not wanting to speak for Carrol, but to me his point looks more like a practical one about the fact that there is a critical mass of hardnuts and holdouts that can render a place uninhabitable no matter what the rest of the population wants (compare the "vast majorities" that we were told were in favour of peace throughout the Northern Irish troubles). This is a military principle in Che Guevara's book and is one of the best bits in an otherwise disappointing book. I doubt that the Viet Cong could have won an election in Southern Vietnam, but there were just about enough of them to make the US occupation unsustainable in the long term.
happy new year! (I suppose somebody's got to have one). dd PS: Doug, is Mrs Henwood's book being published in the UK? My local Waterstones feigned ignorance (well actually they told me to fuck off because it was the sales and they were busy, but same difference). -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 31 December 2004 15:26 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Stars and Stripes: "The whole city, from every side, was fighting" Carrol Cox wrote: >I think the emphasis should be on the (rather generally applicable) >perception that when 1/3 (actually, 1/5 might do it) of a population are >strongly committed to a negative point, they become rather difficult to >suppress. Living in an electoral democracy tends to blur this point by >over-emphasizing the need for majority support. Some of us predicted on >the basis of polls in Iraq showing something like 15% core rejection of >the occupation that the Occupation was a dead duck. Others, carrying >over irrelevant electoral habits, made a big fuss about the large >numbers not wanting immediate withdrawal -- numbers which were really >irrelevant. Lemme see if I understand this: if a majority of Iraqis didn't want immediate withdrawal, their opinion really shouldn't count, becuase that's just some distraction brought over from electoral politics? Doug
