JOSHUA FRANK: Leftists for Occupation -- The Neocons' Unlikely Bedfellows

[Tace]

by Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

Even with mainstream reports that American troops are slaughtering Iraqi civilians, there are still plenty of lefties in the United States who cannot unify behind a call for an immediate and unconditional withdraw of occupation forces from Iraq. Fortunately, the majority of Americans understand that the U.S. presence in region is only contributing to the violence, not restraining it.

Chris Toensing, writing for In These Times this month, insists, "The Shi'ite religious parties, in particular, prefer that the U.S. military stay until they consolidate their grip on the security apparatus. But even independent Iraqis, like Isam al-Khafaji, fear the intensified sectarian violence and the multi-sided melee of militias that might follow a U.S. pullout."

One of the more astute observers of the situation in Iraq, Nir Rosen, author of In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, doesn't seem to agree with Toensing's interpretation that Iraqis want U.S. forces to remain in Iraq. Writing for The Atlantic in December of 2005, Rosen explained:

"At some point – whether sooner or later – U.S. troops will leave Iraq. I have spent much of the occupation reporting from Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Fallujah, and elsewhere in the country, and I can tell you that a growing majority of Iraqis would like it to be sooner.… Before the Jan. 30 elections this year. The Association of Muslim Scholars – Iraq's most important Sunni Arab body, and one closely tied to the indigenous majority of the insurgency – called for a commitment to a timely U.S. withdrawal as a condition for its participation in the vote. (In exchange the association promised to rein in the resistance.) It's not just Sunnis who have demanded a withdrawal: the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who is immensely popular among the young and the poor, has made a similar demand. So has the mainstream leader of the Shi'ites' Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who made his first call for U.S. withdrawal as early as April 23, 2003."

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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=3630

[leftchick]

1. Supporters of the "Euston Manifesto"?

Franks names names...

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So, like President Bush, the signers of this document believe the Left and others should pressure Iraqis to succumb to the U.S. version of democracy. Sounds pretty imperialistic. Other "Euston Manifesto" supporters include Dissent magazine editors Michael Walzer and Mitchell Cohen, Dissent editorial board member Paul Berman, and Kanan Makiya, a Dissent contributor.