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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (9142)	1/17/2006 7:38:04 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541854

We do not have Martin among us to guide us with his wisdom. But it is not hard to extrapolate from his "Beyond Vietnam" address of 1967 to what he would think about the Iraq morass. Peaceful resistance would not have been a good response to the invading communist armies from North Vietnam. It also isn't' a good response to the Jihadis and the Saddamists, and the other people who are working to destabilize Iraq. Its a good tactic against when you have basically decent people and a democratic government that has gone astray in recognizable ways. It isn't OTOH a good way to establish a fledgling government that is being attacked by terrorist and criminals, and the forces of a dictatorial party who used to rule, and sectarian insurrectionists. It is a good tactic for the politically when the strong are decent enough to respond to it. The US was mostly a country of decent people even with the awfulness of segregation and racism. Peaceful resistance was a great way to mobilize segregations opponents and marginalize segregation's supporters. OTOH it isn't the best tactic against those who are militarily and politically weak but whose ideology or hatred is not easily checked by a recognition of their weak position, or by considerations of majority opinion, or by who wins elections, or by concern for those who they hurt, oppress, or kill. It doesn't work against the suicide bomber. If it is the tactic of the US in Iraq, and that of the Iraqi government, than we just hand things over to the enemy. They would become the new rulers of Iraq. Its possible that peaceful resistance against these new rulers could bear fruit, if it could continue over generations, but in the mean time more harm would be done by these new rulers, and their attempts to stamp out the peaceful resistance, and any other challenge to their authority, and by their fanatic policies (and by the likely war between the different opposition groups to see who gets to take over once the current government goes down), than by the current war. Peaceful resistance is a tool that can be used against an oppressor, but it shouldn't normally be a tool to use against a violent fanatic would be oppressor. It is unwise to hand yourself or your allies over to the oppressor in the name of non-violence. Tim