It is absurd to condemn the resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq, as
being masterminded by terrorists or insurgents or supporters of Saddam
Hussein. After all if the United States were invaded and occupied, would
everybody who fought to liberate it be a terrorist or an insurgent or a
Bushite?

The Iraqi resistance is fighting on the frontlines of the battle against
Empire. And therefore that battle is our battle.

Like most resistance movements, it combines a motley range of assorted
factions. Former Baathists, liberals, Islamists, fed-up collaborationists,
communists, etc. Of course, it is riddled with opportunism, local rivalry,
demagoguery, and criminality. But if we are only going to support pristine
movements, then no resistance will be worthy of our purity.

This is not to say that we shouldn't ever criticize resistance movements.
Many of them suffer from a lack of democracy, from the iconization of their
"leaders," a lack of transparency, a lack of vision and direction. But most
of all they suffer from vilification, repression, and lack of resources.

Before we prescribe how a pristine Iraqi resistance must conduct their
secular, feminist, democratic, nonviolent battle, we should shore up our end
of the resistance by forcing the U.S. and its allies government to withdraw
from Iraq. […]

After all, when the U.S. invades and occupies Iraq in the way it has done,
with such overwhelming military force, can the resistance be expected to be
a conventional military one? (Of course, even if it were conventional, it
would still be called terrorist.) In a strange sense, the U.S. government's
arsenal of weapons and unrivalled air and fire power makes terrorism an
all-but-inescapable response. What people lack in wealth and power, they
will make up with stealth and strategy.

http://www.antiimperialista.com/view...&id=1093950960