The Exile

We haven't had a laugh at those who want to save the Iraqi harkis for quite some time; largely because the buggers haven't been doing very much to actually save the said harkis. Dan Hardie is the main loud-mouth in all this, but the last time he blogged anything was back on the 12th December. Until yesterday that is...

What's new on the harkie front? Not a lot actually. Just the same old whine that the government isn't doing enough to save these arse-licking scabs from retribution.

Actually, the government isn't doing anything at all to save them as far as I can tell. This is as it should be. The last thing that any government minister wants is an Iraqi scab wandering around Westminster reminding everyone of just how total imperialism's defeat has been in the south.

The Iraqi Quislings who are now clamouring to escape the local populations desire for revenge have been told to wait until 2009. At least 200 have already been told to take their hooks because they are not eligible for settlement in the UK anyway. The remainder, about 400 collaborators and their families have been told to try again in 2009.

Dear, dear and double dear. They threw in their lot with the invader and are now an unwanted reminder of a failed occupation.

Fuck 'em.

Every now and again something happens that makes life just that little bit sweeter. It happened to my yesterday when an e-mail from Neil Clark arrived telling me that a rather pathetic piece by a Dan Davies had just gone up at The Guardian's site. Dan the baldy man was making an appeal for those poor, doomed, wretched Harkis - that nobody gives a shit about any more...

What evidence does your favourite Exile have that nobody gives a shit about the Quislings? Why the number of folk who joined in to cheer Dan the baldy man along. There were six comments altogether, but only two were enthusiastic about the baldy man's plea.

How times change. Was it only in August that Neil Clark gave such wide publicity to this lunatic scheme that the warmongers had to save face by bringing over 20,000 Iraq traitors to the UK? Leaving the army to continue bleeding in Iraq, of course.

How the 'mongers howled and screamed. Well, the fuckers are not howling now, are they? No, they are keeping very quiet and hoping that we all forget.

Sorry, folks, but The Exile has a good memory. Come Retribution Night in Basra he will be posting photos like fuck, just to remind you that you can't even save your Harkis.

Feeling like shit are you? You just fucking wait.

Not our problem! Not our war! Not our Harkis!

Dan Hardie has a new post up - that make two this month! He's back on the save the Harkis trail, and there is an air of desperation to his plaintive little cries. The Exile doesn't know why he is trying to flog this very dead horse... Maybe his plans for a tasty little number in journalism have come to nought?

Look, Dan, here's the deal: with Iraq going tits up, and the government rocked by a scandal a day, do you really think that even NuLabour is stupid enough to bring over 20,000 Quislings to Britain?

Are you so stupid to believe that the British people would accept that? This blog started the campaign to keep those cockroaches out: we fucked you once and we'll do it again.

Dan offers a few talking points. He's good at that is our Dan. Well The Exile's talking points helped create a lot of letters to a lot of regional newspapers, so let's dig 'em out again.

Not our war! Not our problem! Not our Harkis!

Do you remember when we had a cheap laugh at the expense of a warmonger who compared the average 50,000 turnout at anti-war rallies to the 60 million who live in the country? Well, now it's time for another good chuckle. Only now we get to laugh all the 'mongers to say nothing of their stooges.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, various types have been trying to save face by bringing over to the UK over 20,000 Iraqi collaborators to save them from whatever nasty fate usually befalls those who supported the imperial side when the empire finally falls. They screamed! They shouted! They organised a fucking petition...

Out of 60 million people in the UK only 1,066 have so far signed the on-line petition to save those poor harkis. The Exile wouldn't mind if people were being asked to march, but all they have to do is stick their names down on an electronic petition - and only one thousand are willing so to do!

And what names they are: the only ones missing are Ivan Erection, Nick Urzdown and Mustapha Slash!

Not to worry, folks. Having got you all wound up, Dan Hardie the blogger who came up with this lunatic idea in the first place is doing . . . sweet fuck all. His penultimate posting was on the 24th August and his last on the 5th September. He did announce the Commons' meeting that is due to take place next month, however, and the whole affair has probably helped his journalistic career no end.

How sad it must be for the 'mongers. They can't even get up a petition worth its salt.

A public meeting will be held the 9th October at the House of Commons as part of the Save The Harkis Campaign. The TV cameras will be there, and hand-wringers are being invited to encourage their MPs to attend.

