[Marxism] Re: "U.S. troops consolidate victory in Fallujah"

["Joseph Callahan" <joeandcaroline@xxxxxxx>]

   I tried to resist writing about the SWP's line on the U.S. escalation in 
Iraq, but the bloody, and massive offensive makes the betrayal by Barnes & co. 
even more glaring and grating to someone such as myself, who tried for 30 years 
to build the organization, and now must witness the political demise.
   They repeat their apology for the occupation and justification for inaction 
on the grounds that "there is no revolutionary leadership."  There may not be 
any Marxist leadership, but there are certainly thousands and thousands of 
Iraqis who want the U.S. out of their country and are prepared to put their 
lives at extreme risk in fighting with arms in hand for that goal.  They are 
clearly not prepared to wait for approval from erstwhile "revolutionary 
leaders" in the imperialist superpower that is occupying them.  They want to 
fight against U.S. imperialism now, and their efforts are a boon to the working 
class the world over, unlike the objectively pro-imperialist, anti-Iraqi 
fulminations of The Militant.
   The SWP has returned to the tack of labeling the Iraqi resistance fighters 
as "Baathists."  This determination is made by them because on the one hand 
there was little resistance to the U.S. invasion by large, well equipped 
Baathist-led armed forces, so on the other hand the fierce resistance in 
Fallujah by a relatively small number of fighters must obviously 
be.....Baathist remnants of Hussein's army.
   This kind of nonsense passes for logic in Barnesland, but in the real world 
the heroic fighters in Iraq have explained in interviews with reporters from 
the NY times and other media, that they are not supporters of Saddam, they are 
opponents of the U.S. occupation.  Many of them are also very religious.  On 
11/26 for example on CBS and BBC, footage was shown of rebels yelling "Allah 
akbar," while firing mortars.  Not to mention that even if the fighters in Iraq 
were Baathists it would not justify "communists" in the U.S. apologizing for 
imperialism.  Nor do the damaging actions by Al-qaedaist groups justify 
opposing the struggle against the imperialist occupation.  The Al-qaeda forces 
are probably a very small part of the resistance.
   Instead of denouncing the ideology of the anti-imperialist fighters, 
radicals in the US should be denouncing the putrid, murderous actions and 
ideology of imperial conquest used by the US and UK, with the convenient 
post-9/11 veil of "the war on terrorism."  In short a socialist newsweekly 
should be looking at the struggle from the point of view of the oppressed and 
the working class, not from the point of view of the imperialists as the 
Militant does.
   The imperialist slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqis is by far the 
biggest political issue in the world today, not the SWP's union-organizing 
drive of a few dozen workers in Utah. 
   In one of Walter's posts he quoted the Cuban analysis that the US can not 
militarily stamp out the resistance of the Iraqi people, because they don't 
have enough troops to be simultaneously attacking every town and city. I guess 
for my part I won't completely rule out that the U.S can perhaps beat down the 
resistance.   But if we must make predictions, which I don't think is really 
the case, I much prefer the Cuban analysis.  This is analysis written from a 
revolutionary point of view.  The SWP's underlying theme that U.S. troops are 
nearly invincible reminds me of the refrain, "resistance is futile," which is 
from the fictional Borg, semi-robotic bad guys on Star Trek.  Unfortunately the 
U.S. imperialist onslaught is all too real, as is the capitulation by Barnes & 
co.
   In the 1980's Barnes proclaimed that the U.S. would never win another war.  
Now Barnes flips to the opposite extreme proclaiming imperialism irresistible 
without what he considers "revolutionary leadership."  He's wrong both times.  
   Looking back on it, even I underestimated the damage done by the SWP 
adopting positions that were quite obviously false from a simple factual 
standpoint.  Such as the pronouncements in 1990-91 that "the U.S. broke its 
teeth" in the first Persian Gulf War, or that "U.S. imperialism lost the Cold 
War," and there is still a workers' state in east Germany etc.  I was able to 
convince only a couple of people to vote with me against this kind of surreal 
nonsense.  
    It seems it is not such a long walk from adopting positions clearly wrong 
in point of fact, to adopting positions clearly wrong in fundamental principle. 
 A friend and antiwar colleague of mine calls it a "tragedy."  I agree.     
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