Man's original virtue. posted by Richard Seymour

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. Oscar Wilde.

As US planes once again pound Fallujah, causing a mass exodus of residents and killing many, it is worth noting that serious disobedience is taking place among some soldiers in Iraq:

A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson, Miss., and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a “suicide mission” to deliver fuel, the troops’ relatives said Thursday.
The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq — north of Baghdad — because their vehicles were considered “deadlined” or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.

This isn't a principled stand against the violence of occupation, but it is an eminently sane stance against being sent to one's own death. It may not spread, but such refusal to die for one's masters helped bring about America's defeat in a previous war. It could happen again.

While I'm at it, I'll just note that the absurd reason given for launching this savage attack on Fallujah is that the city didn't "hand over" Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. MSNBC have cheerfully described this as "City leaders refuse to turn over al-Zarqawi" . They then go on to mention that this is because the city leaders don't actually believe al-Zarqawi is in Fallujah. They also quite reasonably remark that it is an "impossible condition" since even the Americans cannot catch al-Zarqawi. Given that the primary locus of Tawhid wal Jihad activity seems to be in Baghdad, the suggestion that Fallujah is 'sheltering' al-Zarqawi reeks of a dimly conceived excuse for another attempt to obliterate reistance among ordinary Iraqis. Zarqawi, if he is actually in Iraq and associated with Tawhid wal Jihad, is a red herring, a minor figure in the resistance and opposed by other resistance groups. He is a convenient, demonic face that can be put on the resistance in order to justify its bloody destruction. Suffice to say, those same city leaders aren't very happy and are calling on other Iraqis to show solidarity by initiating a campaign of civil disobedience against the occupation:

In a statement read at sermons in mosques in Baghdad and elsewhere, Fallujah’s clerics called for civil disobedience across Iraq if the Americans try to overrun the insurgent bastion. And if that doesn’t halt an offensive, the clerics said they would proclaim a jihad, or holy war, against multinational forces “as well as those collaborating with them.”

The last time Fallujah was attacked, ordinary Sunnis and Shi'ites rallied from across the country to give assistance to their fellow Iraqis. As Ken McLeod wryly noted at the time, this sort of national solidarity in struggle proves conclusively that Bush is "A Uniter and Not a Divider" .