Fighting about Saddam: materialism and emotionalism

[loupaulsen@xxxxxxxxx]

In an exchange with Tahir that I don't have access to at the moment, I wrote
something to the effect that:

"The question of 'defense of the Iraqi state' boils down to whether, when the
imperialists are about to drop bombs on the Republican Guard, you oppose them".

Tahir responded to the effect that "Of course I oppose imperialists dropping
bombs on the Republican Guard, but that's because I defend the Iraqi people,
not the Iraqi state."

Before the exchange gets really overheated, I would like to 'accentuate the
positive' here by expressing my gratitude to Tahir for being actually ready to
oppose dropping bombs on the Republican Guard.

Indeed, for the most part, I believe this increasingly heated polemic is NOT
REALLY about whether some of us are ready to -actually- defend the Iraqi
state -against U.S. imperialism-.  In practice, nearly all of us really ARE
doing it.  The people who REALLY do not do that are people like Marc Cooper
and Jimmy Carter and Chirac and Schroeder, who call for a 'speedy end to the
war' and tell us to stop demonstrating and so on.  Such people are mostly not
on this list.

However, some of us, like Tahir, are so emotionally repelled by the idea
of "defending Saddam Hussein" or "defending the Iraqi state" that it amounts
in my view to a political neurosis.  They can't admit what they are doing,
they are very conflicted emotionally about it, and as a projection of their
own inner contradictions they pick fights with other people who are NOT
emotionally conflicted.

Thus, the fight here is not mostly between people who are defending the Iraqi
state and people who are not defending the Iraqi state.  It is between, on the
one hand, people who are defending the Iraqi state with their eyes open, aware
of its dual and contradictory character, aware of its misdeeds and failings,
but concluding that, at present, in this defensive war against imperialism,
the Iraqi state is playing a progressive role, and consciously siding with it
without shame or guilt -- and, on the other hand, people who are compelled by
the nature of events and by their hostility to imperialism to side with the
Iraqi state, but who are horrified by that reality, and who are trying to deny
it with emotional and verbal flourishes, and who are shocked especially by
those of us who are saying there is nothing to feel guilty about, at whom they
strike out wildly.  It would perhaps not be going too far to call Tahir
a "self-hating defender of the Iraqi state".

The US are bombing the Republican Guard, which is an element of the Iraqi
state.  Tahir, CORRECTLY, would defend them.  However, he then tries to say
that this is not defending the state, no, it is "defending the Iraqi people"!
Well, precisely!  Precisely, because, in this situation, the main
contradiction is not between the Iraqi state on the one hand and the Iraqi
toiling classes on the other hand.  Precisely, because, in this situation, the
main contradiction is between the Iraqi people, INCLUDING THE IRAQI STATE, on
the one hand, and USuk imperialism on the other hand.

(It should go without saying that in a different situation there would be no
question of Marxists defending the Republican Guard - if the war crisis had
not developed, and if the Iraqi state were putting down a strike,
say.  "Defense" is always against a particular force in a particular
situation.)

I confidently assume that Tahir would also oppose imperialists dropping a bomb
on the officers' mess of the Republican Guard, or on a meeting of the top
officials of Saddam Hussein's administration (this was of course the opening
shot of the current phase of the war), or on Saddam Hussein himself.  The
comments above concerning the Republican Guard go also for the commander-in-
chief of the Republican Guard.  Imperialists have no right to kill ANY of the
Iraqi people, -including Saddam Hussein-.  Particularly as their motive for
doing so would not be to avenge murdered communists or Kurds, but to disrupt
the defenses of Iraq in the war of the present day.  We oppose them doing
that.  That is -defense of Saddam Hussein- whether you are happy about
admitting it or phrasing it that way or not.  It is not "defense of Saddam
Hussein against the Iraqi workers" or "defense of Saddam Hussein against
anyone in the world who might attack him at any time in the future for any
reason in any context."  It is "defense of Saddam Hussein against
imperialism," as a component part of "defense of Iraq against imperialism."

Thus, for the most part, this argument is not about actual activity, whether
we should have anti-imperialist demonstrations during the war and so on.
There is no argument among us about that.  No, it is about style, and slogans,
and the emotional connotations of verbal formulations, like whether you call
Saddam Hussein a 'freedom fighter' or not.  Looking at it unemotionally, once
you admit that continued resistance by the Iraqi forces, including those
organized by the Iraqi state and the Ba'ath, is better for the cause
of 'freedom' than their immediate surrender or their extermination, then you
have agreed that, in so far as Saddam Hussein continues that resistance, he is
a 'freedom fighter' in some sense.  But people's emotions get in the way of
accepting this; they aren't willing to call Saddam a 'freedom fighter' unless
he is someone they like and respect.  That's what the fight is really about.
I honestly think Tahir et al. think that Henry and I and the others on our
side of this dispute are actually -emotionally wedded- to Saddam Hussein, the
man.  I expect to be asked at any minute, "If you like him so much, why don't
you marry him!"

Coupled with this emotional reaction there is also a desire to appear
righteous in the eyes of people who have suffered under Saddam, such as
Kurdish nationalists, the Iraqi Communist Party, and so on.  I am entirely in
favor of calculating the effect of slogans.  However, I think they are quite
able to understand that in this situation our primary enemy is our own
imperialism and we have to be completely opposed to their war, and will not,
if they are serious revolutionaries, require us to adopt demands and
formulations in London or Chicago which do not assist us to mobilize against
that war.  Furthermore, in this situation, serious Iraqi and Kurdish
revolutionaries will be guarding, -above all-, against the danger of giving
any support to the imperialists, or of relying on them, or of becoming
identified with them.  How they do that is their own affair, but I have no
doubt they will recognize the need.

I would like to suggest, in any case, that those who want to continue the
debate, assuming this superbly reasoned contribution doesn't just settle it
like oil on the waters :-P, should at least ask if there is a material element
to what they are arguing against the other side, with practical implications
in our work in the imperialist countries.  Does this argument affect what we
demand, or what target we demonstrate against, or where we hand out leaflets,
or what?  Or is it about style and spin and emotion?

Lou Paulsen
Chicago