Jan. 19 Conference Workshop in Newark , NJ Supports Resistance
By David Hungerford
Outstanding support for the Iraqi national resistance was expressed during a workshop at the People's Peace Conference held on January 19 in Newark , New Jersey . The title was "Ending the Occupation and Preventing Future Wars of Aggression".
The panel was opened by Ibrahim Ebeid, co-editor of Al-Moharer.net and a veteran supporter of the liberation struggles in Iraq and Palestine . He told the audience that the Iraqi national resistance was established long before the invasion. The Patriotic, Nationalist and Islamist Front was founded in 2005 to work for the liberation of Iraq at political and informational levels, and support the struggle at all levels. Efforts by the Baath Party and its supporters resulted in the emergence of the Jihad and Liberation Command in October of 2007 that unified 22 resistance organizations. The Command has a Program of Liberation and Independence based on the demand that the occupier recognize the Iraqi resistance as the sole legitimate representative of the Iraqi people.
The U.S. must agree to unconditional withdrawal before there can be any dialogue. Arrangements can then be made for the withdrawal, and other matters such as reparations for the damage caused Iraq . Other conditions include the demand that all persons detained by the occupation must be released.
Mr. Ebeid characterized Al Qaeda as a sectarian organization and said the resistance has nothing to do with it. The resistance is not strictly Baathist or totally Islamist. There are Muslims, Christians, Chaldeans, Arabs and Kurds, all fabrics of Iraqi society.
Sara Flounders of the International Action Center and Troops Out Now Coalition said that Iraq was a modernized and developing country before it was attacked by the United States in 1991. A million and a half died during the 1990s because of economic sanctions. Due to the occupation over a million people have died and millions more are displaced. The Iraqi people have the right to resist the occupation.
She said the occupation uses sectarian tactics to keep a grip on Iraq . Before the occupation Sunni and Shi'i Muslims lived in the same neighborhoods, intermarried, and were closer than Catholics and Protestants in the United States.
The belief in the United States that the ruling Baath Party was a Sunni party is a myth. Of the 100,000 persons who were fired by Paul Bremer's "de-Baathification" and told they could not be teachers, or practice medicine, or run their country, over half were Shiites. More than half of the infamous "deck of cards" of top Iraqi leaders hunted by the occupation were Shiites. The supposed "sectarian warfare" is really the divide and rule tactics of the occupation.
David Hungerford, a member of the People's Organization for Progress, said the war started because of the conflict between Iraq's independence and sovereignty on one side, and imperialist domination of the Arab Gulf on the other. Iraq emerged from the war with Iran in the 1980s with conventional armed forces equivalent to those o ”Israel ”. The strategic balance of the Middle East was changed, and that is why the imperialists went to war.
The great bulk of the resistance is a national resistance that fights to regain independence and sovereignty. Their cause is just - Iraq is their country and they have a right to fight for it. The Iraqi resistance is the sole legitimate representative of the Iraqi people.
The imperialists equate the whole resistance to Al Qaeda, which fights the occupation on exclusively religious grounds. It is only a small part of the resistance. It is against "crusaders" and the national resistance alike. The so-called "Sunni awakening" and problems caused by al Qaeda have led to somewhat fewer attacks against the occupation lately, not Bush's "troop surge."
Larry Adams, a founding member of New York City Labor against the War, said there is a pattern to things and the problem in the world today is the system of imperialism. The main contradiction is the imperialist system versus the oppressed countries and peoples of the world.
We have to support revolutionary struggles and struggles against imperialism wherever they occur in the world. The Iraqi resistance is the front line in the world of the struggle against imperialism. He said another great problem for the imperialists is the revolutionary struggle in the Philippines.
He said the force that will bring the war to an end is the Iraqi resistance. He criticized the idea that the war can be ended by domestic opposition alone. We in the United States are the reserves of the Iraqi people’s struggle and must support the resistance.
The audience responded strongly to what they had heard. One participant criticized those forces of the left in the United States that say they oppose the war but repeat the things the government says about the resistance. A resolution to create an anti-war curriculum was adopted, with emphasis on the need for a stand against imperialism.