AGAINST MORAL
EQUIVALENCE
I am not
one to downplay the overseas crimes of the US government,
but this struck me as a moral outrage: to equate the US government,
in this instance, with Osama Bin Laden is not only
counterintuitive (for any normal person) but also grossly
immoral. Even as the US government wages a futile and counterproductive
war against the Afghan people, its spokespersons go out of
their way to emphasize that they are not targeting civilians,
and there can be no doubt that the military has been given
orders to avoid civilian casualties at almost any cost. Indeed,
the US had
a chance to get this Omar character, the Taliban chief,
and yet this was vetoed by higher authorities. Bin Laden and
his gang of murderous thugs, on the other hand, make no bones
about targeting civilians: indeed, without having the balls
to come right out and claim responsibility for 9/11, Bin Laden
revels in it, and calls for more. The Left would like
to characterize the US as the root of all evil in the world,
but this time that argument is going to generate far more
hostility than support. For it is worse than counterintuitive
as far as most ordinary Americans are concerned: it is downright
evil.
BECKER'S BS
Brian Becker,
the co-director of the International Action Center and a longtime
member of the Workers World Party, gave voice to this know-nothing
anti-Americanism in a press release issued by the ANSWER coalition:
"People have asked us, if war and racism are not the answer,
what is the answer? Are we for doing nothing? No. We believe
the U.S. must do something if it wants to end the cycle of
violence." Becker then goes on to list a series of demands:
the US must get out of the region, the US must end the Iraq
sanctions, and on and on, basically a reiteration of Osama
bin Laden's own litany of grievances minus the religious rhetoric.
NO ANSWERS
FROM A.N.S.W.E.R.
But what
about Bin Laden? What is to happen to him? Should he
and his minions face justice for murdering all those innocent
people? We get no answers from ANSWER on this score. Nor do
we get a clue as to how to deter future terrorism.
As fear of an anthrax attack sweeps the nation, and every
bottle of baby powder is suspect, Becker's non-answer the
US government should do nothing except capitulate to the terrorists'
demands invites contempt, if not repression.
TARRED WITH
THE SAME BRUSH
It is of
course not fair to tar the entire peace movement with the
same brush: I have received a great many letters from sincere
individuals who dislike the abrasive anti-Americanism of the
IAC-Workers World nutballs, and are dismayed at the uniformly
bad press generated by their activities. They ask me what
can be done about it, and seek to cobble together some sort
of working alternative. That may be possible, but I must say
that the section of the peace movement not affiliated
with the IAC isn't much better, and, in some ways, it is worse.
THE SAME OLD
COMMIES
I went to
a "Stop the War Teach-in" sponsored by the other left-dominated
coalition, the "SF Town Hall Committee to Stop War and Hate,"
held October 7 in San Francisco's Mission district. The "Town
Hall" coalition is dominated by the International Socialist
Organization (ISO), American followers of the British Trotskyist
Tony Cliff, who hate the IACers and invariably set up single-issue
front groups to compete in the same milieu with their sectarian
rivals. The Mission is a left-wing stronghold, a hothouse
for every leftist party and grouplet under the sun, and they
were all out there in front of Mission High School, hovering
like vultures, hawking their unreadable newspapers and pouncing
on passersby and attendees alike. In the lobby, every grouplet
had their literature table set up, and behind them the same
old Commies peddled the same old wares, sporting their berets
and their Che Guevara T-shirts. Inside the auditorium, giant
banners gave voice to the sectarian demands of numerous Commie
outfits: "No War, No Racism," and "Defend Civil Liberties"
declared the Socialist Alternative. The banner of the SF Town
Hall Committee, which faced the audience directly, announced
the coalition's "points of unity": "No US War, Stop Racist
Attacks, Defend Civil Liberties." How about ending terrorism,
and stopping anthrax attacks? Well, the latter hadn't happened
quite yet, but the point is this: what is being evaded here?
