Posted October 25, 2002

Goodbye

Regarding "Smearing the Antiwar Movement" by Justin Raimondo:

Kate Hamilton: You just lost me as a supporter. According to Raimondo's latest piece Andrew Sullivan shouldn't be espousing his opinion because AIDS is causing him to lose his mind? What kind of backwards bigotry is that? If I were the proprietor of this web site I would fire that insensitive bigot and apologize to all who were offended. Are we against this war or gay men with AIDS?

Managing editor Eric Garris: It is his own opinion. Justin is, of course, gay himself. And Andrew Sullivan has called Justin a nazi and other pretty nasty stuff.

Are you saying you object because Andrew Sullivan is not gay (he is), because he doesn't have AIDS (he does), because AIDS doesn't cause dementia (it does), or because it is bigotry to point these things out?

I am a longtime reader of Andrew Sullivan and a longtime public advocate of gay rights. But it is clear to me that something has gone seriously wrong in his thought-process. Why this has happened, I don't know, but it clearly could be organic.

How is it bigotry for a gay man to point out that another gay man's medical condition may have led him to adopt an insane position? If I theorize that Alzheimer's was responsible for Ronald Reagan's irrational positions, would that be bigotry, or does that only apply to minorities?

KH: I'll not bother with casting pearls before swine but I will say this: I believe that in facing death, Andrew Sullivan is seeing things clearly. I think Ron Rosenbaum summed it up best when he wrote in his farewell address to the Left:

"Goodbye to a culture of blindness that tolerates, as part of 'peace marches,' women wearing suicide-bomber belts as bikinis. [...]

"Goodbye to paralysis by moral equivalence: Remind me again, was it John Ashcroft or Fidel Castro who put H.I.V. sufferers in concentration camps? [...]

"I guess today, Left means never having to say you're sorry."

I don't expect a response.

Eric Garris: How can you expect a response? I have no idea what you mean.

I notice that you do not stand by any of the statements you made in your earlier email, but choose to top it off with an insult of me, for, I gather, being a leftist. I am no more a leftist because of my support of gay rights than Andrew Sullivan is.

I seriously ask you to stand by your statements, including the one where you say you are a former supporter of Antiwar.com. If you are only able to reply by reciting some poetry you read, I can't take much of what you have to say seriously.

Evangelicals/Middle East

Regarding "Armageddon" by Morgan Strong:

Bless you. I live in a small resort town in Colorado where I recently wrote an editorial for the little local paper saying essentially the same things you said in your web page. I have the impression that in most quarters of the country this would have been a highly inflammatory view of things. There was no reaction at all. I feel incredibly isolated up here, but still sense that most of the country simply goes along with whatever its evangelical-influenced leaders tell it, and believes any view to the contrary is un-American. ...

~ Eric C.

Northeast Asia

Regarding "North Korea's Halloween Surprise" by Justin Raimondo, October 18:

As a rule, the greater the observer's distance from North Korea, the greater its threat appears to be. Ordinary people here in Japan, which is within range of North Korea's existing missiles, are not noticeably more fearful than before, or even surprised by Pyongyang's admission of its nuclear program. Contrary to opinion in the West, I think Pyongyang's admission is a favorable sign, and Northeast Asia is in for a period of stability and infrastructure building.

This is my reading of events. First, by hinting that it has nuclear weapons, Pyongyang has greatly reduced the chance of war with the US, China, Japan, Russia, or South Korea for whatever reason. None of these countries is likely to risk having an army vaporized just to bring North Korea to heel.

Second, signs indicate that North Korea wishes to get its fingers on part of the wealth promised by the new "Iron Silk Route," a continuous rail line from the tips of Northeast Asia to Europe. North and South Korean troops are now clearing mines in the demilitarized zone to allow rail links between the North and South, with further connections to Chinese and Russian rail lines. Such a rail link would allow South Korea, China, and Japan to ship products to Europe by inexpensive rail transport instead of by sea. Russia and North Korea stand to win a bonanza in transit fees.

Third, Pyongyang has admitted to kidnapping Japanese citizens and is willing to allow them to return to Japan with their children. In other words, Pyongyang hopes to begin to normalize relations with Japan. When Japan normalized relations with South Korea in 1965, it gave the South the equivalent of $10 billion in aid (equal to about 60-70% of the annual budget of the impoverished North). A similar amount to the North would be a shot in the arm, allowing it to exist until rail transit revenues begin to flow in.

