Do You Support the Iraqi Resistance Movement?

[luka]

Every newspaper whether pro or anti the war argues that, now we've go on in we have to stay to finish the job. every newspaper supports our boys over the iraqi resistance.

is this necessarily the right attitude to take?

the more i think about it, the less sure i am. so thats why i want you to tell me what the answer is.

if you think the war was a bad idea, why should you want it to end in success?
it'd just encourage them.

(i know, i know, iraq is boring now, i apologise for bringing it up)

 

[john eden]

From what I've read, the Iraqi Resistance wants to impose a hardline islamic state on the population of Iraq. So an emphatic NO. That doesn't mean I support the occupying forces tho. I think I am working from a basic position which is that the whole situation is totally fucked up.

However what I've read must only be part of the story. There may well be bits of the resistance which are trying to do something more progressive.

For example, there were huge mutinies at the end of the first Gulf War which seemed really good.

Some material on this here:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/tendays.html (and elsewhere on the site.

The other question is "how will this support manifest itself?". One can support all sorts of things from one's armchair but it doesn't amount to much.

 

[Wrong]

You don't, it seems to me, have to support the Iraqi resistance to think that the occupation should end. Indeed, given that the longer the occupation has gone on, the more support for the resistance has grown, there's an argument that, if you oppose the resistance, you should also oppose the occupation.

Besides that, the two questions that I think need to be considered before answering the question in your post are:

a) Who are 'the Iraqi resistance movement' - Zarqawi? Sadr? Sistani? The Unemployed Workers Union? I think considering this puts into question the idea that Iraq would become a islamofascist warzone the moment Western troops leave. Of course some of those against the occupation are terrorists, but there's also a nascent civil society in Iraq which is being harmed, not helped, by the occupation.

b) What is the 'job' that 'our boys' are doing that they have to stay and finish? At the moment it seems to consist of oppressing people and killing civilians. Apart from the rhetoric of the British and US governments, is there any evidence that the occupiers have any interest in real democratisation in Iraq?

Also, I agree completely with john eden's point that it depends what we mean by 'support' -- if 'support' just means our moral approval, I don't think it really matters much; if I were planning to give material assistance to some anti-occupation force, I guess the first thing I'd need to do is find out a hell of a lot more about the different elements.

 

[luka]

its called the thought forum. that means, support by not doing anything. just saying it.

 

[sufi]

definitely.
iraq is the state that has been occupied, and i believe that iraqis have the right to resist occupation.

i'm sure that noone will tell me that they wholeheartedly believe the view of the fighters that we see in uk or us is unbiased, does anyone get al-jazeera, or read the arab press?
the islamists have sadly been very successful in colluding with the western media by producing particularly brutal snuff that seems to have monopolised the tv reports of the war & seems to be irresistable propaganda, but there are other currents within the movement that are not islamic

at the same time, the conflict has got undeniable religious elements - i think that the ease with which the invasion can be seen in the middle east as a xtian crusade has encouraged resistance to express itself in religious guise for nationalist, ethnic, or other political aims, this trend is exacerbated by the tensions within iraq between religious factions who have militarised in reaction to the unstable situation.

(shouldn't have to mention: of course i reject violence against innocent people which both sides unfortunately revel in, i strongly support the right of iraqi resistance)

 

[...]

I'm trying hard not to be provoked here.

 

[k-punk]

'Finishing the job' of course entails completing the task of turning Iraq into a stronghold of Islamofascism, because that is what they have achieved thus far.

Zizek is right to say in The Borrowed Kettle that there is a kind of perverse cunning of reason governing US foreign policy such that it always produces what it ostensibly most abhors. In deposing the pragmatic tyrant Hussein, they have created the conditions for the emergence of the enemy they 'officially' most oppose (an enemy of course, as we are well aware, that they contributed to producing during the Cold War).

One thing that's interesting about the coverage of Iraq is that more or less everyone - pro or anti - assumes that the Crusaders have a clear objective and a clear motive (whether benign or malign) for their intervention there. But this seems to me far from clear. The confusing and confused conflicting rationales for the war are not a mere ideological dissimulation: they reflect the US's own lack of clarity about what their aims and objectives are. The best explanation for their intervention is neither the high-minded but totally dangerous creed - there is no more dangerous ideology in the world today - of do-gooding neo-con meddling NOR straightforward cynical expedience (they want oil). It is a desperate acting out of pain, a pain that is as much to do with wounded pride as anything else. The American belief in US superiority is properly transcendental in the Kantian sense: it is not so much a political position as the unthought presupposition of all Amerikkan so-called democratic culture. 9/11 was the first sign of that cracking (there are people in the world who don't want to be American -- that's impossible, surely), but that will seem like nothing when the US becomes a province of China in ooooh about five years max.

