Re: [Marxism] Peter Tatchell: Is he "pro-war"?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Walter:
> For a discussion or debate be useful, it should focus on
> real issues, not fake ones. To describe an activist like
> Peter Tatchell as "pro-war" is an example of the false
> polemic some people find particularly satisfying. Here
> are a few comments regarding Peter Tatchell.

It depends on what you mean by "pro-war". If that exclusively means support
for the war that Bush launched, then Tatchell is antiwar. If that means
opposition to US and British military intervention through proxies, then he
is pro-war. Ronald Reagan made war on Nicaragua and El Salvador and except
for trainers and mercenaries like Hasuenfus, there was never an invasion.
But anybody who supported those policies could hardly be described as antiwar.

Tatchell is a highly dubious character, combining gay activism with
pro-imperialist propaganda.

As far as his call to arming the Shia and Kurds being sardonic, here's a
2003 piece he wrote in the Guardian which seems pretty straightforward to me:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,917435,00.html

It is remarkable, btw, for its prescience about what would take place:

Assuming, optimistically, that our troops take Baghdad relatively easily,
they will have to remain in Iraq for up to three years to prevent a
counter-coup by Saddam loyalists. The price could be high, with allied
patrols being picked off in hit-and-run attacks by pro-Saddam terrorist
squads. It could be like Belfast in 1972, only 10,000 times worse, with a
daily carnage of sniper attacks, booby-traps and car-bombs.

There may be parallels with the way the French were bogged down in Algiers,
and the British in Aden, during the 1960s. We could get caught up in a
protracted, difficult-to-win guerrilla war against Saddam's 50,000-strong
Republican Guard and remnants of his regular forces.

Saddam has presumably learned lessons from the first Gulf war. He will
avoid battles in the open desert, where his forces are vulnerable to
superior allied fire-power. Instead, he is likely to concentrate his troops
in densely populated cities, especially Baghdad, using the population as
human shields.

Most of his Republican Guard will discard their uniforms and go
underground, posing as civilians, to fight a guerrilla war with no big
military hardware and no set-piece battles. Defeating this shadowy,
invisible enemy in unfamiliar terrain may be difficult for our troops.

--

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