Working on this new server in php7...
imc indymedia

Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

white themeblack themered themetheme help
About Us Contact Us Calendar Publish RSS
Features
latest news
best of news
syndication
commentary


KILLRADIO

VozMob

ABCF LA

A-Infos Radio

Indymedia On Air

Dope-X-Resistance-LA List

LAAMN List




IMC Network:

Original Cities

www.indymedia.org africa: ambazonia canarias estrecho / madiaq kenya nigeria south africa canada: hamilton london, ontario maritimes montreal ontario ottawa quebec thunder bay vancouver victoria windsor winnipeg east asia: burma jakarta japan korea manila qc europe: abruzzo alacant andorra antwerpen armenia athens austria barcelona belarus belgium belgrade bristol brussels bulgaria calabria croatia cyprus emilia-romagna estrecho / madiaq euskal herria galiza germany grenoble hungary ireland istanbul italy la plana liege liguria lille linksunten lombardia london madrid malta marseille nantes napoli netherlands nice northern england norway oost-vlaanderen paris/Île-de-france patras piemonte poland portugal roma romania russia saint-petersburg scotland sverige switzerland thessaloniki torun toscana toulouse ukraine united kingdom valencia latin america: argentina bolivia chiapas chile chile sur cmi brasil colombia ecuador mexico peru puerto rico qollasuyu rosario santiago tijuana uruguay valparaiso venezuela venezuela oceania: adelaide aotearoa brisbane burma darwin jakarta manila melbourne perth qc sydney south asia: india mumbai united states: arizona arkansas asheville atlanta austin baltimore big muddy binghamton boston buffalo charlottesville chicago cleveland colorado columbus dc hawaii houston hudson mohawk kansas city la madison maine miami michigan milwaukee minneapolis/st. paul new hampshire new jersey new mexico new orleans north carolina north texas nyc oklahoma philadelphia pittsburgh portland richmond rochester rogue valley saint louis san diego san francisco san francisco bay area santa barbara santa cruz, ca sarasota seattle tampa bay tennessee urbana-champaign vermont western mass worcester west asia: armenia beirut israel palestine process: fbi/legal updates mailing lists process & imc docs tech volunteer projects: print radio satellite tv video regions: oceania united states topics: biotech

Surviving Cities

www.indymedia.org africa: canada: quebec east asia: japan europe: athens barcelona belgium bristol brussels cyprus germany grenoble ireland istanbul lille linksunten nantes netherlands norway portugal united kingdom latin america: argentina cmi brasil rosario oceania: aotearoa united states: austin big muddy binghamton boston chicago columbus la michigan nyc portland rochester saint louis san diego san francisco bay area santa cruz, ca tennessee urbana-champaign worcester west asia: palestine process: fbi/legal updates process & imc docs projects: radio satellite tv
printable version - js reader version - view hidden posts - tags and related articles

View article without comments

Why the Left will never put its hands up

by Janet Daley Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 3:28 PM

Being a leftist means you never have to say you're sorry.

So, something of a cakewalk after all, then. No major set piece battles with the "elite" Republican Guard. No massive numbers of civilian casualties - "millions of women and children killed", as Shirley Williams, among many others, predicted. No relentless house-to-house street fighting. No insuperable problem with the desert heat - the Iraqi summer seems to have gone the way of the Afghan winter in that earlier impracticable American war effort. No uncontrollably burning oil fields in southern Iraq, leading to intractable environmental catastrophe.

Nor has there been a great humanitarian disaster or a flood of refugees across the Iraqi borders. One aid worker in Basra was asked by a reporter how difficult it would be to get the city back up and running. He said it should not be hard at all because, as he put it: "We haven't had any real war here." It was just a matter of revving up the generators to get the power and water back to normal. The population has gone in for a bit of triumphalist looting of Saddam Hussein's local palace, but even that was petering out yesterday.

Baghdad may not escape so easily. The capital is being pounded, its civilians endangered and its infrastructure damaged more than the coalition would have preferred. That is because Saddam and his chief henchmen - if they are alive - are remaining true to the last to their wicked delusions. If Saddam is alive and hiding, with no sane hope of any sort of victory, then he is directly responsible for the devastation of his capital and the deaths of civilians whom he has evidently written off.

With characteristically desperate cowardice, he scurries from his tunnels to his underground bunker while his city is battered and his people terrified. Listening to Said al-Sahaf, the comically undaunted Iraqi information minister, can anyone be left in any doubt that this mad, bad and ultimately absurd despotism needed to be displaced?