The Exile thinks that this is a great idea and that lots of MPs will show up. Then their constituents can see their representatives on TV, supporting the entry into Britain of over 20,000 Iraqi collaborators. As the British army huddles in its one remaining Iraqi base, subject to daily mortar and rocket attacks, the people of Britain will surely reward any MP who votes to keep them there, while the Harkis are being pulled out. Remember that the Americans do not allow their collaborators into many areas of the Green Zone, but obviously Britain's collaborators are different. They pose no security risk whatsoever, do they?

The Exile imagines that oodles of MPs will join this campaign.

Wake up, people, and smell the fear. The fear of the warmongers as they wake up to the fact that their Iraqi dream is over and their British nightmare is about to begin. The aim was to rape Iraq, to turn it into a puppet of western capitalism that would open its doors to foreign corporate pillage, recognise Israel and act at a base for further Anglo-American aggression in the region. How quickly the dreams faded when faced with those brave young men with their AK-47 rifles, their roadside bombs and their sheer, matchless courage. A courage that took on the mightiest war machine that the world has ever seen, and fought it to a bloody standstill.

Faced with this terrible reality a group of webmongers decided to save face with one victory. Something that they could point to and say, "Well, at least we were able to do this." The fact that over 160 British soldiers are dead, hundreds more injured and the rest huddled in Basra airport praying for the final order to leave Iraq, doesn't enter their minds. All that matters is having something to point to; something that they can call a victory. Something to save face.

That something is, of course, the 20,000 Iraqi collaborators that these webmongers want to bring over to the United Kingdom. It must have seemed like the answer to their sad, pathetic prayers: the end of the Iraqi adventure, but with the smug satisfaction that would come the day they stood at Heathrow Airport and welcomed over the first batch of collaborators to Britain. The fact that the British army would still be fighting in Iraq never entered their minds. British soldiers are cut from the same cloth as the rest of the working class that these creatures despise, so let them stay and bleed in the sands of Mesopotamia.

Unfortunately, their little wheeze ran into problems. Not just because two men, myself and the journalist Neil Clark, began to write in opposition to the whole lunatic idea, but because they found that MPs were not exactly lining up to be counted. The only newspaper that took up the collaborators' case was The Times. How right and proper it was that The Times, a rag written by scabs, printed by scabs and read by scabs should take up the call for these Iraqi scabs.

A few days ago I learned that some of the local, evening newspapers had taken up the story and that people had begun to write to their letters' pages opposing the entry of these collaborators. That for me was the end of the story, because there was nothing more that I could do. I began to think about other, more important, things. Starting my new blog to take the sponsored postings. Going fishing. Important matters like that.

Yesterday something happened that made me realise just how desperate the webmongers have become. This puerile rant was posted at Harry's Place, probably as a last throw of the dice to try and influence public opinion. The basic thrust - or fast hand movement, since the writer does come over as being addicted to Onanism - is to smear myself and Neil. "Look how nasty they are," the webmonger seems to scream. "So let's bring over 20,00 harkis and show everyone how decent we are." A cursory reading of the text will demonstrate that no mention is made of the 5,500 British soldiers who are still trying to survive Iraq; presumably the writer just does not think that they are all that important.

Why I have I called this post desperate? Well, it would not have been written had things been going the webmongers' way, now would it? They would be patting themselves on the back and feeling all warm inside. The fact that one of them felt the need to scream in such a precious way, only further strengthens the case that these 'mongers feel that their one and only victory is sliding out of their grasp.

Aside from this, the hysteria with which the post was so obviously composed, betrays the writer's true feeling towards the British working class. He quotes my own words, when I argued that these collaborators would take council houses and jobs. To him that is proof of my rightist tendencies. To me it is evidence that this creature belongs to the ranks of that new kulak substrata of teachers, social workers and council managers who all together make the lives of working class people so difficult. Like the kulaks of old, they are close enough to us that we treat them with contempt as the the two-legged cockroaches that they are.

People might want to think about that, and then get out pen and paper and start writing letters to newspapers and MPs.

So, will it work, this desperate throw of the dice? I don't think so. I think that matters will be allowed to drift, with maybe a few token harkis brought over as a sop to hand-wringing opinion. The rest will be left to take their chances. That is how it should be, because the harkis are not our problem, and Iraq is not our war.

It's your problem, webmongers. Your problem, your harkis and your lost war!

