WHO TO ROOT FOR IN IRAQ: FRANK SMYTH REPLIES TO NAOMI KLEIN

I've previously criticized Naomi Klein and others for appearing to justify Muqtada al Sadr and for a confused idea of whom the U.S. and international lefts should be supporting in Iraq. Another piece of muddled, flimsy opinionating by Klein recently appeared in the Guardian--it was dissected by Marc Cooper, who got it right (as was proven by the assassination of those Italian aid workers by the religious fanatics who kidnapped them --just reported by Le Monde--and who were not, as Klein bizarrely imagined, the victims of a CIA/Alawi plot).

The latest to weigh in on this controversy is Frank Smyth, a former confrere when I was a columnist for the Village Voice, a superb, courageous, and truly independent journalist, an old Iraqi hand, and now the Washington rep for the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, an organization which--along with Reporters Without Borders--defends journalists against the predations of all regimes, regardless of those regimes' (or those journalists') political colorations. Frank, who spent weeks incarcerated in the dungeons of Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein, has now delivered a careful and accurate assessment of the Iraqi opposition, based on his deep, on-the-ground knowledge of Iraq. Written for Foreign Policy in Focus, it is the definitive reply to Klein and a guide to internal Iraqi politics. I can only agree with Frank Smyth when he writes:

"Many American leftists seem to know little about their Iraqi counterparts, since understanding the role of the Iraqi left requires a nuanced approach. Unfortunately the knee-jerk, anti-imperialist analysis of groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R. has wormed its way into several progressive outlets. Dispatches and columns in The Nation as well as reports and commentary on the independently syndicated radio program “Democracy Now” have all but ignored the role of Iraqi progressives while highlighting, if not championing, the various factions of the Iraqi-based resistance against the U.S.-led occupation without bothering to ask who these groups are and what they represent for Iraqis." Frank's entire article is a must-read roadmap for any American progressive who wants to be taken seriously in talking about Iraq: read it all here.

By the way, the British Trades Union Congress has just issued an appeal to help build an independent Iraqi trade union movement (about which I've previously written). If you'd like to support this worthwhile effort, click here for details.

P.S.
THE TWO CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
When my friend of three decades Christopher Hitchens--with whom I have the most profound disagreements on any number of subjects these days--cited my criticism of Naomi Klein in a somewhat over-the-top piece he wrote for Slate, a very odd thing happened. I found myself getting linked to by bloggers who, when I tracked back to their sites, seemed to me to be the sort who would cheerfully see a radical queer like me strung up from the nearest lamp-post. Some of the bloodthirsty rhetoric I read on these rightist blogs from Hitch's recently acquired fans was rather chilling.

Hitch's new friends, I find, range from the indigestible to the downright repugnant. Christopher and I have debated his support for Bush in print for the L.A. Weekly. However, he and I remain on affectionate personal terms (I suppose I have Forsterian notions of friendship--and then, Hitch can still turn out a piece that I can wholeheartedly agree with as well as admire for its polemical style, like Hitch's wonderfully acid dissection of Mel Gibson's incendiary Jesus film). He sends me tart and imperious notes when he thinks I'm off-base, I send notes back to him teasing him for the absurd posturings of some of his new neocon dinner partners (as when Hitch's mad chum Wolfie insisted, on the Jim Lehrer Newshour, that Iraq today was like France after World War II ! ) Every so often one of us picks up the phone and rings the other, for a friendly chinwag or a collegial exchange of precise information. Sometimes it's his wife, Carol--whom I invariably refer to as The Lady Blue--who picks up their second phone in the kitchen, where Hitch often takes refuge (and the secret number of which I wouldn't reveal even under torture). I'm always delighted when she does: Carol is delicious--intelligent, courageous, and witty. I'm quite fond of her, too.

But I miss the old Hitch. In yesterday's Independent, a former Hitchens protege, Johann Hari, interviews my friend Christopher about the bizarre political voyage he's been on for the last three years. It's a profile of Hitch written more in sorrow than in anger, very revealing and, for me, extraordinarily saddening. It made me nostalgic once again for the other Hitch, my comrade of yore. I could only agree with Hari's last line in this piece, when he wrote "Come home, Hitch - we need you." I think it unlikely, however, that Hitch will heed us...

But I can report that--quelle surprise !--NationBooks (thanks to the charming Carl Bromley) will soon bring out a collection of Christopher's more non-political essays. Although this civilized recognition of Hitch's talented and inimitable pen hardly augurs any return by him to the pages of the magazine or an end to his feud with it, which he pursues with glee...

P.S. II: This morning's New York Times brings the news that the Bush/Rove Republicans are planning a new round of Constitution-shredding, a sequel to the Patriot Act disguised as an implementation of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations when it's nothing of the sort. Those lefties out there who keep chiding radicals like me for insisting that defeating Bush is the priority this year ought to realize that, if this crowd has four more years, the space in which political liberty truly can be exercised will become narrower, and narrower, and narrower...

P.S. III The results of the German elections last weekend--which brought the neo-fascist NPD into the parliament in the Land of Saxony with a record-breaking 9.7% of the vote--reflect new strength of the European far right that is worriesome indeed. One of the NPD's demands is the destruction of all the German memorials to victims of the Holocaust. France2 public television broadcast footage of the entry of the new NPD deputies into the parliament--where they were greeted by outraged chants of "Nazis Raus!" (Nazis Get Out!) from the parliamentary staff--but although the NPD's breakthrough was front-page news all over Europe, and had pride of place on Monday's European TV newscasts, it went virtually unnoticed here in the States.

Although I've never been a Trot--far from it--the one reason I've signed up to receive the regular dispatches from the Trotskyite World Socialist Web Site is that they often provide detailed accounts of German politics, filled with information not readily available in the English-language press (and I don't read German). If one strains out the sectarian rhetoric and the obligatory genuflections to the theory of "permanent revolution," the analysis in the WSWS's report explaining the reasons for the neo-fascist party's stunning progress in these latest elections is quite useful.