MEDEA
The answer
is: the same thing that was evaded all evening by most of
the speakers, and, I suspect, by most of the audience: the
9/11 atrocity. There is no mention of this event in the "points
of unity" but surely total condemnation of Bin Laden's
barbarism should be a prerequisite for membership in any coalition
that claims to speak for "peace." In spite of repulsing ordinary
Americans with their nauseating moral equivalence, at least
the IAC had the political smarts to open their event with
a moment of silence for the 9/11 victims. The "Town Hall"
crowd didn't even bother with a moment of silence, and instead
the meeting was opened by local Green Party activist Medea
Benjamin, who used her time to push her candidacy for a local
utility district seat, and spent the balance talking about
numerous alleged hate crimes directed against Arab-Americans.
The 9/11 atrocity was never mentioned.
CULT FIGURE
Then came
the entertainment, one "Utah
Phillips," a grizzled old hippie whose appearance was
greeted by tumultuous applause. Who he? I asked of the person
sitting next to me. She looked really surprised and
even shocked, as if I'd asked "Who's Elvis
Presley?" "You mean you don't know who Utah Phillips is?
Why he's the father of bluegrass." And, she might have added,
one of us, i.e. a left-wing celebrity and cult figure.
And that, really, was the feeling evoked by the whole depressing
evening: that I had stumbled on the meeting of some obscure
cult, one whose arcane practices and theology place it entirely
out of bounds for most ordinary Americans.
So I had
to sit there and listen to the ramblings of Utah Phillips,
who didn't sing for a good 45 minutes but just ranted and
rambled on about the travails of striking workers, the inherent
evil of all men (women, we are told, don't make war, but what
about Maggie Thatcher?) and the dubious virtues of war tax
resistance.
BREAD AND ROSES
He wasn't
a bad singer, when he finally got around to it, but a funny
thing was the lyrics of his own song seemed to mock both him
and his audience. It was some Woodie
Guthrie tune, a bit of Commie agitprop all about how wars
profit the evil capitalists (will somebody please explain
this to those stock market gremlins who have been pulling
the market down?). "Your big money goes where the missiles
fly." This was said after a week in which the stock market
had taken the single biggest week-long dive in its history,
and billions of dollars in investments and savings evaporated
virtually overnight. Oblivious to either economic or political
reality, Phillips and his adoring audience launched into "Bread
and Roses." Everybody knew all the words by heart
.
THIS IS "RACISM"?
Rather than
confront the hard question of how America ought to rationally
confront the threat of terrorism, the Town Hall teach-in seemed
in large part dedicated to inaugurating if not exactly celebrating
the initiation of Arabs as an officially-sanctioned victim
group. Victims, that is, of "racism." But is it really racism
to unreasonably attribute all sorts of hidden motives to Arab-Americans
in the present circumstances? This is not singling out immigrants
on account of their race, but on the suspicion that their
religious loyalties may trump whatever affection they
hold for their adopted country. But Eyad Kishawi, representing
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, glossed over this difference and instead spent
a good deal of his time talking not only about "racism" but
also about himself. He interrupted his autobiographical musings,
briefly, to mention all the various groups accused of the
twin towers attacks, but, curiously, doesn't mention Bin Laden
by name. In the middle of an extended anti-Israel tirade,
which had little if anything to do with the ostensible purpose
of the "Town Hall" meeting, I noticed that this guy looks
like a Bin Laden who has shaved off his beard and just kept
the mustache, and wondered: Could it possibly be
.?"
COMRADE KISHAWI
Kishawi's
arguments, if they can be called that, sent a chill down my
spine: ranting against "racism," he denounced the idea that
Al Qaeda might have planted "sleepers" agents just now being
reactivated after a long quiescence in order to carry out
further acts of terrorism. A few days later, news of the first
anthrax case hit the headlines: I wonder what Mr. Kishawi
has to say now, but somehow doubt he'd be willing to acknowledge
the utter wrongness of his position. He also claimed
that unnamed agents of the US government called on him personally
to warn him off from protesting the war: puffing up his chest
and heaving it outward at the audience, he set himself up
for thunderous applause as he bellowed his defiance. And lest
it seem that he thinks this war is all about him, he
let us in on his own personal analysis of what the war is
all about: it is, he averred, nothing less than an effort
to "consolidate the power of global capital." Thank you, comrade
Kishawi
.