 

[luka]

well, as you can probably guess oliver, i asked this question to provoke you. i think eden misunderstood the question. the question can be simplified. do you want america to be free to impose its will on iraq or would you prefer to see the resistance (not, presumably a homogenous bunch, but all with the shared aim of defeating the americans and removing them from the country) chase the invaders out before they've acheived whatever it is they set out to acheive. i think, by and large, i'd prefer to see the americans and their cronies booted out and humiliated.

 

[luka]

sufied, i think, sums it up in his second sentence. you may not, in an ideal world, have wanted a communist state in vietnam, you may well have recoiled in horror from some of the tatics the vietcong used, and condemmned the atrociteies commited (though of course they always happen on each side)but you may well still have supported the populations attempts to resist the american invasion.

 

[k-punk]

The implicit - or not so implicit - racism of the Neocon crusader position can be summed up by an analogy.

Imagine Britain in the reign of, ooh let's say, Queen Mary.... a vicious tyrant, burning opposition to her reign right left and centre. Would people support the idea of a foreign power coming into Britain, deposing the evil monarch (and the monarchical system) and imposing 'democracy'? Or would they think that the people of Britain must find their own way to this alleged holy grail?

Neoconservatism is soft fascism in a very precise sense. It elides the interests of humanity as a whole with the interests of a very specific group with a very specific ethnicity. And as The Economist argued a couple of weeks ago, Blair is more neo-con than most Americans. And why? Because of his missionary, messianic zeal. He doesn't have to be persuaded by any 'deals' to go along with the Crusader masterplan; he believes it, believes it wholeheartedly. The public school and Oxford education paid off well. Blair is now unable to imagine that he could be on the wrong side. He is good because of the 'sort of person' he is and NOT because of what he does. On the contrary, what he does must be good, because it is him doing it.

So his bombing children cannot possibly be bad. Because _he's_ a good person. Not like 'those people', the 'savages' who kill in cold blood instead of from 10,000 feet.

 

[...]

Right Mark, so what's the exact ethnicity of neoconservatism?

 

[captain easychord]

'that will seem like nothing when the US becomes a province of China in ooooh about five years max.

if you have the time i'd like to hear more about how you see this happening mark.

 

[redcrescent]

@ Sufi, @ Wrong (you're not doing your name justice here) : Total agreement.

The rise of Islamist movements in a fairly recent phenomenon in Iraqi history*, and I think their present success is partially due to the fact that Islamists give the disparate resistance forces religious/ideological/philosophical justification for their actions, thus hijacking, as it were, the widespread popular support for legitimate resistance for their own purposes, which is to assert themselves as the main political power in a post-Coalition Iraq.
It is in the Islamists' interest to make the struggle a religious one (which is made all the more easy if your enemy doesn't stop repeating that his God is on his side), and one could argue that it is in the Coalition's interest to appear to be fighting fundamentalism (embodied, as always, in the figure of one top badman, e.g. Zarqawi) while all sorts of devious agendas can be carried out and troop presence maintained even after elections, ostensibly to 'protect democracy'.
This "war" (and it's a "war" because the rules of war are not applied) is self-perpetuating and unwinnable, as is indeed the greater "War on Terror" (like the doomed "War on Drugs"). This is so painfully obvious that one must openly question who the main beneficiaries of this permanent state of "war" really are.

* Iraq was one of the most secular Arab states even before the Baathists took power. It had, for example, one of the most organized, dedicated and long-suffering Communist parties in the whole of the Middle East, as well as a powerful pro-Nasserite Arab Nationalist movement.
All of which doesn't square up with the "haven for Islamic terrorists" theory, of course.

Lastly, may I recommend this site on Iraq?

 

[sufi]

good link redcres, thanks

may i recommend juancole

 

[redcrescent]

Thanks, Sufi, I've bookmarked him.

