Neither Left-Wing Lunatics Nor Frothing Anti-Americans
by Stephen Choy
March 31, 2003

The following is a letter from one of our readers:

You probably hear the following statement a lot but I think it is important to repeat it in these perilous times: thank you! Thank you for providing a forum for people against war who aren't necessarily left-wing lunatics or frothing anti-Americans. Thank you for providing an alternative perspective that truly examines the war in an unfiltered, uncompromising, and objective manner.

About a year ago, I was a supporter of Bush's war against Saddam's "terrorist regime" due to my perception that the anti-war movement was composed of left-wingers and conspiracists who opposed the war based solely on their abject loathing of the U.S. I dismissed perfectly reasonable analyses of American imperialism by left-wing scholars as mere "knee-jerk anti-Americanism". Yet, despite my support for the American government, I could not provide a perfectly legitimate defense of why we were so hell-bent on going to war. In order to legitamize my support/defense of the American government, I was determined to find pro-war arguments from the internet (as a general information source, not necessarily as an absolute reference to which I refer to all of my information from) since the mainstream newspapers and newsmagazines merely trumpeted the same homogenized arguments over and over again.

To my surprise, I found a plethora of RIGHT-WING and non-leftist antiwar sites ranging from your website to Lew Rockwell's own paleolibertarian home page. The arguments put forth by these paleo-conservatives and libertarians were eloquent and objective. These beautifully constructed right-wing anti-war arguments starkly constrasted with the irrational and emotive pro-war arguments which often utilized slander to nullify any dissenting opinion. The "left-wing, anti-American" label certainly could not be attached to the libertarians, conservatives, and war-veterans opposed to the war.

Suffice to say, your web-site and others like it changed my entire perspective of the war and U.S. foreign policy. I became more aware of the poisoning of U.S. foreign policy by the neoconservatives and how U.S. "adventurism"/intervention in foreign countries breeded anti-American resentment which inevitably manifested itself in its most extreme form as terrorism.

For this "epiphany", I credit the editors of antiwar.com and other right-wing anti-war sites. Once again, thank you! Keep up the good fight!

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