Not Vichy on the Tigris

Joe Lockard, in an excellent article, “Iraq, the Anti-War Movement, and Anti-Romanticism” (in the superb on-line periodical, Bad Subjects) takes aim at Susan Watkins’ essay, Vichy on the Tigris, in New Left Review:

“The language that Watkins and many others like her employ… emerges from a mixture of political manicheanism and oppositional romanticism. Another ‘evil empire’ and its minions must be brought to their knees by any means necessary: Iraq is an opportunity to bring the fight to the Yankee devils… There will be a winning side in Iraq, the one fueled and driven by a hatred of American conquerors in Humvees. The US invasion has all but guaranteed this result, whether in a few years or many years on. Romanticizing that bloody process is nauseating.”