Weekly Worker 475 Thursday April 10 2003
Letters
Stateside focus
In his letter to the Weekly Worker (April 3), Timothy Lauby refers to Americans as “stupid”. I think this oversimplifies the matter.
People in the US have been fed a steady diet of propaganda about the Middle East and about US motivations in this conflict. In fact, the selling of this “War Against Terror” is perhaps one of the most successful jobs of political propaganda since the Reichstag fire.
Today, almost 50% of Americans think that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11 attack and that the Iraqi regime has direct ties to Osama bin Laden’s terror network. The Bush administration has pushed these lies on us, and the media (Fox News, CNN, etc) have failed to report the truth.
The “support our troops” message is being aggressively sold by rightwing corporations and the media. The bulk of the US armed forces is drawn from the working class. These are our sons and daughters. So the media machine kicks into high gear telling us that protesters are mostly students (read privileged) or unpatriotic and, most of all, “against the troops”.
The anti-war movement has to make a reply that’s strong and clear: “Bring them home now!” The Bush regime’s claim to support the troops is in itself ludicrous. They are trying to cut benefits for veterans while attempting to cut taxes for the very rich.
While I agree that the defeat of imperialist forces is preferable to their victory, this slogan is one that is difficult to raise in the US. It would cut across efforts to build a broad anti-war movement. I believe that the superior firepower of the US and its mercenary forces will mean victory in the short run. It is the peace that will be difficult to win.
The US and its allies are faced with the task of occupying a hostile territory surrounded by hostile countries. The fact that all of these troops have been fed media images of Arabs as inferior, savages, and terrorists will mean that the occupation forces will be incapable of dealing with everyday Iraqis as humans. Look at the way Arabs and muslims are portrayed in movies and on television.
The US is walking into its own West Bank. The other thing to consider when talking about the US is the relative strength of the anti-war movement. The movement did not lose as much ground as I expected it to in the beginning days of the war. I have seen opinion polls that say as many as 30% remain opposed to this war. The groups organised on campus, in the African American community and in the labor movement have continued to organise. I think it is only right to expect some downturn in the size of demonstrations, but I think the real good news is the size and vitality of an anti-imperialist pole in the movement.
Another strength is the growth of the Palestine Solidarity movement. Many activists are drawing the connections between US policy in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Last weekend we had a march of almost 5,000 in Philadelphia in a freezing rainstorm. This march had a lot of spirit and made its way quickly from the river’s edge to the Liberty Bell. The Free Palestine bloc brought up the rear of the march and was easily amongst the strongest contingents.
Jim Higgins
Philadelphia, PA
British party
The article ‘The anti-fascism of fools’ (April 3) hinted at the “material roots” of the British National Party’s support, without going into much detail.
There are a number of reasons for the BNP’s recent modest successes and increased support. One reason is this: the far-right stopped talking about ‘biology’ and started talking about ‘culture’. Now I know the BNP still sells pseudo-scientific booklets about IQ and ‘race’, but its more public propaganda really has changed in its emphasis.
It is, after all, far more ‘mainstream’ and contemporary to talk about cultural differences and the ‘clash of civilisations’. Mentioning genetics looks a bit too obviously Nazi and ever-so 1930s.
It is the flawed notion of ‘national’ identity that needs to be deconstructed and contested. Take apart the notion of ‘Britishness’ and the ‘British’National Party’s reason for existence fades away.
Graeme Kemp
email
Silliness
With reference to the article ‘Which side are you on?’ (April 3).
When it becomes clear that Bush’s intent is not world domination, please think back to this inane column and try to restrain yourself writing such silliness in the future.
Of course he looks out for US interests abroad, that is in a leader’s job description, is it not? The left saying that the US is entering a new era of colonialism is absurd and pointedly shows why such tired old rhetoric is ignored by society. The left had its shot last century, let us get on with improving the world without discredited ideology.
Michael Johnson
email
Fallacious
In your anti-war round-up (April 3), we had James Frazer quoting a Socialist Workers Party speaker recommending Al Jazeera over the BBC.
Is not it way over the top to conclude “Such advice speaks volumes for the SWP’s substitutionism and reveals a distinct lack of ambition”?
Come off it! This was the first time I’ve read your website. It would be more useful without such fallacious logic. Thanks.
Julian Lewis
email
Walking away
I do not agree with the recent front page headlines: “Rather defeat for US-UK forces than their victory; “Victory to the peoples of Iraq”; and “No support for imperialist troops”.
Such headlines make Weekly Worker unsaleable. I have cancelled my standing order.
John Smithee
Cambridgeshire
Appeasement
Why are most left, green and progressive activists backing the anti-war movement’s simplistic demand, ‘Don’t attack Iraq’? The victims of Saddam Hussein’s neo-fascist regime are crying out for weapons to defend themselves. They want to overthrow his dictatorship. Why is the anti-war movement ignoring their cries?
