Antiwar Left Shuns Iraqis
“What non-violent antiwar activists are unable to realize,” writes Peter Gelderloos, “is that the most important resistance, probably the only significant resistance, to the occupation of Iraq is the resistance being waged by the Iraqi people themselves.” This comes from a relatively tangential passage in a thought-provoking book, “How Non-Violence Protects the State,” that will get a more detailed look in a future column.
Although its appearance in The Nation guaranteed it would receive scant notice, a July 30 essay by Alexander Cockburn was one of the first to seriously address the most troubling internal contradiction of the anti-Iraq War left. War, everyone knows, is a zero-sum game. For one side to win, the other has to lose. If you “support our troops” you hope, at minimum, for their safe return. But each day a U.S. soldier survives at the front means another day he will occupy Iraq and another day he can kill Iraqi resistance forces. Supporting the troops, as right-wingers say, requires supporting their mission. Which means opposing the guys who are trying to kill them.
Cockburn quoted antiwar activist Lawrence McGuire: “The grand taboo of the antiwar movement is to show the slightest empathy for the resistance fighters in Iraq. They are never mentioned as people for whom we should show concern, much less admiration. But of course, if you are going to sympathize with the U.S. soldiers, who are fighting a war of aggression, then surely you should also [my emphasis] sympathize with the soldiers who are fighting for their homeland.” (An intellectually honest person would substitute “instead” for “also.”)
It kills me to say this, but neocon madman William Kristol was correct when he wrote in The Weekly Standard: “What mattered to the left was that it was dangerous politically not to ‘support the troops.’ Of course the antiwar left hated what the troops were doing…So ‘supporting the troops’ meant feeling sorry for them, or pretending to.”
The 2004 discussion over U.S. soldiers who bought their own body plates, and resorted to “hillbilly armor” to protect their Humvees from roadside bombs, was a case in point. Antiwar pundits, including me, tried to drive a wedge between the Bush Administration and the military by pointing out that the Pentagon was pinching pennies at the expense of soldiers’ lives. But what if you’re an Iraqi? You risk your own life every time you place an IED along the “Highway of Death” between Baghdad and the airport. The more Americans you blow up, the closer you come to achieving your goal of liberating Iraq. The last thing you need is “antiwar” Americans agitating for stronger armor plates!
A parallel to World War II, “the good war” depicted in countless movies, is useful. You’re a German citizen living in Berlin, and you hate the Nazis. You’re against the war. Do you pray for the SS? Or the French Resistance? You can’t do both. (Well, you could–but you’d be an idiot.)
The moral quandry forced upon the left is epitomized by Phyllis Bennis, an in-the-box wonk for the Institute for Policy Studies. “Certainly,” she allows, “the Iraqi people have the right to resist an illegal occupation, including military resistance.” Which is, as they said in the 1970s, mighty white of her. “But as a whole,” she continues, “what is understood to be ‘the Iraqi resistance’ against the U.S. occupation is a disaggregated and diverse set of largely unconnected factions, in which the various often-antagonistic armed movements (including some who attack Iraqi civilians as much as they do occupation troops) hold pride of place. There is no unified leadership that can speak for ‘the resistance,’ there is no NLF or ANC or FMLN that can claim real leadership and is accountable to the Iraqi population as a whole.”
For most of World War II, the same was true of the French Resistance (history grants them the upper-case “R”) too. Communists, socialists and even monarchists fought the Germans–and each other–until Charles de Gaulle’s center-right faction prodded, bullied and ultimately muscled out his (more popular and more progressive) rivals. There were, as in Iraq today, French criminal gangs who fought solely for money. If this was 1943 and Bennis and other mainstream liberals were anti-Nazi Germans, would they “support what is called ‘the French resistance'”?
As their Iraqi counterparts do today, the Free French carried out what the press of the period called “terrorist attacks.” Kidnappings, assassinations and bombings were usually directed at government officials, German troops, and French collaborators–but civilians were also killed. So why does the antiwar left find the Iraqis distasteful?
