> I'm pleased to hear that you don't, as I've always admired your work
> for FAIR very much and highly recommended it to local activists
> whenever I got a chance. I hope that others in (A) will also come
> forward and say that they don't actually agree with Rumsfeld that all
> or most resistance fighters are "dead enders." I don't think that
> you and John Lacny said _all_ resistance fighters (as opposed to
> probably the majority or at least many of them) are "Ba'athist or
> Jihadist criminals," but if Dwayne got an impression that "most" here
> (and "many on the left") have decided that they are, I'd have to say
> that he did capture the main message of (A) that resistance fighters
> are most probably mostly bad, that their actions are, on the whole,
> terribly harmful to all other Iraqis and the rest of the world, that
> what they are doing shouldn't be compared with anti-colonial revolts
> in the past at all, etc., even if he overstated the case a bit for a
> rhetorical effect.
I've said in the past that I think there are ordinary, disaffected Iraqis who've become resistance fighters. However, I do believe that the violent resistance is probably uniformly led by "Ba'athist [and] Jihadist criminals," and I believe that it is likely to serve reactionary ends. By the way, Yosh, though I know you won't read this, there _is_ a meaningful difference between Ba'athists who fight for the restoration of Ba'ath rule (e.g. some Ba'athist members of the violent resistance) and those who now go about the business of providing security for Iraqis (e.g. former Ba'athist members of the police force).
-- Luke