Ali versus Chomsky

who supports who..?

it isn't a duality. think of it like this. in the omen film gregory peck is hunting the evil child, he's chased by rottweilers. gregory peck is obviously the good guy, the evil child is the bad guy. but what you need to understand is that they are ++both++ the bad guy. there has been a creation of a false sense of good. peck is bad because he acts out the interests of rich global capital through the eyes of the 'good' american. it's propaganda. so where is the good in the story? it's in seeing that there 2 bad guys. it's in busting the illusion. in a good cop / bad cop scenario both cops are trying to deceive the prisoner. to the prisoner, they should both be bad cop.

it’s a long analogy for a complex political situation.

simply put, the iraq situation has been played as a choice between US imposed democracy (good gregory peck) and islamic terrorism (the evil kid).

but islamic terrorism in iraq comes in 2 basic varieties: shia and sunni. and, just as importantly, democracy comes in more than US imperial variety.

both sunnis and shias want control of iraq, and indeed of other areas of the wider region for their different religious sects. both use religion as a method to exercise territorial ambitions. they are in conflict with each other and simultaneously in conflict with the US. But that shared conflict is using different methods and is self defeating, in the larger battle, for that reason.

Shias are a majority within the national state of iraq (but a minority of 1:8 in the wider muslim world). Legitimately, shias want to use elections to prevent another repressive sunni minority coming to power. Sunnis, no doubt see this as co-operating with the americans. But finger pointing on this score is laughable. Sunni governments throughout the arab world have +made+ the US the power it is.

While the people of turkey might support sunni terrorism in iraq because they hate shiism, they need to understand that that is a secondary matter. Sunni nations in the middle east, less war torn, more wealthy, ++are occupied++ by the US. Iraq is the front line in this occupation and they should support their fellow muslims, albeit shias, in this fight. How do they do this? Bomb police lines? Muslim countries, in their entirity and as a collective force, need to stop co-operating with the US. Why is saudi selling oil to the US? why does turkey do arms deals with israel? why is egypt so friendly with washington? all these countries are sunni states.

The islamic world must first accept that it has a common enemy: US imperialism. This is not as easy as it sounds. people the world over, from russia to korea, from nigeria to afghanistan, have been seduced by the american dream. There needs to be another alternative to the false dichotomy. Those suffering under despotism are yoked by a despot. Wanting to escape this is legitimate but wanting to become a despot yourself, to join the american rampage, is not the answer. The american dream projects itself as a ladder to happiness. it isn’t one.

the middle east cannot do this alone. we must all abandon the american dream - the desire for fast cars, big houses, wealth, supermodel wives, servants, world travel, fashionable clothes - and start by boycotting american corporations ++now++, by rejecting our own governments which support america imperialism. what can americans do? a whole lot more. except, perhaps for chomsky.

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oi! cartoon pirated from here:

 http://www.zmag.org/cartoons/by_artist.cfm?artist=15

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
(Abraham Lincoln)

brilliant.