Iraq — troops out now? The debate in AWL
The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty has been discussing the question of the troops in Iraq since the end of the last year. The debate will continue at our conference on 19-20 May. Here, two contributions to the debate (note: the second is not a reply to the first).
“Troops out”
In the face of the carnage brought on by the invasion, occupation and ensuing sectarian conflict, the Iraqi workers' movement must seek to build itself as an active element of social change. Its slogans must be oriented towards cohering the working class as a united, independent force for democracy and liberation.
In an Iraq in which the population overwhelmingly opposes the presence of troops and favours their withdrawal, it is a fantasy to believe that this workers’ movement — that is, the only conceivable agent of democratic change — can become strong enough to defeat either the occupation or the Islamists without posing itself sharply against the occupation.
An Iraqi labour movement that followed the logic that we have until now advocated would resign itself to simply hanging on to what remains of its organisations as violence and chaos gradually extend their reign over the country. It is not possible to “sit in the middle” of the coalition and the Islamists — there is extensive involvement of far-right militias in the US-UK-backed political structures, the Basra police are under control of Moqtada-al-Sadr and coalition forces have their very own allies among the Islamist death squads.
Moreover, the question of the presence of US/UK troops, and when they should leave, is not just a matter for “various ruling-class and reactionary factions”. For IWF members whose offices are raided, for UUI members whose demonstrations are fired upon, for oil workers struggling against privatisation orchestrated by Washington, and indeed for the entire working class, for whom the troops and various other “security forces” pose an immediate physical threat, the question of the presence of troops is a daily concern of paramount importance.
Our programme is for a democratic, secular Iraq (with the right of the Kurds to self-determination, rights for other minorities, etc) and for working-class power throughout the Middle East. The demand for troop withdrawal is essential for the workers’ movement — self-determination is not just one of many democratic rights, but a prerequisite upon which any hope of democracy rests. It is quite clear that foreign troops have no chance of imposing a democratic settlement from above, increasingly willing to sell out their initial democratic pretensions in the hope that some sort of authoritarian/soft Islamist government might bring stability and an excuse to pull out.
The troops staying for a few more months or years before withdrawal is not going to change that dynamic.
Continuing social collapse and the victory of US/UK imperialism or the far-right sectarian militias in Iraq would obviously be disastrous for the working class. But holding our hands up in despair at the situation and righteously promising ourselves that we will reassess our stance once the labour movement is stronger is a recipe for giving US/UK imperialism a free hand in the Middle East.
This is no good, since the whole question is — how can the workers’ movement become stronger? If it promulgates de facto reliance on the occupation, it will never be able to. What it needs is a politics — and slogans — defining its democratic alternative.
For us, the key focus is not abstract anti-imperialist sloganeering but practical solidarity. We are working-class anti-imperialists and our primary task is therefore to develop working class forces wherever we can. Our work through campaigns such as IUS should continue to determine the spirit of our activity on Iraq.
If we do not express our opposition to the presence of troops and our desire for their withdrawal (in both our propaganda and slogans), we risk reducing painting a picture of the Iraqi labour movement as a passive actor capable of nothing more than battening down the hatches while the conflict over the occupation takes places above its heads between various imperialist and subimperialist forces.
There is no easy sloganistic way to answer the question “should the troops withdraw immediately or stay until whenever?”, and we should not pretend otherwise. But as the only tendency on the British left serious about solidarity with Iraqi workers, our slogans still have an important job to do even if they cannot, in and of themselves, sum up our entire attitude to the situation. We should intervene in the antiwar movement and the labour movement on this issue to convince activists that the Iraqi workers’ movement can and must become the hegemonic anti-occupation force.
To do this, we need to pose ourselves more sharply against the occupation. We must patiently explain in our propaganda that we do not believe the troops have any progressive role and their continued presence daily worsens life for working-class Iraqis. This perspective — one of focusing on practical solidarity while emphasising the role of the labour movement as the active democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-sectarian agency in Iraq - is best summed up in the slogans “Solidarity with Iraqi workers against the occupation and against the sectarian militias. Troops out of Iraq.”
David Broder and Daniel Randall, April 2007
Analysis, not “anti-imperialist” posturing
“There is not, nor can there be, such a thing as a ‘negative’ Social-Democratic slogan that serves only to ‘sharpen proletarian consciousness against imperialism’ without at the same time offering a positive answer to the question of how Social-Democracy will solve the problem when it assumes power. A ‘negative’ slogan unconnected with a definite positive solution will not ‘sharpen’, but dull consciousness, for such a slogan is a hollow phrase, mere shouting, meaningless declamation.”
Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism, August-October 1916
The basic Marxist approach of the AWL is always to analyse reality and then to draw political conclusions from this assessment, including our tactics and slogans. On Iraq we’ve tried to analyse the real forces involved and to base our politics on the emerging labour movement.
But [David and Daniel] do not examine the reality of the situation in Iraq as a whole, only isolated fragments of it.
In the discussion David has dismissed the central assessment we’ve made for over three years — that if the troops left immediately, Iraq would be shattered by sectarian civil war.
What is the current situation? From the facts we can glean from its reports, there is no doubt about the strength of the Sunni and Shia forces, the growing sectarian attacks or the weakness of the Iraqi state.
The Iraq Study Group (ISG) report contained a stark description of the “resistance” forces. Of the Sunni Arab insurgency, the report says it “comprises former elements of the Saddam Hussein regime, disaffected Sunni Arab Iraqis, and common criminals. It has significant support within the Sunni Arab community. The insurgency has no single leadership but is a network of networks. It benefits from participants’ detailed knowledge of Iraq’s infrastructure, and arms and financing are supplied primarily from within Iraq.
“The insurgents have different goals, although nearly all oppose the presence of US forces in Iraq. Most wish to restore Sunni Arab rule in the country. Some aim at winning local power and control.”
On the Shia forces, the report emphasises their strength — in particular the Mahdi Army, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, which “may number as many as 60,000 fighters” and “is widely believed to engage in regular violence against Sunni Arab civilians”. It highlights its rivalry with the Badr Brigade (affiliated with SCIRI) and which has “long-standing ties with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps”.
The ISG summarised the current situation as: “Four of Iraq’s eighteen provinces are highly insecure-Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, and Salah ad Din. These provinces account for about 40% of Iraq’s population of 26 million. In Baghdad, the violence is largely between Sunni and Shia. In Anbar, the violence is attributable to the Sunni insurgency and to al Qaeda, and the situation is deteriorating. In Kirkuk, the struggle is between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen. In Basra and the south, the violence is largely an intra-Shia power struggle.
“The most stable parts of the country are the three provinces of the Kurdish north and parts of the Shia south. However, most of Iraq’s cities have a sectarian mix and are plagued by persistent violence.”
According to a Pentagon assessment, between August and November an average of 150 people were attacked in Iraq every day, up 22% from the previous three months. Attacks on occupation forces accounted for over two-thirds (68%) of these assaults, but almost 60% of casualties were civilians. The number of attacks on civilians went up too. More significantly, there were around 1,000 sectarian attacks and 1,000 sectarian killings every month. (Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, November 2006)
The ISG report is also clear about the weakness of the Iraqi state. It is scathing about the capability of the Iraqi armed forces, which consists of 130,000 soldiers.
The report highlights the dependence of the Iraqi army on the US military: “They lack the ability to sustain their operations, the capability to transport supplies and troops, and the capacity to provide their own indirect fire support, close-air support, technical intelligence, and medical evacuation. They will depend on the United States for logistics and support through at least 2007.”
It adds that, “significant questions remain about the ethnic composition and loyalties of some Iraqi units – specifically, whether they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda”. US academic Juan Cole has a similar assessment. He wrote recently: “It is not clear that Maliki could [crush the Mahdi Army] with the Shiite 5th Division if he wanted to — they might defect rather than fight fellow Shiites.
“And, they don’t have much in the way of armoured vehicles or high tech fire power.”
