> I don't know what the Iraqi "resistance" refers to, whether it includes
> death squads who kill other Iraqis because they have the wrong ID or
> whatever, but I do know that that accounts for a very large part of the
> killing that's going on there, far more than the killing of US soldiers.
The vast preponderance of attacks carried out in Iraq are directed against US soldiers. The fact that it is rather harder to kill troops than civilians doesn't tell us anything fundamental about the nature of the resistance. As to what the term includes and excludes, we have to bear in mind that it is a political term, and bissects matters differently than the military-civilian divide: not all unarmed groups are excluded from the resistance, and not all armed groups can be said to be part of the resistance (because they pursue sectarian civil war, for example).
I find no point of convergence with these people, never mind
> "limitations" in their politics.
Who on earth asked you to?
> I also find the reference to "state
> violence" perplexing in this context.
So, the US army isn't part of the state machinery? Is this serious?
> that doesn't turn
> any of the factions involved into progressive forces of any kind. What
> sort of progress could this carnage represent?
You seem to be very willing to reduce the Iraqi resistance to "this carnage", but rather unwilling to find out what is actually happening and make appropriate distinctions. That's an even more grave abdication of the duty of engage with the total situation we're discussing than anything Carrol Cox proposed. Instead of trying to force everything into an unsatisfactory 'progressive'/'reactionary' dichotomy, it would be more appropriate to start from the point that the people of Iraq have a right to defend themselves against the occupation. For the purposes of establishing such a right, it is not strictly relevant whether those who do defend themselves are 'progressive'. It does matter to us in terms of how we as activists relate to those groups, whether they are Islamist, nationalist, or leftist. It has an impact on how Western leftists and liberals interpret the resistance. But in your hands it seems to be code for how to master an oppressed group before you deign to support it. Unfortunately, that's rather commonplace.
> But the idea that what we've got NOW is something to be
> supported, whether critically or not, is just the type of thing that
> people who are desperate for any kind of rhetoric that will distinguish
> themselves from liberals (and what desperation that is) indulge in.
> Never mind "moral purity"; this is what I call real indulgence. And the
> stupidity of it: In every conflict there must be one faction that is the
> progressive one. "Our" side is always represented somehow or other in
> any conflict. duh
You're the one who insists that you will only support the right of 'progressives' to defend themselves. No one else introduced that term. We are talking here about supporting the right of a people to defend themselves from murder and torture and carnage regardless of whether they conform to our ego-ideal.