It is not often that I link to the Socialist Workers Party’s licenced blog ‘Lenin’s Tomb’ but in the past couple of days there have been a couple of posts that link in with discussions going on here and elsewhere, so I’ll hold my nose for once.
Over on Crooked Timber, the acadamic chaps have been offended by people on the right spreading the brush to broadly in their charge that there are some on the anti-war left who have gone over to the other side by supporting the ‘resistance’ in Iraq.
Ted Barlow asks: Who, may I ask, are all the “Westerners who side with the ‘Iraqi resistance’ against America and its allies”? Generally speaking, the “Iraqi resistance” is killing our troops in the interest of a fundamentalist ideology that liberals find appalling. If our countrymen are actually taking their side as they try to kill coalition troops, that seems like a (conversational, if not legal) accusation of treason. Who are we talking about? Ward Churchill? George Galloway? Michael Moore, for comparing the insurgents to the Minutemen? Some Guy With A Sign Once? Could this vast conspiracy fit into a VW minibus?
I can’t speak with any authority about the situation in the United States but here in the UK you would need more than a few VW minibuses to fit the cheerleaders for the green terror and bloody counter-revolution into. And here is where the SWP hack ‘Lenin’ proves his worth:
I’m sick to death of liberal commentators waffling on their opposition to the war. It’s all like “Well, just because we think the war was wrong doesn’t mean we want the other side to win.
….. troops are murdering Iraqis, and the sooner the last soldier and diplomat is chased out on the last helicopter the better. What are you so fucking scared of? Why hide behind official misrepresentations about the Iraqi resistance working for a “fundamentalist ideology” when you know damned well they’re fighting a guerilla war against an occupying enemy?
So there you are. And if the learned gentlemen at Crooked Timber need a reminder – the SWP, who have a few thousand members, are the leading organisation in the British anti-war movement. They share the leadership with various ‘maverick’ Stalinists (who also support the ‘resistance’) and the British wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (who also support the ‘resistance) and carry some influence with a certain newspaper comments page editor (who also supports the ‘resistance’).
So in other words the entire leadership and leading organisations of the official anti-war movement in Britain support the alliance of Al-quada and the Ba’athist deadenders who have spent the last year murdering Iraqi civilians. And judging from the SWP blog they no longer hide the fact. Indeed they are rather proud of their position.
And if you want to link this in with another topical issue in the States – there is little more sickening then the grieving mothers of British soilders being exploited by a movement which openly supports those who killed their sons.
I will say though that Timberites are right to object to the brush being spread to widely but it has to be said that they kid themselves if they think that only a tiny handful of the anti-war movement have gone over to the other side.
While we are on the topic of the green terror – a hat-tip to Lenin for pointing out this article that shows Sunnis are finally tiring of Abu Musab Zarqawi’s bloody sectarian fascism, are fighting back against Al-quada and are belatedly turning towards a political settlement:
Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi’s guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.
The leaders of four of Iraq’s Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi.
Of course ‘Lenin’ tries to spin the story to suggest that, you see, the resistance was never anything to do with Zarqawi’s gang after all but ignoring that fantasy there are increasing signs that there is a change of direction from the Sunni leadership.
As this translated report from newspaper Al-Mada says:
The Fallujah scholars council represented by its head Hamza Al-Eisawi the preacher in Al-Wahda mosque released an announcement that urged Fallujans to take their role in the referendum (on the constitution -H). The cleric explained that this is one of their duties as clerics to give advice to the people and he added that the fatwa will be read in all of the city’s mosques.
It’s worth mentioning that four voters registration offices have been designated in the city and the people have decided to take the responsibility of protecting these offices without interference from the multinational forces. At the same time, Fallujah is witnessing daily lectures and conferences where thinkers and leaders from the Islamic party are educating the people about the importance of participation in the referendum.
Of course the arrival of Sunni clerics into the political process will bring its own problems (see the post on womens rights below) but is there anyone who wouldn’t prefer a political battle over the constitution to terror?
You don’t have to answer that question.