LEFTIST BANALITIES
Speaker
after speaker mounted the podium and essentially uttered the
same leftist banalities. In between appeals for Mumia,
attacks on "global capital" and self-righteous tirades against
"racism," there was a great emptiness, a silence so deafening
that it seemed at least to my mind to drown out the speakers
and blend their words into a cacophony of bromides and sloganeering.
One speaker claimed that "they" are preparing "hundreds of
thousands" of jail cells for "suspicious immigrants." This
even as Bush was reiterating, for the umpteenth time, that
this is not a war against Islam, and that we must not victimize
Arab-Americans. Incurring
the wrath of the neoconservatives, the President even
met with a delegation of representative Arab-American
groups, and spoke at a mosque. What more do these people want?
TWO EXCEPTIONS
Only two
speakers made any sense: Tania Farzana, of the Revolutionary
Afghan Women's Alliance (RAWA), and our own Alexander
Cockburn, columnist for the Nation magazine and editor
of Counterpunch. Ms.
Farzana, an American citizen and a remarkably well-spoken
and self-assured young lady, was honest enough to admit to
having "mixed feelings" about this war. She described the
horrors of life under the Taliban, and focused, for a change,
on the event that catalyzed the American response: she sincerely
expressed her shock and unequivocally condemned terrorism.
THE WISDOM
OF COCKBURN
Cockburn,
too, was unequivocal on this score, and also admitted that
the issue may have a degree of complexity not comprehended
or fully appreciated by his leftist brethren. He took issue
with Christopher Hitchens, his friend and fellow countryman,
who has posited the existence of a bogeymen known as "Islamo-fascism"
and is prepared to wage a world war against it. Most importantly,
Cockburn
disputed the odd notion that to examine the history of the
region is to capitulate to terrorism or postulate any sort
of "moral equivalence." Unlike Brian Becker, and some of the
speakers at the Town Hall meeting, he clearly recognized terrorism
as a problem to be faced, and made the telling point that
a refusal to understand the historical roots of terrorism
would mean a victory for Bin Laden.
A LEFT-WING
HOOTENANNY
Cockburn
was his usually acerbic self, asking "Can anything good come
out of this?" and quipping: "They stopped crop-dusters." The
audience loved it, but then this smugly self-righteous and
self-infatuated audience was just made for "in"-jokes. By
way of translation: See, the crunchy-granola Left hates
crop-dusters, on account of they spew all those terrible chemicals
over everything, because, you see, the evil Corporate Giants
are trying to poison us
. Oh well, anyway, you had to be there,
really to appreciate what a left-wing hootenanny the whole
thing was, an event designed not to reach out and convince
any on the fence, but to reassure the faithful that all the
old slogans and ideas could be safely invoked. In short, as
the old song goes: "Gimme some of that old-time religion,
it's good enough for me!"
SELF-DEFENSE
OR EMPIRE
But it isn't
good enough: not this time around. This is "the new war,"
as the TV talking heads call it, and they're right: this is
the first war since 1812 in which the US is the principal
battleground. The irony is that the US government, like the
peace movement, seems to be fighting the last war, and not
this one. While US planes are terrorizing the civilian population
of Afghanistan, and causing a mass exodus into an already
destabilized Pakistan, the American people have not escaped
the terror, as the number of anthrax cases climbs and we brace
ourselves for the attack we have been told is 100% certain.
Yet the vanguard of the War Party is calling for a massive
invasion of not only Iraq but virtually the entire Middle
East, as the Weekly Standard calls
for establishing an "American Empire" and National
Review Online editor Jonah Goldberg extols
the forgotten "virtues" of colonialism.
IMPERIAL OVERSTRETCH
These people
are just as clueless as the peaceniks, in their own way. Colonies?
When we can't even ensure the safety of our own people on
our own soil, we are supposed to extend our defense
perimeter and take on colonies? What universe are these people
living in? Perhaps an alternate universe in which 9/11 never
happened: either that, or they haven't quite realized the
implications of that seminal event, which is a telling symptom
of what several writers have called "imperial
overstretch."
AGENDAS LEFT
& RIGHT
The Left
and the Right have their own agendas, which are subordinated
to the central problem both fail to even acknowledge we
are facing a band of renegade nut-cakes who have somehow established
an international criminal network, just as the Mafia, Colombia's
drug lords, and the Kosovo Liberation Army did before them.
