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| 2005-04-26 |
| Put Down Your White Man's Burden, Support Iraqi Resistance - A Radical Opinion? BY LIZ SPERBER "Before we prescribe how a pristine Iraqi resistance must conduct their secular, feminist, democratic, nonviolent battle, we should shore up our end of the resistance by forcing the U.S. and its allied governments to withdraw from Iraq." -ARUNDHATI ROY UNCONDITIONALLY-that's the way I support the Iraq Resistance these days. I support the beheading of bound hostages. I support the murder of Christians because they are Christians. I support the mass murder of Shia because they are apostates. I support car-bombing of children. I support the car-bombing of rescue personnel. I support this solely because Chimperor Bushitler leads Amerikka.< While I do not offer political support to all groups Who makes your party-invite list and who is left off? involved in the anti-imperial struggle in Iraq, I work to support its collective purpose forcing the troops out now I don't mind if American troops die as my hatred of Bush is so great. Forcing because the United States won't leave any other way. January 30? Elections in Iraq? 8.5 Million voting under the threat of death? Hello? On a good day, the US corporate mediaAs opposed to indymedia and the loony college newspapers? Like the MSM titans of ABCNBCCBSCNNPBSNYTWAPO? Yeah, THOSE sure support our effort in Iraq. would have its audience believe that a kinder, gentler imperialism is the only way forward for Iraq. This is, of course, not the case. How so? Any evidence? Hello? Nor does it seem plausible, after two long years of occupation, that any kind of imperialism will be tolerated by the Iraqi people, for reasons I will enumerate below. Enumerate THIS, baby! Simultaneously, predictions that a formal draft will likely supplement the current poverty draft in the United States have been made by the likes of Seymour Hersh Who recently said that lying is ok, if it's in a good cause and North Carolina National Guard Specialist Patrick Resta. While the recent claimBy whom? Where was this information? Sources? Hello? that a draft should be expected within 75 days is, at best, a misunderstanding of the Selective Service Administration (a vestige of the Cold War, the SSA was created to intimidate the Soviets with the possibility of short-notice US conscription)Yeah, THAT is what scared the Russkies, our SSA. Wudn't the Tridents or B1s or Minuteman missiles, it was the fact that we had identified the pool of available men., a future draft is not by any means out of the question. With its roots in the mid-1990s, the national crisis in military recruiting has been marked by a recent plummet undoubtedly related to the multiformjust ALL kinds of forms! horrors of the war in Iraq-not least the increasing threats to under-armed and under-manned US troopsWTF? How can troops be undermanned? which have resulted in the increased use of carpet-bombing Complete and total lie. Neither the USAF or USN have aircraft which can perform this vital function. In fact, today we use precision weapons which means lower casualties and collateral damage(and civilian-killing) which has typically led to increased resistance Yeah, the Islamofascists are just trying to protect the people, continuing the vicious spiral. In this vein, it is clear that those reports in the Anglo-American media As opposed to The Franco-Germanic media? that cite a decline in insurgent attacks are relying on coalition force press releases True as the media never leaves there Baghdad hotel rooms with a Bar in the lobby. These reports have been directly contradicted by recent articles in Al Jazeera, the Washington Post, and even the New York Times (which has been particularly ambiguous in its reporting)Wow! such renowed sources! I am sure AlJizz will be upset that you put them with that Jew-owned NYT. Therefore, with our own lives potentially on the line is that a commitment to joined the US Armed Forces, where your life IS on the line? Doubt it, and with the continuing failure of elected officials to represent their constituents Especially the Dhimmicrats, it is left up to us, the public, to explore other options. I believe there is only one effective, though seemingly unspeakable, way to resolve the Iraq quagmire: immediate, unconditional withdrawal of US-led coalition forces. Outspoken, direct-action, grass-roots support for such a withdrawal is unambiguously advancing the cause of Iraqi self-determination while also adhering to the demands of those of our troops who have returned from Iraq opposed to the war. Don't forget the giant paper mache heads of the Chimperor and his minions. Those always show how serious you are. The first step towards adopting such a plan of action is understanding why supporting Iraqi resistance groups is the imperative flipside of our support for US troops-even if we don't know, understand, or agree with the politics of the resistance groups themselves. See? If we support our enemies and they kill our