Alternet has a long and very interesting interview with Abdullah Muhsin, international representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.
Here are some excerpts
There's no point in saying that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were wrong about the war. And because the war was illegal, therefore now we have to turn Iraq into anarchy and chaos in order to prove Bush and Blair wrong at the cost of Iraqi people and destroy Iraq as a country. The peace movement should help us and other genuine democratic Iraqis who want to build a genuine democracy in Iraq.
Well, we don't call them the peace movement. We call them the hard left. And there is a difference between the genuine left – those who support the democrats, socialists and trade unionists in Iraq in their most difficult time – and those hard left extremists, who are still stuck in the past. They think that they are for the absolute truth and that everyone else is wrong.
[Do] you see the forces today that wage terror against Iraqis? Just stop for a minute and see who they are and what they want. To compare those waging terror against Iraqis to the French Resistance is an insult to the French national resistance that opposed fascism and Hitler. To compare them to the Vietnamese is also an insult to the notion of national liberation.
These are extremists who are indiscriminately killing innocent children and innocent people. How do you explain that bomb in Hilla? How do you explain that suicide bomber blowing himself up in a marketplace and in the process massacring 150 people? To call these people "the resistance" is beyond belief. What kind of regime do they want to build after the occupation forces leave? The closest one is the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Is this what Iraqis want? To get rid of Saddam Hussein in order to have another, more brutal regime than they had before?
1 comment:
What is the practicle reality of building security? The trainging of indiginous forces who will then be left with the task of suppressing these insurgent forces? If the analysis of the Friends (Quakers) is correct"a continuing presence of US MILITARY troops may well lead to a failed state.In other words ,blowback from association with those who supported Saadam in war with Iran, who failed to support Kurdish uprising after Gulf war and who imposed genocidal sanctions then used shock and awe bombing in order to liberate is causing more harm than good.US corporate presence in "rebuilding" what we destroyed combined with permanent US military bases may remind some of past decades of imperialism and colonial oppression. Not to mention religious hostility to US cultural influence.Think outside the box,is there a better way to help?
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