Gelderloos argues that the post-Vietnam American left is hard-wired with reflexive pacifism, denying that violent militancy can ever be a valid tactic, even when faced with horrific oppression. Liberals frequently express disapproval of protestors who smashed windows at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, and the Earth Liberation Front’s (ELF) torching of SUVs at auto dealerships–even though no one got hurt.
Knee-jerk non-violence partly explains the left’s reluctance to embrace the Iraqi resistance. Nationalism/patriotism is another factor. Who wants to see more funerals of American soldiers? And who wants to be smeared as the next “Hanoi Jane”?
When “asked who I think will then take power [after U.S. forces leave Iraq],” Bennis writes, “the only thing I can anticipate with any confidence is that first, I probably won’t like them very much because they’re likely to have a far more religious orientation than I like but that second, it’s not up to me to choose who governs Iraq.”
The Islamist and/or totalitarian ideology of many of Iraq’s anti-U.S. factions is a turn-off to the secular American left. The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland worried aloud in late 2003, when the war against the occupation of Iraq heated up: “Not all of Iraq’s resistance will fit [a] romantic, maquis image. Some will be Baathist holdouts, Saddamites who once served as henchmen to a murderous dictator. No progressive should want to see these villains land a blow on British or American forces.” This year, in the socialist New Politics, Stephen Shalom noted that “to give our automatic support to any opponent of U.S. imperialism means we should have supported the Taliban in 2001 or Saddam Hussein in 2003.”
Since war is a zero-sum game, it’s our guys or theirs. “Support the troops by bringing them home” is an empty slogan that belies reality. With both political parties supporting the war, U.S. troops are not going to come home any time soon. As Gelderloos writes: “The approach of the U.S. antiwar movement in relation to the Iraqi resistance does not merely qualify as bad strategy; it reveals a total lack of strategy, and it is something we need to fix.” It also exposes an ugly truth about antiwar lefties. They don’t believe in national self-determination any more than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
(Ted Rall is the author of the book “America Gone Wild,” which includes a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the most controversial political cartoons of the post-9/11 era.)
COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL
19 Comments.
We pray daily for Iraq's Fourth of July. Whatever that date may be. September 18 (like today) would be good.
In the summer we shoot off fireworks to glorify a bunch of 1776 insurgents.
"Support the troops" to me means immediately stop coercing them to be brutal occupying invaders.
I wanted the US Army to lose against Saddam's back in 2003 not because I liked Saddam, but because Gulf War II: Electric Boogaloo had nothing whatsoever to do with getting Ossama bin Laden. Four years later, I support neither side, but hope that our soldiers mutiny and flee Iraq, or that their officers mutiny and lead their soldiers out of Iraq. And if we attack Iran, I will consider all of the US soldiers in Iraq dead, because the Mah'di Army and other Shia groups will make them so.
– Strelnikov
I want the USA to have a strong military, but I don't want it in Iraq or Afghanistan. I also don't want people who volunteered to fight for our country dying any more than they have to. I don't see war as zero-sum in a meaningful way, since "win" and "lose" are such subjective words, and the number of deaths or the amount of destruction is not a predictable or known quantity.
Supporting the troops, to me, means this:
Get them out of these illegal wars NOW.
Put a whole bunch of the planners and implementors of these wars in jail awaiting trial.
Pump a lot more money into the VA hospital system.
Raise the enlistment standards back to pre-war levels.
Hire an "army" of physical therapists and psycholgists for our veterans.
Only use them in the future against threats to our security.
And I don't hate or even dislike the patriots of Iraq who are trying to drive out an occupying army which murdered their head of state. I would do no less under the same circumstances here, and expect that I would have a lot of company in the "insurgency".
