Re: Defense of the Iraqi resistance?

["Tom O'Lincoln" <suarsos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lueko makes some very good points and I'm generally in agreement with what
he says.

The slogan "end the occupation" does, however, make some sense in countries
with no troops in Iraq. In fact I suspect it makes sense in Australia whose
presence there is now  minimal and not registering politically.

I also want to comment on this bit::

"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."

I don't agree with "support the troops". Partly because it's the slogan of
the imperialists themselves, and not everyone will pick up the ironic
aspect; but also because it's all about "our boys". It's one thing not to
place unnecessary conditions on the unity of the mass movement by insisting
on, say, sympathy for Iraqis. That might grate on me, but the main thing is
to get people in motion, and uniting around a simple "Out now" is fine for
that. "Bring them home" raises a few issues, as others have noticed, but I
tend to agree with Yoshie that it's OK.

But the US left should not be including slogans that make concessions to
American national sentiment and imply that American boys are more important
than anyone else. That would also be an obstacle to unity; it is offensive
to most of humanity, after all.