soldiers, we are supporting our soldiers coming home, even of in a body bag. makes perfect sense to me. The typical conversation concerning Iraqi sovereignty goes like this: Although the Iraqis deserve freedom and liberty, they can't have self-determination quite yet, because we can't just pull out. We could pay reparationsFor? And, to whom? Maybe to Saddam to atone for the killing of his angelic boys? but we can't support fundamentalist, sexist, elitist, terrorists who threaten to take over in the vacuum of power left by political upheavalIs there some other kind of Islamofascists or Baathists? The 'Builders of Al Queda', as Senator once put it?. It is our duty to occupy Iraq to ensure the safety of the Iraqi people. With our history of democracy, our strong army, and with those ethnic rivalries and disorderly histories, without us they can't build a proper state. But we can, and therefore we must. A Terrorizing EtymologyCool word. Bugs? From there it gets uglier: for instance, the most pressing flaw in the argument is its bigoted presumption that Iraqis lack something that Americans can give them, teach them-ostensibly a rational democracyActually, it is your bigoted assumption that Arabs can't handle democracy. Yet, the War on Terror, of which we are to believe the Iraq war is a part, is different from other wars wherein sides attempted to 'defeat' one another. Instead, the War on Terror has as its goal the elimination of so-called terroristsJust LOVE the 'so-called'. The headchoppers aren't really barbaric, they are forced to do this because the Americans are there led by W. We don't hear about a possible defeat or surrender of the insurgents in IraqJust read about it this week. Those who aren't being killed are looking for a way out. The other option is the relentless pursuit of them by the best soldiers and Marines in the world, ours.. Rather, we read insurgency casualty counts as if they were mounting a staircase to an imaginary final destination: the magic number that will signal elimination of all terrorist threatsAnyone know how many steps are on this staircase? We can't start until we know.. Accordingly, our first question becomes, what is it that the US government means by the word "terrorism"? Well, assclown, terrorism is the use of violence against innocents.And how does this relate to our installing a democratic apparatus in Iraq? Historically, terrorism has been defined as illegitimate violence, violence outside of a state's monopoly on the use of forceNot exactly as states can also use terrorist methods.. Yet I would like to complicate this use of the term 'illegitimate' with a contemporaneous, other kind of illegitimacy: that which characterized colonial regimes throughout the 20th century. In British, French, Portuguese and even South African coloniesWTF?? South Africa was a colony, but they never colonized anyhwere else. Oh, you mean the "white guy" deal, eh? Ergo, yout title! Makes Perfect sense., governments were often illegitimate in the sense that only a minority of people inside the nation were enfranchised, or represented by the group in power. The United States enlisted this logic to indict Saddam Hussein, whose elections were a joke and who represented only a minority of his population. Yet, history reveals in no uncertain terms that opposition movements, which over time emancipated colonies from often brutal rule, were time and time again branded terrorists. The FLA Actually, the FLN, but when your a moonbat, truth isn't an issue in Algeria, the ANC in South Africa, ZAPO and ZANU in Zimbabwe, and the IRA in Ireland were not deemed terrorists because of their tactics, which at least initially did not target civilians-rather, they were deemed terrorists because they threatened to overthrow illegitimate colonial rule. While a bomb in Birmingham or London was never-and I repeat never-a good thing because the IRA initially only targeted British soldiers in UlsterAnd that is a good thing?, this kind of terrorism is necessarily complex. History is equally clear on the fact that the media of occupying governments are essentially prohibited from accurate representation of the occupation itself. Ideologically, the fact that a group of people in this country supported the war enough to enable it to happen indicates that the media will represent the view that Iraq does in fact need to be occupied, for various reasons. This prohibits them from portraying the evils of occupation as necessarily evil; rather, they portray the occupation as unfortunate but necessary. In this war in particular, however, there is the added factor of intense government censorship and the unprecedented embedding of reporters.Did I miss the logic there? Or was did any logic even exist there? Gotta find my old college textbook on Logic and look it up. Thus, while the ostensible savagery'cause you, know, they're just killing white American Don't Be So Romantic This etymological history, along with proofProof? Where? of a propagandistic media, is significant only to a point. On