I don't think that there is necessarily a moral dilema or intellectual dilema in "supporting the troops" and not supporting their mission. I agree that it is odd that some persons on the left have trouble embracing the Iraqi resistance, but that fact notwithstanding, I no trouble embracing the troops and the resistance. Here is how:
1. The basis and primary mission of this war was illegal and immoral.
2. The mission of this war was ill-defined and has little or no chance of success.
3. Most of the soldiers have a mindset that has been enforced upon them to not reason but to do what they are told.
4. The leaders of this country have been anything but demanding about ending this war (or more importantly, avoiding it in the first place). The result is that the soldiers do not understand that they are following illegal orders because nobody in a leadership position has bothered to tell them.
5. Since the soldiers don't know that they have been fucked and that they are committing crimes, they, frankly, have only a little culpability.
6. The Iraqi resistance is easy to support… just use your own empathy. Imagine some asshole from another country blew up your kid, spouse, parent or neighbor. I know that I would pick up the nearest weapon and try to inflict as much damage on whoever did that as I could. I imagine that most people can imagine that they themselves would respond violently to such a situation.
All this leaves only one real option. Get out now! We shouldn't have gone and we should leave ASAP. If you, me and everyone we know who agrees with this would write 2-3 letters to Boxer, Reid or whoever represents you (Republican or Democrat), they would start listening. Instead, most of us sit at work, busting out asses to make ends meet and then go watch the game and have a beer. If you and I want something to blame, it isn't moral dillemas, it is our own freaking apathy.
Sorry Ted, but violence begets violence. I can't support people who use violence to accomplish their ends, even if I agree with those ends. When all seems lost, the call to arms is certainly alluring, but if we are to be civilized we must resist it.
Yeah, I always find it astounding the way the right has pushed discussion on things like Iraq into the boundaries of this box in which lies only solutions involving non-violence and electoral politics. Anything you say outside this area will ensure a quick round-up of the villagers with pitchforks and torches, which we see over and over again. We need to stop enabling this nonsense.
I agree with you about the Seattle thing. In the context of a resistance movement, faced with an opponent with more tools of coercion than imaginable, a little show of force is not uncalled for.
I do believe that when you use force, you should do so bravely. That means being man enough to face any and all consequences that fly your way.
Yes, because force has worked so well for the Palestinians.
If they had been led by a Ghandi instead of an Arafat, do you really think they'd be in the situation they are in today? With the world on their side, they'd have their state.
Having to support the killing of Iraqis is but a small price to pay for all the perks of being American!
Didn't Mark Twain already cover this ground with The War Prayer? Or perhaps in the Irish ballad "The Patriots Game"?
I can "SoT" by doing everything in my power to stop their being in Iraq and Afghanistan and prevent any more from going anywhere else.
My father-in-law was conscripted into the German army at 17. You can still hear a child's anguish and fear and awe in his voice when he describes his encounters with the death an destruction of war, and he's almost 83. Six decades later, and its as fresh, and painful sometimes as if it were yesterday.
I don't think any government should inflict that experience on anyone for any reason – either as invader or the invaded. I think Caleb Carr has argued quite effectively why military tactics aimed at – or depravedly indifferent toward – civilians are counterproductive and ultimately cause more harm than good.
While I do agree with Ayn Rand when she wrote that you owe no morality to the person who points a gun at you, I dont belive this is the proper function of a government. Peaceful resistance can work. Diplomacy can work. Fair and just social policy can work.
Actually, Iraqis have done more defeat the good 'ole U.S.A. by simply not doing what they are told (by you know who), than any amount of armed resistance. Although the daily violence, does put an exclamation point on it. Our position there isn't only illegal (whatever that means) , but not very smart, I remember there was this guy named Custer….
-the other anonymous
Where was Kerry? As student, Andrew Meyer, waited for a response from John Kerry, the campus police were already moving in. What is the policy by which campus police thugs move in on students who express their social and political views passionately?
Maybe the Florida Campus Police should change their uniforms to Brown Shirts. And where was war hero, Kerry? If Kerry had jumped off the stage to intervene on behalf of the student, he might have catalyzed a national discovery of collective SPINE against the trend to shut down all dissent and criticism of the current Presidential administration. Whatever the campus police were protecting, I guess they protected it. With tasers. Wow! Bush's trickle down has definitely trickled down. We are pathetic!
