• draining the swamps in 2007

Steve Owens also wrore:

Barry how well I remember those hand wringers that you speak of.

 

Remember when during the first Gulf war they marched with clenched fists shouting " save the Kuwaiti monachy" and how the clenched fists changed to hand wringing when it looked like a popular uprising might unseat Saddam.

 

Now look at those slimy bastards at first shouting "democracy for Iraq" then wringing their hands shouting "hang Rumsfield and how do we extricate ourselves from this mess"

Luckily for us history is not writen by the hand wringers but by those who will fight oppression

patrickm responded with:

Steve (owens): you say;

The main contributors to this site stand fully behind 3 clear predictions.  Prediction one is that the US lead coalition could through war create a model democracy in Iraq.

This is so misleading that a reasonable response is to accuse you of a deliberate distortion.

The main theme has been to maintain that U.S. policies in the Middle East since WW2 have been rotten to the core, and have held back the struggle for democracy and have helped turn the political, economic and cultural swamp that is the Middle East into an even bigger swamp.  I think you agree with this proposition.

The prediction was that a democracy for Iraq was the intention of this invasion and that this invasion was therefore a revolutionary war of liberation and a reversal of former U.S. policies (as with Bush senior who so callously sold out the Shia having called for them to rebel); you disputed this at the time but the three elections that were held in 2005, confirmed this prediction.  A democracy is now in place and you were simply wrong.

When the government of Iraq defeats the enemies of democracy (Baathists, Jihadists and Shia Death Squads) a peaceful democracy will result and that democracy will still not be operating at an advanced European level (think of western democracies in the late 1940’s and you can get the point with regard to rights of women, gays, blacks etc) but that democracy will still be a model for the rest of the Middle East.

   

Now the curious thing is that you don’t even dispute this.  You do not accuse the current Iraqi government of being U.S. puppets, or of the elections as being anything other than substantially free and fair and producing a proportionately representative parliament.

The things that are happening, warts and all, in Iraq are in the context of a massive and complex revolution in a swamp.  The whole region and far beyond is both looking at what is playing out and is in interplay with it.  The region (indeed the world) is going to be affected by how it plays out.  The U.S. goal was and remains region change, and it is only the time span of the revolution and the tactics that are varying.   Indeed as Arthur has pointed out over at the U.S. site TPM Café;

"Some people here will continue telling anyone who will listen that their government is out of touch with reality, and that any who disagree are only fooling themselves.

A chorus will agree that the elected government of Iraq are pathetic puppets of the US and that problems will disappear when US troops are withdrawn.

But its obviously pretty harmless stuff, intended for comforting each other rather than for persuading anybody else. The sort of protests it leads to are like those chanting "not in our name" back in 2003 - broad but shallow and impotent.

Deep down people here know that the government of Iraq are not US puppets and that the enemy the US is fighting is not the Iraqi people but fascists, jihadis and death squads killing the Iraqi people.

That can be ignored while talking among yourselves but it cannot be "re-cast" for popular consumption by any amount of "creative energy".

Nobody serious wants to see Iraq and the US defeated by a bunch of fascists and jihadi and death squad medievalists.

So nobody serious is organizing a movement for defeat.

Creative energy only gets applied to such things when one is genuinely comfortable about who would win.

 

It seems that all that you, and the others who believed the liberating invasion was really all about oil (or that that is a good enough ‘shorthand’), can now do is adopt a racist policy of neglect.  The Iraqi government calls for continued assistance and you lot believe that call for assistance by Iraqi experts ought to be ignored.  You would have people follow Chomsky who calls these Iraqi experts ‘hated collaborators’, yet you yourself deny that they are hated collaborators.  

The belief that the majority of Iraqi representatives ought to be ignored in favor of the Sadrist (that hate you and would kill you and any Iraqi that even vaguely resembles you) who call for the coalition to go home is bizarre.  The Sadrists are a big part of the problem and are developing as a strong and determined enemy of democracy; they are attempting to ethnically cleanse areas of Baghdad even in the presence of Coalition troops.  How much more could they accomplish if those troops were not there?  How much less can they accomplish if more troops arrive?

