The eminently reasonable Jack O’Toole has been driven to despair by this one-two punch.
This newly ever-growing Western left, not only in Europe, but in Latin America and even in the US itself, has a clear goal: the destruction of the country and society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago. But it does not have, as in the old days of the Soviet Union, the hard power to accomplish this by itself. Thanks to this, all our leftist friends’ bets are now on radical Islam. (emphasis added) What can they do to help it? Answer: tie down America’s superior strength with a million Liliputian ropes: legal ones, political ones, with propaganda and disinformation etc. Anything and everything will do.
“Sigh. I wish he were wrong,” comments Glenn Reynolds. Nelson Ascher is directly stating that “all our leftist friends” are actively supporting terrorists, by any means possible, in order to achieve our dream of the destruction of the United States. The mechanisms by which terrorists could destroy the United States are left unstated. (I’m reminded of Eddie Izzard’s recounting of Imperial Japan’s strategy in WWII: “First, we’ll bomb one of their bases, and then… we’ll win.”) And Reynolds is shaking his head in rueful agreement, more in sorrow than anger.
I’m embarassed to admit that this washed over me as so much typical right-wing boilerplate until I saw Jack O’Toole’s reaction. Much like Thomas Sowell’s charming column titled “Fourth Estate or Fifth Column?” Or Jonah Goldberg’s taunt, after proposing a bet with Juan Cole, that “He can give it to the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is.” Too many mainstream conservatives have adopted accusations of treason into their regular toolbox, and I guess I’m sort of getting used to it.
But it isn’t OK. Not to mince words, this is insanity. This is mistaking the left for the Red Skull. If Ascher or Reynolds know of left-wingers who are actively helping terrorists attack the United States, they should be telling the FBI and Interpol, not their blog audiences. If they merely wish to stigmatize the opposition as objectively pro-terrorism, then they should be ashamed of themselves.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds responds, insisting that he wasn’t talking about American liberals or Democrats as a group. I’m going to punt on a few opportunities for shameless point-scoring and just accept that. Could I suggest that… maybe… Ward Churchill isn’t our authentic face, then?
However, Reynolds still insists that the characterization of liberals as “terrorist collaborators trying to destroy the United States” is an accurate depiction of the European left. I’m afraid that I don’t see how this position can stand up to scrutiny. More on this later, maybe.
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With these sorts of bozos, I occasionally like bringing up Saint Reagan’s appeasement of the Soviet Union, who cut Carter’s effective [1] grain sanctions for the sake of a few Midwestern farm votes. This is the man they want on our currency? It’s no coincidence that Reagan’s administration of appeasement ran guns to Iran. C. [1] Effective in the sense of causing the Soviet world real economic grief, e.g. meat riots in Warsaw.
Shit, I’m on the Sun Destruction Committee! That report was due yesterday! The mullahs, the interdimensional demons, and the Trilateral Commission are gonna have my ass on this one!
With these sorts of bozos, I occasionally like bringing up Saint Reagan’s appeasement of the Soviet Union You might also bring up the fact that the great Nicaraguan freedom-fighters, the Contras, were, under any meaningful definition of the term, terrorists.
No, because then this type of bozo will try playing cutesy-poo word games, evasions, weaselings, et cetera. Hit them in the wingnuts. And keep on hitting them there until they puke. Hey, they set the rules; now they get to live by them. C.
Just one name Glenn. Just one name Nelson. As for Mr. Ascher, he’s rather morally obtuse. He felt that the whole Abu Ghraib prisoner torture case was a concocted scandal. What an ass. As for Glenn, all he’s trying to do nowadays is be a male Camille Paglia. Why does he spew so much undocumented smearing hate? For the same reason a dog licks his balls: because he can.
This newly ever-growing Western left Setting aside, to the extent possible, the odious content…how the frig can something be “newly ever-growing”?
I think our standard response to anyone like O’Toole should be to shout in unison “Go F*** yourself.”
In the same Goldberg column you link to, besides his “joke” that Juan Cole would fund the al-Aqsa martyrs, Goldberg attributes to him a belief that blowing up Israeli kids is an example of good judgment. While I don’t know what Goldberg’s stance on abortion is, this is roughly similar to saying, “Jonah Goldberg advocates killing abortion doctors.” Does Goldberg consider that to be reasonable rhetoric?