There are currently 180,000 Iraq police of various kinds, but the ISG report says that, “the state of the Iraqi police is substantially worse than that of the Iraqi Army. The Iraqi Police Service... has neither the training nor legal authority to conduct criminal investigations, nor the firepower to take on organized crime, insurgents, or militias”.
It is pretty clear from these facts that the immediate withdrawal of US troops would lead to the collapse of the Iraqi state and a full-scale civil war between Kurdish, Sunni and Shia factions. This would be self-determination only in the sense of the self-destruction of Iraq as an entity. And it is difficult to see how the Iraqi labour movement would survive.
Of course, David and his supporters might reject this assessment. But it is necessary for them to put up some arguments and some evidence against the view that immediate withdrawal would not accelerate the process towards open civil war.
The consequences of our slogans for the Iraqi working class do matter. If troops out tomorrow would lead to the destruction of the labour movement, then to advocate it with “no qualms” is plainly irresponsible. If troops out now would improve the situation for Iraqi workers, then David and others need to prove it, e.g. to explain how the Iraqi state might survive and why the sectarian militias would not fight it out.
The reality of Iraq for the immediate period ahead is that socialists have to choose: either to prioritise the survival of the labour movement and fight for solidarity with it — or to advocate slogans like “troops out now” that would lead to the destruction of that movement, for the sake of “anti-imperialist” posturing.
Paul Hampton, December 2006
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Abstract unseriousness...
... is pretending that support for the 'resistance' is the same thing as supporting workers when they take up arms.
Support for the resistance follows from viewing it as, basically, a classical anti-colonial movement. Support for its taking power is the consequence of calling for self-determination, and is both a democratic demand and - which is the main point I was making - makes actual, comprehensible, real-world sense. (Ie, you say 'troops out', and in answer to 'then what?' your basic answer is that the national liberation movement will come to power).
Of course you can and should qualify that with calling for other things, support for workers and what have you; but the basic sense of it is clear.
In Iraq it is not clear, because there is no 'national liberation movement'; there are rival sectarian militias. The 'then what?' in response to 'troops out' is therefore not clear at all.
It is abstract and unserious to think *this* question is answered by saying 'we support workers resisting imperialism'. It's the answer to a completely different question. (And as far as *that* question goes, the answer is not in dispute between us).
Does the AWL oppose "imperialist troops"?
Obviously not. It supports imperialist troops and supports the government they defend.
That's why it wants the occupation to continue and for the US puppet government to stay in power.
You don't have to be a dialectian to understand that you simply have to stop lying.
What a joke organisation.
Bill J...Billj...Billje...Bilge?
Don't you have anything better to do with your time, mate? Why do you even bother writing shit like that? You're clearly not interested in a debate on the issue - you just want to regurgitate your lies.
Your posts on here are pretty much the equivalent of writing "the AWL eats babies for breakfast." They're always entirely unsubstantiated, devoid of any reference to our literature whatsoever and consist entirely of endlessly repeating "the AWL supports imperialist troops" and "the AWL supports the Iraqi government".
In the words of a cyber-warrior member of some sect or another..."you don't have to be a dialectician to understand that you simply have to stop lying."
Do the AWL oppose the occupation?
From the recently passed document:
"We are against the status quo in Iraq. But at this moment in time all we can do is try to build the forces which can change the situation for the better. We have no immediate answer.
In these conditions, the question, when should the US/UK troops get out, is in reality a question between the various ruling-class and reactionary factions.
To respond the US talk of future withdrawal by saying “no, no, now!” is simply to try to dictate one or other option to the ruling class. It is fantasy to think we can do that. In any case, their withdrawal as a result of failure and defeat at the hands of the sectarian militias is not our programme for Iraq.
Our programme is for a democratic, secular Iraq (with the right of the Kurds to self-determination, rights for other minorities, etc.) and for working- class power throughout the Middle East.
...The only way to answer the question “should the troops withdraw immediately, or stay until whatever?” is to say: in fact it is beyond our collective power to determine when they withdraw. It is a fantasy of “anti-imperialist” politics that somehow the Western anti-war movement, in abstraction from the sectarian militias in Iraq, is going to drive out the troops. "
Seems fairly clear- the AWL do not raise the slogan or support the idea of troops out, let alone troops out now.
They may not advocate more troops or the surge or even the troops there- in their own words, "We have no immediate answer."
It is a bit like as if in a strike an organisation says we don't support the bosses attacking workers but neither do we demand for police to stop attacking the strike as a knee-jerk anti-police fantasy: we have no immediate answer.
Can our actions in the trade union movement make a difference? Is it conceivable that a militant antiwar movement here can make a material difference? It is conceivable- it is also at the moment hard to see how we could pull it off. Does that mean we give up all politics unless we have an immediate chance at success? Why bother with socialism at all?
As Paul Hampton argues:
The consequences of our slogans for the Iraqi working class do matter. "
He goes on to say:
If troops out tomorrow would lead to the destruction of the labour movement, then to advocate it with “no qualms” is plainly irresponsible. If troops out now would improve the situation for Iraqi workers, then David and others need to prove it, e.g. to explain how the Iraqi state might survive and why the sectarian militias would not fight it out. "
Troops out now would be an immeidate improvement in the following senses:
1) It would prevent the US/UK forces violently suppressing workers' demonstrations and strikes and enforcing the looting of Iraqi oil
2) It would seriously weaken and compromise the US's ability and willingness to intervene if they were defeated as a combined result of military action and a mass antiowar movement.
If the British and or US antiwar movement were able to force troops out then it would also strengthen the working class here and seriously destabilise the Brown/ Bush governments and we would be in a stronger position to offer material solidarity to the Iraqi workers' movement.
Or we could stand aside, refuse to take a position and say well we can't do anything anyway.
No...
"It is a bit like as if in a strike an organisation says we don't support the bosses attacking workers but neither do we demand for police to stop attacking the strike as a knee-jerk anti-police fantasy: we have no immediate answer."
*Obviously* you 'oppose the police attacking the strike' (with arms if necessary), and the same would go for British or American troops.
The comparison would be if you called, in the middle of the strike, suggesting that anything else was accommodating to the ruling class, pro-imperialism and what have you, for the overthrow of the state.
"We have no immediate answer" means only that right now the working class in Iraq (and for that matter internationally) is not in a position to impose one. So in fact the existing immediate options are all bad. And we should not choose between these immediate options.
Instead, we should try to change the balance of forces so that our answer (or at least a better one over which we have some influence) *can* be imposed. So indeed we can and should 'make a material difference'. Thw question is why the 'material difference' we should choose to make is to add our voice to the hodge podge of disparate voices calling for troops out, without any regard for making solidarity with trade unionists, socialists, feminists and others in Iraq - as if shouting 'troops out' is the only difference we can make.
Absolutely: what about socialism? It is because socialism *is* our priority - building the only social force which can bring socialism about - that we think there should be a different focus, a different choice about the 'material difference we can make.'
Troops Out?
But are you calling for troops out? No- that is the primary point.
Within a troops out movement of course raising money and solidairty for Iraqi unions such as the southern oil workers is essential but as far as I can see the AWL is- disgracefully- not in the antiwar movement failing even such an elementary test as calling for troops out.
There is an organised opposition to this- that should be commended. Those comrades should seriously consider their position in an organisation that has taken a seriously wrong position on the war and occupation.
'Troops out movement'
"Within a troops out movement of course raising money and solidairty for Iraqi unions such as the southern oil workers is essential..."
And is it? If you want 'tests' of socialists, surely that's the 'acid' one.
Does the AWL think the occupation helps a working class develop?
The comparison here with Kautsky is interesting, and a comparison with Second Internationalism's crisis is perhaps more powerful.
As I understand it, the majority is arguing that it has a sincere and deeply-held long-term opposition towards the occupation but, in the short- and medium-term, the weakness of a growing working class movement means that the withdrawal of the troops would lead to a barbaric conflict, which could include the break-up of the country and the weakening of the nascent workers' movement.