 

[Jules Bonnot]

Blair's Aristotelianism

I am enjoying Kpunks take on Blair’s conviction that he is essentially good and therefore he actions must be virtuous. This is very reminiscent of Aristotle’s Man of Virtue that is of an agent centred morality. I f we want to know what a good action is we simply look at what good men do. This is, of course, circular because we have no rational means of identifying the good man/woman without reference to their actions.
When Blair’s justification for war boils down to his constant assertion that "I genuinely believe it was right" he is asking us to take this agent centred approach, to believe in his fundamental goodness and therefore to accept his actions. The debate switches from one based on acts to one of Blair’s virtue. In the end the ultimate virtue consists in the conviction of the 'good' man.
The same ethical principle was seen at work in Bushes re-election. The voters were not asked to look at Bush’s actions in detail but rather to consider his virtue and integrity. The appraisal of his actions is unnecessary one must merely access Bush as a moral agent. So many times i heard on the young Americans saying they voted republican because they thought "Bush is a good man" this was as far as many of them could go towards justifying their choice.

In the ever more depressing political climate this is surely a worrying development. No action centred ethical theory seems to have retained any validity amongst the masses and hence world leaders no longer need to justify their actions only to say " I am a nice person. I must be doing good". This is perhaps the necessary ethical context for the complete stupefaction of the people, stripping them of their most human means of political critique that of ethical judgement. We cannot see Blair’s 'soul'. How are we to know he is good? Politics is about judgements of actions, judgements about the virtue of individuals is religious speculation. Emperor Blair is trying to coax us into faith based politics.

 

[MBM]

China & the US

Mark is exaggerating when he says 5 years. More like 20 (given current growth rates). If the Second Half of the 20th Century was about the competition between the US and the USSR, post 2020 will be all about the competition between China and India. China has the edge in manufacturing and current economic growth. India leads in services but altho is a democracy, it is still relatively "closed" in terms of Foreign Direct Investment.

Military might is predicated on economic might. That's why the USSR ultimately "lost" the Cold War.

And don't underestimate the desire in China to regain it's position as the Middle Kingdom (i.e. the Centre of the World). There's a lot of Han nationalism in China at the moment and the current leadership are doing everything they can to support it (i.e. it's a handy distraction from democracy).

 

[grimly fiendish]

if you think the war was a bad idea, why should you want it to end in success? it'd just encourage them.

i certainly don't want to encourage the bush/blair bellicosity, but i'd like to see some form of success. problem is, how is that defined? i mean, in this context, both "war" and "success" are so subjective as to be totally meaningless. are we still actively "at war"? if so, who with: is there a defined enemy? the closest analogy i can think of is northern ireland, and even that's way wide of the mark. and "success" implies goals ... well, personally i'd like to see the establishment of a democratic and free iraq, but i have a feeling that's a hopeless pipe dream right now.

at the moment we've got a situation where we (ie the british/american coalition) have reduced a state to total anarchy. the killing of margaret hassan is proof of that, if any were needed: AFAIK we still don't know who killed her, yet several disparate resistance groups have already come out and condemned the murder. so there is no common enemy: only anarchy.

given that "we" brought this state of affairs about, doesn't it follow that "we" have a moral duty to try to minimise the damage? no, i don't know how that should be done - i'm not a military or economic strategist - but i don't think walking away is the answer. if we turn our backs, isn't it likely that the islamicists will focus on toppling the nascent iraqi government; that within a few months there'll be all-out civil war across the entire country?

 

[gff]

"AFAIK we still don't know who killed [Hassan], yet several disparate resistance groups have already come out and condemned the murder."

i'd very much like to read more of this, can you (or someone) provide links?

i'll give western left supporters of "the insurgency" the benefit of the doubt; i won't accuse them of romanticizing anyone who takes up arms against the US (something a rightwinger would doubtless splutter)

but i do think there is a similar (poss. racist) patronization in the left-supporters' suspension of judgement of the islamists' motives (similar to the racism kpunk delineated, i mean) --> we'll read fanon and hardt/negri while they pick up AKs for their own reasons, we'll do the theorizing and they'll do the against-ing.

plus (correct if wrong plz, in light of recent developments) the solid pro-war (pro-bush even!) line coming from local lefts in SW asia sort of complicates things as well...

 

[gff]

again i guess i'm already guilty of shorthanding the resistance to "islamists," but i think my point still stands well enuf.

so if anyone can point me to some good material on who comprises resistance and why, i'd be grateful.