A spokesman for the allied forces was asked the quintessential BBC question on Radio 4 the other day: "If you fail to find any weapons of mass destruction, will you apologise?" (To whom, one wonders? Saddam? The Iraqi people? The world?)

Given that Saddam was given such a generous amount of time by the UN Security Council to spirit any such weapons safely over the border to Syria, and that he would be very unlikely to have left them lying around where troops would stumble across them in the course of battle, "finding" them in the past three weeks would have been hugely unlikely.

But never mind that. What I want to know is when the perpetrators of the myths that I enumerated above can be expected to offer their apologies. Judging by Tam Dalyell's performance on the Today programme yesterday, not just yet.

He now seems to be amending the forecast of millions of children killed to millions of children traumatised: a sad enough notion, certainly, but a mite different from the one that was being bandied about by the more hysterical anti-war lobby a week or two ago.

I have this delightful fantasy of George Galloway, Shirley Williams, Chris Smith, Frank Dobson, most of the BBC newsroom, the entire Liberal Democrat Party and the Guardian comment page editorial staff putting their hands up en masse and saying: "Well, actually we got that a little bit wrong." And maybe even deciding that, since their analysis of the war was mistaken, their diagnosis of the peace might be open to question, too.

But I'm not holding my breath. Those for whom America is always wrong will not be slowed down by this momentary setback. Rather like Mr al-Sahaf, they will not even appear to notice the tanks in the streets of their ideological neighbourhood. They will look away from the welcoming crowds of Basra (yes, they really did cheer, once it was safe to do so) and just move smartly on to the next American "crime against humanity".

I am off to Washington at the end of the week, where a think tank has invited me to discuss European anti-American attitudes. What shall I say to them?

That the obvious truth - America is resented because of its enormous power - is only a fragment of the picture? That the foundation of anti-Americanism lies deep in the pathology of a Europe that has never recovered from its own guilt and self-loathing over the two great wars of the past century?

How to make Americans, most of whom are descended from the most despised and wretched of the populations of the Old World - poor southern Italians, landless Irish peasants, ghetto Jews of eastern Europe - understand that much apparently political resistance to them is grounded in pure snobbery? The great American virtues - self-improvement, ambition, individualism - are, in European establishment eyes, the characteristics of vulgarity.

The consumer-led culture of America, so embarrassingly coveted by the poor peoples of the world, is crass, sentimental and socially gauche. Of course it is. It is the only popular culture there has ever been that is cosmopolitan and affluent, as opposed to the folk cultures of Europe, which dwell in provincial poverty but have their own "integrity" in patronising bien-pensant terms.

I shall have to explain, too, that none of this is very consistently held. The demonised America of the imagination has little to do with the actual one that many of those same intellectuals know well from their book-plugging tours and their visiting professorships. The same people who ridicule American culture will tell you that The Sopranos is the best drama series on television and that Philip Roth is the greatest living novelist.

But how much reality can the ideologically committed be expected to digest? And when has self-contradiction and incoherence ever been a problem for the Left?

Report this post as:

maybe you got the reasons wrong

by irpy Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 3:39 PM

I thought the war would be a cakewalk for the US military.

My opposition is based on the fact that its not a good thing to unilaterally bomb a leader into submission to forward a few people's irrational agenda.

If Iraq becomes a wellspring of Democracy and the protection of human rights and religious tolerance, then you can say all you want. (And if that is so, then you have all the right to because that would be a beautiful thing)

Otherwise, please stop making claims.

Report this post as:

Simple

by Simple Simon Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 4:28 PM

Kindly brush up on your English.

Unilateral means to act alone. The United States has been aided by 40-some countries in this operation.

Furthermore, I wonder if you could share with us your feelings now that Iraq is on the verge of complete liberation? Civilian casualties have been light, there is no refugee crisis, food and water is being made available. Thousands of body-bags lie unused.

Your are entitled to your opinion, and you are free to offer your opposition to the war effort. I would love to hear what you would say to the Iraqi people about your prinicpled stand.

Report this post as:

Hogwash

by Meyer London Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 5:02 PM

Iraq has not been "liberated"; it has been occupied by a colonial force from just two countries - the US and Britain. Civilian casualties have not been light; many thousands of people have been killed or horribly injured. Have you searched any internet sites to see pictures of what the US bombs and missles have done to people? Have you seen the little boy with no arms whose entire family has been killed? You are like a carricature of the Ugly American - a spoiled degenerate sitting back in an easy chair watching other people suffering and writing it off as of no consequence.

Baghdad has a population almost as large as that of Los Angeles. On what grounds do you assume that a few thousand looters and people eager to get in with the new rulers represent those millions? What would you have said if the Iraqis claimed that the peace marchers represented everyone in LA?

