The Anti-War Movement and Iraq

A little over two years ago, anti-war demonstrations of unprecedented magnitude rocked the globe and the New York Times termed the anti-war movement "the world's second superpower." Unfortunately, no one could mistake the anti-war demonstrations that took place this spring for the "world's second superpower."

On some level this fall-off from February 2003 was inevitable. Opposition to war then was a no-brainer, while the current occupation raises tough questions: now that the United States government has devastated Iraqi society, what should be done? Some of those who argue that the U.S. needs to stay in Iraq are unreconstructed imperialists, but some make this argument out of a genuine sense of concern for the Iraqi people.¹ But however sincere they may be, those who take this position are wrong in their belief that the occupation can help Iraqis, and the anti-war movement needs to explain to them why this is so.

Aren't U.S. troops protecting Iraqis from awful violence, many ask? There is indeed gruesome violence in Iraq today, but U.S. forces are not keeping this violence in check. On the contrary, the brutality of the U.S. occupation is a major incitement to the violence.

Can anyone doubt that the tortures at Abu Ghraib -- with their emphasis on humiliation -- have created thousands of hostile, even violently hostile, Iraqis?

Or consider Fallujah. In the first assault, in April 2004, U.S. troops slaughtered hundreds in the city, a majority of whom, according to hospital officials, were women and children, with U.S. forces firing at ambulances, and blocking access to hospitals.² Then in November 2004, the U.S. essentially leveled the city, with who knows how many casualties because the press was kept out.

Today in Fallujah we can get some real insight into how the U.S. provides security for the Iraqi people. U.S. officials claim that "Fallujah is now the safest city in Iraq," but, as one resident noted, it's the safest city "because it's a prison."³ More than two-thirds of the city's inhabitants are still refugees, and "there is a dawn-to-dusk curfew and a cordon around the city that only allows Fallujans who have registered with the U.S. military and received ID cards to enter and leave it."⁴

Consider another example of U.S. conduct and imagine the contribution it is likely to have made to fueling the insurgency. Rory McCarthy from the Guardian writes:

"Last May [2004] I attended a vast family funeral in Ramadi where witness after witness described in detail how U.S. jet fighters attacked a village near the Syrian border after a wedding party and killed 42 people, among them women, children and even the musicians who had played for the bride and groom.

"Many of the dead were buried in a graveyard on the outskirts of Ramadi. One of the graves was marked with a square of roughly cut stone inscribed simply: 'The American bombing.'

"But a U.S. general in Baghdad insisted that the attack had been aimed at a gathering of 'foreign fighters' in a 'safe house' and, despite video footage of the party, said there had been no evidence of a wedding. Then, after a pause, he added with a smile: 'Bad people have celebrations too.' An inquiry was announced, but the military has yet to acknowledge that it made a mistake."⁵

What sort of reaction do U.S. airstrikes elicit from Iraqis? Consider the reaction last October of interim President Ghazi Yawar -- a U.S. appointee: "'Air strikes on cities are ... not acceptable in any way.'... 'I consider it collective punishment.'"⁶ If this is the attitude of U.S.-appointed elites, one can imagine the reaction of those in the targeted neighborhoods.

Nor has the military changed its approach. In May 2005 it launched Operation Matador in western Iraq. As Knight Ridder reported,

"In interviews, influential tribal leaders and many residents of the remote border towns said the 1,000 U.S. troops who swept into their territories in the weeklong campaign that ended over the weekend didn't distinguish between the Iraqis who supported the United States and the fighters battling it.

"'The Americans were bombing whole villages and saying they were only after the foreigners,' said Fasal al Goud, a former governor of Anbar province who said he asked U.S. forces for help on behalf of the tribes. 'An AK-47 can't distinguish between a terrorist and a tribesman, so how could a missile or tank?'"⁷

U.S. rhetoric matches its behavior. Consider the likely reaction from Iraqis on learning that when U.S. undersecretary of defense William Boykin was asked whether the government should re-establish a program of identifying and assassinating specific adversaries in Iraq, like Operation Phoenix conducted in Vietnam by the C.I.A., he replied that U.S. forces were "doing a pretty good job of that right now."⁸

Or consider the likely Iraqi reaction to Lt. Gen. James Mattis, a U.S. Marine commander in Iraq, who publicly stated on February 1, "It's fun to shoot some people."⁹ Now of course, the U.S. troops are not the only foreign forces in Iraq; the largest contingent after the U.S. is private mercenaries. And one of the biggest of the private security firms is Blackwater. On March 7, after the furor over Mattis' comments, the president of Blackwater sent an email to his employees telling them that "actually it is 'fun' to shoot some people."¹⁰

Rather than protecting Iraqi civilians, U.S. armed forces have shown themselves to be the main danger to Iraqi civilians. According to the Iraqi Health Ministry in September, operations by U.S. and allied forces were killing twice as many Iraqis -- most of them civilians -- as attacks by insurgents.¹¹

Now there's an explanation for this, say U.S. officials. An American military spokesperson pointed out that insurgents were living in residential areas, sometimes in homes filled with munitions. "As long as they continue to do that, they are putting the residents at risk.... We will go after them."¹² Compare this approach with how you would expect any civilized law enforcement officers to behave if they actually had any concern for the well-being of the population. If there were a bad guy holed up in a residential area with lots of munitions would we want the officers to bomb the apartment, setting off the munitions, and then say it was all the bad guy's fault?

But here's the thing. Even without this extreme brutality, the U.S. presence would provoke Iraqi hostility. Why? Because no people like foreign occupation. It is precisely the U.S. determination to control Iraq -- militarily, economically, and politically -- that incites many Iraqis to resort to an armed response. The U.S. has no legitimacy and it is the U.S. presence and U.S. policies that fuel the insurgency.

In the words of the extremely mainstream International Crisis Group,

"the insurgency is not confined to a finite number of fanatics isolated from the population and opposed to a democratic Iraq but is fed by nationalist feelings, widespread mistrust of U.S. intentions and resentment of its actions."¹³

Why would there be mistrust of U.S. intentions?