Leading Sadrists are opponents of democracy but most of those they lead will turn out to not be strongly anti-democratic at all.  But they need time spent in a security environment that permits them to stand down and get on with developing themselves economically.  The improved security situation will enable the rapid economic development, that permits people to politically develop under the influence of a thriving mass media that is now in existence in Iraq.  The Iraqi population profile is very young and so very rapid changes can be expected.

Hard core Shia death squads can only be defeated by political, economic and cultural developments that require time and the provision of security to the Shia areas.  The Iraqi state must develop a very powerful army and police force and they are several years away from doing so.  The police are (as you know) often currently the problem so that needs urgent attention and from what I can gather from my time on the net this problem is getting attention.  I have confidence in the majority of the Iraqi political forces having an interest in democracy and the building of a viable federal Iraq.

There are bucket loads of urgent political, economic, cultural and security issues for the Government to work on and they all have to progress.  Progress will see the majority of those involved in Shia militias willing to stand down because most are IMV only involved because of the real need to provide security to their people.  Security is the key link.

Of course everything is interconnected but the oil agreement to proportionally share oil revenues from a national pool has to be the base.  Without this great breakthrough I doubt that anything else could be accomplished.  But that breakthrough as Barry has pointed out is about to occur so there is no justification for your attitude.

 

It follows from the above analysis that it is the Sunni insurgency, that fights the Coalition (rather than calls for them to go home), that needs to be suppressed first!   

The focus on Baghdad (in the context of a booming Kurdish region that can play the role for Iraq that Yenan played for China), is IMV just the ticket and if done right perhaps the Mahdi army may be sufficiently intimidated to not need suppression as a second move.  Overwhelming force tends to concentrate the mind when it comes to a potential fight.

Meanwhile a pipeline of death has been set up from the Madrassas throughout the region delivering ‘product’ right into Shia food markets in order to provoke the civil-war that Zarqawi openly boasted about.  When those same pipelines delivered death to New York or Madrid or London or Bali etc I do not recall anyone worth talking to demonstrating about assistance to any of the governments fighting back to destroy those delivery systems.  The Iraqi democracy needs even more assistance not less.  This is a magnificent new government set up by the peoples' of Iraq right in the middle of the swamp.  No wonder they are currently plagued by mosquitoes.

These pipelines would pump there disgusting human product day and night if a civil- war of Lebanese proportions got going in Iraq, and the best way to stop such a war is with forces that have no long term future in the country separating those that would at the moment fight.  Who knows when they cool down perhaps they won’t want to fight.  Humanity has seen that phenomena often enough.

The Iraqi government is fighting these three forces (though some in this government are playing a duplicitous game as democrats by day and sectarian thugs by night as it were so a rearrangement of political forces is required and it would appear you have not noticed this is underway).

You acknowledge that the Kurds are doing well in their region and their preeminent leader President of all of Iraq Jalal Talabani deserves to be listened to respectfully; how about commenting on his views of the Baker Hamilton report?

Baathism was never going to be overthrown without one hell of a bloody battle but you speculate that when the tyrant just died naturally (we can forget his departed sons for the moment), the rest of the evolution into modernity would be reasonably peaceful (or some such bullshit formulation).  Actually we can see that it is the Coalition forces that are preventing a full on ethnic cleansing bloodbath and that is why the Iraqi Government want them to stay and will be happy to see the extra troops arrive in Baghdad!

Steve rather than make them up you ought to remember the words of Chairman Mao.

Marxism consists of thousands of truths, but they all boil down to one sentence, It is right to rebel!  For thousands of years it has been said that it was right to oppress, it was right to exploit and it was wrong to rebel. This old verdict was only reversed with the appearance of Marxism. And from this truth there follows resistance, struggle, the fight for socialism.

Mao Tsetung

 

I welcome the New Year and the commitment of more U.S. troops to Iraq.

 

The anti-war ‘movement’ has reached another point of splitting as the U.S. Democrats face up to the implications of the Baker Hamilton report and the ‘new’ Bush direction.

