Iraqi Resistance is an anti-occupation, anti-colonial movement.

A shorter version of this article appeared on www.Countercurrents.org

Like many resistance movements, the Iraqi Resistance movement is an anti-occupation, anti-colonial movement. The only difference with regard to the Iraqi Resistance against US Occupation and other resistance movements may be the fact that it was an immediate uprising by the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people did not "welcome" the US invading forces. That notion was a carefully staged lie. Iraqis are bitterly resentful of the occupation forces and resistance to this illegal and unprovoked Occupation is widespread.

The Resistance groups formed by the Iraqi people are varied; some are former soldiers and unemployed, some are professionals and workers and still others are religious leaders with local and family influence. They spread throughout the country and are led by prominent Iraqis. Although, these groups are not centrally
linked, almost all of them share an enthusiastic devotion to Islam and an enthusiastic rejection of the US Occupation of Iraq.

One of the most prominent leaders of the Iraqi people's Resistance is Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr, the son of the Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Al-Sadr, a prominent Iraqi religious leader who was assassinated in 1999 along with two of his other sons. The family of Al-Sadr has a history of opposition to oppression and dictatorship.

Unlike the expatriate quislings, who have been promoted (by US forces) to high positions in the Iraqi "government", and often paraded on Western TV screens to create a charade of "legitimacy" regarding the US Occupation, Al-Sadr is an Iraqi national, did not live in exile during Saddam's regime and refuses to collaborate with the Occupation forces. His courageous character called upon him to denounce the US Occupation and made him the only recognized anti-Occupation voice in Iraq , while at the same time increasing his popularity.

Al-Sadr was against the US invasion and Occupation of Iraq. Al-Sadr announced that the 'Americans and their allies must be expelled by force from Iraq '. He said publicly and rightly that the Americans were in Iraq to stay, to rob Iraq of its wealth and oil resources, and advance US imperialist aims. The Iraqi people are well aware the purported "reasons" for this war of aggression were nothing but lies.

Furthermore, The allegation that Al-Sadr is a "religious fanatic" and will create an Iranian-style government in Iraq is a misleading falsehood designed to deny the Iraqi people's national resistance a voice and to frighten the west into believing Iraqi nationalism must be crushed. Al-Sadr said on several occasions he is not interested in a government position and that he opposes Iranian theocracy as a model for Iraq . Al-Sadr's main goal is a sovereign united Iraq , free from foreign occupation and corruption.

The shameful propaganda perpetuated against the Iraqi Resistance by Western media and pundits is unfounded. The label of "insurgency" used by Western governments and mainstream media to depict the Iraqi Resistance, which is fighting for a legitimate cause, as an 'organized rebellion fighting against legitimate government' is an imperialist labelling to justify a "counterinsurgency" by foreign forces. It is typical smear against those resisting Western colonial aggression.

Right wing American pundits, led by Michael Ignatieff, professor of Human Rights at Harvard University, who supported the war of aggression but found themselves on the wrong side of humanity, recently began to rationalize and justify the war as a "lesser evil" on the basis there was a 'bigger evil' than this murderous crime against the Iraqi people. An illegal war of aggression justified as a "just war" by no moral or ethical basis whatsoever.

This distortion of the truth is designed for domestic consumption by citizens of the occupying forces and not for Iraqis. The propaganda has also contaminated and affected the "anti-war" movement position. Opposing the war before it started was an easy "feel good" activity for the "anti-war" movement, while support for the Iraqi people in their efforts to liberate their country from violent Occupation is seen as 'unpatriotic' and not worthy of support.

Naomi Klein's October 03, 2004 piece "The resistance and the Left" (The Nation), is best analyzed by its section on Al-Sadr's movement. Klein wrote; "When I heard about the demo, I wanted to go, but there was a problem: I had been visiting state factories all day, and I wasn't dressed appropriately for a crowd of devout Shiites". Any one who has been in Iraq will reject this naïve and untruthful claim. While she was at "the demo" Klein added; "I was soon interrupted, however, by a black-clad member of the Mahdi Army: He wanted to talk to my translator about my fashion choices. A friend and I joked that we were going to make up our own protest sign that said, Let Journalists Wear Their Pants. But the situation quickly got serious: Another Mahdi soldier grabbed my translator and shoved him against a concrete blast wall, badly injuring his back. Meanwhile, an Iraqi friend called to say she was trapped inside the 'Green Zone' and couldn't leave: She had forgotten to bring a headscarf and was afraid of running into a Mahdi patrol".

Is this journalism? Is it political analysis? No, it is nothing less then a racial slur, an inaccurate misunderstanding of Iraqi society. Iraq has been a secularist state for hundreds of years. Iraqi society is a mosaic; Christian, Jews and Muslims have lived together in harmony much longer than 'Canadians'. The participation of Iraqi women in society is no different from any other advanced society. Women's rights were enshrined in Iraq 's Constitution, which was eliminated by the Occupation forces and replaced by a US-crafted "Interim Constitution" that deprives Iraqi women of their rights. This "colonial feminism" is consistent with the hypocritical treatment of Muslim women by the west that uses them as political tools employed to denigrate Islam and Islamic culture.

Naomi Klein should follow an 'ethic of responsibility', and would do well to hold her own government accountable for its share of the crimes against the Iraqi people and also against Arab Canadians and Muslim Canadians. It is this Islamophobic trait of imperial North American culture and its anti-Muslim racism that propels the abuse and torture of innocent Iraqi men, women and children in US-controlled prisons in Iraq .

Many of the "anti-war" movement leaders are now refusing to support the Iraqi Resistance against the Occupation and are also hesitant to push for full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq . It seems those who are opposing full withdrawal of US forces, are like those who support the war for the wrong reasons. The "anti-war" rhetoric is now replaced by "anti-troop withdrawal" rhetoric. It is a hypocritical policy adopted frequently by wavering activists and pundits alike in the absence of serious dissent and lack of moral principles against the US agenda.

The rise of the Iraqi Resistance took the Western world by surprise, not only because of its effectiveness against a militaristic 'superpower', but also because of the West's distorted and fabricated image of the Iraqi people. The most obvious reasons are of course: the anti-Arab prejudice of the West, the US in particular, and the misperceptions of Arabic and Islamic cultures.

Misunderstandings regarding the different cultures that have suffered greatly under Western colonialism, is embedded in the West's ignorance and imagined superiority. As Bertrand Russell wrote, "It is the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know and care about circumstances in the colonies" made easy with sufficient propaganda at home.