Consider. Despite intermittent optimistic reports, the Pentagon has indicated that U.S. force levels in Iraq will remain close to current levels for years to come.¹⁴

What sort of credibility can the United States have as a protector of the Iraqi people when, at the very same time that it proclaims its concern for Iraqis, it is presiding over the corporate looting of Iraq and trying (in the words of the Wall Street Journal) "to remake Iraq's economy in the U.S. image."¹⁵

How can the country that is building long-term military bases in Iraq for the indefinite future¹⁶ be taken seriously as a disinterested defender of Iraqi interests?

Why would Iraqis trust a country determined to control the world's oil supply? A Gallup poll in Baghdad in August 2003 showed that 5% of Iraqis believed the U.S. invaded Iraq "to assist the Iraqi people," 4% believe it was to destroy WMDs, only 1% believe it was to establish democracy, while 43% said the U.S.-UK invasion was "to rob Iraq's oil."¹⁷ Nothing that has transpired since then is likely to have changed this assessment.

And, of course, the Bush administration's continuing endorsement of Israeli oppression of Palestinians makes U.S. troops a provocation wherever they are in the Arab world.

Rather than the U.S. troop presence preventing insurgency, it is clear that the insurgency would be much reduced if U.S. troops were to withdraw. For example, we know that today many insurgents draw heavily on religious motivation. But consider that the Association of Muslim Scholars, the leading Sunni religious group, with ties to the resistance, has declared that if a date were set for withdrawal it would issue a fatwa against anyone continuing an insurgency.¹⁸ Thus, if the occupation were ended, the insurgency would be significantly undercut.

Ending the occupation is consistent with the views of the Iraqi people. How do we know this? One indicator is a poll conducted by Zogby International in late January that showed that 82 percent of Sunni Arabs and 69 percent of Shiites favored U.S. withdrawal "either immediately or after an elected government is in place."¹⁹

What about the elections? Bush would have you believe that the 58% of registered Iraqi voters who went to the polls at the end of January were voting for him, for the United States. But in fact, the vote was a thorough-going repudiation of the U.S. occupation. First of all, Washington had previously opposed elections -- and only mass demonstrations called by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani forced U.S. officials to agree to hold elections. Many Iraqis didn't vote because they considered elections held under an occupation to be unfair, but those who did vote voted overwhelmingly for parties that called for an end to the occupation.²⁰ The U.S. favorite came in a distant third -- but even his supporters felt the need to campaign with banners that said in Arabic: "Vote for Allawi's slate if you want a strong Iraq free of foreign troops."²¹

Iraqis do not think things will be all peaches and cream after a U.S. withdrawal. For example, Hassan Jama'a Awad, head of the Southern Oil Company Union, has said that the members of his union want an immediate end to the occupation; while acknowledging there might be attacks on trade unionists, he says "we have to solve our problems ourselves" and that things wouldn't be worse than under the occupation.²²

Ending the occupation not only will substantially reduce any insurgency, but it will also strengthen democratic, feminist, and tolerant forces. To see why this is so, consider the dilemma faced by any Iraqi endorsing these sorts of progressive values. As long as the occupation continues, these values will tend to be discredited. And reactionary forces fighting the occupation continually gain in credibility. As journalist Patrick Cockburn has noted, "Washington never appreciated the fact that the U.S. occupation was so unpopular that even the most unsavoury groups received popular support." Indeed, the U.S. forces "were the recruiting sergeants of the resistance."²³ In the election, the major Arab secular party was that of Allawi -- the U.S.-appointed ruler running essentially as the U.S. candidate; no doubt this led many progressive Iraqis, if they voted at all, to cast their ballots for Islamic parties committed to getting rid of U.S. troops.

Now what exactly is meant by immediate withdrawal? No one believes that a withdrawal could take place overnight. Most of those who call for immediate withdrawal mean in fact an orderly process, based on a clear and internationally sanctioned short timetable.²⁴ So why do I say we should support "immediate withdrawal" when I don't think this is literally accurate. First, because it is consistent with the language we have used in the cases of other illegitimate occupations. We said "Out Now" for Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and we say "Out Now" for Israeli troops in the occupied Palestinian territories. These couldn't and can't happen overnight, especially if one is talking not just about a troop withdrawal, but a full withdrawal of all the apparatus of occupation. But saying "out now" made clear that we didn't think the occupier had any right to set terms and conditions for its departure and that it should take place on a rapid timetable. The second reason to say immediate withdrawal is that any attempt to formulate a more accurate slogan invariably leads to misunderstanding. "Early" withdrawal, "rapid" withdrawal, "prompt" withdrawal -- all of these are too ambiguous, too open-ended, and too open to cooptation by the U.S. military and other supporters of the occupation.

It is essential that the anti-war movement call for complete U.S. withdrawal. U.S. troops are, of course, the main impediment to Iraqi sovereignty, but they are not the only impediment. (Notice, for example, how those Lebanese who wanted to remove Syrian domination of their country called for the withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence agents.) In the case of Iraq, Washington has used the occupation to establish all sorts of instruments of control that could last even if the troops are drawn down. There are the military bases. There are all the economic decrees imposed by former U.S. pro-consul Paul Bremer. There are sweetheart contracts that have been signed with U.S. and other favored firms. There are, in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, the "small army of bureaucrats, from deputy ministers to inspectors general, with multiyear terms" appointed by Bremer.²⁵ The bases must be dismantled. The decrees must be abrogated. The contracts and appointees must be revocable and removable at Iraqi discretion.

Finally, the United States must contribute funds for the reconstruction of Iraq -- but without U.S. control. This demand is important because it reflects simple justice and because it is important for the anti-war movement to distinguish itself from those who oppose the occupation simply because it costs too much to Americans. It does cost too much to Americans, but this is not the only or even the main reason to oppose it. And there is a moral debt that now must be repaid, even though it is expensive.

Some suggest that there's one other position that the anti-war movement ought to take: namely: support "the resistance." It's not entirely clear what this means. Historically, the Left has sometimes supported some beleaguered forces by sending volunteer forces, as in Spain, or sending weapons. Is this what is being urged? Does it mean we should wear pro-resistance buttons, like "The Resistance Rocks!"? Or is it just a rhetorical position? Leftists often argue about "political support" versus "military support" versus "unconditional military support" -- all of which seems very abstract, with as much relevance to the wider public as the question of how many Marxists can dance on the head of a pin. In any event, however, I think the position of blanket support for the resistance is extremely ill-advised.

Some argue that we should support the resistance in Iraq because as a general principle we should always support those who are fighting against U.S. imperialism.