Other socialists would probably have some principled objections to that, and some tactical ones; perhaps some doubts about the assumptions that underpin the majority's views.
Sectarian conflict is certainly promoted by the occupation, objectively and subjectively. The occupation denies self-determination to the peoples, and lays the basis for national struggle. However, the occupation aims to co-opt, nourish and balance the militias. They key militias are in some way integrated into the state. Most, perhaps all, of the ministries are aligned with one or another militia, and they use them as organising bases. The ministries are, in a way, also the site of proxy wars between the militias. Furthermore, the militias are armed and funded by external sponsors, including the West. The US has shipped in large numbers of arms from Bosnia. Occupying troops have been implicated in terrorist bombings of civilian areas, and have even been arrested carrying IEDs.
The AWL is not the only group to feel that, in some way, the occupying troops are maintaining order and opening up, in a deformed way, the space for workers to organise.
However, the facts suggest that the direct and indirect promotion of conflict by the occupation has a deeper negative effect on the interests of working people than does any upside of the occupation. Indeed, by fostering communal divisions, even building walls to support ethnic cleansing, the occupation divides working people against each other. As under all colonial systems, class consciousness struggles to develop while the national question is unresolved [and that, surely, is a mantra for the AWL].
Despite these more conjunctural questions, there are also questions of principle. The role of Iraq as a major oil state is a key variable there. This is in a large part a colonial war to extract imperialist superprofits. We should oppose sharpening imperialist exploitation of the Iraq people. The occupying force is mugging the nation. While the occupation remains, legislation like the oil 'privatisation' can be pushed through the Quisling parliament quite against the will of the people.
The AWL has a different assessment. In its judgement, the horrors of occupation are less than the horrors of withdrawal. Iraq, and its workers' movement, is still under-developed. Therefore self-determination is put on hold until the occupation has helped stability and workers' organisation to develop. Since there is no "third camp" to support, the AWL tends to find the side backed by international capitalism favourable to 'backward' local forces.
There is a strong parallel here between the decline of the second international and the evolution of the AWL. In 1904, the International started to link national development to independence. For example, it called for home rule for India, but under British control, while the working class developed. Bebel talked of the ability of colonialism to have a civilising role, however his supporters at least stressed that capitalist colonisers would not bring development, but terror and atrocities.
Underpinning that view, it seems to me, is more than a groundless faith in the hidden hand of capitalism to create across the developing world the bourgeois democratic, economic and social preconditions for the emergence of a workers' movement that can contend for power. The Mensheviks developed this view to say that the road to socialism led through the stage of developed capitalism, and that it would be wrong for the working class to move against capitalism until it has the majority in society.
The AWL has come close to this before. In 1991, the Alliance argued that Russian workers should give critical support to Yeltsin, in order to defend and extend the 'democratic revolution'. An editorial in Workers' Liberty at that time confirms that the Alliance sees that socialism flows only from direct experience of advanced capitalism, and that it was mistaken to have had to aim of "all-encompassing concentration of ownership" in the hands of the workers' and peasants' state.
In fact, the AWL has little faith in the ability of the Iraqi masses to overcome the communal divides that occupation has fostered. As in Somalia and elsewhere, imperialism favours weak, and fragmented, governments to strong opponent governments. The AWL fails to admit that in Iraq today, imperialist colonialism primarily frustrates the development of working class leadership.
In the Second International, the revisionists opposed ending colonial rule, saying that that would lead to barbarism. Their majority was overturned in 1907. At that time, Kautsky led the internationalist minority to victory at the congress. He pointed out that foreign domination led to a rejection by colonial peoples of the foreign civilisation's values. In the same way, this occupation makes it harder, and not easier, for the workers and other toilers to be won to democratic and socialist ideas.
Bill and changing minds
I thought Duncan's post was good and is a good way to pose the question. On Bill- well he may be exasperated but I think we in Permanent Revolution have put the points failry sympathetically- saying the comrades in the minority are fighting for a much better position- that troops out is a basic prerequisite to even gaining an ear amongs the Iraqi working class and a fundamental duty for Marxists.
However, it does seem odd to stay in an organisation that at the very least refuses to support troops out- this surely crosses a class line.
However, the comrades should be encouraged to follow the logic of their convictions and openly argue for troops out now and seperate from the AWL as they cannot win a majority.
Exasperated?
He's not exasperated - he's ranting. He's like a little kid with his fingers stuck in his ears yelling "you support imperialism, you support imperialism" over and over again, while being utterly resistant to any attempts to have a rational debate over the issues at hand. If he's so "exasperated" by the AWL's position, he could just stop posting on our website.
Jason, your position (either de facto or explicitly; I'm not sure how much of Workers' Power gung ho attitude you've inherited on this) supports the victory of clerical-fascists backed by Iranian capitalism in Iraq, whose hobbies include razing gypsy encapments, assassinating LGBT people and murdering trade unionists. If you wanna talk about crossing class lines I think you should make sure your own house is in order.
Iraqi resistance, debate and ranting
On Bill I think Duncan's point is good- he's exasperated. "Ranting" is an over-emotive and not particularly helpful term. My point though was that in general our points- mine on here and our articles in general- are patient, open to discussion etc.
If a group refuses to support troops out now it's not a rant to point out that this is in effect a pro-imperialist position by refusing to call on imperialist troops to withdraw. If your position is this then why not be honest about it? Were the Bolsheviks ranting when they condemned the Second International's majority position on WW1?
On the resistance we support Iraqis directly fighting imperialism. We do not support the politics of the Islamists and when worhippers are blown up in mosques, trade unionists murdered and women or gay people murdered this is not only disgusting, reactionary murder but also quite obviously not 'resistance' to imperialism- in fact sectarian attacks play directly into the hands of the occupation which has every interest in fomenting them.
"Calling on troops to withdraw".
Firstly, on the resistance; either you support them or you don't. You can't have it both ways. Would you have supported the Werewolf SS against the imperialist occupation of Germany post-WW2? Maybe you'd have just supported them when they were "directly fighting imperialism" and not when they were...y'know...being Nazis. You can't seperate (for example) the Mahdi Army's "anti-imperialism" (which is meaningless anyway as it is funded by Iran, a major sub-imperialist power in the region) from the rest of its political project. Murdering trade unionists isn't an occasional sideline for these people - it's part of why they exist. There is no progressive content to anything they do.
Secondly, on "calling on troops to withdraw". I think it's helpful that you've formulated things in this way because it highlights very sharply the differences in our perspective. Your slogans, your positions and your politics are abstract "demands" and "calls" directed at your own government which essentially plead with it to change its military policy. My politics are for the labour movement, and aimed at helping that movement - inside and outside of Iraq - become an independent and hegemonic agent in the struggle for independence, democracy and secularism. I'm in favour of some formulation of a troops out slogan because I think it's helpful towards this end, not because I want to give advice to the British military.
Abstract demand?
No, we're not putting it forward as an abstract demand. We fight for a movement of direct action on the streets and in the workplaces, for blockade and refusing to move military hardware, for strikes against the war, supporting soldiers who refuse to fight, mass meetings etc For class struggle tactics and a labour movement campaign to disrupt and prevent imperialist war.
Now if you say well do you currently have the forces to pull it off? No, obviously and lamentably not. But British trade unions and campaign groups and workers demanding troops out now still has some influence, though regrettable nowhere near enough yet. We are trying to build a movement. Our slogan is not abstract because it is linked with tactics and a strategy that we fight for as best as we are able. We are fighting for a militant workers movement to enforce troops out. We don't offer any advice to the military top brass- we want to destroy them. But we would make links with rank and file soldiers and groups like military families against the war (and have on a very small basis) because we want to win rank and file soldiers to the antiwar movement.
On the resistance- either you support 'them' or you don't? What does this mean? We support Iraqi workers who are fighting US or other imperialist troops. If armed militia loyal to al-Sadr ('the Mahdi army') kill US troops we support that as the troops are an army of occupation. If the same people set off a bomb in a market killing lots of shoppers we obviously don't supportthat and nor can it be in any sense contructed as 'resistance' to imperialism.