Zero sum game? Do we even know what kind of game this is? Multinational Oil companies are using strong-arm mob tactics to secure assets. They are stealing from the U.S. treasury by using OUR military to guard THEIR oilfields. The economic cost of the military operation would exceed any revenue the oil could generate (at least in the short term). These companies lack the innovation, imagination, and integrity to legitimately acquire these resources (like signing mutually beneficial contracts) so they must resort to brutal force. The Iraqis, Iranians, Americans, and Israelis all have the same enemy: the interests that control their governments. The game is to get everyone to believe this is a war instead of a shake-down.
Well Ted, as usual I agree with you about 90%. Yup. I don't support our troops. Plain and simple. Anyone who does would have let the Nazis going who were just "following orders" and "doing their job."
HOWEVER, I find your implication that the anti-war movement needs to turn violent VERY disturbing. Violent resistance is legit when you're being violently assaulted. Bush and gang haven't physically attacked Americans yet at least not in the popular understanding. If a segment of the American population rose up to Bush violently I think you would be witness to the most mercilessly celebrated slaughter of "traitors" the world has ever seen. Neighbors would turn in neighbors. The resistance would be crushed like the Red Brigade in Italy and the war would go on.
I'm not inciting violence. Anyone who'd do that online is a lamebrain. This is just a comment.
However, Rall has a point. In the 60's and 70's there were only a tiny handful of "Weathermen", Yippies who went around blowing stuff up. Careful not to kill anyone, but to do lots of property damage.
They made the government turn white with fear. Only a handful not killing anyone and they freaked out. They pay the same attention to groups like that today. E.L.F. has had at least ten times the resources "Al Queada" has spend on it in terms of tracking groups and prosecuting members. Same with Earth First.
And the reason is this country is very, VERY vulnerable to any sort of "Internal Insurgency". Oh, they could send the army to crush a state or city that "Seceeded" but if there was a campaign of constant sabotage, bombings, harassment by groups that came and went into the night, the power base would be threatened.
Look at that incident the other day. A man tried to ask Kerry about his collusion with "Skull and Bones" and he was arrested and tortured. On the other hand, what if he just put a device in the false ceiling for a 'prank'. Have it cut the power, boom "Kerry, you are a TRAITOR and a DEVIL WORSHIPPER along with Bush!!!" and then spray fake smoke into the room. Sounds hi-tech, but could be done and disguised as part of a wall or a cage rat trap, just in case they thought to check. The disruption that would have caused, the school would avoid having any political figures for a long time. And that's just a "Prank", not a serious attack…
To anonymous last night at 10:16:
Good historical observations, but careful! Inciting property damage will certainly put us on thin ice. It may be viewed as an even worse transgression than civil combativeness.
Oh – and this: "They made the government turn white with fear."
The government already looked pretty white to me then. And still.
How about just supporting those few Iraqis who are actually fighting the occupation, as opposed to fighting and killing each others?
One doesn't have to embrace all of them.
As for the U.S. military, perhaps I'd have a little bit more sympathy if they were drafted, but they volunteered, and given how virtually every American war in the past 60 years has been an agressive unjust war, they can't act too surprised if they find themselves doing the same.
Yes, because force has worked so well for the Israelis.
If they had been led by a Ghandi instead of an Zionist, do you really think they'd be in the situation they are in today? With the world on their side, they'd have their peaceful shining jewel of a state in the desert.
Right on once again, Ted.
It's worth remembering (as you alluded to, but just to make it explicit) that the majority of the Maquis were communists – it was the French right wingers that "went along to get along" with the Nazis. Does anyone believe it would be any different if the US was ever invaded? The Republican powermongers would be happy to collaborate and enrich themselves, while the lefties (not the excuse-ridden "antiwar left") would be the ones out blowing up bridges.
Vive le Resistance!