> I was just laughing because you implied the "right of resistance"
> *requires* justification from anyone besides the aggrieved party.
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What a strange fellow. This is the exchange which provoked his giggles and
truly bizarre accusation that I favoured the invasion and opposed the
resistance.
1) I originally wrote: "I support the armed resistance, warts and all, on principled grounds (the right to militarily resist occupation) and because I think it's important that the US invasion is decisively repelled in Iraq, and seen that way around the world, including in the US. It will make future interventions much more difficult."
2) Luke Weiger replied that "the Japanese had no right to militarily resist the allied occupation after WWII" so why would one "argue that (self-described) Baathists and Islamists have such a right?"
3) Charles Brown answered Luke by pointing out that "an obvious difference is that Japan attacked the U.S., and Iraq did not attack the U.S. The U.S. war and occupation on Iraq are criminal under international law. It is legal ( there is a right) to resist an illegal invasion and occupation."
4) I agreed with Charles about the illegality of the invasion, but added my view that the right to resist an occupation shouldn't be qualified by whether the people belonged to a nation deemed to be an aggressor or not. I said "I reject justifying the right of resistance to foreign occupation on this basis alone, or even primarily. Defining the "aggressor", an abstract principle in international law, is the perogative of the victor...Accepting, though, that Japan was indeed the aggressor, I would still answer Luke's question as follows: if there were a popular uprising, especially one led by the underground Japanese left, aimed at ending the US occupation and replacing the government which MacArthur installed, I would have supported it without reservation - Pearl Harbour notwithstanding. Why should the Japanese or any people suffer occupation against their will for the transgressions committed by their former government, especially when the government has fallen into disfavour, as it had in Japan?"
Nothing especially counter-revolutionary about these comments that I can see.
MG