Here is an article from our national newspaper. May be of interest to some.
Iraq's real resistance fights back
On Sunday, the real resistance in Iraq revealed itself. Namely, the resistance of courageous Iraqi men and women to the prevailing terror of Saddam Hussein loyalists and the al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist forces led by the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In spite of specific attacks on electoral officials, voting places, candidates and electors, a surprisingly large number of Iraqis went to the polls to exercise their new-found rights.
It is too early to judge the extent of the success of this election. But it does appear to have been successful - measured in terms of voter participation in a climate of extremely high levels of intimidation. There is a possibility that Iraq might become one of the few representative governments in the Middle East - along with Israel and Turkey. The Palestinian Authority is also elected.
It appears that the voter turnout in Iraq was around, or above, that experienced by Western democracies that (unlike Australia) have voluntary voting - that is, between 50 and 60 per cent. In view of the violent lead-up to the election, this is an extraordinary result that stands as a testament to the courage of individual Iraqis - all of whom had to have a finger stained with ink when voting. Their brave collective action demolishes the myth that Arabs are not suitable for, and/or do not want, free elections.
Sadly, not all Iraqis who wanted to vote made it to the ballot booth. The fallen in Iraq's battle for democracy included the three Iraqi election officials who, in mid-December, were dragged from their car and killed on a Baghdad street. Soon after, the body of Wijdan al-Khuzai was found. The 40-year-old candidate, who campaigned for women's rights during Saddam's dictatorship, was tortured before being murdered. Last Sunday's election turnout indicates that, so far at least, those who perished for the cause of free elections in Iraq have not died in vain.
And this is the point. Those who oppose the coalition of the willing in Iraq are under an obligation to state what they would do. Any decision to suddenly withdraw the US-led multinational force from Iraq would hand the nation over to the insurgents, who are loyal to Saddam or al-Zarqawi. Irrespective of the wishes of a majority of Iraqis.
Obviously, the immensely difficult situation in Iraq is not resolved. Despite the election for the national assembly and provincial legislators, full democracy is still some time off. Clearly the insurgency is not over and the attacks on Iraqis and non-Iraqis, civilians and military alike, will continue. But, now, at least Iraq has a chance of establishing a system of representative government.
Opposition to the establishment of democratic forms in Iraq has not only come from insurgents and their supporters within the country. The resistance has received significant support from Western opponents of George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard.
In Australia the leading barracker for the Iraqi resistance is the Green Left Weekly. On January 28 last year the GLW published an interview between Pip Hinman and the Australian-born left-wing journalist John Pilger. GLW asked: "Do you think the anti-war movement should be supporting Iraq's anti-occupation resistance?" Pilger replied: "Yes, I do. You cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance." No ambiguity there.
Then, on November 3 last year, GLW ran a feature story on the Indian writer and leftist activist Arundhati Roy headlined, "Why we should support Iraqi resistance". This followed Roy's appearance on Andrew Denton's ABC TV Enough Rope program, where she argued that we have to "understand that Iraq is engaging on the front lines of empire" and maintained that, consequently, "we have to throw our weight behind the resistance".
Roy was in Australia at the time to receive the (now controversial) Sydney Peace Prize. When it was pointed out that there was a certain incompatibility between supporting the resistance in Iraq and advocating peace, Roy maintained that she was supporting non-violent resistance in Iraq. Yet there was no evidence of a latter-day Mahatma Gandhi in contemporary Iraq.
The fact is that the resistance in Iraq has been busy with the business of murder over the past two years. Its victims include Sergio Vieira de Mello (the United Nations envoy in Iraq at the time of his death), the British-Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan and such Iraqi citizens as Wijdan al-Khuzai.
The British leftist Tariq Ali has not only also supported the Iraqi resistance but has also opposed "any and every scheme to get the UN into Iraq as retrospective cover for the invasion". Then there is the American film director Michael Moore, who believes that the insurgents in Iraq are just like the Minutemen who fought the British in the American War of Independence. This overlooks the fact that the Minutemen fought the British Army and did not seek to murder their fellow American citizens. Both Ali and Moore are much admired at the GLW.
In spite of the current difficulties and past mistakes, it is clear where the likes of Bush, Blair and Howard stand. They want to establish a form of representative government in Iraq that will be able to oversee a military and police force capable of providing security and controlling crime. After which, the multinational force can withdraw gradually.
Yet the position of some European critics of the Bush Administration is not obvious. Most notably France. Does President Jacques Chirac really want the US and Britain to withdraw immediately from Iraq and leave the country at the mercy of insurgents? If not, what is France proposing? The UN is so discredited over the oil-for-food scandal that it seems incapable of playing any significant role in Iraq.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the parameters of the debate are clear. The Prime Minister performed well at the Davos economic forum last weekend in stating a clear, albeit unfashionable, position - that Australia continues to support the Bush/Blair stance, which happens to have the support of a majority of Iraqis (including at least some of the Sunni minority). What's more, Labor's leader, Kim Beazley, has junked the ALP's all-troops-out-now policy and acknowledges that the Australian Defence Force has to remain in Iraq for as long as Australia has diplomatic representation in Baghdad.
There is still a long way to go in Iraq. However, President Bush's advocacy of freedom during his second inaugural address seems more realistic today than it did a couple of weeks ago. The television news on Sunday carried the story of an Iraqi woman who said she wished to thank the Prophet Muhammad and President Bush for being granted the right to vote in a free election. She represents the real resistance in Iraq - the soldiers and citizens who have defied the insurgency.
