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The Left betrays the Iraqi people by opposing war national |
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 Wednesday January 15, 2003 01:23 by Irish American
 Don't think I could ever sway you from your ingrained anti-Americanism, but here's a piece from Nick Cohen in the Telegraph that raises some points about your "anti-war" movement. The Left betrays the Iraqi people by opposing war
Gemma Redgrave, Anita Roddick, Rosie Boycott and Bianca Jagger are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with rough train drivers from Aslef and Marxist-Leninists from the Socialist Workers Party. Everyone who is anyone from the soft-headed centre to the anti-democratic Left is there. All are welcome - except the people in whose name the party is being thrown: the Iraqis. Tens of thousands might have been invited. London remains a great exile city, and for more than 20 years Kurds and Arabs have fled from Saddam's persecution to sanctuary in Britain. Yet not one of the 50 Iraqi dissident groups that met in the capital last month to organise the struggle for national liberation has been asked to join the coalition. Nor would they be thanked if they tried to gatecrash. The anti-war movement is a private party. It has proved to be a remarkably fastidious friend of suffering peoples of the Middle East, and its doors are always open to non-Iraqi Muslims - but it's not at home to Muslims from Iraq. As far as I can work out from the coalition's membership list, only two Iraqi organisations - one calling itself the Iraqi Network for Human Rights and a second called the Federation of Kurdish Community Organisations - have signed its manifesto. No Iraqi exile I have interviewed has heard of either. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqi dissidents are an embarrassment to the Left. After enduring misery few of us can imagine, they have discovered that, without foreign intervention, their country won't be freed from a tyrant who matches Stalin in his success in liquidating domestic opponents. Only America can intervene. Therefore an American invasion offers the possibility of salvation. There's a damnable logic to this that no amount of wriggling can escape. If you say to the Iraqi opposition that America is very selective in its condemnation of dictatorships, they shrug and ask why Iraqis should care. If you say that Iraq shouldn't be liberated from Saddam until Palestinians are liberated from Israeli occupation, they ask if the converse also applies. (It never does, incidentally.) They confront the anti-war movement with the disconcerting thought that there are worse things in the world than George W Bush and American imperialism, and Saddam Hussein and his prison state are among them. To right-thinking, Left-leaning people, such thoughts are not merely disconcerting but unthinkable. Oppressed peoples are meant to confirm the prejudices of their (usually white) betters, not raise awkward dilemmas. The honest course would be to say that the price of peace is a continuation of Saddam's oppression. But rather than make a brutal argument that would lose it the moral high ground, the anti-war movement prefers to deal with the Iraqi opposition by ignoring it. The absence of honourable engagement is allowing the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to get away with murder. Journalists demanded yesterday that Tony Blair tell us if Britain would go to war without UN authorisation. There's a tougher question: what kind of Iraq would British troops be risking their lives for if there is a war? In Washington, the future of Iraq is ferociously contested. The names of the competitors on either side of the argument prove that you should never believe easy political labels. To the surprise of the simple-minded, Donald Rumsfeld and his supposedly "far-Right" friends in the Pentagon support democracy, while the CIA and the supposedly "moderate" Colin Powell at the State Department hint that they want to replace Saddam with a more compliant dictator. Mr Blair seems to be with Gen Powell. Ever since Britain created Iraq in the 1920s, the Foreign Office has wanted a kind of apartheid rule by a monarch or dictator from the Arab Sunni minority. The majority of Iraqis, the Shia, have been kept down, along with the Kurdish ethnic minority in the north. At no point has Mr Blair said he wants dictatorship to end if Saddam is overthrown. The organisers of last month's conference of exiles in London asked the Foreign Office if Mr Blair or Jack Straw would address the assembled delegates. Zaab Sethna, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), told me the men at the FO "laughed in our faces". Our leaders didn't want to waste their time on Iraqi democrats. The moral disgrace of the liberal-Left wing of the anti-war movement lies in its failure to put pressure on the Prime