the one hand, an understanding not only of past invocations of the term 'terrorism,' but the situations in which terrorism became the only weapon of the majority of citizens in a nation-as was the case throughout the 20th century era of decolonization-Wait a minute. I thought you jusat said the 20th century was the colonial century. Now I am confused too! underscores how imperative the stigmatization of 'terrorism' has been for minority regimes to maintain militarized rule. On the other hand, though, this history often tempts us to romanticize anti-imperial struggles, and similarly has lead to the romanticization of Iraqi resistance. Such romanticizing obscures what I believe to be the most essential point of this entire argument. If there is one thing that we take away from 20th century history, it should be this: it is neither your place nor mine to decide who is worthy of what degree of autonomyWho is this 'we', bitch?. Not only do romantic portrayals of resistance rely on self-serving reductionism, they also implicitly pronounce the kind of moral authority and higher-judgment that are part and parcel of maintaining an imperialist way of thinking. Thus, to argue that resistance in Iraq deserves our support "because (insert homogenizing, descriptive reason here)," is to invoke the same paternalist authority, which, in another era argued that "the African (singular) is a savage and must be governed accordingly." Rather, if we support the Iraqis right to self-determination, it must be because we identify a common, equal humanity between us; because we recognize that US occupation of Iraqi land and the US-sanctioned torture, rape, murder, and theft are unjustMy, our soldiers have been busy. Too bad the MSM never caught wind of this!. That, in addition to the plight of our soldiers, which many of them argue is worsening every day, is why we must demand troops out now. For no other reason. Accordingly, since the Iraqi resistance is the force working to regain Iraqi sovereignty, we support them-unconditionally.Loosing.....sanity. Must..continue..fisking... We must bring American troops home simply because it is not their place to stop the insurgents. Granted, even the most inspiring national liberation movements had their crimes and their tragediesLike the miracle birth of Israel again the combined Arab savages that would have slaughtered them? The only trategy is that more Arabs didn't leave. Many liberation struggles, fought under the watchful eyes of the Cold War superpowers, even failed, in the end, to achieve their objectives (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Algeria, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, the list goes on). Yet, suffice it to say here that the limits or failures of a movement do not nullify its purpose, although they may hamper it. Past failures cannot justify the abandonment of our commitment to the right of people everywhere to self-determination. They are easy traps to fall into-romanticizing past struggles or indicting 'insurgents' for use of terroristic tacticsI have never romanticized any terrorists, even those brave boys in the IRGUN and FFI. Yet, concerning the flat and stigmatized notion of 'terrorism,' 20th century history, in concert with brave soldiers such as Carmello Mejiawho? SOme traitor, I presume, and the invaluableto the Islamofascists independent (unembedded) media shows us that our understanding of the word 'terrorism' is necessarily compromised when our government is occupying the land of the so-called terrorists. Conversely, regarding the romanticization of the resistance we have a model in Louisa May Alcott's writing through Jo in Little Women: "it is not because women are good that they should vote. It's because it is fair and just." To romanticize resistance moralizes women, totalizes, does violence, and gets us nowhere outside the haughty hegemonic box of imperial thoughtBrain.not.comprehending. Instead, historical hindsight would have us see a certain truth, a certain continued struggle, in the efforts and desires of people in Iraq-without needing to judge or purify them. MUST.PUT.RIFLE.DOWN.DO.NOT.GO.TO.BROWN.U |
| Posted by:Brett |
| #2 None of the above. She is just intelligent enough to have learnt the vocabulary (and she does love her spell check!), but not intelligent enough to string them together even semi-coherently, let alone logically. I imagine she will proudly append this to her resume when she goes job hunting upon graduation, and will never understand why nobody hires her. If her subconscious is very clever, she will send a copy to her parents, who will promptly yank her out and send her to the local community college until she has learned enough to earn an associate degree (2 year, less than a Batchelors, for all you furriners) in anything. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-04-26 9:28:52 PM |
| #1 Is this sedition or treason? Is she an accessory to terrorism or simply the cheerleader? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-04-26 8:50:11 PM |