Supporting the Iraqi 'militia'

Not sure that supporting my enemy's enemy is a good principle in practice - look what happended to the Yanks when they supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.

As we said in Class War after September 11th the cure (Islamic fundamentalism) turned out to be worse than the disease (Soviet Communism)

I also think there is a danger going down this route of echoing the SWPs "Victory to the Resistance" line - a line which is more about dissing the Yanks and/or sucking up to certain British Muslim groups, than it is about any objective analysis.

yeah but ain't this 'support' in the daft trot way- having resolutions or talking about it to you're other trot friends in a pub. What's the point in developing 'ideological sound' positions on events you have no possiblity (or any real intention) of having any effect on? Fine if your going to go out and join the militia or smuggle them arms, but otherwise it just political masterbation (which is alot less fun than the real stuff).

Agreed.........

I somehow can't see too many Trots heading off to Iraq in the next months!

What we meant was Islamic fundamentalism was a worse threat to us (i.e the working class) than the Soviet bloc, although its a moot point as to whether it is also a bigger threat to the US - religions tend to last longer than economic systems!

On your second point .......

The SWP have done flyposting in London with the slogan "Victory to the Resistance".

They are also very, very crass - the day after the Madrid bombings, they stickered my area of Hackney with the slogan "Release the Guantanomo Prisoners" - I did ask if their sister group was putting up similar stickers in Madrid, but never got a reply .......

I say victory to the resistance... it won't be great but 'independent nationalist' governments tend to be better for the people than some ex-CIA strongman. Someone like Sistani could bring unity and a degree of social justice. Not a libertarian paradise, but the Iraqi anarchist movement is weak I think so take the best you can get..,

Those idiots supporting the resistance might like to hear about the sharia law imposed on areas run by the mehdi, the woking class people executed for opposing them, or for trying bring about working class self-organisation, for standing up for womens rights, for drinking, the lmass looting and theiving they do, the baathists they welcome if they have guns etc - the below site contains plenty of on the ground reports:

http://www.wpiraq.org/english/

Let's support one ruling class in their struggle against another ruling class in the battle to win the right to have their foot on the necks of the Iraqi working class shall we? How about supporting independent workling class action and initatives against both sets of bosses? You know, 'no war but the classwar' and all that - not petty nationalist tail-ending.

Why has class analysis gone straight out of the window when the chance of shoooting a few American economic conscripts arises - what about looking at the resistance and just who and what it represents - that's a quite a useful method you know, Big up Iran and the spread of its state interests!

The leftist drivel on this site over the last month is fucking astounding. Anarchists? I do fucking wonder sometimes.

Do you even know what the Mahdi army is and who's funding it? You're simply conflating a perfect abstract model of resistance with the actual real shit going on now, and totally disregarding the content. I don't know about corspes in mouths mate, but there's certainly a whole load of shit coming from yours.

(Oh yeah, it's not 1968 anymore - thought you might like to know)

fuck me butchers i thought i was a cheeky cunt! yeah vagappreciationclub t isn't 1968 and the situationists were middle class(in the real sense) tossers who superficially reworked Marx's "fetishism of the commodity" into a overcooked analysis called the spectacle. As for the situationists calls for workers councils well they were superficial and without real insight. granted they had some lovely turns of phrase but after " the poverty of student life" it went downhill. and seriously can u not converse like in a less wanky way, we all know what the spectacle is and we know wat detournment entails we're just bored of them.

but yeah calls to support any resistance to US imperialism have a habit of biting people in the arse, just look over the border to Iran, its revolution sent the wanky left in a tail spin for years and showed focaults politics to be the pile of shit everyone suspected them of being.

check out the IWA site for stuff on independent workers action in iraq (tho it probably isn't sexy enough for all our RPG & balaclava fetishers *cough* pro republican anarchists*cough*.)

theres also a small article on the Mehdi army trying to use workplaces as bases of attack and them being told to fuck off by the workers.

supporting people on the basis of "their the only ones shooting back" is a wee bit daft. and also playsinto the hands of the media who present Iraq as a shooting match between the US, moderates iraqi's, ex ba'athists and islamists. Its frustrating the lack of real information coming out of iraq at the moment and i think this is leading people to cheer on anyone shooting at the yanks, tempting as it is to play armchair general its mostly working class Iraqi's caught in the cross fire between would be leaders and the present occupiers.

by the way butchers that workers communist website is pretty good, i mean its leninist but at least its class based and gives us some insight into the events unfolding.

anti imperialism is not an analysis!