Chris- O’Toole isn’t the one saying those things, he’s the one getting mad about being accused of them. Also, in the same Goldberg column linked to above, he attributes to Juan Cole the view that killing Israeli children is an example of “good judgment.” Maybe he thinks the chickenhawk arguments were unfair rhetoric (I know I do) but he’s really escalating it their.
how the frig can something be “newly ever-growing”? I wondered the same thing.
Best post title EVER. More seriously: this has to stop. The rift between George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac does not concern me so much. These things happen, and anyway they kind of deserve each other. The large and widening rift between the people of Europe (and not only Europe—Canada, Australia, and the Latin American democracies too) and people of the United States, though—that is not good. That is really quite worrisome. The E.U., NATO, the western alliance—for all the posturing, for all the debates and summits that don’t accomplish anything, for all the silly bureaucracy and sillier comic books glorifying it, they have really made the world a better place for many, many people these last sixty-odd years. What has happened to Western Europe since 1945, and for a number of countries in Eastern Europe since 1989 (with some obvious glaring exceptions—namely Russia and the Balkans) has got to be one of the most amazing changes for the better in human history. It can survive Chirac and Bush. But it cannot survive if the people of the free democracies give up on one another. (ctd.)
The Sun?
Now you tell me that’s what we’ve been trying to destroy. I’d been putting all my efforts into detroying the moon, and now it seems I had it all wrong. Sigh. And this comming just when I have papers due, and grading to do. I just wish I knew what to do about this sort of nonsense other than offer ridicule, but saddly, I don’t. It’s a sad day when anyone who’s not an idiot believes this, but even people who are manifestly not idiots (See- Steven Bainbridge) often at least have sympathy with this sort of tripe.
I hope and believe you meant “someone like Ascher.” O’Toole is the good guy here. Does “a million Liliputian ropes” seems to refer to denying government officials the power to torture, or to lock up people without evidence, or to murder at will, or what?
Oops. And “there” at the end of the second comment.
This is an E.B. White quotation, from a piece he wrote in 1945 called “Here is New York”:
He writes about the U.N. in 1945. Obviously it has not lived up to that early promise. It is capable of corruption and incompetence and indifference to genocide and flawed in a thousand ways. It is no better than the worst member of the security council. I do not get stars in my eyes over the international criminal court, either. I think it is worth pursuing but I am not optimistic as to its success. Kyoto’s full of problems too. In general, I think “the struggling parliament of man” ought to be focusing more on changing the laws of our own nations for the better instead of building a beautiful castle in the air that will not materialize. But look, this cannot continue. Of course the United States is going to be desperate to prevent another massacre in one of its cities, and Israel is going to be desperate to prevent the unrelenting string of murders. Of course Europeans and Canadians and Australians are going get upset when the United States imprisons without trial, and in a few cases arranges for the torture of, their citizens—some of whom were innocent. If we get to the point where majorities of either Europeans or Americans can’t understand that, we are in real trouble, all of us. This has never been only a military alliance, and terrorism is not only a military threat.“I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether.” Ward Churchill, April 2004
“But look, this cannot continue.” And if something cannot continue, it won’t. It will get much worse. I am amused at the outrage and indignation. I visit blogs that say get the hell out of America now, because in a year you will no longer have that privilege.
The United States of America, 48% traitors 51% idiots I’m damn proud to be a traitor.
Let’s be fair here: they have their idealistic image of what America is and what America’s superior strength is. And you have your own idealistic image of the same that is dramatically different. They don’t like your vision, you don’t like theirs. You do want to destroy their imaginary America and they want to destroy yours. They do use radical Islam (as they used to do the Soviet Union) to bully you into accepting their vision. You use whatever you can to stop them. This is not insanity, it’s polarization.
Best post title ever.
Norbizness got water all over my monitor and on my keyboard. http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-stew0211,0,1331604,print.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2 It looks like the freedom hating lefties are going to jail, and the freedom loving lefties are getting the blame.
my my, what a vile and treacherous man Reynolds is.
Re: the UN: “It is no better than the worst member of the security council. ” Yeah, right.
Glenn’s wish came true. Don’t underestimate Glenn Reynolds.
