[lbo-talk] Qaeda at Work (was the Iraqi resistance at work)

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Tue Nov 21 13:53:17 PST 2006


On 11/21/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Nov 21, 2006, at 4:08 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > On 11/21/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Nov 21, 2006, at 3:08 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >>
> >> > Neither you nor Lenin nor anyone here is part of "the
> >> resistance," nor
> >> > can we be. We are out of the picture. Let Iran, Syria, and the
> >> Mahdi
> >> > Army solve the problem, for it is _their_ problem.
> >>
> >> Nothing human is alien to me, the man said.
> >
> > Don't be a surrealist. The international jihadists of the Al Qaeda
> > tendency are alien to you, me, Lenin, all of us here, and vice versa.
>
> No kidding. But I'm reacting to that argument that you and especially
> Carrol make - if it doesn't immediately concern us, we should shut
> up. Though Carrol doesn't ever apply that idiotic law to you.

We can talk -- as long as we drop surrealism. :->


> > I'd rather go to Iran and do people-watching at Vanak Square in the
> > affluent northern Tehran -- that's where chic cafes and nice shops
> > are, smartly dressed young people -- many of them secular and liberal
> > and perhaps English-speaking -- hang out, and those who are so
> > inclined can pick up hustlers and prostitutes (or so my Persian
> > teacher -- such a darling! -- tells me). :->
>
> Those aren't Islamists. Many of them are, in some sense, Moslems, but
> they're not theocrats, and would dearly like to see the theocrats
> deposed. Aren't those the very people you were recently denouncing
> while celebrating Ahmadinejad, who doesn't have much in common with
> the chic and smartly dressed liberals.

The kind of intellectuals we might meet while doing people-watching at Vanak Square write poetry, make films, etc. -- very good ones that we'd enjoy. They are cultured, beautiful people you want to have at your salons, dinner parties, gallery openings, and so on. But they are totally useless -- as useless as you and me -- when it comes to the task of politically and militarily defeating the demented Islamists who dream of the 7th century. For that purpose, we need battle-tested Machiavellis -- foxy republicans -- of West Asia -- like my Persian Prince, Hasan Nasralla, Ismail Haniyeh, Moktada al-Sadr, etc. -- populist Islamists who inspire fervent devotion among masses of poor devout Muslims who are incomparably hardier than liberals and leftists at Vanak Square and are therefore capable of fighting front-line battles of the 21st century in defense of modernity and civilization threatened by demented Islamists and imperialists -- and the secular dictatorships of Syria and Algeria. That is called a division of labor. Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx would approve. :-> -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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