Minister to uphold the values it pretends to believe in. The Iraqi opposition had a right to expect support. The alternative it offers to Saddam's secular tyranny is not Islamic theocracy. The INC and the London conference of exiles both want a democratic Iraq that gives a voice to the suppressed Shia; a federal Iraq that allows autonomy for the Kurdish minority; and a secular Iraq that can contain the differences between Sunni and Shia Islam. When I put this programme to my democratic and secular comrades, they turn nasty. I hear that the peoples of Iraq will slaughter each other if Saddam goes; that any US-sponsored replacement will be worse. They may be right, although the second prediction will be hard to meet. What is repulsive is the sneaking feeling that they want the war to be long and a post-Saddam Iraq to be a bloody disaster. They would rather see millions suffer than be forced to reconsider their prejudices. I expect that some Telegraph readers regard the British Left as good for nothing. In mitigation, I would say that we are world-class nags. If we had taken up the cause of Arab democracy, we would have nagged away until Mr Blair was forced to commit himself for or against liberty. As it is, the only people who won't be welcome in Baghdad if a free Iraq comes against the odds are the Iraqis' immensely condescending friends in the Stop the War coalition. Nick Cohen is a columnist for the Observer |
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Comments (19 of 19)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 191) the so-called Iraqi Opposition are made up of people who want POWER in Iraq, they are overtly capitalist, and pro-US interests in the Gulf region. this is why they support a war on the iraqi people. as they gave two shits about the poeple they claim to represent. and isnt the main guy linked to a massive money laundering scandal? If the 'Northern Alliance' and Karzai in Afghanistan are the examples to measure by then it'll be a case of 'same old shit, different oppressor' for the Iraqi people. I know a few Iraqis in Dublin, and they are all opposed to a new war in Iraq. NOT because they like Saddam (they hate him more than you or I possibly could) but because their extended families still live in Iraq and they are rightly fearful that a new war will result in their deaths. some liberation. you are free from the evil oppressor because you are in your grave. meanwhile we'll rape your oil fields and force feed you mcdonalds and coke. yay for freedom. no instead of dying from preventable diseases as a result of sanctions, you too can become disgustingly obese and die from a disease we force down your neck. but you still can't have democracy. Irish American, your posts are generally of a very niave nature as regards the reality of US Imperialism. And to say that we on indymedia are 'anti-american' , i think my many american friends, and those such as greenpartymike who post here, would disagree. Oh tell you what, to quote Bill Hicks (another american) "Here's American Gladiators, heres 57 channels of it. Go back to slepp america, you are free to do what we tell you!"
Goodnight!
Have you read Kanan Makiya's "Republic of Fear?" Or any of Christopher Hitchen's pieces on the brutality of the Iraqi regime?
Makiya is an Iraqi, now an academic in Boston, who has compiled an archive of the Ba'ath party's crimes. Not a rich guy, not a general with blood on his hands.
And Hitchens is not exactly a right-winger.
Now, I'm not so sure that this war is good for the U.S.A.
But I'm 100% sure that the Iraqi people will be better off after Saddam is gone.
dream on, dream on my credulous friends. maybe iraq would be better if the iraqi people rose up and threw out hussein and set up a new government themselves. unfortunately, no one is even contemplating that. whatever government comes after hussein will be put in place under the auspices of the executive branch of the american federal government, which is as much as to say that it will be put in place under the auspices of 4 or 5 squabbling little dictatorships that have zero concern for the iraqi people, zero concern for the american people, zero concern for the entire planet earth. i mean that in an entirely literal sense.
I can offer you a 100% iron-clad guarantee good throughout all time and space that anything even remotely to do with the US administration in iraq will lead to a definte decline for the people of iraq relative to their current low place int he world already. i guarantee it. let me say that again I guarantee it. i defy you to show me any spot on the map that has derived any kind of benefit from american military meddling since world war two. greece? i dont think so. korea? japan? nicaragua? el salvador? brazil? take your pick.
I myself was against the intervention against Serbia because I knew it would involve aerial bombardment, which I am against.