The problem is not abroad, and cannot be solved by pulverizing
or conquering some foreign land. We can and should wipe
out the Al Qaeda network tomorrow, and still terrorism would
persist and flourish. The problem is that we have been so
focused on defending the security of Europe, of Asia, of central
and South America, that we have forgotten about the one legitimate
function of government: to protect us right here at home.
AMERICANS WANT
ANSWERS
Our foreign
policy, too, has been conducted without either the interests
of America or the safety and prosperity of its citizens in
mind, and that has got to stop. Before 9/11, foreign policy
did not even show up in the polls as an issue: today it ranks
number two, with terrorism at the top: Americans want answers,
and the antiwar movement must be ready to give them. But leftist
bromides and mindless slogans will confine the movement against
a widened war to the margins. It is time for the antiwar movement
to stop fighting the last war, and address the valid concerns
of the American people.
PEACE WITH
JUSTICE
We have
tried to do that here at Antiwar.com, by providing our readers
with reasoned analysis and historical background to go with
it. I have tried to present a balanced position in this column,
most notably in "The Anthrax
War," although not without some initial stumbling (an
earlier and shorter version of the piece was pulled at my
instigation, because it seemed to me unsatisfactory, but not
before several hundred readers saw it). The good news is that
an independent current of the peace movement, in reaction
to the embarrassing antics of the leftists, is apparently
growing up, especially on campuses, and has raised the slogan
"Peace with Justice" meaning justice on behalf of 6,000-plus
dead Americans. This is the way to go. It is the only way
that can reach the overwhelming majority. Americans are a
people justifiably angry at what has been done to them: they
rightfully seek not only justice but vengeance not against
innocent civilians, but against the perpetrators of
a heinous act. Americans don't want a Mideast war: what they
want is to be rid of the incubus of terrorism.
NO FLAGS ALLOWED
What is
remarkable about the Left is its incredible thick-headedness,
its dogmatic insistence on imposing its own countercultural
ethos on movements it dominates. At the conclusion of the
Town Hall teach-in, I was up on the stage talking to Alexander
Cockburn, and Medea Benjamin, local leftie media starlet whose
antics make her almost a regular on Bay Area television news
programs. "Hey," I said, "where were the American flags?"
I saw plenty of banners with leftist slogans emblazoned all
over them, but not a single representation of Old Glory. Ms.
Benjamin didn't even bother to answer, but just sneered, as
if the thought were so alien that I was probably making a
joke. Cockburn, however, nodded agreement, and said "I'm for
it," adding that he had always been in favor of reclaiming
true patriotism from the War Party. Alas, I'm afraid his advice
fell on deaf ears. As a result of that night, I began to think
that, except, perhaps, in the case of people like Cockburn
who is really an anarchist, I suspect, and even had kind
words in his speech for Bob Barr for standing up for civil
liberties the anti-Americanism cannot be taken out of the
Left.
TEACHING AN
OLD DOG NEW TRICKS
But, who knows? Perhaps a few more terrorist
attacks a few dozen, or even hundreds, of new anthrax cases
may shake these dogmatists out of their sectarian slumber.
Then, perhaps, they will realize that they were patriots,
after all, and that they really did love their country
right before it ceased to exist. For unless the peace movement
begins to face up to the real issues and offers some real
arguments against a wider war, the free and open society that
was the United States of America may soon be only a fond memory.
Racial victimology and America-hating just will not cut it:
indeed, they will create a backlash against any possible upsurge
of antiwar feeling, and set the movement up for accusations
of collaborating with terrorism.
AN UNUSABLE
PAST
Furthermore, the tendency of the organized antiwar movement
to go parading about, shouting slogans and carrying placards
is an indulgence that serves only to give the most marginal
groups maximum publicity: it is a throwback to an unusable
past. This is not yet a quagmire: the idea is to prevent
us from becoming bogged down in such a war before it even
starts. But in order to do so it will be necessary to face
an entirely new set of circumstances with tactical creativity,
organizational openness, strategic wisdom, and above all honesty
or else be consigned to utter irrelevance.
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