First Gulf War made certain that order would never be achieved in Iraq except through long and bloody civil struggles _after_ foreign interference had been ended. So the real bloodshed and the real hope for internal peace in Iraq won't start until the U.S. pulls out. Every day the u.s. spends there guarantees another week or so of chaos and bloodshed sometime in the future.

The U.S. has clearly declared war on the world. That has created a situation in which what we (as individuals) think about events elsewhere can be nothing more than a parlor game, and I'm disturbed that as shrewd a political observer as Seth is playing this game. We on the left have an obligation: we must do everything in our power to build domestic resistance to this U.S. attack on the war.

One of the reasons I have always condemned references to Bush or whoever as "fascist" or "nazi" is that it makes it more difficult to proclaim what is the clear truth: the u.s. role in the _world_ today (regardless of domestic politics or policies) is a far greater danger to the human species as a whole than Nazi Germany ever was.

And it is the U.S., not the Bush administration, that is the danger. Clearly "loyal" opposition to the Bush administration -- DP politicos, Foreign Affairs articles, what have you, does NOT challenge that basic thrust but merely objects to the manners of the Bush Administration.

Carrol



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