Much better would be to have the unions arm themselves and to win those workers and small farmers currently in the Shia militia to workers' militia- of course. If we had enough inlunce we would of course raise the slogan and the money for this in the labour movement. As it is we have riased money at socials for the souther oil workers union- also part of the resistance (though perhaps not included in your definition as it doesn't fit the stereotype).
Do we support the resistance?
Who's ranting? The truth is the biggest massacres, the most slaughter, the largest amount of destruction is at the hands of the US/UK occupiers.
You support this occupation - hence you support this massacre, slaughter and destruction. It's not like you've got another army to occupy with is it? You have picked the imperialists to do your work for you and you have to accept the blood stained consequences.
You support the sectarian stooge government. You defend it. Therefore you have to accept the consequences.
Stop trying to duck the issue.
Some of us oppose the occupation - those of you support it. This is an unbridgeable divide.
And yes your attitude is disgusting.
Time to grow up
It would be difficult to find a more laughable misrepresentation of the AWL than those offered by these guys. If you don't want to subject yourself to debate the AWL, then why litter AWL's website with this sixth-form common room nonsense?
Put up or shut up.
I've got a challenge for you, Bill...
Bill, seriously, are you literate? Can you read? If so, have you read one single word of anything I've written on Iraq? Or indeed that anyone in the AWL (either members of the minority like myself or the majority) has written?
Please provide one quote - just one, I'm not asking much - to justify your ridiculous, childish slander that I "have picked the imperialists to do [my] work for [me] and that I "support the sectarian stooge government" and "defend it". So, assuming your literacy, I'm after just one quote. Off you go. And even if you find the quote (which you won't), please don't feel obliged to come back.
Jason - the whole point about (for example) the Sadrists is that they don't somehow change their political and social programme depending on who they're killing. Their programme is for a Shi'a-dominated theocratic Iraq - everything they do (politically and militarily) is about pursuing that programme. Even when they happen to be killing people who are our enemies too (American troops, for example), their actions are unsupportable because they serve an end which represents a mortal threat to our movement. Every military blow that the Sadrists strike against the occupation strengthens what is essentially a clerical-fascist movement funded by one of the most rutheless capitalist powers in the region (Iran). You can't abstract that reality from whatever you might analyse at the "progressive content" of what the Sadrists are doing (i.e. making life difficult for imperialism).
Of course workers should arm themselves, form militias, whatever. As much as anything else, they need to do this in order to defend their organisations from the people you and Bill support. A perspective of workers' militias, labour movement organisation and working-class anti-imperialism is counterposed with any kind of support for the representatives of clerical-fascism and Iranian sub-imperialism in Iraq.
AWL: can give it, but can't take it
Certainly, there is more to this discussion than whether or not the troops should leave. We need tactics and alliances which strive to strengthen the anti-colonial struggle against European and American imperialism, understanding that this is the best way to weaken the positions of the clerics and exploiters.
Three quick comments:
* Comrades are ducking at least some of the questions. Again, to take the example of the issue which is splitting one of the world's main class-struggle parties, Refundazione, would an AWL MP vote to fund western troops for another six months in the Middle East or would it not vote for those funds if that meant withdrawal?
* What programme is suggested by a comment like this: "Every military blow that the Sadrists strike against the occupation strengthens what is essentially a clerical-fascist movement funded by one of the most ruthless capitalist powers in the region". For example, if a clerical or anti-labour movement wins the leadership of an anti-colonial movement, does that mean that socialist should not, under those circumstances, oppose colonialism? Would a movement like China's patriotic movement, or the murderous Goumindang, put on pause the demand to end colonialism?
* It's interesting to note the comrades who've twisted off topic, and suddenly want to talk about the tone of this discussion. It's seems like they are ducking the political questions. Similarly, saying 'put up or shut up' is not only a clear attempt to avoid discussion, but is also odd, Clearly there is a valid discussion here: the AWL opposes the call for 'troops out now', and that discussion is ongoing in the AWL.
Duncan.
So you know
Duncan,
I'm not an AWL member.
The AWL members have clearly and patiently, and at length, set out their position. In contrast the PR members, and in particular BillJ, have treated the website like a radio rantline, whilst at the same time refusing the AWL's offer to debate these issues in a structered public forum.
Why not give it a rest.
supporting the resistance
means supporting the right of Iraqis to bear arms to fight against US imperialism and the right of Iraqis to organise unions against privatisation, demonstrations against the occupation etc.
Daniel, ou claim I've misrepresented the AWL position- where? I see no evidence for this at all. However, you continue to misrepresent what I write as supporting Sadr or whoever. In Iraq communists would be for arming the workers against the impertialist occupation, would rally workers against the occupation and thereby take away workers and small farmers currently misled by Sadr and others as well as arming themselves against any clerical reaction.
Here though the refusal of tha majority of the AWL to call for troops out does mean they are not part of the anti-war anti-imperialist movement and have crossed a class line. the opposition in the AWL should publicly disassociate themselves from this.
Jason
Put up or shut up?
This is clearly all too confusing. We have an organisation, the AWL, which claims to be socialist, but which supports the occupation of Iraq by the imperialists. (Or rather it pretends it wants their withdrawal, but is against them actually withdrawing - just like Tony Blair and George Bush in fact.)
What are the imperialists doing in Iraq? They are busy massacring, torturing and oppressing the population.
The AWL know this. It's on the news everyday. Yet they still want these massacring, torturing and oppressing troops to stay in Iraq, so they can do their work.
What reasonable person could believe anything other than this means the AWL are no socialist organisation at all, but really a bunch of pro-imperialists?
Then we have a "minority" in the AWL.
This minority claim that they are "against" troops in Iraq. And they prove the seriousness of their opposition by building an organisation which supports troops staying in Iraq. Let's judge the minority by their deeds not their empty words.
If the minority were "really" against the presence of troops in Iraq, they wouldn't build an organisation which opposes their withdrawal.
What's illiterate about that?
It's seems the only people who raise these absurd accusations, or who object to the AWL being rightly called to order for their disgusting position are supporters of that position.
If it was such a good, principled position what's the problem?
Perhaps its that they don't like their guilty secret being exposed in public, let alone on their "own" web board, heaven forbid. How shocking.
If what the AWL thinks is
If what the AWL thinks is important enough for you to spend your time posting here, I think you could spend a couple of hours testing yourself in public.
As I said you should either put up or shut up.
It's not important
Yawn.
Funnily enough there is only one of us supporting murderous sectarian anti-working class death squads - that's you lot.
Even the Iraq Study Group, who's report you claim to have read, are quite clear that the stooge government you defend, are exactly that, murderous, sectarian and organisers of anti-working class death squads.
According to the Lancet study, the occupying army you support are responsible for a minimum of 200,000 deaths, which when included unattributed deaths rises to probably at least double that, around 400,000 or around 100,000 deaths a year or 2,000 a week. That however, clearly doesn't count as a murderous anti-working class, sectarian force for you lot. This daily slaughter seems to cause you no qualms whatever.
So do PR support the resistance? I think Duncan has explained very well, this is by no means a singular, but do we support acts of resistance against the US/UK occupiers? Of course we do.
Why?
Simple, that occupation are organising murderous sectarian anti-working class death squads and are in fact an organised murderous, sectarian and anti-working class death squad. Called the US/UK army, secret police and prison system.
Which you support.
So shut up? No thanks.
In my opinion making the
In my opinion making the same crass points over and over again has no place on a site like this (I notice PR doesn't afford a similar opportunity on its site). The AWL's well known (in this case over) liberal attitude (which you might want to compare to your tendency's technique of getting its members to lie in public if they didn't agree with the public line) to debate means you get to behave very badly.
So in summary, Bill, why don't you just fuck off and stop posting this crap.
"I'm just kidding like Jason..."
