Pacifist Response In Iraq?

Flick, the occupational media is voluntarily muzzled. They are not reporting what goes on except for the fluff pieces. When the Arab media reports anything they are dubbed as "calling for violence" and they are fired on by "contractors" or shut down. So I don't see how we in the western world are going to be shown pictures of kids scraping together pieces of their parents bodies to try to get enough to bury. <p>Then there is the business of "depleted uranium" and what that is doing to the Iraqis and to the occupational forces. Even when there is no overt violence going on there is still covert violence happening. From what I can gather from websites such as <b>Baghdad Burning</b> there are armed factions fighting, (they want positions of power in the governing council), each other and the common people are caught in the crossfire. <p>Out of sight, out of mind.

What about a good pacifist option outside of Iraq? Is there now enough shock and dismay in the world to support a worldwide nonviolent resistance? Something like a worldwide boycott may be able to inflict some financial pain on the imperialists.

I neglected to sign in before posting the above. I didn't mean to be anonymous.

There HAVE been worldwide pacifist demonstrations. I was at one in Vancouver about a month ago when Noam Chomsky was here. But you're right. More action is better!

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Kory Yamashita

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Pacificism worked against the British in India only because of the civility of the British. Just like 'pacificists' here in North America expect to be treated in accordance with all the rights and protections of law. Pacificists know very well however that nobody would pay any attention to them if it weren't for our open media. Fickle cowards would be an appropriate term for pacificists here in the West. Proof of that, if any were needed, can be seen in the 'human shield' campaign - where are they now? will they go to the Sudan to stop the Islamic government there from killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of Black African Animists? We all know the answer to that - Not a chance! It's not a 'cause celebre' for the left-wing media and more importantly for 'pacificists', it doesn't give them a good platform to be anti-US or anti-'establishment' or anti-globalisation. The Sudanese will still be dying, but if it doesn't suit the pacificist hobby-horse too bad for the Sudanese.

Civility of the british? Check out the footage of british soldiers beating
up hindus. Some brits loved to beat 'darkies'; other brits found it racist
and disgusting. Don't generalize.

Pacifist intervention in Palestine works because it's an organized
struggle with clear lines. Also, there's a heavy media presence and that's
needed as well. You notice the Israelis surrounded Arafat for weeks,
shot his aides and whoever tried to get out of the compound, but didn't
simply bomb it. It's a tricky situation, even for them with overwhelming
force; they still have to pretend to be the pacifists themselves, resorting
to force only in certain situations.

In the huge, epic African slaughter campaigns, a hundred thousand
people involved in a mass-murdering mob is hard to stage-manage for
pacifist propaganda purposes. For better or worse, a lot more pacifists
would be slaughtered there before the camera crews could get good
footage- assuming the camera crews aren't killed also. The confusion
and lack of responsible command structures, i presume, also makes
pacifist work difficult - it works best when there's a military chain of
command that can come into the spotlight for punishment when a
pacifist is killed.

I doubt, on the other hand, that a pacifist campaign would have achieved
much inside Dachau or Auschwitz, because the Nazis didn't let media in
and had no public to satisfy around the slaughter of Jews. But then
again, that attitude is exactly what's led to nazism being crushed and
universally reviled forever. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

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“Sex, Drugs, Love, Marx...”
Flick Harrison’s new digital feature
MP3, trailer, scenes and stills at:
http://www.armedrabble.org/sdlm.htm

As much as we don`t want to see war, and violence, and death and destruction, passive resistance won`t work here. The US started this imperialist war, and the best way to drive them out of Iraq is for the Iraqi people to continue the guerilla war, continuously sending home American bodies which has shown to be the true factor in causing the majority of the American public to oppose the war. The US will interpret passive resistance as consent to rape Iraq of all its oil!

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Dave Ruston