In Solidarity,
Vince writing from the "land of the free"
where
"under U.S. law, any American company or individual who boycotts Israel in coordination with the Arab League is subject to criminal prosecution. Penalties for American companies or persons who follow the Arab League’s lead include fines of up to $50,000, or five times the value of the exports involved and 10 years imprisonment for each violation."
On the day that the bombardment/conquest/invasion of Iraq officially ends, Christopher Hitchens, Dinesh Desousa, and Andrew Sullivan will arrive on the scene at Midan Square, Baghdad, Iraq. There they will engage in a public circle-jerk. On the periphery, dressed in full leather dominitrax regalia, and buggy-whipping and egging the boys on, will be Oriana "Mussolini" Fallaci and Camilia "Bang Bang" Paglia. After that, all five will open up a new themed restaurant, "The Collateral Damage Dinette" where they will feast and gorge on the charred remains of those Iraqi civilians barbecued.
The End
P.S. Fuck anyone (in the ass, sideways and without the lube) on the left who supports a pre-emptive war on Iraq (or for that matter doesn't support justice for Palestine)!
Yes indeed, Iraqis would be much better without Saddam Hussein at the helm of government. Of that there is no doubt. He’s a miserable SOB and should be carried through the streets of Baghdad on a rail. But is that why the war is going to be waged? I don’t think so. We already know the equation:
No oil, WMDs = Let’s talk
Oil, no WMDs = Let’s go
If the US is genuine about getting rid of Hussein, the best way to do it is to sign up to the International Criminal Court and indict him for crimes against humanity. I’m sure that many nations would be quite happy to lend support to such a strategy, and I doubt there would be a problem securing a conviction.
So why isn’t the US doing this? Because “liberating” the Iraqi people is a pretense for invasion, the latest in a long line of such pretenses. The US is running out of excuses for going into Iraq, and it is hoped that this will give them all the excuse they need. There are a dozen tin-pot dictatorships around the world that should be ousted, but how many of them have the marvelous reserves of natural resources that Iraq boasts? Answers on a postcard, please…
The irony of all this is that, in the long term, this war ISN’T any good to the US, as you mentioned in your post. It won’t do anything to stop the continuing centralization of the federal government, or stay the steady erosion of democratic rights. Bush is consolidating his position, and it will be interesting to see what happens at the next Presidential Elections. I recently read an article by an American commentator who made a very good point, in that Bush is using Weapons of Mass Destruction as a Weapon of Mass Distraction. The war might be good for Bush and his cohorts, but it will be of no benefit to the American people.
Nick Cohen’s article is an interesting read, and he does raise some very good points. The Left IS fragmented, as it always has been, and the Left DOES attract some right loo-las. George Orwell was making the very same point sixty years ago. But this doesn’t change the fact that the current US leadership is on the verge of engaging in a course of action that will make this world a lot more dangerous, and with a lot less freedom for all of us.
>And Hitchens is not exactly a right-winger.
>Now, I'm not so sure that this war is good for the U.S.A.
>But I'm 100% sure that the Iraqi people will be better off after Saddam is gone.
Yes but you have to ask the question how exactly will saturation bombing of the country followed by military occupation followed by the instalation of another "bath ist" colonel improve the situation for the Iraqis
The American/Nato bombing of Serbia and Kosova surely didn't "liberate" Serbia it was a couple of years later that the Serbian people rose up and liberated themselves. This is how the job is done!
Any one who is genuinely concerned for the people of Iraq (and I'm sure the Telegraph is one of their big supporters!!) should deliver practical moral, financial and personal support to them . I would salute the bravery of the many people who have gone over there to help out and attempted to break the sanctions.
Don't be fooled the American governmnet are not pouring in thousands of troops and bombs to help the Iraqis. There are 3 reasons for this war oil, oil and oil!
Conor (WSM personal capacity)
if opposing the war that will kill up to a million of them is betrayal of the iraqi people, then i pray to judas christ that it doesn't happen. All this talk of the iraqi people being better off without saddam is total rubbish, at least they are now used to his whims etc. but how will they cope under a US puppet government, with purposely polluted water supplies, and tonnes of DU lying all over the place?? all this talk of justifying the war, any war, is a sick indication of how people just don't care about other people, all war must be opposed, they're all wrong, fight war not wars........