Is it my imagination or has the campaign to save the harkis fallen on hard times? I ask because this post that has just gone up at the main save our harkis site. It may be my imagination, but the poster seems to be more interested in slagging of Neil Clark than he does in saving harkies. Indeed, there does appear to be a kind of desperation to the posting, as if things are just not working out quite as planned.

Dear oh dear: could it be that the British people do not actually want 20,000 collaborators living it up in the UK while the army continues to bleed in Iraq? Maybe the politicians realise this, and maybe that is why these self-appointed saviours are finding that replies from MPs are few and far between? Well, at least 15 have replied to your pathetic little missives so far, lads, so it's a start. Don't give up hope on the other 600 and odd just yet. Keep dreaming.

For those of you who are less an enamoured by the idea of 20,000 potential security risks being brought over to Britain, some talking points can be found here. Please write to your MP or local newspaper and tell them why you oppose this lunacy.

It had to happen sooner or later, of course, but I never expected it so quickly. The save the harki crowd have split into warring factions. It always happens with Trots, and that is why they are such contemptible little arsewipes. That said, the first split came in less than a month which has to be some sort of record.

Anyway, this sad-arsed admirer of Leon the loser has decided to take his ball home and not play at saving harkis.

Keep on fighting, lads, you're doing fine.

By the way, this posting is also the third clue in the guess the implement competition.

Update:

Just for those of you who are coming over here from comment 59 at Crooked Timber. If you don't understand my "save the stills·" comment, then remember that you are not allowed to call the buggers harkis. So I called them stills - 'cos they are still fucking harkis!

Returning to the little matter of the 20,000 collaborators that various types want to bring over to the UK. It is time to start writing to MPs and the local newspapers. The locals are probably better than the nationals, if only because they get fewer letters coming in, so you have a better chance of yours being published. As far as your MP is concerned, I reckon that it's better if you actually send him a letter, inside an envelope, and with a stamp on it. E-mails are fine, but it is possible that your MP will take you more seriously if you are prepared to go to a bit of trouble to write to him rather than just clattering something out and pressing the send button.

The rule is simple: keep it short, keep it polite and keep it very simple. One page is enough, and you should make no more than two points to back up then case that Britain is not to provide a home for imperialism's flotsam and jetsam.

If you have never written to your MP before, then why not tell him that? "I have never written to you on any matter, but I feel so strongly that the 20,000 Iraqi collaborators should not be housed in Britain," would be a very good way to start.

Over the past week this blog has listed many of the reasons why they should not be brought over. At the risk of boring the regular readers, I am going to repeat some of them. Anyone is free to choose a couple of them and send them off to the newspaper or MP if they wish. Just rewrite them in your own words.

1. The plan is to bring over 20,000 Iraqi collaborators to safety in Britain. Why should they be allowed to leave Iraq, when our soldiers are continuing to die there?

2. This plan could actually put our soldiers' lives at even greater risk. Those Iraqis who have so far sat on the fence will realise that a full withdrawal is on the cards. Might they not decide that it is time to show how patriotic they are and fire off a few shots at our soldiers?

3. The Americans will not allow their collaborators into many areas of the Green Zone, because they simply do not trust them. They know that these harkis are also supplying information to the guerrillas. What evidence do we have that the same thing is not going on inside the British lines? Could we not be importing a dangerous fifth column? This plan needs further thought, and the views of the security services should be solicited.

4. The unemployment rate now stands at over 5%. Why should the British people allow men and women who have shown no real desire to fight for their own country into ours to take the precious jobs that remain?

5. Council house accommodation is scarce. How will these collaborators be housed and will it mean that our children will be forced to the back of the waiting list?

You could end your letter by saying that more time is needed to decide where these collaborators are to be taken. Could they go to a third country at Britain's expense?

The point here is that it is obvious that most MPs do not actually want 20,000 harkis dumping anywhere near Britain. Be reasonable and offer them a chance to do nothing and they will probably take it. They can wave your letters in front of those sad-arsed losers who want to see Britain flooded with collaborators and argue that political considerations prevented them from doing anything.

Remember that time is on our side. The longer this goes on, the more chance there is that the Iraqis will sort out the problem for themselves.

That way the warmongers won't even have the consolation of being able to say that they lost the war, but saved the harkis.

During the first three years of the British occupation of Basra airport, only 45 rockets or mortars were fired at their base. Over the past two months alone at least 300 have slammed into the airport.

