From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net> Subject: Re: AUT: Re: [R-G] Strategy for an international movement. Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 22:54:14 -0500 > >Tahir, this is not aimed at you but a large series of people in general: > >I'm >really fucking tired of hearing people call others Saddam (or insert > >here) >lovers for defending Iraq and her people from American bombs. Saying > >that Iraq >successfully engaging in military defense would be a good thing > >is quite >different than calling Hussein the father of all the people. > > the reason Iraq was defeated so quickly was because the Iraqi proletarians > in uniform refused en masse to die for 'their' country and instead took > their guns home from the front and launched a powerful insurrection. to say > that Iraq succesfully engaging in military defense would have been a good > thing means that the mass execution of Iraqi deserters would have been a > good thing, for that is what would have been required for Iraq to win the > war. > > peter > Actually, and I thought this when I was a Leninist, the only way Iraq was going to defeat the US was through a mass uprising in Iraq (and prolly the whole mideast) which overthrew Hussein and resulted in a revolutionary war against the US. However, I did not say a plague on both houses at that time because I felt that while Hussein's regime was deplorable, the US would actually do massive damage, murder more people and weaken the possibility of revolt against Hussein. Arguably, all of that happened. I also did not go beyond calling for the defeat of the US because I live in the US, and I could think of no stronger way to say no to nationalism here than to proclaim support for the defeat of the US, without ever proclaiming support for Hussein (since, as I said, I knew that Hussein could never mobilize such support.) That was then. Now, I would largely say the same thing, except that I would say a plague on both states, but I would still call for the defeat of the US, in the same way I would support the defeat of a racist attack, even if the people leading the defense against the attack were Black nationalists. The problem is that, much like Hussein, the Black nationalists would not be able to mobilize and lead a thorough-going defense because of their complicity with capital on some level. As such, the point is not merely to say 'lesser of two evils' or 'plague on both your houses', but to point to the two key issues: the unequal relation of power which represents some real oppression, and the inability of (or even outright hypocrisy of) the 'leadership' of the oppressed side to be able to mount a genuine fight against that oppression. The result was what you point out: the Iraqi soldiers voted with their feet. The problem is that the US has decimated a large section of Iraq, killed over 500,000 people, and directly and indirectly intervened against any oppositions. US victory in this case had no neutrality, whereas Hussein winning (however utterly unlikely) would not have guaranteed him stability. He may actually have more now with the hobby-horse of US imperialism to ride. Our task is therefore three-fold: To call for the defeat of 'our' state, and to point out that the only way for that to happen requires (at least) massive opposition internally and the overthrow of capital in the country under siege (unless one is looking for a Vietnam or Cuba, where victory simply means picking up a new dictator.) I don't know if that is clear. Oh well, I will hear about it either way :) Cheers, Chris --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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