Here's a formulation from Sharon Smith:

"The antiwar movement must not lose sight of the fact that its main enemy is at home -- and any resistance to that enemy deserves our unconditional support."²⁶

But surely she doesn't think we should have supported Japan during World War II or Nazi Germany -- these were probably the toughest opponents U.S. imperialism ever faced.

Now admittedly Japan and Germany were no less imperialist than the United States. But even when this is not the case, should we invariably give our blanket support to the opponents of U.S. imperialism? This position would mean we should have supported the Taliban in 2001 or Saddam Hussein in 2003. But one can oppose the U.S. wars in Afghanistan or Iraq without having to support those governments that the U.S. was attacking. And actually, those who have struck the "strongest blows" against the "main enemy" -- on its home soil -- are the non-governmental actors al-Qaeda and Timothy McVeigh. Do we support them?

But don't people have the right to resist foreign occupation? Of course they do, just as people have many other abstract rights that don't require us to support all those who are entitled to these rights. Did Charles Manson, the cult mass-murderer, have the right to a fair trial? Yes, of course. Did we have to "support" Charles Manson? Of course not. Did the people of Cambodia have the right to oppose U.S. intervention. Certainly. Did we have to support the Khmer Rouge? No. (To be sure, one might have supported the Khmer Rouge at the time on the basis of an incorrect prediction as to its future behavior toward the Cambodian people, but certainly knowing what we now know, do we really want to say we had to support the Khmer Rouge because the Cambodian people had a right to resist?²⁷) Likewise, do we support the right of the Peruvian people to overthrow a tyrannical regime. Sure, but there is more than one revolutionary organization in Peru fighting the regime. Do we automatically have to support them all? Even if one of them -- Sendero Luminoso -- is targeting the other and killing progressives more generally?

Thus, there is a distinction to be made between supporting a people's right to resist and supporting a particular resistance movement. This distinction is often elided by those who would have us support "the Iraqi resistance." So for example Paul D'Amato has written an article that calls for supporting "the resistance" with the title "Iraqis have the right to resist,"²⁸ and Sharon Smith's article is titled "Supporting Iraq's right to resist occupation," with a subtitle that reads -- as though this is the same thing -- "columnist SHARON SMITH explains why you should support the Iraqi resistance."²⁹

Some will say that Westerners have no right to "lecture the Iraqi resistance on tactics that are 'acceptable' and 'civilised.'"³⁰ D'Amato and Smith both quote Walden Bello and Arundhati Roy to lend weight to this argument. Bello and Roy do call for supporting "the Iraqi resistance," but they both say something else as well. Bello declares:

"What western progressives forget is that national liberation movements are not asking them mainly for ideological or political support. What they really want from the outside, from progressive like us, is international pressure for the withdrawal of an illegitimate occupying power so that internal forces can have the space to forge a truly national government based on their unique processes."³¹

And Roy is quoted as saying:

"Before we prescribe how a pristine Iraqi resistance must conduct their secular, feminist, democratic, nonviolent battle, we should shore up our end of the resistance by forcing the U.S. and its allied governments to withdraw from Iraq."³²

Now in fact I agree that our job here in the imperialist countries -- our duty really -- is to work for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. So the charge that we have no right to call for the U.S. to impose its will on Iraqis is irrelevant. I am not calling for the U.S. to impose its will on anyone. Our demand is "U.S. Out Now!" But those who urge us to "support the resistance" aren't just calling for us to get the U.S. out; they are calling for us to make an affirmative statement of support for certain Iraqis and they want us to give this endorsement automatically, without considering what it is we are endorsing, merely by virtue of the fact that these Iraqis oppose the United States.

One more example: do I support in principle the right of the Filipino people to resist oppression. Undoubtedly. Do I support the Communist Party of the Philippines, one of the leading revolutionary groups in the country? Well, the CPP has a nasty habit of liquidating its opponents, including on the left, and may even have put Walden Bello on a hit list.³³ So, no I don't support them. Does that mean that I want the U.S. to send troops or covert operatives to combat the CPP? Not at all. I oppose U.S. intervention in the Philippines and I support some Philippine oppositionists. But I don't support them all.

Some people seem to feel that if one does not support a resistance movement then automatically and by definition one has to be supporting U.S. imperialism. But this doesn't follow. One could oppose Saddam Hussein or the Taliban without having to support U.S. imperialism, and indeed one could oppose Saddam and the Taliban while opposing at the same time U.S. military intervention in Iraq or Afghanistan. Most situations don't have just two sides. If you support the people of Colombia, especially its indigenous people, you will support neither the U.S./government forces nor the FARC -- because both are today the enemies of the Colombian people.³⁴

Sharon Smith writes,

"Without for a moment endorsing the tactic of targeting civilians, which is used by parts of the resistance, the sheer magnitude of the death and destruction inflicted by the U.S. upon ordinary Iraqis should dispel any myth that the two sides in this war deserve equal condemnation."³⁵

But "equal condemnation" is not the issue: it's do we support one of the sides? Progressives, for example, were divided on what to do in the 2004 election, but surely not all those who opted for a third party believed that Bush and Kerry deserved equal condemnation. Third party advocates usually argued that just because Kerry was the "lesser evil" was not reason enough to support him.

Am I arguing that we should only support movements that are perfect, that hold precisely all the right views on every question? Of course not. No movement is perfect. Oppressed people are constrained in their choices and are not put in circumstances yielding the most humane outcomes. We have to sympathize with people's far-from-optimal conditions. But this does not mean that we give carte blanche to anything that oppressed people do. The German people were suffering during the Depression. We didn't use this to excuse Nazism, and we wouldn't have even if a majority of Germans had supported the Nazis. We support labor struggles, where the participants often have all sorts of moral and political failings. But if a union went on strike against the employment of African Americans, we wouldn't support them. If strikers in a just cause used more violence than we thought appropriate, we might well continue to support them (while criticizing their particular acts). But if they started gang-raping the children of scabs, we wouldn't support them. So of course we shouldn't insist that a movement needs to be perfect in terms of tactics or politics for us to support it, but nor should we say that our support is automatic no matter how horrible the movement's tactics or politics may be.³⁶

Some argue that ugly occupations don't often breed pretty resistance movements.³⁷ That's true, and it's one more reason why we should oppose ugly occupations. But should this logic require us to support all ugly resistance movements? As all of us who have spoken out against the U.S. war on terror have noted, the grotesque al Qaeda is in many respects a by-product of horrendous U.S. policies. We oppose those U.S. policies. But we don't conclude that we therefore have to support al Qaeda.