What has happened to Western Europe since 1945, and for a number of countries in Eastern Europe since 1989 (with some obvious glaring exceptions—namely Russia and the Balkans) has got to be one of the most amazing changes for the better in human history. Well, the Balkans are a pretty big place. They are not the same thing as Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo. My geography teacher at high school taught me that Yugoslavia (it was not former Yugoslavia at that point), Bulgaria, Greece and parts of Romania and Hungary are situated on the Balkan peninsula. As a citizen of a Balkan country which is not an utter disaster, I find it a bit sad to be lumped together with Bosnia. Please people, not everyone living in the Balkan peninsula is an ultranationalist supporting ethnic cleansing.
Look, fellow travellers, we can’t destroy the Sun – yet. My solar-powered fetus-killing, gay-making, Islamification machine™ is almost ready to go into production. Be patient. Once our three main goals are achieved in 2012, then we can destroy the Sun. Priorities, people, priorities.
What has happened to Western Europe since 1945, and for a number of countries in Eastern Europe since 1989 (with some obvious glaring exceptions—namely Russia and the Balkans) has got to be one of the most amazing changes for the better in human history. Former Yugoslavia is not the Balkans. The Balkan peninsula comprises former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece (yes, it does) and bits of Romania and Hungary. I don’t think any country in this list except Yugoslavia deserves being singled out in this way. I know this is a minor issue but the word “Balkan” is now pejorative not because of the people actually living there but because of loose use.
Yes I did mean “anyone like Ascher” not “anyone like O’Toole.” As for Glenn Reynolds, his conduct during the Swift Boat episode speaks volumes.
This is what happens when you read too much Instaborg. The solution for that is: don’t read Instaborg. Suddenly your life is lightened. There’s a sweetness in the air. The planet whirls around the sun, the seasons vary, the birds return, there’s hide and seek in the neighborhoods among the kids, there is noise and smoke in the bar down the street, there’s songs to listen to as you drive home from work … Yes, life can be lived without visiting the equivalent of a noxious rash to be referred to the equivalent of other noxious rashes.
Where does this kind of talk end up? What kinds of things become possible once rhetoric becomes so dissociated from the facts, that were unthinkable before? Are they just working up their nerve to commit mass murder?
Goddamn it, Matt, the SUN, not the MOON, the SUN! We are trying to destroy the SUN! I bet you didn’t even bother to read the chapter on “Evil and Darkness – Why Total Blackness and not Tie-dye Instead?” in “The Liberals Guide to Demonism, Destruction, and Death” handbook, now, did you?? Get with the program! Come on, people! Shape up! How can we possibly provide a united front of evil if some of you can’t even get off of your lazy asses and help out around here?? Why can’t more of you be like apostropher and do something destructive for a change?? sigh Look, folks, I can’t be your babysitter, I’ve got a tax-raising strategy meeting with Comrade Kerry this afternoon, I promised Osama I’d have a drink with him after work – God he’s such a pain in the ass, ‘when do I get my bomb, when can I kill some more Americans’ it’s always ‘me, me, me’ – and then I’ve got to squeeze in a quick round of golf with the Anti-Christ first thing tomorrow morning before wasting the rest of the freakin’ day tutoring Harry Reid on how to enslave freedom-loving patriots (God I hate newbies). I just don’t have time to keep an eye on all of you – all I ask is for a little cooperation. Now get out of my hair and go make yourself useful, kill some of the unborn or tell a kid his mother was a chimp or something. Geez.
How can we possibly provide a united front of evil if some of you can’t even get off of your lazy asses and help out around here?? Hey, back off, Girlfriend! My husband (heh, heh) and I are planning an especially raucous session of “Destroy the Family, the Cornerstone of Western Civilization” tonight, right after the “Changing Rooms” marathon on TLC. And then tomorrow we’re going shopping at Ikea—not because we need anything, but just because we like to flaunt our “lifestyle” in front of decent, normal suburbanites. We can only do so much in one weekend, y’know.
Jesus, people! Ix-nay on the alking-tay about our ans-play!
Man, you guys are lightweights, like destroying the Sun is the puny and pathetic limit of your imagination. THERE’S A WHOLE FREAKIN’ UNIVERSE OUT THERE PEOPLE!! DO I HAVE TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE? Okay, got a little excited there,but think of it. Gulags as far as the Hubble Telescope can see. And if there’s a multiverse—gives me goosebumps thinking about it. Sun my ass.
