Re: AUT: RE: antiwar movement

[Thiago Oppermann <thiago_oppermann@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 23/3/2004 12:26 PM, "Thomas Seay" <entheogens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> --- Thiago Oppermann <thiago_oppermann@xxxxxxxxxxx> w
>> You can keep your soul squeaky clean and wait for
>> ever for the right
>> conditions, I suppose, but there are some very nasty
>> choices to be made
>> right now.
>
> Point taken, but whom do you support in that case?
>
> Thomas

It's a stinker, but unless the US is thrown out of Iraq, we can look forward
to many more Iraqs. The only force likely to accomplish that is the
despicable 'resistance'. Would I tell Iraqis to go kill themselves so that
we're spared a rampant US? No, I wouldn't do that. But the reality isn't
altered by my cold feet in that regard.

I essentially agree with Pilger: To wash my conscience of this repulsive
fact, my rationalization is that the blame for the current situation lays
squarely with the US. If they did not want Saddam, they could have not
supported him. If they didn't want to strengthen the hand of the Islamists,
they could have forced Israel into a compromise. If they didn't want a
vicious guerilla, they could have not waged war. The present situation was
foreseen by god knows how many people before the war, including the CIA, so
there can be no question of naivette. If you think it is repulsive to
tolerate Ba'athists in the hope that they defeat the US, I'd say that it is
more repulsive to wage a war on whatever pretext, knowing fully well what
the Ba'athists would do, in fact expecting far worse.

*  *  *

Having said that, there is one big problem with any choosing of sides, and
that is the Iraqi Information Nebula. It seems very difficult to get any
sort of sense of what is going on in that country. Everyone has an axe to
grind and, without wanting to perpetuate a stereotype, my experience lately
has been that the Iraqi representatives seem neither representative nor
trustworthy. How seriously can you take a Worker Communist Party guy who
claims 30k to 50k deaths as a result of the guerilla? That's an obvious fib.
As for their representation of workers and the unemployed (the UUI being a
WCPI front organization), the facts there are also entirely disputable. The
gentleman on Saturday suggested that 'thousands' were joining the UUI every
single day. When I pressed him about this, he suggested that such was the
influx of new members they couldn't give records... On a practical level,
their policy is to shut out foreign workers to give jobs for Iraqis; they
are nationalists through and through. Perhaps an argument can be construed
that this is sensible when you have 70% unemployment (another figure that
would seem  inflated), but I am not so sure.

Anti-war people around here are desperate to forge links with the Iraqi
left, such as it might be.  They face exactly the problems you raise: Who to
support? The people who arranged the meeting on the weekend, an absurd sect
called Worker's Liberty, have cast their lot with these clowns. The ISO has
conditional support for the guerrilla, a la Pilger or Tariq Ali. The Stop
the War Coalition has no idea, and are keen to send someone over to Iraq to
scout for less farcical or revolting allies. The Greens have sent Senator
Kerry Nettle to Iraq for pretty much that purpose; she has close links with
anti-war activists in Sydney, so I suspect we can look forward to relations
being forged with such people as may be compatible with the Green's
political outlook.

Thiago











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