Some analysts note that all liberation fighters have been called terrorists by the powers that be.³⁸ That's true. Washington calls many liberation fighters "terrorists" and Washington also calls many terrorists "terrorists." Our job is not to accept what the U.S. says, but nor to simply say the opposite of what the U.S. says. When people target innocent civilians, they are engaging in terrorism and an anti-war movement that can't say so will have little credibility.

Those who urge support for "the Iraqi resistance" note that many national liberation movements have been severely flawed (the Mau Mau, the FLN in Algeria, the NLF in Vietnam, among others), and that "To use this as an argument for opposing self-determination misses the point."³⁹ But it's not a question of opposing self-determination. We should avoid blanket endorsement of every resistance movement precisely because we care about the self-determination of the people in that country. Movements that want to impose ruthless dictatorships over a population are not movements for self-determination -- by definition. To be sure, Washington doesn't represent or care about self-determination in Iraq or anywhere else. But we can't simply assume that anyone fighting the United States is thereby automatically on the side of self-determination.

OK, so which resistance movements should we not support?

In terms of tactics, there are some things that are morally unacceptable: among them attacks on innocent civilians, torture, and killing of prisoners. Now we shouldn't condemn an entire movement because a small number of its members, acting on their own, perhaps under traumatic conditions, violate these principles. But when a government or movement or organization uses such tactics in a systematic, large-scale, calculated way, that government, movement, or organization must be condemned. Moreover, some tactics are not just morally objectionable in themselves, but they tell us something about the larger political project of those carrying out the tactics. Thus, systematic sectarian attacks against civilians based on their ethnicity are doubly reprehensible: one because they are aimed at civilians and two because they are racist, promote future racism, and are likely to indicate unacceptable future political practice.

In terms of political program, I have supported many groups whose program I do not agree with. For example, the anti-Marcos movement in the Philippines included many people in its leadership who had terrible positions on women's reproductive rights. But here's the crucial point: while these people when in power did try and did succeed in enacting their regressive views on these matters, but they did not ban all debate on the subject. That is, the broadly bourgeois democratic framework they established left the question of women's rights, union rights, and many other issues up to democratic contestation. That's very different from a movement that has as its de facto program the stifling of all debate, the squashing of any democratic opposition. The former has democratic and progressive potential even if it has regressive politics in some respects. The latter has no such democratic or progressive potential.

I would suggest one other consideration before I would want to support a movement fighting against U.S. imperialism. This may seem a little egocentric, but I call it the Steve Shalom Survival test. If a movement would kill me when they came to power, I wouldn't support them.⁴⁰

So far I have been discussing the issue of supporting resistance movements in the abstract. What about the particular Iraqi case. Should we support "the resistance"?

Sami Ramadani has pointed out that the definite article "the" in the phrase "the resistance" is misleading, for it "tends to portray the resistance as a centralized, unified movement, while in reality it is extremely diverse and [made up of] localized networks...."⁴¹ I think there's a lot of truth in this statement, but if there's no "the resistance" then one can't support "the resistance." It would seem that to say one supports "the resistance" when there are in fact many resistance groups means that one is supporting all the resistance groups.

What do we know about the resistance groups? Some of what supporters of the resistance tell us should give us pause. For example, Ramadani says that among the resistance, there's really

"no single dominant organization. There are Islamists..., Arab nationalists, and secular forces. The secular trends are strong but lack strong pan-Iraqi organizations. They range from left-wing trends to former Baathists who denounced Saddam for 'surrendering' Iraq to the U.S.-led forces."⁴²

Now first of all I wonder how Ramadani can be so sure there are no current Baathists among the resistance, a point to which I'll return. But consider these "former Baathists who denounced Saddam for 'surrendering' Iraq to the U.S.-led forces." Was this Saddam's greatest crime?: not that he murdered thousands, ran rape centers, and established a ruthless police state, but that he didn't put up a stiff enough fight against the United States? Frankly, I think this may have been one of the most humane things Saddam ever did, given that in military- versus-military combat against the United States the Iraqis would have been overwhelmed, with vastly more casualties. If we didn't support the brutal and dictatorial Saddam (though he fought against U.S. imperialism) why would we want to support his henchmen who now object not to his brutality or his dictatorship but to the fact that he was a wimp?

D'Amato quotes two Iraqi commentators on the make-up of the resistance. They report that while some resistance groups are into kidnapping and killing foreigners, most groups reject this strategy: "These groups" -- that is, the non-terroristic majority of the resistance --

"...believe the Iraqis are divided into two categories. One category -- the majority -- is against the occupation, and the other -- the minority -- is on the side of the occupation. The resistance considers those who reject the occupation, whatever their description might be, to be on its side. The resistance considers those who are on the side of the occupation to be as spies and traitors who do not deserve to remain on Iraqi territory, and hence they should be liquidated."⁴³

It's heartening to learn that only a minority of Iraqis need to be liquidated. Now my impression is that this quote does not in fact describe the views of many in the resistance. But that D'Amato quotes these words without any criticism makes it seem as if he believes we should have no objection to supporting organizations who believe that all those on the side of the occupation deserve liquidation.

D'Amato does list what he calls some "severe weaknesses" of the resistance.

"Most obviously it has not been able to project itself as a unifying, national movement with a unified program."

The lack of unified movement with a unified program is indeed a weakness, but shouldn't the real issue for us be the nature of that unity? Do we say, "Fortunately, the Khmer Rouge had a unified movement with a unified program"?

D'Amato goes on to discuss other weaknesses: the resistance

"... contains within it Sunni factions that are weakening the resistance by directing sectarian violence at Shiite civilians. It contains a minority of elements that focus on kidnappings, beheadings, and suicide bombings that seem more directed at ordinary Iraqis and journalists rather than the occupying forces..."

-- though D'Amato notes, correctly, that we cannot rule out the possibility that some of these attacks might be promoted or even organized by the U.S. for its own purposes. To the extent, though, that these are actual characteristics of some resistance groups, I'm not sure we should call them "weaknesses." Would we say one of the "weaknesses" of Stalin was that he murdered people he didn't like?