The US and UK invasion of Iraq should, of course, be opposed. It is a mercenary neo-imperial attempt to create a pro-western client state in the Middle East - and grab Iraq’s oil. But opposing allied aggression is no justification for parroting the feeble plea to ‘Stop the War’. This is tantamount to appeasement.
The progressive movement has not always shown such moral cowardice. Faced with tyrants like Saddam, it has previously backed armed insurrections by socialists and democrats. We backed the struggles of the partisans in Nazi-occupied Europe, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the ANC in South Africa, and Fretilin in East Timor.
Should not we also be demanding arms for the Iraqi resistance, so the Iraqi people (rather than the forces of revived imperialism) can depose the Butcher of Baghdad? Why are not left-wingers and peace campaigners challenging Saddam’s despotism and human rights abuses, instead of capitulating to his murderous regime?
The failure of progressives to offer an alternative strategy to western invasion is a betrayal of Iraqis struggling for socialism, democracy and human rights. It has enabled George Bush and Tony Blair to boost public support for their attack on Iraq by claiming “there is no alternative”. They keep saying that invasion is the only way to bring down Saddam, and many people fall for this deception - partly because the anti-war movement has failed to offer an alternative. When asked what they would do about Saddam, anti-war activists have no answer. But there is an alternative: arm the Iraqi opposition.
War is ghastly, even revolutionary war inspired by noble ideals of liberty and justice. But faced with a ruthless dictatorship like Saddam’s - where the possibility of peaceful, democratic change is non-existent - armed insurrection is, regrettably, the only serious option. We cannot, in all conscience, sit back and do nothing to help the Iraqi people win their freedom. They need weapons, not sympathy.
Prior to the start of the war, opinion polls showed a majority of people in the US and Europe against invasion. But a majority also want Saddam overthrown. They recognise there can be no toleration of a tyrant who murders and maims his people. These seemingly contradictory strands of public opinion could be reconciled by a strategy of empowering the Iraqi opposition to topple the Ba’athist regime.
In the run-up to war, why did not progressives attempt to create a popular movement to demand the US, Britain and the rest of Europe provide military aid to the anti-Saddam forces inside Iraq - the Kurds, Shias, communists and others? Whatever happened to internationalism? Why did we not pursue a policy of helping the Iraqi people achieve their own home-made anti-fascist revolution?
Even now, despite the war having begun, the anti-war movement could be calling for US and UK troops to be pulled back to Kuwait, and be replaced by military aid to the Iraqi resistance, along the lines of the aid given by Russia and China to Vietnam. If the Vietnamese can defeat the mightiest military power in history then, surely, with a little international military aid, the Iraqi people can defeat Saddam?
The Kurds have 80,000 troops, and the Shias 15,000. The Iraqi Communist Party (now a democratic left party like the Italian communists) has thousands of underground members - many with guerrilla experience from previous attempted uprisings against Saddam. All these indigenous forces of dissent are desperate to take on Saddam. But they need more training and better weapons: tanks, helicopter gun-ships, mines, heavy artillery and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. The west sold Saddam many of the weapons he uses to murder his own people. Isn’t it now time we redressed the balance by arming his victims so they can fight back and overthrow his dictatorship?
Arming the Iraqi resistance to end Saddam’s rule is a viable strategy that could work. Equipped with the latest weaponry, free Iraqi guerrilla armies could be assembled in the northern and southern no-fly zones, where Saddam’s air force cannot penetrate. From these safe-havens, the Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south could launch military strikes and take most of the rural areas and small towns with relative ease. This would create large liberated areas around the major cities, freeing millions of Iraqis from Saddam’s control and bringing tens of thousands of new recruits into the ranks of the free Iraqi forces.
The liberation of most of Iraq would leave Saddam holed up in the capital - isolated, surrounded and doomed. With his aura of invincibility shattered, mass defections by his troops would follow and the civilian population would be emboldened to open revolt.
Modelled on the ‘people power’ revolutions that brought down the dictatorships in Romania and Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, a civilian rebellion by the Iraqi people could work in tandem with a guerrilla uprising. Together, they would seriously undermine Saddam’s ability to govern, weakening his authority and strengthening public confidence that he can be overthrown. This resistance could include workplace go-slows, mass sick leaves, industrial and military sabotage, and the non-payment of rents and taxes. These tactics were used with some success by the Danes to frustrate the Nazi war effort, by the Indian independence movement against British colonial rule, and by black South Africans to destablise apartheid and render it unsustainable.
An internally-based civilian and military uprising could get rid of Saddam, without the need for a western invasion. It would also avoid provoking the current anti-US and anti-UK nationalist backlash. Most Iraqis hate Saddam, but they also hate the idea of their country being invaded and occupied by foreigners. The allied bombing of civilians, and the harsh counter-insurgency measures being used by American and British troops, are bolstering support for Saddam and weakening the democratic and socialist opposition. This is bad news for progressives everywhere, but especially inside Iraq.
Home-grown regime change by Iraqis and for Iraqis is the key to democracy, human rights, self-determination and regional peace. Why have the left, green and progressive movements allowed Bush and Blair to get away with the false claim that invasion was the only option?
