Re: Defense of the Iraqi resistance?

[Lueko.Willms@xxxxxxxxxxx (Lueko Willms)]

in reply to: 
# Subject: Defense of the Iraqi resistance?
# From: Armand Diego <causebellum@xxxxxxxxx>
# Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 16:07:16 -0700 (PDT)
Web: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/msg34857.html
   
> I'm particularly not very excited about the BTTH
> slogan, particularly is it is linked to the "support
> our troops", etc but for what little I followed the
> most recent thread in the list, nobody is advocating
> the latter. 

   I find it quite strange to throw around these abbreviations, 
because it tends to reduce the fight to get the occupation troops 
out of Iraq to raising tactical questions about formulations to
principled level. 

   "Supporting the troops" came up quite forcefully during the fight
against the Vietnam war, where the opposition to the war took up the
govenment propaganda of "supporting the troops" in a rather ironical
way, saying that the best way to support "our boys" was to bring them
home and out of harms way. 
 
> Now, what about the dialectical "other side of the
> issue."  Are those advocating the BTTH , I assume,
> also in favor of "end the occupation?" 

   "End the occupation" becomes practical only by getting the troops
out of that country. One can sloganeer about "ending the occupation",
and fall in the trap that a withdrawal of the imperialist forces into
some sort of desert forts while leaving the day to day oppressive
work to "native" forces, would mean an end to the occupation regime. 

   No, the hard and real radical thing is to get the troops out of
the country, and not only beyond the borders of Iraq, but HOME, i.e.
beyond the borders of the USA (well some might argue, "home" for the
5th Corps means Germany, since right here in Germany there are many
spouses and other relatives of US soldiers in Iraq waiting for their
loved ones to come back unharmed). 

>     and what about
> "supporting the right to resistance to US occupation
> by the Iraqi people?" or something similar.

  When you think about this deeply, you would come to the conclusion
that this is another infringement of the right of the Iraqi people of
self-determination. Who has the right to proscribe what the Iraqis
may do or not do with the occupation troops? 

  Those troops have no right to be there in the first place. The only
right they have in Iraq is to get out of the country right now,
slowed down only be transport realites (Scotty is just on vacation
and can't beam the US troops out of Baghdad). 


> I have no problem in working together with people
> demanding BTTH but I think socialists in the US should
> also look for a way to raise the right of Iraqis to
> resist.

   The more I think about it, the stranger this idea seems to me. 

   Discussing a "right to resist" by the Iraqis against the
occupation troops, so it seems to me, makes sense only when one
concedes the US troops some reason to be there in the first place. 

   The troops have to get out, period. Bring them home now! 

Yours, 
Lüko Willms
/------------------------------------ http://www.mlwerke.de 
Frankfurt/Main, Germany