I see just as much idiocy from the left as from the right. A significant part of the problem is that people on both sides latch onto the more extreme rhetoric from the other side, and treat it as representative of that side. Look for those who condemn their own extremists as well as the other side’s. How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? It’s easy to think “not my problem—I don’t agree with him” but that lets the lazy or disingenuous attribute his views to a broad swath of the left. The same applies to ravings from the right. It doesn’t help that so many people insist their own side’s ranters are not nearly so extreme as the other side’s.
Not to mince words, this is insanity You mistyped fascism.
In all seriousness, isn’t the normalization of this sort of hateful hyperbole a common sociopolitical phenomenon? And what I’m getting at here is that it might signal intent? Insanely extreme accusations seem to outsiders and the unsympathetic to be incomprehensible and inexplicable. You can see it in Nazi antisemitic propoganda and numerous bloody ethnic conflicts. I think it’s an unconscious self-conditioning, a preparation for the justification of actions that would otherwise be unjustifiable. People know these accusations are so extreme as to be fantastical, but they indulge in them anyway because doing so serves a compelling psychological need.
How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? Shelby, there is a significant asymmetry at play in your example. I had never in my life even heard of Ward Churchill before Glenn Reynolds got all hot and bothered about him – and I actually read obscure Marxist academics. Be honest: had you ever heard of him before this contretemps? Conversely, instapundit.com averages over 160,000 visits per day and is linked to incessantly by bloggers on both sides of the ideological divide. It’s easy to think “not my problem — I don’t agree with him” Even easier to think “not my problem – I don’t have the first idea who that is.”
Moreover, I have yet to see a single lefty blogger mention the Churchill affair without calling him an idiot, at the very nicest. So to answer your question: pretty much all of them.
Shelby, While you’re intentions are good, I have to strongly disagree. What’s the next step? Loyalty oaths? I’m responsible for my actions, for my comments and for my behavior. Everyone else is responsible for their actions, their comments and their behavior. I am not obliged to do an auto da fé every time some nutcase who claims to come from my side of the political spectrum decides to bloviate in such a way as to call attention to themself. I don’t expect that from the right; perhaps they can afford me the same courtesy.
Look for those who condemn their own extremists as well as the other side’s. How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? Many on the left are still scratching their heads and saying “Who the fuck is Ward Churchill?” Which really shows you how important he is.
I think it is appropriate that Liberals want to destroy the sun: there is a rightwing site which sells t-shirts that say “Nuke the Moon!” on them. Religion is alive and well in America, but it is a highly dualist religion where each side identifies themselves with Ahur Mazda, and the other with Ahriman.
Keith Ellis nails it
Time for a fish fry, and sunfish taste the best! Wear proper head coverings! Haha.
Shelby :- “I see just as much idiocy from the left as from the right” Less torture, though.
Curses! Foiled again! My ingenious and diabolical plan to extinguish the sun, years in the making, was all set to come off without a hitch. And it would have been the most perfect liberal evil act in history too—-if not for you pesky war-bloggers.
Curses! Foiled again! My ingenious and diabolical plan to extinguish the sun, years in the making, was all set to come off without a hitch. And it would have been the most perfect liberal evil act in history too—-if not for you pesky war-bloggers.
Ward Churchill is a friggin idiot. Do I get my wingnut credibility pass now?
Ward Churchill isn’t even a registered tribal member much less a “leftist.”
As a center left voter of generally moderate views I have to say that I can’t see much difference between Jack O’Toole and Atrios. There seems to be an overall polarization, maybe that’s the way it always has been, but it does seem to be more bitter at present. But I wonder what difference it all makes. For every Instapundit there is a DailyKos. For every Juan Cole there is a Jonah Goldberg. Does anyone change their minds? It appears that all this sort of debate does is cement pre-existing loyalties.
It doesn’t help that so many people insist their own side’s ranters are not nearly so extreme as the other side’s. my side’s ranters aren’t calling for the other side’s extermination. my side’s ranters aren’t getting paid salaries like coulter or o’reilly, nor do they have the ears of millions as those two do. the worst you can say about my side’s ranters is that they are somewhat paranoid. except for the fact that every paranoid thing they have been warning about for the past four years has come true.