Have a look at the debate Arthur is having with the U.S. Democrats at TPM Café

Oh and by the way rather than live out his life as Tyrant of Iraq and Kuwait (as would have happened under your policy prescriptions), in

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The official witnesses to Saddam Hussein's impending execution gathered Friday in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging, as state television broadcast footage of his regime's atrocities.

 

The Iraqi Government has it would seem determined that the former Tyrant ought not to enter the New Year.  Attempts by the remnant Baathists to intimidate the new Iraqi democracy have failed and their revenge attacks will be taken in stride.  Now there’s something else to celebrate.

As we enter 2007 it will be U.S. soldiers increasingly alongside Iraqi troops 'who will fight oppression' in Iraq.  May they suffer few casualties and destroy their enemies.

Happy New Year!

Patrickm

 

I am lost to understand your complaint. I stated that a prediction of contributors to this site was that through war the US coalition could bring about a model democracy in Iraq.

 

I fail to see the distortion, you have said to me many times that the democracy in Iraq would be better than the democracy in Australia. Albert stated that the project to bring democracy to Iraq is "doable"

 

In your complaint you flesh your position out a bit but is not my statement your position?

 

As to democracy having been established in Iraq I think that the argument is yet to be made. As I have argued many times on this site democracy is more than elections there needs to be some sort of social compact which has yet to emerge. There needs to be a state that stands substatially on its own feet.

 

Your claim that Marxism invented the right to rebel is most humerous. Marx was aware and admired Sparticus. !00 years pror to Marx the very conservative philosopher Thomas Hobbs had put forward a theoretical justification for rebellion and what are we to make of the Haitian slaves who overthrew French slavery much to the dislike of revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson.

 

Now to me "quoting" Mao, anyone who is offended should have their hero worship meter checked. The serious part of my joke was that Deng was reappointed to the Central Committee twice under Mao. The first time he was reappointed saw a steep increase in Chinas productivity. He was reappointed once more after Maos death and we saw what I think rightly should be called the "Chinese economic miricle" Love or hate the little bastard  Deng knew how to make the economy tick.

 

I though your point about the need to use overwhelming force to concentrate peoples minds exposes your position. In the 1990s the Americans turned up with about 500,000 troops to expell Sadam from Kuwait a smaller task than the invasion and occupation of Iraq yet the force size is a little over 100,000. Bush tried to use overwhelming force against the Sunni insurgency and the Mahdi army. On both occations he has failed. The recent focus on Bahgdad was a failure and now we await a troop surge, what another 40,000? This IMV will be the last half hearted effort of a President who has failed to provide Iraq with as we agree the most important element security.

 

As to the now dead dictator I think there is something in the theory of totalitarianism.

 

I dont think that it was an accident that Saddam was an admirer of Stalin just as the only two people that have ever expressed an admiration for Saddam to me were also followers of Mao (one ex one current)

Followed by patrickm:

Steve (owenss); I say the Middle East is a ‘swamp’ with massive internal forces engaged both in the modernizing process of draining it and the reactionary process of resisting that revolutionary transformation and that the U.S. used to be on the side of the autocrats and Baathists (fearing the rise of the people) but are now standing closer to the people as they (the peoples of the region) reignite the bourgeois revolution.

The following view is common enough in the region;

 

… if anyone should be put on trial it was the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government that backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which overthrew Saddam.  "They are American collaborators, those in Iraq. They should be executed, not Saddam Hussein." said Mohammad Mousa, on haj from Lebanon. "Saddam Hussein is the most honourable of all of them. He is the most honourable Arab. They will go to hell, he will go to heaven."

 

 

So this revolution is bound to be long and bloody - however long, and however bloody the enemy makes it, my lot (me being an atheist and communist and therefore an isolated tiny minority in the region) are compelled by our reality to stand with the other revolutionaries (mostly religious people) and our Coalition allies to further democtratic aims.  I adopt a united front struggle (unity and struggle), as practiced in China by the isolated band of communists led by Mao that fled the death squads of their day and went on to make revolution.   So I look for points of agreement with you.

 

You draw no sensible conclusions from the points of agreement that I had reminded you of.  Instead you studiously avoided the points of agreement.  Once again you turn a thread (this time about oil and why Iraqi leaders are doing sensible deals with international capitalists just as Lenin did), around to an anti-communist attack singling out nasty Stalinists and Maoists that you imply are not much better than Saddam and I won’t engage with you on that.