the situationists do deserve much credit for rejecting the bullshit being spread by marcuse et al in the US and the general third worldism that presented the western proletariat as complicit in the exploitation of the 3rd world proletariat. the concept of the spectacle, as much as it has it uses, is limited by its underlying essentialism. How do we separate the spectacle from our "real" desires? perhaps i enjoy playing computer games perhaps i don't want to go to RTS and hang around with a bunch of hippies dancin to shit music, perhaps i think that RTS is a "spectacle" recuperated within capital. perhaps i' rather watch rambo 3 than go out and do some "oh soo very chic ad busting" (or detournment) because i look at the direction this shit is goin in and know very well capitalism will assimilate it (eg diesel clothes).

too be fair to the situationists they always pointed out the potential for actions to be recuperated in the absence of wider working class militancy but there still remains an underlining elitism because of their essentialism.

the situationists also took most of their class analysis from "socialism or barbarism". The role of the situationists in may 68 is also far too over played they really had no serious part cept for a few students using their rhetoric for some snazzy slogans.

anyway im still waiting for an anaswer as to how the "spectacle" is not just the application of Marx's fetishism of commodities to comtemporary capital.

that is exactly my point there are no real desires, all desires are a product. yes i can sit and play a computer game if i want and im constrained within it (which is good thing as a endlessly open game would be boring as fuck) and the same time when i go to demo or protest i also am only free within a certain framework. The idea of a continously open ended creative free play is all very good but at the same time that free play and creativiity will always take play within social constraints. There is no escaping the social and there is no point trying to find a true nature or desire they just don't exist.

and cheers for those debord quotes only they don't tell me anything i don't know. the spectacle is not new the rationale of capital permeated the media in the 19th century, it permeated the architecture of cities like manchester in the 19th century as well and it sold itself through leisure actiivites too, Marx's fetishismof the commodity is a much better framework cos it doesn't necessarily imply a negative in enjoying watching other peoples work but rather points out in capital the real processes behind the production of it are hidden, situationism (and yes it does exist as u are its prime pupil) implys that the role of spectator is necessarily a creation of capital, a product of false conciousness when in fact i can be fully aware of my exploitation under capital and wish to create a world of free and creative labour yet still enjoy crappy hollywood films or computer games where i kill terrorists to save the USA.

the situationists in their pursuit of detournment overlook the fact that ulitmatey most people detourn the spectacle in someway already. They don't require some jumped up art students to point out the obvious.

I don't think this is true.

The US elites are I'd imagine pretty content with the overall sitaution- including the Mehdi army.

No significant change in control of resources (including oil + building materials industries) included has occured.

The Mehdi army is "severely damaging" little apart from wc peoples' lives (Iraqi + US + UK).

so that would be problems with supply then?

Are you being serious?

A few links for good measure

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14547283&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=killed-soldier-to--quit-army--name_page.html

http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/regionalnews/tm_objectid=14569637&method=full&siteid=50142&headline=from-the-frontline-name_page.html

In what way does this strengthen the position of us as a class either here or USA or Iraq or anywhere else?

Soldiers in many, many areas perform peacekeeping and humanitarian duties.

90% of the time a regular or a reserve's activities are honourable.

I am genuinly puzzled as to what exactly is funny in any of this.

You seem to be suggesting

Trouble in exporting oil from Iraq = happiness for libertarians.

I don't see why that sould be the case.

Besides oil in USA is still very cheap compared with just about every other part of the world- and the supply from Iraq has been continuing relatively efficiently.

I'm sorry, but that is absolutely absurd and simplistic. Oil is the commodity whose price largely determines that of most other domestic commodities, when it rises so do they - it is used in the production of plastics and most other things, as well as increasing transportation costs - all of which reduce working class income and shift value to capital. A rise in oil prices is an attack on the working class, not a block to capital accumulation.

Take a look at what happened in the 1970s with the oil crisis when prices rose massively - the overflowing petrodollars from OPEC were recycled through western banks and used to attack the working and living conditions of the worldwide working class by introducing new automated work processes, chasing the too powerful 'mass worker' out of the workplace, and shifting the less technologically advanced work to the 'third world' with it's lower labour and production costs - a process which entailed the destruction of the 'commons' in those countries and a paralell chasing of the people into the new factories through various repressive measures - a 'new enclosures'.

Now, just what was it that the situationists tried to hammer home about 'the totality'?

There simply is not, and never has been an inherent need for the US to have cheap oil prices - i suggest you read something from a tradtion outside of the situtationists - those inspired by operaismo and 'autonomy' for example - i'd suggest starting with 'Midnight Oil: Work, Energy and War'

Here, Vaginappreciationclub, you missed your moment... The answer you were looking for, in the style of Debord, was:

"I'm not staying here to answer cuntish questions like that!" at which point you and all your situ buddies storm out of this forum and denounce it to anyone who will listen until your untimely death a few decades later.