Jason, you can kid yourself that "supporting the resistance" means the vacuous, abstract stuff you claim it does but it just ain't so.
We all support "the right of Iraqis to bear arms to fight against US imperialism and the right of Iraqis to organise unions against privatisation, demonstrations against the occupation etc", but "supporting the resistance" means supporting an actually existing political movement. Let's not get into semantics here and let's agree that when we talk about "the resistance" we mean the organised military insurgency against the occupation, and not a catch-all term for anyone "resisting" occupation. When it comes to "the resistance" in the former sense, we're talking clerical-fascism plain and simple. Everything I've said about the social and political project of these people being inseparable from everything they do (even "progressive" stuff like fighting American soldiers) still stands and I notice you haven't even tried to refute it; you've just shifted the goalposts over what "supporting the resistance" means. So either explain to me why it isn't the case that every military blow struck by (say) the Sadrists against imperialism also represents the galvanisation of a movement that poses a mortal threat to ours, or admit that socialist support for "the resistance" is completely unprincipled. Ball's in your court, mate.
Bill, I've tried taking a more polite tack than Paul but I can't be bothered anymore. You're fucking boring. If you can't provide any evidence (I did ask you nicely to do that and I notice you don't appear to have succeeded) for your spittle-flecked slanders that the AWL "defends the Iraqi state" then please stop posting on this website.
Like Paul says, the AWL is pretty much unique on the left in that we open our website - the most public, accessible face of our organisation - up to comment, criticism and debate. Which your organisation doesn't. We haven't stopped you from posting here, Bill, even though you're obviously not interested in genuine debate and only want to make incessant, unsubstantiated insults. We won't stop you from posting here even though there's very little evidence to suggest you're interested in or even capable of changing. But while you're not going to be censored, I'm sure I speak for anyone who has the misfortune to read your "contributions" here when I say that I really wish you'd take Paul's advice.
PS: If anyone doesn't get the reference in the subject line of this post, they should listen to more cheesy, commercial hip-hop.
Debate, points, patience,building the movement
Firstly, to engage with the debate where it has happened I have found both Duncan and Clive's points (especially in response to Duncan) useful.
Clive I think is essentially arguing that there are other focuses such as supporting Iraqi unions that come before taking active opposition to imperialist troops in Iraq. At one point he suggests that the AWL should roll their eyes and say of course we support troops out now and get on with more important things. However, just having a rhetorical committment to troops out now whilst doing nothing about it is pretty meaningless. We also think free workers' unions in Iraq should be supported. This in no sense contradicts building for a movement to withdraw the troops and building an antiwar movement that can actually do this.
Why should we debate on here? Partly because it is surely useful for the workers', socialist movement to have debates and discussions in public. Now someone is claiming (Daniel Randall) though we should not be banned or censored there's very little evidence we're interested in genuine debate. I'm not sure why this should be. Someone else (Duncan) suggested we have our own agenda- well, with the history of left infighting I suppose it always pays to be cautious but my only agenda is to engage with working class socialist militants to try to work out genuine ways in which we can forward the struggle- not to win people to a particular group even (primarily) but to stregthen working class self-organisation. You can choose to not believe me but I assure you I am genuine! However, why not just engage as if we are genuinely interested in debate? I have given you no evidence to the contrary.
When the Lancet has recently published research suggesting over 600 000 excess deaths in Iraq since the war and occupation I think it is a primary duty of socialists here to take practical steps towards troops out now- at the very least saying it in public, arguing for it in the unions, organsing on the streets, organising jointly with the Iraqi community over all sorts of issues (such as antideportations, union solidarity, antiwar work).
Clive claims that our position on resistance to imperialism is abstract unseriousness. I'm not quite sure why saying we support the right of workers to resist by armed force imperialist occupation is abstractly unserious- and yet people come back and say you support 'the' resistance, defining this as support of Sadr et al. Well we don't support Sadr or his reactionary politics. We do support armed action against the occupation and workers organising.
I think it would be excellent if other left groups opened up their website to online debate- for this the AWL is to be complimented and it whilst not unique (we do despite the assertion of Daniel above) it is good. It is a shame that for posting on here we have been called 'shitsuckers': it is really rather childish. Personally, I think that politeness in debate is very important- not as some kind of prissy nicety but because insult and invective is a way of closing off debate (I'm pretty sure I haven't done it at all) and I think is very off-putting to the workers we want to win to the socialist movement who may think we seem more interested in insulting each other than having an engaging and open minded debate. It may be that AWL and PR having quite different positions on Palestine, Iraq and imperialism in general may not be the most likely place for there to be an outbreak of open-minded comradely debate but why not? We seem to be relatively rare organisations to allow open comments on our web sites and if we can engage in serious, polite and informed discussion I think that would be a good thing. Personally, i think any attempt to understand different points of view and being genuinely creative and open-minded on these issues is of immense worth even if at first it all appears a bit forlorn- the most important debate is to have with our fellow workers and community activists. I agree with Duncan that the Iraq Occupation Focus group is interesting and would go if I lived in London. I think comrades of ours try to go.
If we can have a proper discussion that would be very good. We have some materials on our website here
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=category&cat=72
and here http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=category&cat=118
Sorry you'll have to copy and paste as I haven't worked out how to post links.
Of course the important thing is to get out there, have patient discussions with workers in which we listen as much as talk, and think, and take practical measures we can to strengthen working class self-organisation.
Jason
Question
I would like to ask the comrades of the AWL Majority whether then on the bsis of their argument they beleive that socialists should have opposed the call for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
After all the consequence would be, as it was a terrible Civil War, the overturning of the progressive reforms that had been introduced in relation to women etc. and the dstruction of the Labour Movement such as it was at the hands of the Taliban.
Or does your faith in the "miracle" of the state in such circumstances only extend as far as the bouregois state. As Marx put it in the Critique of the Gotha Programme:
"But the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and through by the Lassallean sect's servile belief in the state, or, what is no better, by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise between these two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from socialism.”
Arthur Bough
Non-Historic
Clive,
Your argument here is similar to that put by Engels over Non-Historic Peoples. That is that there are some peoples which can be classified as Nationalities but not nations. They do not have a sufficiently developed ability to rule themselves usually due to the ruling class being too weak.
But Engels used that argument to oppose the use of self-determination in all cases in situations where such peoples were integrated into some other state. That is not the case with Iraq. It seems to me to use this argument in a case like Iraq then is not to follow Engels justifiable position, but rather to hold a chauvinistic position that basically says, "Look you can't rule yourselves if we leave the coutnry will fall to shit, and the Islamists will take over, so the best thing for you is to allow us to continue ruling you until some indeterminate future." The whole point about self-determination is that the oppressed peoples get to rule for themselves, and that includes to make the wrong decisions, and to make a mess of it. It should be a mess of their making not one of imperialisms that we acquiesce in.
The job of socialists is not to sow illusions in their own imperialism in that function, it is to oppose their own imperialism and support the socialists and workers in the oppressed country to try to enable them to prevent their countrymen and women from making a mess of it.
Arthur Bough
Would an AWL MP vote for, or against, funding UK troops in Iraq?
Let's start with the politics. Given the choice, right now, between the occupation, on the one hand, and the forces that would replace it were the occupation to end today, the AWL does not seem to be neutral. The AWL majority wants to occupation to end, but not now -- only as soon a certain criteria are met.
In Italy, funding for the troops in Afghanistan comes up for renewal every six months, and without funding the army has to leave. If an AWL member was in a parliament, and a vote came up like that on funding for the occupying troops in Iraq -- how would the AWL vote? Would you cut their funding to bring them home or, thinking that they should not leave within the next six months, would you support their funding?
Honestly, it's not clear to me that the AWL would note against funding the occupation. I think the Alliance might find a way to duck the question.
Duncan.