Furthermore, says D'Amato,

"The resistance also includes forces that are wavering between fighting the occupation and compromising with them."

He specifically puts in this category Muqtada al-Sadr, who was sometimes an armed opponent of the U.S. occupation, but also dabbled with the elections and with Ahmed Chalabi. "In other words," says D'Amato, Sadr "is inconsistently anti-imperialist."⁴⁴

But is this Sadr's main problem? Is this the main hesitation we should have about him, that he's inconsistently anti- imperialist? What about his political program? Does he favor the imposition of a rigidly authoritarian religious fundamentalism? Have his followers been using violence to punish those deemed inadequately religious? There is certainly some chilling evidence that this is the case.⁴⁵ Do we support such politics? How can we support Sadr while also supporting the basic rights of women, or the fundamental human right of religious freedom, or democracy?

Let me re- emphasize that in saying I don't support the imposition of a rigidly authoritarian religious fundamentalism, I am not saying I want the U.S. military there. Nor am I opposing the right of self-determination of the Iraqi people? First of all, the poll data we have indicates that the Iraqi people do not favor an extreme Islamic state.⁴⁶ Second, even if a majority of Iraqis wanted the harsh imposition of Shari'a, minority rights have got to be part of our concern for self-determination as well. Third, what if every single Iraqi wanted to legislate the second-class status of women? Do we support them? To answer this we must keep in mind that it's one thing to support a people's right to self- determination and another to support their particular choices. Do we support self-determination and free elections in France? Yes. Do we therefore have to support the right-wing government or the right-wing policies that the people of France have (apparently) voted for? Of course not. But though we don't support the French government that doesn't mean we think the U.S. air force should start bombing the Eiffel Tower.

Ramadani argues that

"to withhold support from the people's resistance to occupation because one disagrees with some of its sections or even of its leadership would seriously damage the worldwide struggle against imperialist domination."⁴⁷

But of course, there are disagreements and disagreements. When the disagreements are on fundamentals, and it's the leadership that we disagree with, that's pretty serious because then supporting the leadership means supporting what is likely to be the future leadership as well. If it is just a matter of some elements among the various resistance movements, then we need to consider their weight. I've seen weightings that have listed the names of all the known resistance groups along with a statement that only this or that one is Baathist, only this or that one makes it a regular policy to target civilians, and so on.⁴⁸ But these listings are noteworthy for how little is actually known. One listing says that Saddamist groups don't directly participate in resistance operations but "[t]heir activities are more or less restricted to financing of resistance operations."⁴⁹ But does financing imply some measure of control? We don't know.

I've seen estimates that only 5-10 percent of the resistance is made up of Saddamists or "Islamic hard-liners." This figure doesn't seem to include Baathists who no longer support Saddam but are still committed to Baathist ideology.⁵⁰ But, in any event, percentage figures of this sort don't tell us who's in control. For example, under Saddam one could have reported that Shia made up the majority of the Iraqi armed forces, but obviously Shia were not running the show. To what extent do those who may be numerically small have a disproportionate share of the explosives and other weapons or a level of coordination that allows them to control far more than their numbers would indicate? I don't know. And I doubt anyone else knows either.

Still other commentators have drawn attention to the number of operations of different types carried out by resistance groups. Attacks on U.S. and allied forces, these commentators note, made up a large majority of the operations, but the 4 percent of attacks that have targeted civilians have accounted for more than half of all those killed by resistance forces.⁵¹ It's not at all clear that we should dismiss this aspect of the resistance as minor based on the percentage of attacks. Even brutal occupations might look benign if we judged them by the fraction of attacks that killed civilians.

So none of these sources or measures seem compelling in indicating the weight of the different segments of the resistance. The information is just too unreliable to reach a definitive judgment. Even those on the ground in Iraq probably cannot tell with any confidence which groups are real and which not, which internet claims are credible and which not, or who might control whom. The terror exploits of Jordanian-born Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be exaggerated by the United States, but Iraqi insurgents might have an incentive to pin attacks on Zarqawi as well.⁵² So avoiding any definitive characterization of the resistance as a whole seems the wisest course of action.

Certainly I don't want to dismiss all the resistance as reactionary, terroristic, or illegitimate. But nor do I want to offer blanket endorsement to "the resistance." An approach that seems to me far more defensible morally and politically is to say that we support the right of the Iraqi people to engage in resistance, whether armed or unarmed, by all legitimate means, and condemn acts of terrorism targeting innocent civilians, especially sectarian attacks. Moreover, we support any forces, armed or unarmed, that are fighting for the liberation of Iraq and to achieve a democratic and progressive outcome and we withhold our support from those whose tactics are systematically unacceptable and from those who would impose a rigid dictatorship -- whether secular or Islamic -- over the Iraqi people.

D'Amato writes that despite the problems with different resistance groups, "None of this should prevent us, however, from solidarizing with the overall aims of the disparate resistance groups -- freeing Iraq from colonial domination."⁵³ Of course we should support the aim of freeing Iraq from colonial domination. What we shouldn't automatically support, however, is all the groups who have this as one of their goals.

In terms of tactics, distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate means has a lot of resonance in the Arab world among a public strongly opposed to the U.S. occupation.⁵⁴ And it has resonance in Iraq as well. In mid-February, "anti- occupation patriotic forces" issued a statement declaring their

"Acknowledgement of the principle of the right of the Iraqi people to reject occupation; recognition of the Iraqi resistance and its legitimate right to defend its country and its resources; rejection of terrorism which takes aim at innocent Iraqis, facilities and institutions of public utility, and places of worship -- mosques, husseiniyyat [Shia religious centers], churches and all holy places."⁵⁵

Shia and Kurds have long condemned the anti-civilian attacks engaged in by some resistance fighters. But, as the press has recently reported,

"the insurgents are now also being criticized publicly by prominent Sunnis, including opponents of the U.S. presence.

"'The real resistance should only target the occupiers, and no normal person should consider dozens of dead people to be some kind of collateral damage while you are trying to kill somebody else,' cleric Ahmed Abdul-Ghafur told worshippers Friday at Um al-Qura, the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad. 'Everybody should speak out against such inhumane acts.'"⁵⁶

For Western anti-war activists to fail to join in condemning such tactics, and to offer instead blanket support for the resistance, can only discredit the peace movement.

