Yes, there was a big march in Berkeley, thousands chanting and shouting. Why wouldn’t there have been? I think I remember it.
> On Dec 1, 2015, at 9:17 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 12/1/15 12:08 PM, Tom Walker wrote: >> "...the left was ecstatic..." In New Jersey, leftists were dancing in >> the streets. I saw it on T.V. > > I know you are making a stupid joke but the truth is exactly that. > > --- > > After George W. Bush invaded Iraq, the left followed the war with keen > interest hoping against hope that the American military would be sent > packing in the same fashion as in Vietnam thirty years earlier. Even > though there was little evidence of socialist ideology among the Sunni > or the Shi’ite militias who fought the Americans more sporadically, the > consensus was that they deserved our support. > > Like some of the key battles in Vietnam such as the Tet Offensive of > 1968, the battle for Fallujah in 2004 became a turning point in the war. > The World Socialist Website > (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/05/fall-m04.html) was ecstatic > over the resistance to American imperialism at the time: > > One resident who spoke to the Los Angles Times described the uprising > as a popular revolt against the occupying power. “Every Fallujan who was > able to carry weapons participated,” he said. “All of us are mujahedin. > No masks will be used anymore by the mujahedin. We are struggling > openly. Our relationship with the new Iraqi commander and his people is > very good. They did not come on the back of the American tanks. They are > our sons.” The Times reporter cited a sign hanging on the gate of a > mosque that captured the mood. It read, “We are the soldiers of Muhammad > and not the soldiers of Saddam. We love death as you love life.” > > Now, 11 years later, mujahideen has become a dirty word on the left. The > Arabic word, which refers to people “performing jihad”, is enough to > induce a chest-thumping battle cry to “bring it” to ISIS. The same kind > of war fever that followed September 11, 2001 is cropping up again in > the aftermath of the terrorist massacre in Paris. And, now as then, > there are some on the left who call for bombing the jihadists as a way > of eradicating terror. > > It was one thing for someone to describe themselves as “soldiers of > Muhammad” when they aimed an AK-47 at a marine but when you turn the > same weapon on a Baathist soldier today you automatically become an > Islamofascist ipso facto. The same rhetoric that Christopher Hitchens > would have used back then against the Fallujah fighters is now used > routinely against rebels in Syria who are aggregated into an > undifferentiated mass of jihadist bogeymen. In a Wall Street Journal > op-ed piece titled “Fallujah” dated April 2, 2004 Hitchens wrote: “The > mob could have cooked and eaten its victims without making things very > much worse.” The “mob”, of course, was a reference to the Sunni fighters > and their victims the American marines. > > There was very little interest on the left in exactly what life was like > in Fallujah except that we admired the courage of the citizens. But as > “liberated territory”, it doesn’t sound that much different from places > under ISIS control today as Nir Rosen reported in an article titled > “Resistance: Meet the People of Fallujah” > (http://socialistreview.org.uk/289/resistance-meet-people-fallujah) that > appeared in the October 2004 Socialist Review, the monthly magazine of > the British SWP: > > They had banned alcohol, western films, make-up, hairdressers, > 'behaving like women' (ie homosexuality), and even dominoes in the > coffee houses. Men found publicly drunk had been flogged, and I was told > of a dozen men beaten and imprisoned for selling drugs. Islamic courts > were being established in association with mujahideen units and mosque > leaders, meting out punishment consistent with the Koran. Erstwhile > Ba'ath Party members told me they were expiating the sins of their > former secularism, and Ba'ath ideology had now become Islamist. An > assistant to the mayor confirmed that there were Islamic courts with > their own qadis, or judges, who acted independently of the police. > > Did the left somehow miss that Fallujah bore a striking resemblance to > ISIS or Taliban-controlled territory? To its credit, it largely > understood that such “conservative” social norms were not a litmus test. > It was up to the Iraqis themselves to decide how to organize their > society, not outside powers with an air force ready to impose > Enlightenment values through napalm or what Rudyard Kipling referred to > as taking up “the White Man’s Burden”. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
