Iraq's real resistance fights back

Gerard Henderson, of the Sydney Institute, writes, in Iraq's real resistance fights back that:

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".

The main complaint is that critics of the war (like me) have no constructive suggestions. This is the standard ploy of the ruling class: T.I.N.A. (There Is No Alternative).

Here are my suggestions:

• All foreign troops out of Iraq;
• USD 60,000,000,000 in compensation to the Iraqi people from the invaders: USA, UK, and Australia;
• Immediate and unconditional recognition of whatever government the Iraqi people decide on;
• Immediate voiding of all orders made by the Coalition Provisional Authority without compensation to the affected parties;
• The investigation by the International War Crimes Tribunal of the following among others:
• Sadaam Hussien;
• Tariq Aziz;
• George Herbert Bush;
• Danforth Quayle;
• Richard Cheney;
• William Jefferson Clinton;
• Al Gore;
• Madelaine Albright;
• George Walker Bush;
• Colin Powell;
• John Winston Howard;
• Tony Blair
• Cancellation of Iraq's debts;
• Iraq is able to nominate the currency it receives for its oil exports;
• Removal of all foreign bases from Iraq;
• Control of Iraq's airspace to return to the Iraqi government;
• All mercenaries (aka military contractors) to be handed to the Iraqi police for interrogation in respect to crimes the mercenaries may have committed while in Iraq;
• All foreign governments to accede to requests for extradition of said mercenaries to Iraq;
• Possible adjustment of Iraq's boundaries:
• Integration of Kuwait into Iraq;
• Seccession of Kurdistan;