A Peace Prize Winner Makes War on America (Arundhati Roy: "Osama's Bush's dark doppelganger.")

Wall Street Journal ^ | December 3, 2004 | TUNKU VARADARAJAN

[OESY]

...Ms. Roy has just been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize....

Ms. Roy made an appeal to people to "become the Iraqi resistance," adding that activists "need to understand that Iraq is engaging in the frontlines of empire and we have to throw our weight behind the Iraqi resistance."

Now it cannot have escaped Ms. Roy's attention that the "resistance" of which she speaks -- and which she exhorts the world to "become" -- kills innocent Iraqis daily, by bomb, by gun and by cutlass. Beheading people -- Iraqi and Western, Muslim and infidel -- is the macabre signature of this "resistance." Yet she persists in her refusal to condemn their evil and attacks, instead, the very side that allows her to flourish, to opine, to Be Important.

A certain segment of the American intelligentsia connects gleefully with exotic leftists like Ms. Roy....

"As the battle to control the world's resources intensifies, economic colonialism through formal military aggression is staging a comeback. Iraq is the logical culmination of the process of corporate globalization in which neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism have fused. If we can find it in ourselves to peep behind the curtain of blood, we would glimpse the pitiless transactions taking place backstage."

This is sophistry masquerading as protest, rage unhinged from fact. In her mind there is no history in Iraq, no Saddam, no context; there's just one more chapter of America doing down brown people. Third-Worldism, preachy nonalignment: They had both become so outdated. But American action abroad -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan -- has, alas, given Ms. Roy and her kind the chance to dust off the discarded manuals. What a joy for her -- the old verities again! Never mind that the present battle is against those who would extinguish everything she values....

[dfwgator]

Most of the so-called Iraqi resistance isn't even Iraqi.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

"Osama's Bush's dark doppelganger.")

Whiiiiiiiiiiiichhh... would make Dubya the LIGHT "twin" of the set... yes? :)

[atomicpossum]

Now it cannot have escaped Ms. Roy's attention that the "resistance" of which she speaks -- and which she exhorts the world to "become" -- kills innocent Iraqis daily, by bomb, by gun and by cutlass.

Nor should it escape her attention that Musab al Zarqawi is a FREAKIN' JORDANIAN. The 'insurgency' is largely made up of the Baathists, who raped Iraq literally and figuratively for years, and foreign fighters, who also want Iraq to become anything but free. In short, it's not a home-grown desire to throw off the yoke of oppression, it's about keeping the old yoke in place and making sure nobody gets freedom.

But, of course, that's not priority one to the 'Hate America' crowd.

[tkathy]

Majority of Muslims are being killed by radical Muslims.

[YOUGOTIT]

Another misguided left-winger who supports the torture of women, killing of anyone who is not of that religion and the enemies of freedom.

[UseYourHead]

Peace Prize - yeah right. I need a shovel, I just stepped in some peace prize. Funny though, I didn't see where they renamed canine bowel movements. Oh well, I know now.

[wideawake]

It's interesting that a peace prize winner advocates beheading social workers in her acceptance speech.