Iraq is in for a very long period of suffering. Its water purification facilities and its hospitals have been destroyed. Its oil resources are now going to be controlled by American oil companies. American soldiers and marines are going to be killed by suicide bombers and snipers every week - perhaps every day.

You like that situation? The U.S. will also find some excuse to provoke a war with neighboring Iran, leading to tens of thousands of more deaths; maybe you will enjoy that as well, along with the inevitable violence that will be committed in revenge by professional terrorists or people whose families have been killed - committed on US soil. I don't think that you will mind as long as you are only watching it on television and not in one of the buildings that gets bombed. People like you are the reason why the United States is hated all over the world.

Report this post as:

Meyer London

by rollthedice Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 5:08 PM

Sometimes you psycho's are pretty good at stuff. I'll risk a ten spot. What horse you got for Show in the fifth at Del Mar?

Report this post as:

"complete liberation?"

by irpy Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 5:57 PM

Simple, your call for "complete liberation" sounds more like ad-copy for a rave club then political analysis. (lol)

Where on the planet do you find a political system that offers "complete liberation"

No, I don't think Iraq is on the verge of "complete liberation", maybe after a night of dancing at the market after lubed up with pints of extasy, then they can experience the sublimely undefined high you suggest the US army is offering them.

On a serious note, its wonderfull that the yoke of Sadddam has been lifted. I have heard Iraqi's who, though they are against the war, have expressed joy at the end of one tyrant. More power to that joy.

These very same people have expressed foreboding over the dark cloud of militarily enforced government structures.

Until a democratic system that governs with the needs and consensus of its citizens is in place, the joy that you and I see is the "total liberation" we all experience at a New Years Party.

"May old, acquaintences be forgot, and never brought to mind...."

Report this post as:

Winner

by Meyer London Friday, Apr. 11, 2003 at 7:02 PM

Bet on the horse called George Bush. The Supreme Court will declare him the winner even if he finishes three lengths behind.

Report this post as:

Simple

by Simple Simon Saturday, Apr. 12, 2003 at 12:55 PM

Meyer that's what your 'principled' position is all about after all isn't it? You and your fellow travellers' inability to accept the result of the 2000 elections.

Bush won the majority of the votes in Florida. This has not been credibly disputed. With this victory, he secured the number of Electoral College votes he needed to win the election.

If you don't like the American electoral process, by all means get elected and campaign to change it.

But in the meantime I'd get used to President Bush. He's going to be around to 2008.

Report this post as:

Psympelton speaks...

by Diogenes Saturday, Apr. 12, 2003 at 1:04 PM

... with forked tongue - as always to wit:

“Unilateral means to act alone. The United States has been aided by 40-some countries in this operation.”

Of which 38 could not take West L.A. and were bought and paid for anyway. They gave their support out of “Priniciple”. A principle interest in money and trade.

The very most you can say is “Bilateral” as Phony Tony was the only major contributor of additional forces. Which would be insufficient on their own.

The U.S. has provided the overwhelming share of the overwhelming might. Maybe you kid yourself with this nonsense but no one except the brainwashed are going along for the ride.

“But in the meantime I'd get used to President Bush. He's going to be around to 2008.”

Translation: The Fix is already in.

Report this post as:

Simple

by Simple Simon Saturday, Apr. 12, 2003 at 2:00 PM

Let me see if I've got your point, Diogenes...

38 countries, due to their size, are not to be considered 'allies' - they don't really count.

But, a half dozen pissant states temporarily sitting on the UN Security Council - well these are the holders of the wisdom of Solomon! We should listen to what the Mexican Ambassador has to say!

And the fix is not in. Bush will win because the Democrats don't have anyone to oppose him.

Report this post as:

Hey Simon!

by Eric Saturday, Apr. 12, 2003 at 2:15 PM

Don't forget to mention the wise leadership of the U.N. Human Rights Council, that will soon be headed by Libya!

The U.N. is a joke, an impotent joke. Much the same as these indymedia fifth column leftists.

Report this post as:

Hey Simon!

by Eric Saturday, Apr. 12, 2003 at 2:21 PM

Don't forget to mention the wise leadership of the U.N. Human Rights Council, that will soon be headed by Libya!

The U.N. is a joke, an impotent joke. Much the same as these indymedia fifth column leftists.

Report this post as:

© 2000-2018 Los Angeles Independent Media Center. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Los Angeles Independent Media Center. Running sf-active v0.9.4 Disclaimer | Privacy