So, I’m supposed to think that the North Korean government is a liberal organization? No can do.
the worst you can say about my side’s ranters is that they are somewhat paranoid. Uh, no, that’s simply not true. The worst thing you can say about our side’s ranters – if by “my side” you mean “the left” – is actually something pretty horrifying: that the most extremist ones actively supported Islamist terrorists, or actively supported the mass-murdering monstrosities known as Stalinism or Maoism. Be realistic here. I mean, you could say that all those people “weren’t really leftists by definition”, but that would be disingenous, I think. However, extremists like Lynne Stewart, or the Spartacist League, are a tiny minority in the western left, and still tinier in the US left.
the worst you can say about my side’s ranters is that they are somewhat paranoid. Uh, no, that’s simply not true. The worst thing you can say about our side’s ranters – if by “my side” you mean “the left” – is actually something pretty horrifying: that the most extremist ones actively supported Islamist terrorists, or actively supported the mass-murdering monstrosities known as Stalinism or Maoism. Be realistic here. I mean, you could say that all those people “weren’t really leftists by definition”, but that would be disingenous, I think. However, extremists like Lynne Stewart, or the Spartacist League, are a tiny minority in the western left, and still tinier in the US left.
I feel that we have been wasting time here, fellow Sun-wreakers: who needs commentary when you can sit back and read homour like this: “Those whom the fall of the Berlin Wall had left orphans of a cause, spent the next decade plotting the containment of the US. It was a complex operation that involved the (in many cases state-sponsored) mushrooming of NGOs, Kyoto, the creation of the ICC, the salami tactics applied against America’s main strategic ally in the Middle-East, Israel, through the Trojan Horse of the Oslo agreements, the subversion of the sanctions against Iraq etc. I’m not as conspiratorially-minded as to think that all these efforts were in any way centralized or that they had some kind of master-plan behind them. It was above all the case of the spirit of the times converging, through many independent manifestations, towards a single goal. Nonetheless we can be sure that, after those manifestations reached a critical mass, there has been no lack of efforts to coordinate them.” ? This guy’s so bad, it’s like he’s doing a parody of a moronic rightist blogger.
Damn, he’s onto us. Yes, as a leftist, I’m all over cuddling up to countries where little girls are beaten back into burning buildings by thugs who are enforcing radical islam on the populace with the consent and complicity of the unelected ruling class. As a matter of fact, Laura and I had their ambassador and his wife over to the ranch soon after 9/11. Wanted them to know we didn’t hold it against them that most of the guys who slaughtered our people came from their country. I thought they might be a little sensitive about it, since she paid their rent out of her pin money.
So, we plan to manipulate adepts of a religion that most of us don’t deeply understand, and bend hundreds of cultures with which we have only a passing familiarity, toward the destruction of the West and bring its rich, powerful champion to its knees? If we could do that, how come we couldn’t win Ohio against a charming incompetent? The eliminationist strain batted around by Instacracker and his worse fellows would be funny, if it weren’t so serious. I suspect that this is a cheerleading for oppression. Also, does anyone know how the Islamists stand on Social Security privatization?
So, we plan to manipulate adepts of a religion that most of us don’t deeply understand, and bend hundreds of cultures with which we have only a passing familiarity, toward the destruction of the West and bring its rich, powerful champion to its knees? If we could do that, how come we couldn’t win Ohio against a charming incompetent? The eliminationist strain batted around by Instacracker and his worse fellows would be funny, if it weren’t so serious. I suspect that this is a cheerleading for oppression. Also, does anyone know how the Islamists stand on Social Security privatization?
Yeah, what apostropher said. Every time I mention Churchill I make fun of him. Is that distance enough for you? And what apostropher said, part II: Churchill teaches at U Colorado. Tom Coburn is in the US Senate. Rush Limbaugh has about the fattest contract in radio. And so on. I know, I’m preaching to the choir. But the Instant Pundit game has become a lot less funny recently.
Well, at least the question about whether “Reynoldsism” is a strawman has been definitively resolved. Yes, virtually the entire liberal Democratic west is opposed to liberal democracy and secretly in bed with Islamism. Just an airtight hypothesis!