So let me get this straight: the Iraqi people may only be liberated from Saddam's oppression on terms acceptable to the prejudices of the Western anti-war movement; that is, without aerial bombing, US intervention, a subsequent capitalist economy or the participation of anyone remotely connected to international business. In effect, the Iraqi people may not only liberate themselves, without help, from a brutal totalitarian dictator - and after such a liberation, they may not then build their country with the help of prosperous outsiders; rather they must live in virtuous penury, without native capital, or the industrial wherewithal to build an economy out of their vast natural resources. No, this would sully the pure hearts of the anti-war movement, and purity is what matters here.
One need only examine the salient differences between North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, and East and West Germany to see the benefits of US involvement in nation-building vs. the anti-capitalist utopia model.
But Sean Iraq isn't a country without natural resources, its got some of the largest oil recerves in the world. There is more then enough wealth there for the area to be re-built in a way that would benefit all the inhabitants.
To do this the locals need to do two things
1. Get rid of the US and other western powers
2. Get rid of the local elite who, even when Saddam whas the wests best friend, are the ones who get all this benefit from the wealth.
It's rather obvious that it's not in the interests of US foreign policy to allow Iraq to be ran by its own population precisly because they (like you or me) would want to use oil revenue to pay for schools, hospitals and the good things in life. So a US intervention that will see many of them being killed, (including their conscripted sons) followed by X years of military occupation, followed by the installation of some local member of the elite to keep them down is NOT in their interests.
As to your country list, you must have been asleep for the last few years. What makes the anti-capitalist movement different from many earlier left movements is its rejection of leninism and so the regimes of E. Germany etc. That said though your list is incomplete, why not mention Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Colombia or Guatemala where US sponsored military coops or death squads killed hundreds of thousands in the 70's and 80's. What happened there tells us a lot more about what would probably happen in a US occupied Iraq.
Calling all US and UK supporting, Iraqi dissidents and their cheerleaders...
Where were you prior to November 1990 when the US and UK suddenly stopped supplying Saddam with the raw materials for weapons of mass destruction and other military hardware, in the full knowledge of his chemical warfare and other notorious deeds (hint: most of the damning info released by the UK government recently pre-dates the 1991 gulf war)?
What did you think when the US/UK facilitated the slaughter of Shia muslims in the southern marshes and Kurds in the north who had staged an uprising AFTER the US/UK had won the war and had set up the northern and southern "no-fly" zones?
Do you think that the death of 500,000 children from genocidal sanctions and illegal bombings(1998 figure) was "worth it"?
Do you think that the US/UK would facilitate a new Iraqi government to nationalise their oil industry to pay for the reconstruction of their ruined country? Do you think it's a good idea?
but didnt christopher hitchens used to be in the SWP in Britain, then made a right wing split, and didn't he support the bombing of serbia (and the depleted uranium that went with it) and wasn't one of his last speaking tours in the US (where he is a bit of a darling to the 'liberals' - such as yourself irish american) concentrating manily on the fact that Clinton lied about the Lewinsky affair and not on war crimes commited by clinton et al? oh as if a US prez has never lied before. To my mind hitchens is a careerist 'left' liberal who sucks up to those he is meant to be waging verbal war against. NO war but the class war! No War for Oil! Let the Iraqi people emacipate themselves! For International Socialism and Solidarity!
(the guy who wrote the original article - in the Telegraph of all papers.)
read todays LeMonde.
read todays Welt.
in fact I´ll just give you the first three pages of France´s "national newspaper" France´s "International Herald Tribune" partner.
The Headlines today;
Iraq: les Européens contre la guerre.
that means in irish american
"Iraq. europeans against the war."
second article
La gauche face au projet Sarkozy
"the left face of Sarkozy´s project"
Mr Sarkozy worries about immigration, from mostly muslim islamic countries where the young people are getting used to hearing the USA our friends and cousins being described in most alarming terms. He also has an interest in Mosque building.
