'Glorious resistance fighters'

Salam Pax speaks of 'the resistance' in Iraq, the way the BBC speaks of terrorists - that is, in scare-quotes. Salam Ali of the Iraqi Communist Party seems to share the same view (via Harry's Place):

According to Ali, "the majority of political forces are for pursuing the political process to bring about elections supervised by the UN and a legitimate elected government to end the occupation fully.
.....
He addresses the nature of violent forces in Iraq other than Sadr's militia: "Yes, there is a patriotic element, we fully understand that. But, on the other hand, there are forces carrying out sabotage simply to destabilise the situation and to maintain the privileged position that they had before.

"There are remnants of the old regime. The dictatorship at the time had a sophisticated system of repression. They didn't just vanish," says Ali.

"They carry out operations in return for money paid by leading figures of the old regime, as well as tribal elements. Certain stratas thrived under the sanctions through the smuggling of oil.
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Ali has strong words for those on the left here who have hailed the current upsurge in violence as a sign of a "national resistance."

"What is the agenda of these political groups?" he asks. "What alternative are they putting forward for Iraq and the region as a whole apart from violence and destabilisation and turning Iraq into a battlefield to fight their own wars against America?

"Anybody can go to Baghdad and they can detect straight away that the people simply are not part of it. They've had enough wars and killing.

"These people who are advocating support for "national resistance" have to convince us - how will this in any way advance the causes of peace, democracy and social progress?"

He goes on to talk about the need for international solidarity with the democratic forces - democratic organisations and social movements - inside Iraq.

"We see it as unthinkable to imagine any advance, any social progress without political and social democracy."

Salam Ali also strikes a note of which I'm sceptical, talking of neoconservatives in the US 'want[ing] to turn Iraq into a battlefield for Bush's war on terror'. As if Iraq's being a permanent battlefield could be better for, or seen as better for, the war against terror than a democratic and peaceful outcome there. This is also the thesis of Naomi Klein, and I don't buy it.