As you can see from the above video, the Iraqis now manufacture these simple rockets in small workshops that are dotted throughout the country. Unfortunately for the British forces, the soldiers live in tents which provide no protection whatsoever. Whenever the klaxon goes off there is a frantic scramble to don helmets and run to the protective bunkers.

Life in the one remaining base inside the city, that is home to about 700 soldiers is even worse. Supplying that garrison from the main airport base is a nightmare - one one recent run the convoy encountered no fewer than 25 roadside bombs.

A debate should be taking place in the UK over what exactly the plan is. We know that at some point soon, the Basra city base will be abandoned, but that still leaves the airport which is now coming under an average of 30 rocket attacks a day. Luckily few soldiers have actually been killed in these attacks, but an awful lot have been injured - some 50 British soldiers have suffered serious wounds this year alone and that is more than in all the previous years put together.

Instead of having this debate, we are tied down with the little matter of the Iraqi collaborators who various hand-wringers want to get out of the country. When asked why British soldiers should remain in Iraq to die for a country that these collaborators are leaving, the hand-wringers refuse to answer.

The conclusion has to be that as far as they are concerned, our soldiers can be left to die.

The number of Iraqi collaborators that could end up in Britain has now reached 20,000, according to one of their hand-wringing supporters. This figure includes just about everyone who ever collaborated, plus their families.

People, write to you MP and to your local newspapers. Let's get the massage out:

Not our war, not our problem, not our harkis: keep the buggers out.

It will be noted that four British soldiers have died this week. To what extent those deaths can be attributed to the demand to save the Iraqi collaborators is impossible to judge. One might speculate and say that it is possible that the Iraqis now know that the British are getting ready to leave, and that they will increase their attacks because everyone in Basra now wants to be on the winning team.

If that is the case then warmongery has yet more deaths at its door. Not a single 'monger has called for the Iraqi traitors to be pulled out with the British. That leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, because it looks to the jaundiced observer these that these 'mongers care more about the lives of 600 or so traitors than they do their own people.

Neil Clark hasn't been pulling any punches today as he joined the campaign to keep imperialism's refuse out of Britain. As this blog started the campaign to keep the harkis out, let's put together his arguments and mine.

1. Had the war against Iraq succeeded, then today the USA and its ever faithful poodle would be knee deep in the gore of Iranians, Syrians or both. The relative lack of collaborators in Iraq made the job of the resistance that much easier, but make no mistake, they gave imperialism's cause a boost. They deserve the chop for that.

2. Leaving them to their fate sends a message to other putative collaborators. Take the money now, get the bullet tomorrow. Your call, chancer.

Funnily enough, Neil's point here was made in reply to one Adam LeBore who wrote an article in The Times calling for the collaborators to be admitted for just that reason, that nobody would work for imperialism again. That is the whole point.

That said, I suspect that LeBore's views are shaped by the fact that he works for The Times, a scab sheet of the first order. 6,000 printers were put out of work because people like LeBore crossed the picket lines to do as Murdock wanted. One scab supports others: why am I not surprised?

3. The collaborators cannot be taken out of Iraq so long as the British army remains in Basra. To do otherwise would be to send a signal to every person who ever sat on the fence waiting to see who would win. They would read the signs of impending withdrawal, grab their rifles and start taking pot-shots at the British. Let's face it, when the British leave, everyone is going to have to show just how patriotic and pro-resistance they were. If not, they will likely end up dangling from a lamppost like these harkis. Put simply, anyone who argues that they can is putting the lives of collaborators above those of British soldiers.

4. Finally, what evidence do we have as working class people that these creatures will not jump the council house waiting list or be parachuted into jobs that we want for ourselves? As this blog pointed out yesterday, the dole offices are now open to over 5% of the population - more folk are on the cobbles today than in 1979!

Sorry, but this writer believes that the days of ragged trousered philanthropy are over -it is time that the working class put forward its own demands and stopped allowing the agenda to be set by the middle class scum who have done so well out of the past thirty years.

Are there any other blogs who want to join in? I don't see it as an organised campaign, but if we sing from more or less the same choir sheet, then we might just influence the government. Certainly we will probably have public opinion on our side.

As for the warmongers who are now bleating about these doomed collaborators. Sorry, losers, but it looks like you are fucked once again.

It is now emerging that at least 600 Iraqi collaborators could be eligible for settlement in Britain, if the rules were to be relaxed. Each one would be allowed to bring his family along, and Iraq being the third world type of place that it is, what that amounts to is a lot of people.