Page 2.
or would you like page three first?
ok
Page three.
wait a second this really deserves some wide band width don´´t you think?
I´m giong to jump straight to the form and publish an article.
against Saddam after the US led them to believe that they would be supported the rebels were brutally suppressed. There was a Shiite rebellion in the south (so-called "marsh Arabs") and a Kurdish rebellion in the north. The leaders of the southern rebellion were especially encouraged by the US who then completely failed to support them.
Why is this? Well, mainly because the people doing the rebelling were not ideologically in line with the USA and the USA's strategy was to weaken Saddam Hussein rather than to destroy him.
The Kurdish rebellion was staged by several different Marxist-Leninist factions that bear no love for the USA because the US supplied the chemical weapons used against them by Hussein and the helicopters and guns used against them by the Turks.
The USA has no interest in supporting Democracy and Freedom. It never has.
To assert that a bombing of the Iraqi people is going to benefit them when one is given the clear examples of US interventions in the past which prove the opposite is, to put it politely, foolish.
No War on Iraq! End the Sanctions! Supply food and munitions to the rebels! End support for the totalitarian Saudi, Yemeni, Jordanian regimes. Israel out of occupied Palestine.
"So let me get this straight: the Iraqi people may only be liberated from Saddam's oppression on terms acceptable to the prejudices of the Western anti-war movement; that is, without aerial bombing,"
To Sean,
So let me get this straight, the Palestinians in the occupied territories will only be liberated on terms acceptable to the prejudices of the right-wing governments of Israel and the U.S. that is without bombing?
See Sean it cuts both ways.
For the record, I'm against all military operations that target civilians, whether directly or indirectly.
Vince
Sean: So let me get this straight: the Iraqi people may only be liberated from Saddam's oppression on terms acceptable to the prejudices of the Western anti-war movement;
Fundamentally how the Iraqi people liberate themselves is THEIR business - NOT the Americans, the British or the Western Anti War Movement - our job is to be with them in any way possible - again I salute the people who actually go over there to help them. The Iraqi people would rejoice at the over throw of Sadam H but they would also be quite happy not to have bombs and depleted Uranium shells rained down on them. How, exactly, did Gearge Bush I contribute to their liberation last time around. A lot of Kuawatti's especially female ones could probably vouch that he didn't exactly liberate them either.
NO one can have there freedom granted to the by some one else!
The Americans have no intention of "liberating the Iraqis" in fairness to them they haven't even offered - its only misguided right wingers who are "putting that role" on them
>In effect, the Iraqi people may not only liberate themselves, without help, from a brutal totalitarian dictator -
Who said no help? - as much help as they can be give - america ain't offering "help" they're offering bombs and sanctions
and after such a liberation, they may not then build their country with the help of prosperous outsiders; rather they must live in virtuous penury, without native capital, or the industrial wherewithal to build an economy out of their vast natural resources. No, this would sully the pure hearts of the anti-war movement, and purity is what matters here.
Again these are your words!!!
Mind you the people of Serbia who did liberate them selves ain't exactly been bombarded with venture capital - lesson - all we want is
your natural resources kids
One need only examine the salient differences between North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, and East and West Germany to see the benefits of US involvement in nation-building vs. the anti-capitalist utopia model.
well American money has been pouring into China for a long time and the Chinese haven't seen much from it - I think Andrew pretty much covered the benefits of American nation state building in South America - and then, of course, there is that bastion of freedom that is..Saudi Arabia
Conor (WSM personal capacity)
I am not a leftie,more a liberal, but I am greatly angered by people like Irish American accusing me of being a trotskyist or(worse)stalinist because
1)I believe in the constitutional validity of our neutrality,and believe Bertie and Coward should fecking swing for treason.
2)I believe in Justice for Palestine.
3)I really do not believe the Iraqi people will be greeting their Yankee "liberators" when they enter Bagdad
There,said my piece.I just wish people like Irish Gringo would fuck off and srivel up from cancer