Polling data is rather vague, but what it seems to indicate is that the Iraqi population generally makes such distinctions. The polls show considerable support for attacks on Coalition forces, but very little support -- typically under 5 percent -- for attacks on Iraqi police and infrastructure, and presumably even less for attacks on civilians.⁵⁷ Many Iraqis have taken to the streets demonstrating against acts of terror.⁵⁸ Another indication of Iraqi opinion is that even Jalal Talabani, the new Kurdish president of Iraq who has generally supported the occupation, has proposed an amnesty for insurgents based on whether they have engaged in legitimate or illegitimate tactics: Declared Talabani:

"There are two kinds of killing: In battle or in action, this could be covered by the amnesty. Those who are involved in killing innocent people, detonation of car bombs, killing people in mosques and in churches, these would not be covered by the amnesty."⁵⁹

Resistance groups themselves have been making these sorts of distinctions,⁶⁰ with some resistance groups explicitly declaring their rejection of illegitimate tactics. For example, the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (Jama') strongly opposes attacks on civilians, all Iraqis (even police), and Iraqi infrastructure. In the run-up to the recent elections, it warned its members not to target polling places or voters.⁶¹ Instead of giving across-the-board endorsement to the resistance, shouldn't we too be distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate means of resistance?

Likewise, there are Iraqi social or political forces that have been pushing a progressive political agenda, whether for workers rights or women's rights. They reject the U.S. occupation, and oppose Islamic fundamentalism at the same time. When they are threatened by some armed groups claiming to belong to "the resistance," shouldn't we be defending them and condemning those that would crush them? Not only that, but when unionists linked to the Iraqi Communist Party, with whose politics we might disagree, are subjected to atrocities, shouldn't we defend their democratic rights and condemn their torturers and murderers, even though the latter might claim to be acting in the name of "the resistance"?⁶²

Thus far, I have been discussing the moral and political arguments against undifferentiated support for "the resistance." But there are important practical arguments as well.

Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians are the objects of severe discrimination and mistreatment in the United States and other Western countries, especially since 9-11; and government propaganda and popular media frequently portray them as all as being terrorists. It is essential that we combat this racism, but it is much more difficult to respond to the charge that all those of Middle Eastern descent are terrorists if we are unable to criticize any terrorism at all when it's committed by Iraqis. Many will conclude that if we can't condemn someone who throws a bomb into a funeral procession, then our comments on who is or isn't a terrorist needn't be taken very seriously. We do no help to the Arabs and Muslims whom we are trying to protect from repression if we discredit ourselves with unconditional support for the Iraqi resistance.

Likewise, a crucial task for the general anti-war movement is building and supporting an anti-war movement within the U.S. military. This is a complicated undertaking, for we have to express our support for soldiers as individuals, without supporting their mission; we have to make clear that what would support them most is their immediate withdrawal from Iraq. We have to point out how their inadequate armor shows the real concern that the Bush administration has for soldiers lives, but without joining jingoist calls to make the US occupation army a better-armored and more effective occupying force. With an appropriately sensitive approach, we can even explain why someone who takes up arms against an unjust occupation is not necessarily an evil person. But if we refuse to condemn those who attack mosques and marketplaces, our ability to convince soldiers of the justice of some resistance is likely to be small.

D'Amato writes that despite his call for supporting the resistance, there is "a difference between the need to introduce this discussion into the antiwar movement and what kind of slogans and demands most effectively widen and deepen the reach of the movement. The antiwar movement today should have as its general watchword 'Troops Out Now.'"⁶³ On this main slogan we have no disagreement. But I'm afraid D'Amato and others who take his view are deluding themselves if they think they can separate their efforts at building the anti-war movement from their call for supporting "the resistance." The latter is not only morally and politically wrong, but it makes the former task all the more difficult.

1. Some anti-war writers have offered a defense of continued occupation that seems to go beyond an expressed concern for the Iraqi people. For example, the usually astute William Pitt has written:

   "An immediate U.S. withdrawal could precipitate a total collapse of the oil industry there, causing a global oil shock. That chaos could spread to Saudi Arabia, where the regime is not on the most stable of ground. If the House of Saud were to fall, all that oil could fall into the hands of Wahabbist extremists, and at that point, chaos would be given a whole new definition. The best-case scenario for an immediate withdrawal has Iraq becoming a Shia fundamentalist state allied with Iran on top of all that oil, a scenario that frightens anyone with a long-term foreign policy and economic outlook."

   William Pitt, "My Response to Anti-War.com on Iraq Withdrawal," Mar 10th, 2005. return

2. See "Christian peacemakers report killings of women and children by US troops in Fallujah," Ekklesia, April 14, 2004; Dahr Jamail; Rahul Mahajan. return

3. National Public Radio, All Things Considered, March 21, 2005, "Efforts by US military to show that Fallujah is now the safest city in Iraq," Reporter: Lourdes Garcia- Navarro. return

4. NPR, "Efforts by US military to show that Fallujah is now the safest city in Iraq." return

5. "Iraq trapped in a terrible vice between ruthless insurgents and unloved occupiers," Rory McCarthy, Guardian, Feb. 12, 2005. return

6. Sabah al-Bazee, "Iraqi President condemns US air assaults," Reuters, Oct. 5, 2004. return

7. Hannah Allam and Mohammed al Dulaimy, "Marine-Led Campaign Killed Friends and Foes, Iraqi Leaders Say," Knight Ridder Newspapers, May 16 2005. return

8. Douglas Jehl and Thom Shanker, "Congress Is Reviewing Pentagon on Intelligence Activities," New York Times (hereafter NYT), Feb. 4, 2005, p. A4. return

9. Ann Scott Tyson, "Marine General Is Told To Speak 'More Carefully'," Washington Post (hereafter WP), Feb. 4, 2005, p. A5. return

10. Mark Townsend, "Fury at 'shoot for fun' memo: Outburst by US security firm in Iraq is attacked by human rights groups," Observer, April 3, 2005. Emphasis added. On the number of private security contractors, see Ann Scott Tyson, "Private Security Workers Living On Edge in Iraq," WP, April 23, 2005; Page A1. return