P.S. Daniel, Bill didn't suggest that you eat babies for breakfast; not even jellybabies. He does not seem to be trying to persuade anyone, and that's his problem. He seems exaspirated. I think he thinks that the AWL isn't really saying what it means. But you're just as abusive when you say he writes shit. Both of you need to assume good faith. Check out this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith
The suns of independence
And...so you'd rather have it the Western way? Is this it? What, do you think the 'West' is actually better at colonizing and occupying a country? Now thats an interesting debate... Deciding what sort of imperialism is the best (i suppose i should say the least bad, but...), or the more likely to result in the rise of the salutary labour movement...
I thought socialism and imperialism were excluding each other but i suppose i was wrong then.
Why not just try and oppose any form of imperialism, rather than refusing to condemn one under the pretext that another one would come up if the current one was defeated?
What sort of reasoning is that?
Also, nothing comes to prove that Iran-supported militias would necessarily end up controlling the country. Unless you know for a fact that Iraqis are unable to sort things for themselves. In which case i suppose they should be ruled by a foreign power... And spending huge amounts of money to back the US scheme of reshaping the Middle-East is the right thing to do...
Sorry for the cheap irony, but i fail to see the logic here, or proofs backing your argumentation.
We dont know that the withdrawal of troops is going to lead to the collapse of the labour movement. But we know the occupation breaks the resistance, creates division, and fosters sectarian violence.
To me, the withdrawal of troops would help local resistance to organise and thats why we should support it, as well as directly support the labour movement there and other democratic forms of resistance.
Remember, the AWL invited this online discussion
Hi Paul,
Perhaps the AWL's majority, and those who support it on this point, have been patient and set out their views at length. However, they are understandably fighting shy of being comprehensive in the way thay they respond or elaborate their opinions.
The AWL has opened up this discussion to the public, and I'm interested to see how serious that openness is. You're a busy guy. I understand that there may be better ways to spend your time. However, I am rather interested in finding out more concretely where the AWL stands. Certainly it would rather that there was a strong workers movement and no occupation. However, I'm sorried that the comrades think that keeping the troops there strengthens the workers' movement and its allies.
You remember the joke:
Q: How many Militant sellers does it take the change a lightbulb?
A: Socialism.
Isn't there a flavour of that approach in the stance taken by the AWL today, where it (correctly) supports the molecular development of the oil workers' union, but in practise counterposes that to working now to counter the occupation that delays the development of a broader, anti-colonial movement of toilers.
I hope that you and yours are keeping well.
All the best,
Duncan.
P.S. As for 'Permanent Revolution', so what? Perhaps enough of them don't want a public meeting on the topic, and they have other priorities too. However, I think many people will feel than a written discussion like this will allow more people to take part, and will force people to not rant, and instead develop the discussion. In contrast, a public debate might simply turn the alternatives into soundbites, and not really allow the kind of interplay that would allow a new synthesis to develop.
Whatever else
whatever else can be said about the AWL, I hardly think its position on this is a 'guilty secret'. Deeply and outrageously misrepresented - by people who in fact support the murderous sectarian anti-working class death squads on the idiotic basis that they constitute a national liberation movement (or is that an 'absurd accusation'? or is it not what your position, in line with seeing Iraq as a classical anti-colonial struggle implies?) - but hardly kept under a bushel.
'active opposition' - how about some active support?
The non-AWL people posting on this thread have developed an interesting dual-position. On the one hand, they denounce us (the AWL) for not calling for “Troops Out Now” and on the other they express some polite concern about our political trajectory. They denounce without seriously taking up and attempting to refute the arguments outlined in Paul Hampton's document. They whittle and whine about our precarious political situation by imploring us to take up "active opposition" to the occupation.
Jason, when you call on us to take up "active opposition", what exactly do you have in mind? We could jettison our class-politics and parade absent-mindedly around Central London with "Troops Out Now" placards ... would that be sufficient? We could turn up to local 'Stop the War' ['Start the Civil War' more like] meetings week-on-week (as I did for a number of years) and listen to the idiotic ranting of the local SWP ... would that be sufficient? Would we all be 'anti-imperialists' then? We could publish a completely dishonest and irrational edition of 'Solidarity' with "Troops Out Now" in big letters on the front and some huff and puff about how terrible Bush and Blair are ... would that suit you? Jason … could you point me in the direction of the nearest fancy dress shop so I can dress like a real anti-imperialist? I don’t think my Spider Man costume would do the trick!
What do you mean by “active opposition”? If it means ignoring the inevitability of sectarian triumph, civil war and discarding all we have learnt about the sophistication and intentions of political Islam then … that really is “shitsucking”. No thanks.
Should we hold a day-school to prepare our comrades to adequately purse their lips or continue to analyse the situation, warn against both the occupation and the Islamists, the threat of civil war, the implications for the wider Middle East etc... in the way we have been doing? Should we abandon attempting to educate those we come into contact with whilst actively building solidarity with the workers’ movement in Iraq in favour of a marginal (but dangerous) past-time?
…which brings me to this: what, exactly, have the comrades of PR done in “active” support of the Iraqi worker’s movement? Apart from some reference on your web-pages (perhaps), where is your “active” solidarity? How quickly will tears come to the eyes of PR members, together with the rest of the imbecilic “pro-Civil War” movement, when refugees from the al-Sadr/Sistani etc… theocracies start arriving? How quickly will you all bunker down in some disingenuous orgy of pity masquerading as solidarity when the reality of the situation you all positively willed into existence makes itself apparent? Will it occur to you that by abandoning rational class-solidarity in favour of cod-anti imperialist gesture politics, you bear some moral responsibility for the situation? I, for one, will not let you forget it. The policy you advocate (ie. civil war now) is a policy in pursuit of criminal designs. It would not only consign self-determination in any meaningful sense to the dustbin of history for the foreseeable future but demands that the whole of Iraq … men, women, workers etc… start killing each other immediately. If you think this unlikely, I’d like to see a concrete argument for your position.
As for the denouncers and their precious concerns about the use and abuse of language on this thread, comrades should look up Trotsky's solution to the squawking chicken ... if only I was close enough to use a stick!
All right
For myself, I accept, in part, that this is a good question, which is hard to answer, or for which I don't feel my answer 'ticks every box'.
I don't accept the nonsense about 'faith' in the 'miracle of the state', which is simultaneously out of context, implicitly anarchist, and just irritating. But I do think this is an area where the 'logic' issue has some force.
But: in Afghanistan you had all-out war between the USSR's army, with its client regime, and the mass of the Afghan people - a war entailing the napalming of villages, and so on. It's absolutely true that if Russia withdrew you would have a reactionary regime - and did, though not immediately. (At the time we did call for solidarity with the Afghan cities, but maybe this was trying to have it both ways). But I think the scale and character of the war was greater/different to Iraq now, and that imposed a different set of priorities on socialists.
Of course the occupying armies *are* involved in a war in Iraq, in two ways: by virtue of their de facto alliance with Shia sectarians; and more obviously, even aside from the actual military conflict with the insurgency (eg, clearly, Fallujah). It seems to me it's a question of concrete judgement whether that is on the same scale as Afghanistan in the eighties. It seems to me it's far short of such a scale. (Which is not to say the troops are lovely. etc.)
Finally, the broadly progressive character of the Afghan government's reforms (or would-be reforms as far as most of the country went) notwithstanding, in Iraq now there is a workers' movement the matter of whose survival is of a wholly different order from a socialist point of view.
To be clear - since it seems no matter how carefully I word this, people don't get my point, so I'll try again - I am not making an 'in principle' argument here. I am not saying that in principle Afghans can go fuck themselves because they're not a workers' movement, or we shouldn't care less about people who aren't a workers' movement, or whatever.
I am saying that the existence of a workers' movement in Iraq requires of us extra caution in how we pose the issue of the occupation. Basically that is *all* I am saying and have been saying from the outset of this discussion. Concretely, it is my (and the AWL's) assessment, as far as I am able to make one, that 'troops out now' - because there is no real national liberation movement which will replace the occupation, even a very bad one - would result, almost certainly, in murderous sectarian civil war.