 

To engage over Mao every time analysis of Iraq is attempted would be wrecking the efforts being made at this site to keep developing an understanding of the world that is both unique to this site as far as I can tell and worthy of consideration agreed with or not.  The type of pointless(?) activity that you thus degenerate into is far better engaged in at places like Harry’s Place or the like (not that I wish it on them, just that that is what they seem determined to be involved with themselves). 

 

Your current effort conceals and hinders the development of arguments rather than reveals and pushes the arguments further.   For example; democracy is better - is more democratic- when proportional in representation.  You know it is so why not admit it?  You are a supporter of PR.  Iraq has PR therefore Iraq has a better electoral system than Australia does. 

 

You are not addressing the swamp like nature of the whole region. 

 

Every progressive westerner knows that living in the industrialized west is better (with or without PR) than living in the Middle Eastern political economic and cultural ‘swamp’.  You are not making any point that develops an argument by reminding people that Iraq, even when the Iraqi people will be running it in peace, will be nothing to write home to the west about.  Thus you have made no contribution other than backhandedly pointing out that your particular political, economic and cultural level has no mass base in this Middle Eastern country called Iraq and you find it all pretty distasteful that people actually operate at this level. 

 

But these Iraqi people are under attack by forces that have no interest in any level of democracy (who you admit would kill you on sight) and the Coalition forces have an interest, (fully supportable), in assisting the Iraqi people’s government and that is ‘doable’.  When people at this site originally put forward the analysis that the U.S. had changed course in the Middle East we were often laughed at; but I have noticed that we are not being laughed at so much now!  You used to think that the U.S. were just behaving in the same old way, but yesterday Saddam was hanged by the Iraqi people having been tried by the Iraqi people and autocrats throughout the region and beyond trembled with fear at the example this was setting.  

 

Just as the Nazis were killing thousands of civilians when bombing democratic Britain (at a lower democratic base then now) the forces that are attacking the Iraqi people and their Coalition allies are doing the same to the Iraqi democratic forces at their current base.  None of us can help the reality of that base.  That reality is what you are really complaining about. 

 

The coalition will not ‘win’ the war; the Iraqi people organized through their own political  parties and uniting behind democratic principles in a society that has a vibrant mass media that can not be driven of the air or of the net, by any of the forces of reaction will win.  That is precisely what the social compact is all about.  Keep focused on what the reality base in Iraq is.  All these anti- U.S. political parties are able to unite with the U.S. because it is in their interests.  Civil war is not in their interests but is in the interests of the enemies of democracy.

 

Note pseudo-leftists in WW2 and now in Iraq are following policies of wrecking and are leading nothing progressive.   What is stopping the peaceful development of the current Iraqi democracy is the new war waged by Baathists, jihadis and Shia death squads.  The masses in both Iraq and the west do not want them to win.  You do not dispute this.  Furthermore you have already explained that you personally want nothing to do with pointless peace demonstrations, so Arthur’s point that nobody serious is going to develop the sort of struggle that was evident during the Vietnam war where people were proud to be on the other side, and helping to defeat our own participating governments is not contradicted by you.  Progressive westerners ought not want to defeat our government’s efforts now.

 

Presently you’re at a bit of a loss because your former position of thinking that an immediate withdrawal of Coalition troops would be the best thing for the Iraqi people is not (I’ll bet) something you now really believe in and that rather traps you.  So you dodge all the points of agreement for fear of painting yourself further into the corner and being compelled to offer support to the Iraqi peoples’ that are under daily attack.  You ought to agree that the swamp of the Middle East is a genuine swamp because you know it has swallowed all the anti-war politics. 

 

Rather than dodge the points of agreement why not formally confirm them so that we can progress with the issues?  I take your silence to be a type of confirmation.  Tell us what you believe in these days, other that this anti-communist drivel as we are all sick of that.  