11. Nancy A. Youssef, Knight Ridder Newspapers, Sept. 25, 2004. return

12. Nancy A. Youssef , Knight Ridder Newspapers, Sept. 25, 2004. return

13. International Crisis Group, "WHAT CAN THE U.S. DO IN IRAQ?" Dec. 22, 2004. return

14. Martin Sieff, "Analysis: Bad week in Iraq," UPI, May 19, 2005; John F. Burns and Eric Schmitt, "Generals Offer Sober Outlook on Iraqi War," NYT, May 19, 2005. For an earlier report, see Rory McCarthy and David Teather, "US steps up long-term troop estimates," Guardian, Jan. 25, 2005, p. 13. return

15. Neil King Jr., "Bush Officials Draft Broad Plan For Free-Market Economy in Iraq," Wall Street Journal (Eastern ed.), May 1, 2003. p. A.1. return

16. Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access To Key Iraq Bases," NYT, April 20, 2003, p. A1. See also the remarks of Hannah Allam, Baghdad bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "But when you see these bases, these are not makeshift tent cities. They poured in millions and millions of dollars into these facilities. It's clear that they're there to stay." (Quoted in Andrew Ackerman, "War Reporters Say Iraq Remains Frightening," Editor and Publisher, April 15, 2005.) return

17. Walter Pincus, "Skepticism About U.S. Deep, Iraq Poll Shows; Motive for Invasion Is Focus of Doubts," WP, Nov. 12, 2003, p. A18. return

18. Steve Negus, "Shia coalition split over choice of Iraq premier," Financial Times, Feb. 7, 2005, p. 8. return

19. Zogby International, "Survey Finds Deep Divisions in Iraq; Sunni Arabs Overwhelmingly Reject Sunday Elections; Majority of Sunnis, Shiites Favor U.S. Withdrawal, New Abu Dhabi TV / Zogby Poll Reveals," Jan. 28, 2005 (based on a poll conducted Jan. 19-23, 2005). return

20. There have been some reports that the United Iraqi Alliance revised its platform at the last moment, dropping its call for setting a date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. But if these accounts are accurate, the difficulty which the authors had in obtaining the new platform suggests that few voters were aware of the change, and hence still intended to vote against the occupation. See Hannah Allam, "Iraq's top candidates back off setting date for U.S. pullout," Detroit Free Press, Jan. 26, 2005; Trudy Rubin, "Iraqis realize a quick U.S. exit may not suit their long-term goals," Detroit Free Press, Jan. 27, 2005. return

21. Gilbert Achcar, "Whither Iraq? The U.S. Occupation and the antiwar movement after the election," Feb. 25, 2005, ZNet. return

22. Hassan Juma'a Awad interviewed by David Bacon, "Iraq's Oilworkers Will Defend the Country's Oil," April 8, 2005, ZNet. return

23. Patrick Cockburn, "Ten US troops were killed in action across Iraq last week," The Independent, May 15, 2005. return

24. For example, Sheik Jawad Khalisi, head of the Iraqi National Foundation Conference: " When we say 'immediate retreat of occupation,' we know that this will not happen in one day. But it's necessary to set a timetable. During the intervening period, the Iraqi police and army can be built up." ("'The Iraqi resistance is a popular resistance': An interview with of the Iraqi National Foundation Conference by Sheik Jawad Khalisi and Herbert Docena, Feb. 23, 2005, ZNet.) return

25. Matthew B. Stannard, "June 30 pledge carries weight as a symbol; Iraqis expect transfer of power -- but no one knows what's next," San Francisco Chronicle (hereafter SFC), April 11, 2004, p. A22. return

26. Sharon Smith, "Supporting Iraq's right to resist occupation," Socialist Worker, Jan. 21, 2005, p. 7. See also Paul D'Amato, who writes ("Iraqis Have the Right to Resist," International Socialist Review Issue 40, March-April 2005): "If the war is one of imperialist conquest, and the resistance opposes that conquest, then by definition the Iraqi resistance is a legitimate war of national liberation." return

27. Some apparently believe that this argument is refuted by mentioning later U.S. backing for the Khmer Rouge. This "refutation" is a total non sequitur. I cite the case of the Khmer Rouge as a counter-example to the claim that we should invariably support all who oppose the U.S. Since I assume that few on the Left today would say we should have supported the Khmer Rouge (knowing what we do now), and since it is uncontestable that the Khmer Rouge fought against the U.S., it logically follows that we must reject the argument that says we should support anyone who opposes the U.S. What the U.S. did later is clearly irrelevant. return

28. D'Amato, "Iraqis Have the Right to Resist." return

29. Smith, "Supporting...," p. 7. See also Rohan Pearce, "Iraq: The Right to Resist," Green Left Weekly (Australia), March 16, 2005. return

30. Pearce, "Iraq: The Right to Resist." Illogically, Pearce earlier noted that:

    "In order to discredit Iraqis fighting the occupation, the Pentagon PR campaign associates the whole armed resistance with the indiscriminate attacks on Iraqis that Zarqawi and his followers frequently take responsibility for....

    "But acts linked to Zarqawi's supporters, such as the bombing of Shia mosques and other targets that have caused substantial Iraqi casualties, have been denounced by figures associated with the armed resistance like Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr and Sunni group the Association of Muslim Scholars....

    "The only ones benefiting from these bombings are the occupiers, who have used them to discredit the whole resistance."

    return

31. Walden Bello, "A Milestone in the Global Struggle against Injustice and War," speech to the Beirut International Assembly of Anti-war and Anti- Globalisation Movements, Sept. 2004. return

32. Arundhati Roy, "Tide? or Ivory Snow? Public Power in the Age of Empire," San Francisco, Aug. 16, 2004. return

33. See Juan Sarmiento, "Communist Party focusweb.org/main/html/Article573.html">'hit list' denounced; Akbayan leaders fear for their lives," Philippine Daily Inquirer, Dec. 26, 2004; Pierre Rousset, " A New Letter of Concern," Jan. 18, 2005; "A Statement of Concern about a Hit-list including Walden Bello and other Activists," Jan. 21, 2005; Walden Bello, "Afterthoughts: Why we have been marked out for elimination," Jan. 21, 2005. return

34. Daniel Garcia-Pena, "Military Triumph, Political Failure," El Espectador, April 24, 2005, translated and posted on ZNet, April 30, 2005. return

35. Smith, "Supporting...," p. 7. return

36. As I wrote a year ago,

    ""Basic morality and international law specify that not all means are permissible even in pursuit of a just cause. That's why many who did not oppose World War II on principle still condemned the U.S. obliteration of Hiroshima. It's why we condemn Hitler's atrocities -- not just because they were part of an unjust cause, but because, even if his cause were just, genocide is morally unacceptable.

