RE: [Marxism] Strategy of "slaughter," opposition to majority rule cannot unite Iraqi Arabs against occupation

[Ralph Johansen <michele@xxxxxxxx>]

I think Joaquin's response here is to the point and obvious. Anyone who 
takes
employment from the occupiers is in the service of the occupiers, is 
doing the
job for the occupiers which is to help destroy, with unlimited savagery. 
all
opposition to occupation, and that person is obviously faced with the 
consequences.

To plead poverty as grounds for treason in the employ of imperialist 
invaders, against
your own people on your own turf won't wash - in Iraq or any place. If 
they take
employment as moles or scouts for the resistance, that's different and 
very risky and the
resistance should be very careful for them.

To fold the resistance because one sector of one faction in your country 
will stand to gain
from collaboration in rigged elections is folly, and will in any event 
result nevertheless in
needless civil war and provide fig leaves for the invaders' rationale 
for continued occupation.

It boggles that this can all be done by the US military under cover of 
Constitutional
and Congressional authorization for a war that was in its inception 
against no territory
or specific enemy - just the "terrorists" out there, characterized as 
evil at heart and
therefore without motivation that merits an accounting - which can now 
with apparent
impunity be stretched to include anyone whose politics they don't like. 
Astounding
how slim is the writ that this state runs under. Where can they end up?

Ralph


Joaquin Bustelo wrote:

Fred Feldman writes:

It should be recalled that almost no national liberation movement (Cuba,
Vietnam, Iran -- not to mention Venezuela) has taken this stand, especially
toward troops who have an outstanding record of avoiding combat. The
recruits, in a country where unemployment stands at about 70 percent, cannot
be termed "volunteers" in any meaningful sense. The practice of "slaughter,
slaughter, slaughter" of everyone falling under a very broad definition of
"traitor" and "collaborator," including these not particularly combative
recruits, without any aggressive attempt to win them over, produces
spectacular "military victories" for the insurgents which have ended up
carrying a high political price. (And this even includes attacks on
unemployed people lining up for jobs in the police or positions in the
military.)

(Thus far Fred).

I think what Fred undertakes here is a fairly risky proposition. The idea
that the puppet armed and police forces of the Quisling cabinet should not
be treated as such because unemployment is so high and they're not very
effective anyways strikes me as being very far from obvious. There may be
tens of thousands of Iraqis who feel forced by economics to become
bootlickers for the Americans. There are millions who quite evidently do
not. And we should recognize that we simply do not know what efforts the
resistance makes to "turn" those who join the traitor troops. They may be
quite substantial. At any rate, in moments of extreme candor, U.S. officers
admit --usually off the record-- that their Iraqi "allies" are shot through
with "infiltrators," suggesting that not only is this work being carried
out, but that it has not been without effect.

There is a great deal of danger in reading too many Pentagon press releases,
and that is overwhelmingly what there is in the U.S. press on Iraq. We
should remember these "journalists" are people who are either embedded with
U.S. forces or are only nominally in Iraq, they are in reality prisoners in
a hotel.

clip

There is a logical political reason for adopting a strategy of relentlessly
attacking the puppet forces, in addition to the directly military ones. And
that is that this is obviously an attempt to begin creating a social and
political base for the occupation and eventually a neocolonial regime. That
is the huge, overwhelming weakness of the U.S. in Iraq, it lacks any real
social base. The resistance is not about to allow it to develop one.

The analogies cited by Fred, like Cuba and Venezuela, are hardly on point.
In Venezuela, we have yet to see a real war. In Cuba and Nicaragua, the
fight was with sclerotic, long-established neocolonial regimes. There can be
no comparison between the stance of the July 26 Movement towards honest
elements among Batista's 70,000 troops and cops and the policy Iraqi
anti-imperialist fighters follow towards those who offer themselves as
enforcers or hangers on to the imperialist invasion of their country. The
case that is perhaps closer is Vietnam. But I don't recall the NLF having a
tactic of not attacking the South Vietnamese forces.

At any rate, the tactics being followed by the guerrillas in Iraq are
largely a function of their politico-military situation as their commanders
understand it. And they do not seem to me to be blatantly counterproductive
or off the wall.

clip

Joaquín



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