 

I do not claim that Marxism invented rebellion against reactionaries the quote I pointed out has a Chinese context to consider.  What I claim, is that you have been arguing that Saddam’s Baathists ought to have been left in place in Kuwait and Iraq and that this is not policies that have anything to do with being any sort of progressive.

 

As to Deng; he knew how to lie about his policies and install capitalism while claiming the exact opposite.  Mao was correct in stating that ‘the capitalist roaders are still on the capitalist road.’  We have been through this nonsense where you conclude that the revolutionaries ought to have just handed over to the liars rather than make revolution against them.  I am utterly bored with that.   It’s just the same complaint against reality and the ‘current base’ in any of the countries under discussion.

 

Now you guess that the current ‘surge’;

‘…will be the last half hearted effort of a President who has failed to provide Iraq with as we agree the most important element security.’

I am more optimistic of further progress in the bourgeois revolution (as is rapidly occurring in the Kurdish region).  Perhaps another five or ten years (given the time spans involved in the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions) will tell the tale. 

 

While we wait for that revolutionary struggle to unfold how about some analysis of the current requirement to make revolution in the rest of the region?  Do you think there will be substantial progress in bringing the failed war for greater Israel to a close this year?  You have raised the issue of current Palestinian developments so what do you say is happening if not an eventual (and reasonably soon) implementation of the prisoner’s agreement signed by:

Fatah – PLC member Marwan Barghouthi, Fatah Secretary.
Hamas – Sheikh Abdul Khaleq al-Natsheh – Higher Leading Commission
Islamic Jihad Movement – Sheikh Bassam al-Sa'di
PFLP – Abdul Rahim Mallouh – Deputy General Secretary of the PFLP
DFLP – Mustafa Badarneh

 

What do you say about the need for all progressives to unite to shut down the jihadist pipelines and open up Iraqi oil pipelines?  What do you say to the real issues that this site is known for rather than your non contextual distortions?  Ought the Iraqi Government, do the deals that Lenin was prepared to?  Will you be once more advocating that Australians vote for the ALP or will you be showing up as left of the ALP and hostile to it?   Has the ALP now moved to the right of the Coalition parties in Australia?

 

How have your current views developed; indeed what are your current views of the above? 

 

Stop quibbling and sniping at the people here because we are not the enemy of progress in the Middle East, or anywhere else.

Patrickm

 

I am still at a loss you started by saying that I was tantamount to distorting reality by stating that contributors at this site had predicted that a model democracy could be created in Iraq through US led war. You then go on to state that "When the government of Iraq defeats the enemies of democracy......that government will be a model for the middle east."

 

I cant see how I can be distorting your position when you clearly state that it is your position.

 

You argue that I should support the current Iraqi government because it is in struggle with anti democratic forces including Shia death squads. I have been arguing at this site for some time that the government has active death squad supporters inside the government. I consider the government to be compromised over the shia death squad issue.

 

As I have argued before at this site I think the Arab Sunni population has experienced gross oppression since 2003 and this establishes their right to armed resistance.

 

As to the Jihadist pipeline I have argued on this site that I thought that it was wrong for the US government to give the Taliban $40 million, that Jihadism is fuelled by the presence of US troops on the arabian peninsula that the Jihadist pipeline is organised by US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan so I think that lots could be done to stop the pipeline but strangely the US takes no effective steps just steps that inflame the situation.

 

So thats my oppinion and I have to agree here with something Chomsky said the other day and thats that the oppinion of those in the West matters little. What matters is the oppinion of those in Iraq. To understand Iraqi oppinion we can look at the last election and we can look at oppinion polls both of which we have discussed at this site. I think what will be interesting will be the next election. I think that we will see a big slipage in the governments support and would not be surprised by a surge for the Sadarists.

 

You make a point that I am silent on points of agreement as somehow this paints me into a corner. A quick look around no theres no corners. I havent stressed points of agreement because I have accepted the challenge at this sites intro "and if you think we are wrong, prove it by arguing with us..."

 

You seem to gain some comfort because of my changed position on the presence of US troops. I dont really think theres much joy for you here as I changed my position from a swift withdrawl of troops would undermine the logic of the resistance to the opportunity has passed and now the presence of the troops is pretty irrelevant to the outcome.