Long Live the Iraqi Muqawama!Long Live Permanent Revolution!

For more than 4 years, the Iraqi Resistance has stood upright and confronted - day after day - Uncle Sam's genocidal assault in a manner that has radically altered the geopolitical chessboard. He remains mired in Iraq and unable to expand his genocidal crusade elsewhere - into Iran, Bolivia, or Venezuela, for example - largely because of His inability to crush the Resistance.

As in Vietnam, Uncle Sam's Storm-Troopers have the impossible task of occupying a country and 'winning' a guerrilla war against an indigenous army that planned for their occupation. This explains why, after more than 1100 days of occupation, the size of His military force is larger than it has ever been while Sam's political and military achievments remain minimal. Despite the increased n-strength of forces, Uncle Sam has stopped issuing the reports documenting the availability of power in Baghdad. In other words, 160,000 Storm-Troopers can't even keep the lights on!

In light of facts like these, one can understand why Uncle Sam's desperate quest for cannon fodder has taken on an even more desperate tone. We learn from the pro-Occupation Boston Globe that, in an effort to recruit cannon-fodder by any means necessary:

Nearly 12 percent of U.S. Army recruits who entered basic training this year needed a special waiver for those with criminal records, a dramatic increase over last year and more than twice the percentage four years ago, according to new Army statistics...

Army officials acknowledge privately that the increase in moral waivers reflects the difficulty of signing up sufficient numbers of recruits to sustain an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq; the Army fell short of its monthly recruiting goals in May and June....

Since 2003 the Pentagon has taken unprecedented steps to try to meet its recruiting goals, including lowering education standards, raising the maximum age, and steadily increasing the amount of bonuses for new volunteers. But granting more waivers for criminals, specialists said, could end up backfiring.

[Somewhere Mullah Beak must be asking, "can DHS Pedophiles join?"]

In addition to bribing criminals, vagabonds, geezers and dolts, Uncle Sam has used Killers for Hire in Iraq as never before. Jeremy Scahill reports

There are now 630 companies working in Iraq on contract for the US government, with personnel from more than 100 countries offering services ranging from cooking and driving to the protection of high-ranking army officers. Their 180,000 employees now outnumber America's 160,000 official troops. The precise number of mercenaries is unclear, but last year, a US government report identified 48,000 employees of private military/security firms.

Uncle Sam loves using these mercenary killers in Iraq because they preserve His 'plausible deniability'. Sam has no responsibility to report anything that happens to them. He's not responsible for their health and welfare, nor does He bear any responsibility for atrocities they commit. When these Killers for Hire die in Iraq - as more than 1000 have (according to government, who is undoubtedly under-representing the total) - Uncle Sam doesn't have to say anything for months (or even years).

Uncle Sam's reliance on such desperate tactics results from the strength of the grassroots military force in Iraq. Their effectiveness in combating the world's Leviathan presents itself in a multitude of ways. They have shown increasing military sophistication - knocking Uncle Sam's helicopters and fighter planes out of the sky - while continuing with the relentless attacks on occupying soldiers throughout the country that have ravaged and demoralized the occupying armies for years.

Such an organization, which has put Uncle Sam on His heels, requires men and women with a plan, a steadfast commitment to expelling the invader, and a true desire to liberate their homeland. The individual Iraqis who constitute the Resistance committed themselves even though it not their only - or most materially beneficial - choice. Many have sold out to Uncle Sam by joining the police force, the army, the puppet government, or alCIAda's Mosque Bombing Death Squads.

To achieve their political demands - unconditional withdrawal of Storm-Troopers from Iraq, reparations, and revocation of all laws passed under occupation - the Resistance requires contributions from people of many different abilities and political stripes.

They also require political clarity.

As we watch events in Iraq unfold, we owe support to the Resistance even if it doesn't appear as ideologically pure as we would like. Under similar circumstances, Trotsky wrote concerning the war between Italy and Ethiopia and a hypothetical potential war between 'semi-fascist' Brazil and 'democratic' England. In both cases, he ignored subjective characterizations of the bourgeois governments and concerned himself chiefly with the alignment of imperialist forces as catalysts for 'Permanent Revolution'. Concerning Ethiopia, he writes:

Far too little attention is paid to the Italo-Ethiopian conflict by our sections... This question is highly important... Of course we are for the defeat of Italy and the victory of Ethiopia, and therefore we must do everything possible to hinder by all available means support to Italian imperialism by the other imperialist powers, and at the same time facilitate the delivery of armaments, etc., to Ethiopia as best we can. However, we want to stress that this fight is directed not against fascism, but against imperialism. When war is involved, for us it is not a question of who is ‘better’, the Negus or Mussolini; but rather, it is a question of the relationship of classes and the fight of an underdeveloped nation for independence against imperialism.

On the matter of Brazil, he has this to say:

In Brazil there now reigns a semifascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally – in this case I will be on the side of ‘fascist’ Brazil against ‘democratic’ Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat.

While the situations Trotsky describes here are clearly not identical to what's happening in Iraq, the similarities present themselves with stark clarity. We owe support to the cause of anti-imperialism in Iraq - support made concrete in the form of the Resistance. Anything less - any effort to absolve oneself from the struggle in Iraq due to the inadequacy of the political formations there (according to Uncle Sam's propaganda) - is an expression of support for Uncle Sam's imperial exercise no different than those on the 'left' who supported Uncle Sam's invasion 4 years ago.