Peter Tatchell
London
Peter Tatchell is the author of Democratic Defence (Heretic Books/GMP 1985) www.petertatchell.net
Into the trees
Some of the confusion against wanting an imperialist defeat in Iraq could disappear if the long-term historical reality illuminating the situation was better grasped, leading to a more precise description of what is needed for civilisation’s further progress.
Jack Conrad’s ‘Party Notes’ (April 3) still claimed to “prefer victory for the existing Iraq state to victory by the US-UK coalition”, causing one Trot critic to happily conclude that “military support” for the Saddam regime was at last being conceded, a chaotic anti-Leninist political confusion.
The whole notion of ‘preference’ needs abandoning as historically misleading and philosophically muddled in order to make it clear that fostering any confidence at all in Ba’athism would be a backward step for international anti-imperialist understanding, as well as a potentially catastrophic delusion.
Approaching the nastiest warmongering contradictions ever posed by imperialist-system economic crisis, the defeat of the west’s world domination is the utterly vital necesity for all mankind, dwarfing all other considerations.
Pedants who argue that defeat for the US-UK coalition “necessarily implies” calling for a victory for Saddam, or at least an expression of political/military “support” for Saddam, are missing the wood because of all the trees around.
Joe Harper
Manchester
Advice
The Scottish Socialist Party has to be very cold and calculating about raising our vote in the Holyrood elections in May.
That does not mean looking forward to dead Iraqi women and children, nor celebrating as British or US troops are brought home in body bags (words the mass media, and all the other political parties, tried to put in our mouths last week, based on an off-the-cuff remark made by our press officer, Hugh Kerr). But it does mean we need to identify a cutting edge, anything and everything that makes us distinctive, distinctively attractive, to our natural constituency. And we need to identify, and then deal with, each and every issue that will make them turn away from us, including issues related to this war.
According to one current affairs programme pundit on Sunday, the Scottish National Party leader suffers badly in comparison with Tommy Sheridan in terms of perceived honesty and trust. And these factors rate third in priority for most voters. There are many reasons Tommy scores highly here.
Leaving aside personal charisma and powerful rhetoric, he is clearly trusted because of his being prepared to go to jail for his principles. That wins kudos, as does his commitment to standing as a workers’ MP on a workers’ wage. Our party election broadcast (April 6) was right to address the question of Tommy giving half his salary back to the party. As our members gain access to radio call-in programmes, and get to speak from the studio audience on the telly, they need to remind voters that this is no personal quirk of our national convenor: we must stress that all our candidates are equally principled.
They also need to explain why our party has adopted this policy: not primarily to bolster party coffers; we do it because we insist on keeping our elected representatives in touch with the lifestyle of those they represent. The more we emphasise this point, the more problems we create for the SNP candidates, whose commitment to tax cuts for big business is not at all unrelated to their refusal to live on the average wage of skilled workers.
Although we cannot tailor our anti-war principles to the shifting mood within society at large, we should draw all the arguments about this war together in a manner that will maximise our popular support and, thereby, our vote on May Day. There are very many workers who will have intended to vote for us a month or two ago but who will, for a variety of reasons, be having second thoughts. They will probably be counted among the quite astonishing figures of 47% who remain undecided on how to cast their first vote, and 62% undecided on what to do about their second vote. They will be confused by the pictures broadcast to their TV screens from Iraq.
Even if they remain unconvinced by the pro-war arguments, they will wonder why it is (if opinion polls are accurate) that opposition to the war has melted away so spectacularly, especially in such a short period of time. Although less so than in the United States, many will be keeping their heads down, frightened of appearing isolated in their workplaces, colleges etc. What they may not understand is that as they allow themselves to be too intimidated to put the anti-war case, whenever debate takes place all around them, they will be playing a role in a vicious circle. Inevitably opposition to the war will dry up, as fewer and fewer people are willing to put their heads above the parapet, since only the pro-war case will get a hearing away from the TV screens. And this will be reflected in opinion polls. And these, in turn, will be exploited by the pro-war media to justify denying vocal opponents of the war access to the airwaves. As the mass media portray the war as having quick successes, some people who would have been proud to be identified as anti-war protestors in general, and SSP voters in particular, might even convince themselves that they never intended to vote for us in the first place. Can we win them back? Some of them, yes.
And we need to adopt a tone of understanding towards workers who have lost their nerve, who are now confused in the light of the seeming military successes of US and British troops, and of their apparently being welcomed as liberators. We need to be very patient when we explain why we will be proven right, even if not in time for the Scottish elections. But we need to adopt a very different tone when dealing with some of our erstwhile allies. Only a tone of sharp condemnation will suffice when we turn our attention to those so-called leaders of the anti-war movement who have betrayed us. John Swinney of the SNP must be exposed as having opportunistically ridden the wave of the anti-war movement when the tide was high, and then abandoned ship when the going got tough, finally to take pot shots at our leaky vessel.
Tom Delargy
Workers Unity Platform
