The Wahhabi Death Cult and the noble resistance against imperialism
Every day that I log on to the internet, I find myself seeing the words "resistance" and "imperialism" together in relation to Iraq.
Marc Parent says, of "White House imperialism": "Wake up, Iraq. Wake up, Iraqis. You have no options left but resistance."
The Indian Maoists' Calcutta Conference call exclaims: "The colonial countries steadily assisted this aggression, first of all by the USA and the Zionist entity that is violating the ground and the whole rights of the people in a genocide war of total annihilation. The last chain in this barbaric aggression lies in the offensive against the resistance movement that is defending the bare existence of the people in their countries and abroad. The resistance movement is carrying with the international community the principle and the goal of life in freedom independence and self-determination. No to Zionism and racism, - no to imperialism , no to American hegemony."
Neil Clark writes that "The true heroes in Iraq are those who have resisted the invasion of their country." His colleague Seamus Milne similarly praises "the resistance."
Maoists, liberals, anarchists - a common rhetoric of "anti-imperialism".
The reality?
The Islamic State in Iraq, a Wahhabi insurgent group, murdered175 members of the Yazedi religion, a peaceful community, in suicide attacks in fuel tankers (a further 200 were wounded).
On Monday, five people died in a car bombing in the capital's Sadr City slum. A motorcycle bomb killed two Iraqis at central Baghdad's Shorja Market. Five mortar shells crashed into the Ubaidi neighborhood in east Baghdad just before noon on Sunday, killing 12 people and injuring at least 31 others. Four women and two children were among the dead. The day before, about 16 mortar shells rained on houses in the Sharqiya residential area in Khalis, north of Baghdad; adding that 24 people were wounded in addition to the three killed.
Iranian artillery fire destroyed a primary school and several houses in a border village near Hajj Umran in the Kurdish autonomous region north of Iraq on Sunday evening. Mohammed Abdul-Aziz, a statistician at the Ministry of Education, said that at least 125 children had been killed and 107 injured since 2005 in attacks on schools. These numbers do not include children killed or injured on their way to or from school.
These are not acts of resistance against American imperialism. These are acts of violence against civilians, whose only crime is not being Islamic enough, or not being Sunni, or not being Shi'ite, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Added: more on Yazedis (and Juan Cole) from IraqPundit; Osama bin Laden is not a revolutionary socialist from Hocemo Li Na Kafu?
Hat tip for news article: People's Republic. On Neil Clarke: Voltaire's Priest.
Previous: Blaming Blair's bombs, Resistance?
Marc Parent says, of "White House imperialism": "Wake up, Iraq. Wake up, Iraqis. You have no options left but resistance."
The Indian Maoists' Calcutta Conference call exclaims: "The colonial countries steadily assisted this aggression, first of all by the USA and the Zionist entity that is violating the ground and the whole rights of the people in a genocide war of total annihilation. The last chain in this barbaric aggression lies in the offensive against the resistance movement that is defending the bare existence of the people in their countries and abroad. The resistance movement is carrying with the international community the principle and the goal of life in freedom independence and self-determination. No to Zionism and racism, - no to imperialism , no to American hegemony."
Neil Clark writes that "The true heroes in Iraq are those who have resisted the invasion of their country." His colleague Seamus Milne similarly praises "the resistance."
Maoists, liberals, anarchists - a common rhetoric of "anti-imperialism".
The reality?
The Islamic State in Iraq, a Wahhabi insurgent group, murdered175 members of the Yazedi religion, a peaceful community, in suicide attacks in fuel tankers (a further 200 were wounded).
On Monday, five people died in a car bombing in the capital's Sadr City slum. A motorcycle bomb killed two Iraqis at central Baghdad's Shorja Market. Five mortar shells crashed into the Ubaidi neighborhood in east Baghdad just before noon on Sunday, killing 12 people and injuring at least 31 others. Four women and two children were among the dead. The day before, about 16 mortar shells rained on houses in the Sharqiya residential area in Khalis, north of Baghdad; adding that 24 people were wounded in addition to the three killed.
Iranian artillery fire destroyed a primary school and several houses in a border village near Hajj Umran in the Kurdish autonomous region north of Iraq on Sunday evening. Mohammed Abdul-Aziz, a statistician at the Ministry of Education, said that at least 125 children had been killed and 107 injured since 2005 in attacks on schools. These numbers do not include children killed or injured on their way to or from school.
These are not acts of resistance against American imperialism. These are acts of violence against civilians, whose only crime is not being Islamic enough, or not being Sunni, or not being Shi'ite, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Added: more on Yazedis (and Juan Cole) from IraqPundit; Osama bin Laden is not a revolutionary socialist from Hocemo Li Na Kafu?
Hat tip for news article: People's Republic. On Neil Clarke: Voltaire's Priest.
Previous: Blaming Blair's bombs, Resistance?
Comments
"In the particular dwells the tawdry. In the conceptual dwells the grand, the transcendent, the everlasting."
Doesn't this really get to the heart of the issue? It's really easy to praise the so-called resistance when you live in London and have a well-paid job in journalism and don't actually have to deal with the consequences of this "resistance".
Morons like Milne and Neil Clarke remind me of the famous movie scene in which James Dean is asked what he is rebelling against, to which he answers, "What have you got?".
For the sake of accuracy: It was Brando, not Dean. A good point, even so.