    "Malcolm X popularized the phrase 'by any means necessary,' arguing against exclusive reliance on nonviolence, and many have picked up the term because it sounds radical and uncompromising. But Malcolm didn't intend by his phrase to suggest that there were to be no moral constraints on the tactics used: 'I have never advocated,' he declared, 'our people going out and initiating any acts of aggression against whites indiscriminately.'"

    ("Where Do We Go From Here? The Anti-War Movement and the Occupation of Iraq," ZNet, April 25, 2004.) return

37. See, for example, Tariq Ali, "Resistance is the first step towards Iraqi independence," Guardian, Nov. 3, 2003; "Tariq Ali on empire and those who fight it," Socialist Worker, March 19, 2005. return

38. "Tariq Ali on empire and those who fight it." return

39. D'Amato, "Iraqis Have the Right to Resist." return

40. Obviously, I might support someone who wanted to kill me as a way to protect myself from someone even more likely to kill me. return

41. Sami Ramadani, "'Iraqis Need Our Active Solidarity' (Interview)," International Socialist Review, March-April 2005, p. 28 (interviewed by ISR's Eric Ruder just before Jan. 30 election). Ramadani refers to the "definitive" article, but I assume this is a typo. return

42. Ramadani, "Iraqis Need...," pp. 28-29. return

43. Paul D'Amato, "The Shape of the Iraqi Resistance," International Socialist Review, March-April 2005, p. 17, quoting Samir Haddad and Mazin Ghazi in Al Zawra, Baghdad, Sept. 2004. return

44. D'Amato, "Shape of the Iraqi Resistance," p. 19. D'Amato was writing before the April 2005 anti-occupation demonstrations organized by al Sadr. return

45. E.g., Anthony Shadid, "Picnic Is No Party In the New Basra: Uproar Over Armed Attack on Student Event Redraws Debate on Islam's Role and Reach," WP, March 29, 2005, p. A9; Delphine Minoui, "Basra's intrusive Islamists reject Iran's theocracy as too tolerant," SFC, May 4, 2005, p. A11. return

46. Zogby International, "Should Iraq have an Islamic government, or should the government let everyone practice their own religion?" Feb. 11, 2005 (based on a poll conducted Jan. 19-23, 2005). return

47. Ramadani, "'Iraqis Need...," p. 30. return

48. For example, Samir Haddad and Mazin Ghazi, "An Inventory of Iraqi Resistance Groups: "Who Kills Hostages in Iraq?" Al Zawra (Baghdad), Sept. 19, 2004 (this translation by the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service was originally posted on the FAS website, but is no longer there; it is available on the Global Policy Forum site); and an earlier Jihad Unspun, "An Insider's Look at the Iraqi Resistance." return

49. Haddad and Ghazi, "An Inventory...." return

50. Khalisi and Docena, "The Iraqi Resistance...." return

51. D'Amato, "Shape of the Iraqi Resistance," pp. 16-18, citing Anthony H. Cordesman, The Developing Iraqi Insurgency: Status at End-2004, Center for Strategic and International Studies (Dec. 22, 2004). Cordesman is also cited by M. Junaid Alam, "Does the Resistance Target Civilians? According to US Intel, Not Really," Left Hook, April 2005. return

52. "Iraq's nationalist insurgents, who include many members of the ousted Saddam Hussein regime, for their part find it convenient to pin on a foreigner attacks which might prove unpopular." Michel Moutot, "US and rebels hype Zarqawi's role in Iraq, say experts," Daily Times, Pakistan, Feb. 12, 2005. return

53. D'Amato, "Shape of the Iraqi Resistance," p. 20. Also, "the main goal of the Iraqi resistance -- one that unites them -- is to liberate their country from foreign occupation. It is precisely this agenda of the resistance that requires our solidarity." (D'Amato, "Iraqis Have the Right to Resist.") return

54. See Dan Murphy and Nicholas Blanford, "Arab view dims on Iraq rebels; Insurgent tactics are drawing rebukes from the Arab world," Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 02, 2004. return

55. "Statement Of The Anti-Occupation Patriotic Forces," Feb. 15, 2005, translated and reproduced in Gilbert Achcar, "Iraq Developments," ZNet, March 4, 2005. return

56. Sameer N. Yacoub, "Anger against Iraqi insurgents grows as more people lose loved ones to attacks," The Associated Press, March 4, 2005, Friday, BC cycle. See also Yaseen Madhloom, "Sunni Group Condemns Bombing," Iraqi Crisis Report (Institute for War and Peace Reporting), ICR No. 115, 04- Mar-05. See too the view of the Iraqi National Foundation Congress, which, while saying it supports resistance "by all means necessary," at the same time condemns "beheadings, hostage- taking, and the killing of non-combatants." Khalisi and Docena, "The Iraqi Resistance...." return

57. See the poll reports in Michael E. O'Hanlon and Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq, Brookings Institution, regularly updated. return

58. See, e.g., Traci Carl, "Iraq workers protest insurgent attacks," Associated Press, March 24, 2005. return

59. Ellen Knickmeyer, " Iraqi Proposes Broader Amnesty; Citizens Who Killed In Battle Would Qualify," WP, April 11, 2005, p. A1. I owe this point to Gilbert Achcar. return

60. See Patrick Cockburn, "Stop killing Iraqis, nationalists warn religious fanatics," Independent, April 11, 2005; Michael Jansen, "Huge rally presses for US withdrawal date," The Irish Times, April 11, 2005, p. 10. return

61. Samir Haddad, "Iraqi Resistance Distances Itself From Civilian Blood," IslamOnline, March 7, 2005; Samir Haddad, "Iraqi Resistance Group Says Not to Target Elections," IslamOnline, Jan. 27, 2005. return

62. For a statement by opponents of the U.S. occupation that does condemn such attacks, see Campaign for Peace and Democracy, "Statement Condemning Attacks on Iraqi Trade Unionists," initiated Jan. 23, 2005. For background on the Hadi Saleh case, see David Bacon, "The Death of Hadi Saleh," ZNet, Jan. 28, 2005. return

63. D'Amato, "Iraqis Have the Right to Resist." return