Fourth, from Japan's point of view, two Koreas are better than one united Korea with a nuclear program, which would certainly be targeted at Japan. Therefore, Japan is likely to support the existence of a weak but stable North as an independent entity. And Japan will welcome having alternative, competing access points to the Iron Silk Route, in South Korea, North Korea, China, and Russia.

Given these signs, I think that, with luck, Northeast Asia will be in for a period of stability and development. The only unknown is the attitude of the US. Perhaps some of the players in the region are secretly pleased that the US is so preoccupied with Iraq.

~ Robert J.

Antigun Sniper Theory

In regards to "Another Working Assumption" [Backtalk, October 21]:

It frankly strikes me as the height of monomaniacal (Ah, Justin's terminology!) paranoia to posit that the sniper is an insidious agent of nefarious "antigun" forces working to destroy the credibility of gun owners. It's no different from the "sensitive" mentality scoffed at by so many gun enthusiasts (among which I include myself) that dictates (supposedly) that all guns are bad and all gun owners are lunatics.

Really, the mind reels when confronting such a statement, as its frame of reference is so far removed from reality that it may as well not be in any recognizable language. But in our day, it's only de rigueur for official branches of the NRA (like the Illinois State Rifle Association, for instance, which is currently off the deep end claiming that Democrats are behind the sniper). Such theorists are doing more to destroy the credibility of gun owners than any scheming Democrats ever could.

But worry not, as long as we have an enormous number of politicians in bed with the gun lobby, this conspiracy theory shall never be more than such. I must, however, state that no one has been talking about banning guns -- the question here has been over the creation of gun licensing, via which the sniper could easily have been caught ten times over already.

Well, give some props to Justin, particularly for the North Korea column; he's really been on fire lately

~ Steven Small

The Oil Theory

Regarding "Smearing the Antiwar Movement" by Justin Raimondo:

While I agree with your article that Israel is a greater beneficiary of an Iraqi war than the United States, I don't understand why they need us. Their superiority over Iraq is such that Saddam's missiles aren't a credible threat. More people died in the recent bus bombing than by the scuds of the Gulf War.

No, I buy the oil theory. Instead of reeducating the American public to conserve our resources, we're going to spend a hundred billion dollars plus American lives plus destabilize the Middle East even more (is that possible?). To paraphrase ol' Dick Cheney, "Conservation is a fine personal choice, but goddamnit it ain't policy."

I say do the following:

Get out of the Middle East completely.

Close all military bases.

Stop all aid to Israel, Egypt, Jordan et al.

Get our act together on conservation.

See what happens. It would be interesting.

And you won't like this one, but if one more Al Qaeda or similar attack happens on our soil after we withdraw: zing, boom, straight to the moon for the bad guys (and I mean all of them).

~ Steve C.

Smearing

Regarding "Smearing the Antiwar Movement" by Justin Raimondo:

I thought I was coming to Justin Raimondo's column at Antiwar.com for an intelligent, libertarian challenge to Andrew Sullivan. What I find is more smearing done within the movement than Sullivan could dream of spreading.

~ Scott Harris, Saint Albans, West Virginia

Nobody Blushes Anymore

Thanks to your link 'From Lenin to Fallaci' I have discovered that Oriana Fallaci, the famous journalist, has no idea what it is to blush. Most people tend to blush when they are caught doing something wrong o awkward, regardless of whether it was done intentionally or not. Not Ms. Fallaci. Shortly after September 11, she wrote a letter in the Corriere della Sera which was neither logical nor insightful. Rather, it was written rashly and expressed only 'holy wrath' and other awful gut feelings. Not long afterwards, Mr. Tiziano Terzani, another Italian journalist, wrote an excellent reply that I thought would cause her considerable embarrassment. Instead, it seems she went on to expand her letter and publish it in the form of a book. How sad. That means she is no different to politicians, who, when shown that something they've said is wrong, far from blushing and/or offering a retraction, go ahead and repeat their nonsense louder and bolder.

From personal experience I have concluded that many leftist writers (far more intelligent than O. Fallaci) share this cowardly and vain behavior with politicians. I find this very, very, depressing.

On another subject, the Washington Post article on North Korea seemed very 'fair' to me until I got to where it says "And the rhetoric from Pres. Bush and his aides... feeds North Korean paranoia." Paranoia does have a pejorative connotation in most languages, doesn't it? I have noticed this terrible tactic in all documentary films shown on cable TV these days. (Here, in Peru, 90% of cable TV originates in the US.) They 'seem' to be serious until they mix in something which ridiculizes what was previously said (in what had seemed until that point a fair way) leaving you with a funny aftertaste of sudden disagreement.

~ Maria Cerritelli