Even if the government restricted it to what we think of as family - and that is a big if - then we could still be looking at around 2,000 people.

How, pray, is the government going to get them out without tipping off the Iraqis that a full withdrawal is looming?

It looks to this writer as if the British are preparing to retreat from Iraq, probably before the end of the year. Three factors lead to this conclusion:

First, Over the next month or so the British will hand over their last base in Basra to whatever Iraqi force can hold it until the last British soldier has left. Once this happens the British occupation will consist of Basra Airport and nothing else. We can expect to see the 30 or so tanks that the British have in Iraq withdrawn, as well as some of the armoured troop carriers. The excuse for this will be that they are no longer needed, given that the British will then be acting as an "overwatch" force.

Secondly, the Americans have begun criticising the British semi-openly. The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, said on Monday that "No one could plead ignorance of the potential consequences of walking away from Iraq now." At the time this was taken as an attack on Congress, but it is just as likely that it was the British he had in mind.

Other attacks are less coded. According to Ken Pollock of the Brookings Institute, Basra is like the "wild, wild west," while the British do nothing other than "remain holed up in Basra airport".

Anonymous reports coming via the American press have it that the British have failed in Basra, and "have basically been defeated in the south".

Viewed overall, it looks as if the Americans have discovered something, and are preparing their public for a British troop evacuation. A war of words then seems likely, as Americans claim that the British are cowards, and that the war has been lost through their failure.

Thirdly, there is the little matter of the Iraqi collaborators. This campaign to withdraw them started amongst the blogs, but it has now been picked up by the Murdock press. Why has this happened? Probably as part of the disinformation campaign that has to be a part of any withdrawal. If the collaborators are withdrawn, then it will be obvious to every Iraqi with an AK-47 rifle that the British are getting ready to leave. However, if the collaborators are still around, then it buys valuable time for the British to get their heavy equipment out of the country in stages.

The last thing anybody wants is for Iraqis who sat on the fence earlier in the war to start proving to their new rulers - whoever they might be - that they were keen as mustard patriots all along. Far better to keep the collaborators in country so that everything looks normal on the surface.

One the heavy gear has been lifted out most of the 5,000 remaining troops will be withdrawn, probably by air. The last thing to do will be to blow up the remaining stores and wave a weary farewell to Iraq.

So when will all this happen? It could have begun already, but a more likely date would be next month when the American General David Petraeus makes his report to Washington. The British will probably use the debate that will follow to provide yet more smoke to cover the withdrawal. Expect soothing noises from London.

It could all be over very soon, and then the political repercussions can begin.

As reported last month, there is a blog based campaign to admit those Iraqis who collaborated with the British occupation forces.

The whine now is that they are being "murdered" right at this moment. Actually, they aren't. What is happening is that they are being killed for the crime of collaboration. In the chaos that is Iraq today, and with a country that is not yet liberated, it would be foolish to expect trials and sentences. Iraq today is like France was in late 1944 - collaborators are simply shot out of hand.

The second whine is that they served the British and the British owe them something. Well, they served British imperialism, so perhaps British imperialism owes them something, but why should we, the British working class, be made to pay in any shape or form?

Sorry, lads, this is your war, your disaster and they are your harkis. You sort it out.

A new blog campaign seems to be starting by various types who feel that we should take in God knows how many Iraqis to save them from the retribution that will follow the collapse of the NuLab dream.

No - fucking - chance.

If you want us to be all cuddly and liberal, then first we want to start enjoying the standard of living that we as working class people had before the neo-liberal lunacy was introduced. Start by restoring our union rights. That will mean that newcomers cannot cut the wages because our unions will not allow it. What are the chances of this happening?

No - fucking - chance.

Then start a crash programme of council house building to ensure that these newcomers do not get houses ahead of us. Will we see this happening?

No - fucking - chance.

Finally, and just to be on the safe side, because jobs are like rocking horse shit these days, let's have a programme of industrial regeneration that will create lots and lots of unskilled and semi-skilled manual jobs - the jobs that our people want to do. Obviously this will mean raising taxes on the middle class, but that is a small price to pay to ensure the safety of these poor, doomed collaborators. Will this happen?

No - fucking -chance.

Why won't the warmongers support these modest proposals? They want us to live in shit forever while they sit around, enjoying all the fruits that capitalism gives to arse-licking scum.

Sorry, lads, but I honestly think that as far as most working class people are concerned, your Harkis can get the chop.