Here's another chance... Baudrillard's theory of hyper-reality is better than Debord's theory of the spectacle, isn't it?

I know all this 'cos I used to go out with a situationist... She spent a lot of time in coffee houses.

Why would you want to support them? Theyre pushing for the introduction of Shariah Law and stuff. It would be like anarchists supporting the Catholic Church or the Spanish Inquisition or something...

edit - ott.

lol, to quote an old Chinese proverb 'We've got a right stir-fry of garlic and pubic hair, here.'

I agree with one of Vg's initial point -- that making 'the Iraqi resistance' into one group is not useful to get a handle on what's happening. Most of the 'Shi'a' fighters are not linked to Sadr's organisation. His parent organisation, the Dawar Party has several faction itself, and then there's all the many factions and groups with not media profile.

I've talked to people from the Worker-Communist party quite a bit, even tried to read their guru Mansur Hekmeth's big book; it seem to me they're one of the few groups doing properly focussed secualr activity. However, they also do tend to get too worked up about the danger of Iraq going like Iran, with a theocracy taking over. The identity 'muslim' is a default one, and doesn't mean that an Iraqi revolution will go theocratic, any more than the 'christian' identities of the Spanish and Russian peasants meant that they all supported the bishops and primates.

Surely the slogan 'victory to the resistance' is simply a blanket statement expressing the hope that 'coalition' troops are eventually forced to withdraw from iraq by any means neccessary.

Sure the mehdi army is shit, but with an iraqi based ruling class, or even a ruling class closely affiliated to neighbouring iran, capital will be concentrated in iraqi cities and not pumped into the US and UK down the oil pipelines thus enabling the strengthening of the iraqi working class.

Surely thats fairly basic anti-imperialist rhetoric.

While you recognise the fact that the majority of the iraqi national liberation movements are thouroughly bourgeois, you cannot dictate the character of a national liberation movement from within the imperialist nation. How can you effectively challenge imperialism if you yourself are dictating how the iraqis should be behaving.

john

ps personally i think the disruption of oil supply in the US and the UK would be a bloody good thing in the long run

you big, fat, stinky trot jack

'Imperialism' often seems to be used as a wanky liberal alternative to thinking. If you have an argument that can be made on the basis of class based communist politics, make it and there is no need for 'imperialism' as a framework of analysis. The invasion of Iraq was opposed by liberals and Trots on the basis that it was imperialistic, contravened international law, etc. It was opposed by communists because it was clearly not in the interest of the working class in Iraq or elsewhere. If you can demonstrate that the activites of a bunch of overarmed fundamentalist lunatics killing working class people in Iraq just now is justifiable in terms of benefits to ordinary people in Iraq and elsewhere then explain why. Don't just say 'resistance to imperialism' 'cos it's a retreat to a nationalist liberal position.

The idea that what happens in other countries is not our business is something that internationalist revolutionaries should be challenging not reinforcing. They have women in Iraq, you know? Maybe they don't want to be subjected to a strict interpretation of Islamic law. In fact, who fucking would? There is class struggle going on, strikes over wages, trade unions trying to secure basic rights for workers. That can be supported on the basis of class politics. Jihad can't.

Has anyone read the text on the 91 uprisings, 'The Kurdish Uprising & Kurdistan's Nationalist Shop Front & its Negotiations with

the Baathist/Fascist Regime' put out by Blob & Combustion? It's really brilliant, both as an insight into that uprising and also as an analysis of the counter-revolutionary nature of national liberation struggles. Most of the practice of the 'Iraqi resistance', loosely targetted car bombs, attacks on journalists, etc. is hard to defend. Their ambitions and theoretical ideas are indefinsible and explicitly hostile to the working class generally and to women and minorities in particular. We would not tolerate the chaos, destruction and intended totality and oppression in our country so why cheer lead it in Iraq?

There is a slightly racist undertone to the 'support the resistance' brigade that assumes the Jihad bams are the only prospect for resistance to US imposed neo-liberalism in Iraq. It forgets that in '91 there were workers councils set up while commandeered tanks opened fire on mosques. Okay, the communist movement is not so strong in Iraq just now but it's not great here either and we're not cheering for Nation of Islam. And I fucking hope we wouldn't be even if they were widespread and blowing shit up all the time.

How quickly people abandon their politics when it's a wee bit far away!

word wodr and word on that shit.

imperialism is a very vague term mostly used by the left to justify thnigs they would be lambasting if carried out by "their" ruling class. Thats another point perhaps people haven't realised but capitalism is not individual ruling classes but a social relationship and a social relationship that national liberation does nothing to alter but rather promotes via assimilating working class struggle into its own agenda in under the name of common national or relegious interests.

we shouldn't allow our hatred of our own ruling class our to degenerate into support for another one or potential ruling class.