Re: Who the hell is Jack Duvall?

["M. Junaid Alam" <redjaguar@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am sorry I cannot answer directly as to Duvall, but this kind of
"pacifism" is a noxious disease and should be treated as such. For the
movement the looming question should not be about plotting various ways
to get rid of Saddam--that this has become an obsession in some quarters
is purely, 100% a function of American propaganda as part of the war
hype. There are some duped people who are unconsciously but nevertheless
objectively reinforcing the reactionaries. Let me clarify:

Saddam has been there for 30 years--and so now, at this precise moment,
when the Iraqis are about to be bombed to smithereens, why should it be
our priority to split our heads and our focus in figuring out creative
ways to get rid of Saddam? Part of the trick the ruling class plays on
us is to predetermine the lines of debate, the spectrum of opinion.

So in this case, many people start off in agreement with the baseline
media claim, "Saddam is a bastard", and go on to differ via the "but..."
line. That kind of thinking has the priority all reversed--that Saddam
is a bastard is secondary if not tertiary concern, because the primary
thing is the defense of the 25 million Iraqis, 50% of whom are children,
from the brutality of American bombs and tanks.

"The Man is playing some tricky logic on you" as X would have said. This
mental gymnastics exercise in finding non-violent ways for white Western
students to contemplate how to overthrow Arab dictators is making a
fucking joke, it is a neutralization and a neutering of, the potential
for _real_ anti-war forces. Because in the last analysis it is the US
that is going to remove Saddam and in the process liberate tens of
thousands of Iraqis from their life on this earth, so the sudden
obsession with how to get rid of Hussein is a decoy.

According to Duval's position the real thing is to get rid of Saddam--he
is the main evil, and his removal the highest goal--and the fate of the
Iraqi people is secondary. The only way around this is to argue that
Saddam is worse than an American invasion and therefore an American
invasion is preferable to doing nothing, but in the end this argument is
just a confirmation of Duval's position being objectively pro-war.

Not only that, but under the surface, all this pacifist pandering and
moralizing about Ghandism and non-violence is only different in that it
is these characters, as opposed to say Rumsfeld, who will liberate the
Iraqis with their half-baked contextually castrated utopian visions
instead of cruise missiles. This is a complete waste of time, for it is
the missiles and not Ghandis which will be falling from the sky.

Therefore, the concrete political objectives of any meaningful anti-war
movement anywhere must prioritize the defense of Iraq's society, not the
defense of imaginary ideas about removing Saddam. Our anti-war movement
must be capable of meaningful, flexible, and dynamic political action,
and that requires political consciousness.

I say, expose the bastard, and cut off the gangrene limb of noble
imperialism pandering as pacifism.


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