We have a responsibility not to sacrifice the Iraqi labour movement on the altar of supposed anti-imperialist principle. This seems to me - by far - the most important of our responsibilities in this situation.
I accept that there are logical difficulties, and Afghanistan is one of them. But the only argument which, for me, would decisively tell against caution regarding Iraq would be some kind of cast-iron certainty that immediate withdrawal would not have this effect. I have yet to read anything which seems to me other than wishful thinking about this.
(Indeed, with many on the left there seems to be a kind of in-principle certainty that things would be better, as if to make any other assessment is of itself a capitulation to imperialism. I think world history tells against this sort of Panglossian anti-imperialism, though. So I remain cautious).
Arthur
I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.
This is not an argument about nations, but about political movements. Of course in principle there could be an Iraqi national liberation movement. But there isn't one.
'Self-determination' meaning accepting the likelihood of sectarian civil war, leading to the likely *division* of Iraq following sectarian slaughter...? This isn't just 'making a mess of it.' And it isn't self-determination in anything but the most nihilistic sense, either.
But at least this is actually facing the argument. You want to focus on - ally with other people who focus on, presumably - 'immediate withdrawal', as your programme for self-determination, even if things become radically worse and the labour movement is destroyed... That is the clear logic of what you are saying.
I think there is a higher principle than 'anti-imperialism', which is the survival of the workers' movement. That is the heart of this debate. I accept entirely that the labour movement must fight imperialism. But the idea it should offer itself up for destruction in the name of 'not sowing illusions in imperialism' - that seems to me utterly, utterly crazy.
Giving but not taking
Duncan
I in particular have written thousands and thousands of words in these on-line discussions - for the most part not with PR, true; but I certainly think I have been patient and reasonable. If the level of response one gets is 'you support imperialism; you support the troops' blah blah, I think we are entitled, frankly, to tell the puerile sub-political shitsuckers to go play in someone else's sandpit if we want. Or, to debate the actual questions.
The claim that the AWL supports the presence of imperialist troops rests, evidently, on an argument about logic. Logically, if you don't oppose something using a particular phrase which includes the words 'out' and 'now', you support it. God knows how people function in politics, but there you go.
There are, I think, a few supplementary arguments about logic, too. Logically:
* there is something distinct about the issue of foreign military occupation; it is, politically/morally/programmatically, not comparable to, say, the issue of the domestic state. That is, while nobody is obliged to demand 'overthrow the state now!' 'abandon the police force now!' or 'overthrow New Labour now!' and what have you, 'leave Iraq now' is a different issue. There is some force to this argument. What we have argued is that there is another consideration - which does not override the issue of general principle, but which demands of us a different emphasis, a different focus. That issue is the existence of a workers' movement, whose survival is the key to all progressive developments in Iraq, and which, we think, is likely to be destroyed in the all-out sectarian civil war which will almost certainly follow a simple collapse of the existing arrangement in Iraq. We are opposed to that arrangement, and want to see a different one. But nobody has convincingly argued that this assessment is wrong; instead they devolve onto the argument about alleged principle. We think there is a higher principle - in terms of slogans, the focus of activity, attitude to the anti-war movement, and so on.
* if you don't focus on troops out now, you would be logically obliged, if you had an MP (or a member of the US congress, or what have you) to vote for funds for the occupation, the continuing presence of troops, etc. I think this is the wrong focus. We don't have an MP, still less a congressman/woman. For what it's worth, if it came to such a vote, I think a socialist MP would vote for withdrawal. But s/he would also, and more importantly, be doing a host of other things to support the workers' and democratic movements.
* the AWL's position now would logically commit it to varoius other positions (not opposing wars; not opposing Thatcher in the Falklands, etc). As I said in a post above, I think this is all an exercise in literary purity, rather than concrete politics.
I certainly think this debate is warped by this being the focus of it. Sometimes I think the AWL might be advised to roll its eyes, say 'troops out now' and get on with more important things, just avoid this tedious and frustrating debate. But well - what can you do? There *are* issues of principle. For me it's about facing reality, and the left abandoning a kind of abstract fantasy version of politics. Things are very bad in Iraq. The conditions in which we normally call for 'immediate and unconditional withdrawal of imperialism' - where there is some relatively unified nationalist movement which can take power in its place - do not apply. We need to face that.
Facing it by, as Jason does in a post here, declaring that 'the resistance' is everyone who opposes the occupation including, say, workers on strike, is an example of the kind of abstract unseriousness I mean. *Of course* where workers are fighting the occupation, or privatisation, or anything else, we support them.
What is *at issue* is whether the various sectarian militias can be regarded as an analogue for, say, the FLN in Algeria or other nationalist movements. Our view - I will not spell it out again now - is that they can not; programmatically we cannot pretend that they can.
The impulse to submerge workers fighting privatisation into the same category as the Sunni insurgency, say, planting bombs in market places and religious festivals is repellent; but it's also indicative of underlying general unseriousness about the world we live in.
Patient enough?
Wherein Lies The Difference
Tom I'm at a loss to understand why Non-AWL people calling for Troops Out Now means calling for Civil War now, whereas if AWL members of the Minority raise that demand it doesn't!
I can udnerstand that those non_AWL'ers who argue for support for the "Resistance" against the Occupation are arguing a reactionary position, but not everyone that argues for Troops Out is arguing for support for the "Resistance". I'm not for one.
You say you will remind those calling for Troops Out Now if and when such a Civil War erupts of their position causing such calamity. Fine as long as you accept responsibility for the actual death and destruction (around 600,000 Iraqis dead according to Johns Hopkins, mostly as a result of occupation rather than invasion), the attacks on the Labour Movment, the enhancement of the forces of the Islamists - both actual in terms of their arming by the Occupation and recruitment to their ranks that the continued Occupation brings with it) i.e. the actual Civil war taking palce at the moment, actualy happening as a result of the continued Occupation.
Arthur Bough
Your Right
Your answer doesn't tick the boxes.
1. The number of people that have died as a result of the Occupation is thought to be in excess of 600,000. Whether this is a few thousand more or less than died in Afghanistan hardly seems relevant in the grand scheme of things. As I recall the US policy was one of "Shock and Awe". I didn't notice them being careful about where they destroyed.
2.The fact is that the Occupation IS at war with the mass of the Iraqi people too.
3. Actually it appears that US policy has shifted again. Those that beleive the invasion gave too much ground to Iran and its Shia clients in other states appear to have the upper hand. The US is courting the Sunni states to back the Iraqi Sunnis, it is financing Sunni terrorist organisations in Lebanon and elsewhere even those connected with Al Qaeda, it is supporting militarily and financially Fatah against Hamas, and so on.
4. You may not be saying "Go Fuck Yourself" to the Afghans, but despite telling us what you are saying to the Iraqis, you don't tell us exactly what you are saying to the Afghans faced with the Taliban. In Iraq there is a Labour Movement true, but there is also already a state which oppresses that Labour Movement, which oppresses women, which oppresses gays etc. IN Afghanistan whatever might have been said about the USSR and its client they had spent huge amounts on trying to educate women etc. - far more than the US has done in Iraq - and it seems to me you have completely failed to give an answer as to why socialists should worry about the collapse of the reactionary Iraqi state, but accept the overrunning of the Afghan state.
5. I beleive the invasion of both Iraq and Afghanistan were reactionary. I beleive that the changes brought about by the invasion of Afghanistan were broadly progressive, whereas those brought about in Iraq have been reactionary. Socialists should, have placed no faith in either Stalinism or Imperialism providing a progressive solution, and should call for the withdrawal of those forces in both cases, but should have argued for defence of those progressive measures brought in by the Afghan state, backed by the USSR, and for the defence of the working class in Iraq. But that defence is the responsibility of the working class as a whole inside Iraq and Afghanistan, and internsationally, it is not a responsibility that can be sub-contracted to Stalinism or Imperialism.
Arthur Bough
Much appreciated
Hi Clive,
This is much appreciated, and quite clear.
