[lbo-talk] L.A. Times Bans 'Resistance Fighters' in Iraq News

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Feb 15 08:35:39 PST 2004



>Yoshie said:
>
>>In our recent discussion about the resistance (which, to me, is a
>>value-neutral word, encompassing both armed and unarmed actions
>>against the occupation) in Iraq, I was puzzling over some Left
>>Business Observers' odd insistence on putting the word "resistance"
>>between quotation marks in their subject lines and messages
>
>I used it in the title "Iraqi communists on "resistance"" because
>that is exactly how it appears on the two Iraqi communist websites.
>
>Grant.

Washington has offered many and varied justifications for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but none has, alas, withstood the test of facts. Perhaps, ingenious Left Business Observers can come to Bush's rescue:

Washington invaded and continues to occupy Iraq for the purpose of protecting defenseless Communists from Baathists and Islamists.

Unlike the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction and the like, the Iraqi Communist Party does exist, and the rationale has the virtue of being based on facts: there have been Communist victims of attacks by terrorists and a "Shiite mob," the victims who actually have thrown themselves at the mercy of American protection:

***** Iraqi Communists Make a Comeback Public Wake for Bomb Victim Reflects New Status of Long-Persecuted Party

By Pamela Constable Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, January 29, 2004; Page A16

BAGHDAD, Jan. 28 -- The funeral canopy stretched nearly a full block in front of Yasser Aboud's house in a rundown Shiite Muslim district of the capital. All day a stream of mourners came and went: men in Arab robes and business suits and greasy work pants, greeting one another soberly and sitting awhile under the tent to sip tea, smoke cigarettes and gossip quietly.

But even in grief, Monday's gathering was a political celebration of sorts. Two men were dead, victims of a terrorist bombing Jan. 22 at a neighborhood office of the Iraqi Communist Party. But for the first time after decades of furtive, underground life, party members could mourn their dead proudly, in public and by name. . . .

The general secretary, Hamid Majid Mousa, 61, sits on Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. . . .

The party still has enemies, as evinced by the bomb at its New Baghdad branch office that killed Aboud and another member, Shaker Jassem Ajeel. Mousa and other officials blamed former members of Hussein's intelligence and security apparatus, but conservative Shiite Muslim groups also harbor long-standing enmity toward the Communists, and a party office in the southern city of Nasiriyah was torched by a Shiite mob last summer. . . .

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58107-2004Jan28?language=printer>) *****

If the justification is unfortunately not very compelling in the USA due to its long-standing anticommunist tradition, it may still prove useful in Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Spain, etc.

"The other will stay protected so long as it remains the victim." -- Slavoj Zizek, "NATO, the Left Hand of God?" June 1999

WWBMFD (What Would Bakunin, Marx, and Fanon Do?) -- Yoshie

* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * 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/>



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