The comrades from PR have their own motivations. On the key point of withdrawal, I certainly agree with their general line. In particular, I was struck by your comments: "The conditions in which we normally call for 'immediate and unconditional withdrawal of imperialism' - where there is some relatively unified nationalist movement which can take power in its place - do not apply." I found this disappointing, since it's not a precondition that revolutionary socialists generally considered. The idea that the exploited and oppressed in Iraq need to unify themselves before we support an end to the occupation seems wrongheaded and novel in a number of ways.
I can see why the comrades in PR are bearing down on this point, especially since the AWL (and, Clive, even you) are throwing abuse like "shitsuckers" at them. As you know, Trotsky touches on civility in Problems of everyday life.
That said, the comrades of PR do underlabour the problem a little, especially in their discussion of "the" resistance. The use of the singular is not, sadly, effective there: there are many players in the resistance, and not all of those engaged in armed struggles are necessarily resisting the US, any more the client warlords in Somalia fought for their paymaster's attention.
I go to meetings of a group called Iraq Occupation Focus as often as I can. http://www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk/ Many, perhaps most, of the people there are Iraqis. Their comments and reports of the situation in Iraq bring home a number of points to me. The occupying forces arm some of these militas, either directly or indirectly. The occupiers also seem to be planting bombs. They have a public meeting on Monday the 4th, at 7 pm at Toybee Hall. Why not come along?
Much of what I head and read tells me that the primariy interest of the US ruling class, as in the Horn of Africa, is to keep these countries weak -- and not to allow any classes to become strong: they wants working and ruling classes to be deeply compromised and fragmented. I just don't see how you think that the occupation will, in the medium or long-term, create the space for a strong workers' movement.
I'm not sure if I take your point about logic. Politics is a human science and formal logic has a frail hold there. However, there's a real dialectic at work here. You cant deny, for example, that this stance has taken the AWL on a journey that, perhaps, it could not and cannot fully see the end to. Since you seem to think the troops should stay in Iraq until the workers' movement is strong and the resistance is united (please do corect me, if you care to), and that the focus should be on those goals and not on withdrawal, I do think the consequence is funding the occupation. Its seems that you agree.
I heard a story, perhaps not true, of the Spartacists trying to collect money to support the Vietnamese army using the slogan "Every dime buys a bullet". Certainly they did use this slogan raising money for the Deacons, a Black self-defence group in Maryland. Let's hope the AWL doesn't find itself stretched to similar excesses in the years ahead.
All the best,
Duncan.
Crazy
But a Labour Movement that fails to fight its own Imperialism such as those in WWI, which was also about carving up places like Iraq, has already gone a long way to its own destruction. The socialists that held a defencist position then that supported their own imperialisms colonial possessions also argued that they were fulfilling a similar role to that you assign to the Occupation in Iraq, that without them there would be chaos and destruction.
I think Lenin and his co-thinkers were wrong to split the workers movement over it rather than continuing within that movement to expose the bankruptcy of that position and those leaders, but there is some justification or at least you have to have some sympathy with Luxemburg's statement that those that argued this were "a stinking corpse".
Arthur Bough
No...
Some people are shitsuckers. Others aren't. My patience and tolerance isn't endless.
I don't mean 'the resistance' should be united first, etc. 'Troops out' is normally simply the negative, agitational version of the basic programmatic idea, which is self-determination. Normally, when you say 'troops out', what you mean is that the occupied nation should rule itself, instead. Normally, this is (relatively) unproblematic because there is an obvious candidate which can constitute the government. This is in broad strokes; clearly it's sometimes a bit more complicated.
But that is not the situation at all in Iraq right now. If you focus on troops out, you have to face the consequence that there simply is not a positive concomitant of what you say. 'Troops out of Vietnam' meant 'FLN to power.' Ditto Algeria. You can add that you support and will make solidarity with the working class, socialist etc forces which are going to fight the new government, but the fact *of* a new government is relatively clear and straightforward. And whatever you think of the FLN, that its assumption of power constitutes self-determination, and is therefore, at least on that level, democratic, is relatively straightforward in principle.
None of these conditions apply to Iraq. 'Troops out' means - god knows. Almost certainly, I think, a ghastly civil war which will not result in 'self-determination' in anything but the most nihilistic sense - ie the sense of 'if the Iraqis want to slaughter each other on a sectarian basis, that's their business.' Maybe it simply *is* their business, and British socialists can have nothing else to say about it, no duty beyond advocating that it let rip. But if that's what you want to say, that's what you should say. And the pretence that this is a classical anti-colonial situation seems to me just that, a pretence.
It is not a question of advocating the troops stay, or imputing to them any positive qualities. I oppose them; I want them out. I don't see saying *when* I want them out is the issue. In princple, yes, immediately. As I have said, there are other principles. In reality, when they withdraw is not up to me. It seems to me a fantasy to think we can 'drive' them out. In reality we have a choice: we can pretend we are terribly radical and anti-imperialist by adding our voices to the contradictory swamp of opinion which wants the troops out (which includes a very large body of opinion which does simply think this is a foreign country, so fuck them); or we can devote our energies to the Iraqi workers' movement, to helping it survive *whenever* the troops withdraw.
Is this the beginning of a journey to somewhere bad? There is no literary guarantee - some form of words to protect you like a talisman - against bad political evolution; there is only your maturity, democratic accountablity, readiness to take stock, and what have you. There are, for sure, people who wanted a more 'anti--imperialist' line on Kosova, say, who have now leapt over our heads and signed up to (or indeed helped write) the Euston manifesto. The literary guarantee wasn't one.
My point about logic is that the claim that the AWL supports the occupation is entirely based on supposed logic, not what the AWL says.
Nice to see you've found time to post on our site Duncan
I'm glad to see you still like to debate. I was wondering when the group you are associated with is going to open up its website so I can post on it. But I guess you are busy leading,
"and co-own(ing), the only global consultancy company specialised in serving industry analyst relations managers. We are the only firm focussed on providing measurement, evaluation and training to help develop AR strategies. Our consultants across Europe, the USA and Asia/Pacific help vendors to better win more sales recommendations from analysts at firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Ovum and Yankee. "
But I guess being your own boss means you could find time without getting the sack.
That's another way to deflect debate
I think you might be confusing me with someone else.
So this brings me back to the question that's being ducked: would the AWL support, or oppose, British government funding for the troops to remain in Iraq for another six months?
What...
has the awl got someone in the cabinet all of a sudden? I think we should be told. Maybe in your life you're constantly being asked to lend your support to particular bits of government funding, but I'm not.
If there was a parliamentary vote on the troop presence, and a socialist MP who was listening to the AWL's advice, I'm sure s/he would be advised to vote against.
This is simply not the level at which this issue is being posed. The level being posed is: should we campaign around this slogan, or other ones? What attitude do we take to anti-war mobilisations? What's our view, given actual conditions? If conditions were different, for sure I might take a different view.
This hypothetical 'what would you do if you were Gordon Brown?' stuff is not, actually, razor-sharp, answer-or-be-damned insight. It's silly: another level of fantasy politics. Get real.
It's a useful question to elaborate where you stand
Clive,
I appreciate that you fell that this seems to be a question on the level of fantasy. However, it's also an attempt to make the AWL's position more concrete, and one of the few ways to sense the pace of the AWL's political evolution.
It's perhaps not so unrealistic a question: In Italy, the PRC is being split around this very question. That's one of the major workers' parties in the world, and something the AWL could have a view on.
It's also a useful question, because the AWL's stance is unusual. As you say, since the AWL does not want to occupation to end until the workers' movement is stronger then it seems logical that the Alliance could justify taking actions in our labour movement to counter immediate withdrawal. Voting on policies about actions and funding is something that happens in trade union organisations and political organisations, and it's interesting to see how that unfolds. It's a very pleasant surprise, for example, to read you write that in the position of the Italian PRC you would oppose extended funding, even if this means bringing the troops home now. In