Hmm, I’ve been called a Nazi and racist by leftists for a decade. I’m not feeling your pain much.
they are somewhat paranoid. Uh, no, that’s simply not true. (…) the most extremist ones actively supported Islamist terrorists, or actively supported the mass-murdering monstrosities known as Stalinism or Maoism. I don’t see the contradiction here.
It probably isn’t necessary to destroy the sun. Dark glasses and perhaps a hat suffice for us in southern climes. For those who dwell in another green and pleasant land, isn’t the existence of our local star generally conjectural?
As a generally polite, arguably mild-mannered liberal, I could find some slight gratification in the thought that views like mine evoke fear and alarm from the other side… That is, I would if I didn’t know that they felt threatened by everything else they encountered, from bare tits to Arab musicians, threadbare tyrannies and low-riding jeans. Why is fear so addictive?
And so the penny finally begins to drop, as intellectuals on the left – or in the center for that matter – begin to realise that the modern right isn’t just a bunch of people with a different point of view, or for that matter a group of fellow seekers after knowledge who’d be prepared to have a clever-clever debate with you about casualty figures or philosophy. These people genuinely hate you. They want power and they will do anything to get it – including calling their enemies pro-terrorist at the drop of a hat. And clearly, power is the name of the game here – and it always has been. If they genuinely cared about terrorism, they wouldn’t be so farcically incompetent about dealing with it. No, these guys want to get as much power and authority as they can and sit on it for as long as possible. So, its nice to see that people are finally waking up to the fact that the “West Wing” model of political relations, where the Right are a bunch of principled people with whose principles we happen to disagree, is absolute piffle. Simple question for those who think I’m being alarmist: has the right ever done anything that wasn’t basically in the interests of the rich? And if not, why on earth should they be permitted to get away with that? And for that matter, what makes you think they give a shit about you, if you aren’t rich? Well, that’s three questions. But I think they go straight to the heart of the matter.
I don’t hear any of this “lefty treason” crap in my normal meat life. Here in Australia, at work and at play, no one seems to give a shit about such things and would pretty much assume that anyone who criticised Howard, Bush or et al was not also secretly plotting the overthrow of western civilisation. Sometimes the blogosphere really is a feedbacking echo chamber. SOMETIMES the blogosphere REALLY IS a feedbacking ECHO Chamber!! SOMETIMES THE BLOGOSPHERE REALLY IS A FEEDBACKING ECHO CHAMBER
“How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? “
It’s hard for me to distance myself from somebody I hadn’t heard of until last week.
“How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? “
It’s hard for me to distance myself from somebody I hadn’t heard of until last week.
“How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? “
It’s hard for me to distance myself from somebody I hadn’t heard of until last week.
Posted by Shelby · February 11, 2005 11:43 PM “How many on the left are making any effort to distance themselves from Ward Churchill? “
It’s hard for me to distance myself from somebody I hadn’t heard of until last week.
Nabakov: the echo chamber effect is just a byproduct of Crooked Timber’s crooked software. Nothing takes the sparkle off a one-liner like seeing it reposted four times.
(No disrespect to Steve Jandreau intended. I almost did the same thing myself…)
I am ashamed to say, though I have a subscription to Libération and a peace flag hanging out my window, I haven’t done enough in my lifetime to help tie down America’s superior strength. I do, however, enjoy tying down Americans, and they enjoy it, too. Only $150 an hour. Fully booked ‘til 2007. Sorry. Wish I could do more for the cause.
What’s most striking is Ascher’s irrationality and distance from reality. Does he know nothing about 20th century history? Doesn’t he realise that except in France and Italy most of the western Left was never pro-soviet (WW2 excepted)? Doesn’t he know what politicians like Attlee, Bevin, Blum and Ramadier were doing at the beginning of the cold war? Can he back up his statement that the western Left (and not just a few insane groupuscules) is supporting terrorism with actual evidence? He ends up sounding like one of the Communist hacks George Orwell quoted in Homage to Catalonia. Did Glenn Reynolds actually think before agreeing with these comments?
More seriously: this has to stop. Too late, the Damage has been done. The rift between George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac does not concern me so much. These things happen, and anyway they kind of deserve each other. You really should not compare a mildly crooked but accomplished politician like Chirac to the imcompetant lying kleptocratic & fascist sack of sh*t that came to power thru a coup. The large and widening rift between the people of Europe (and not only Europe—Canada, Australia, and the Latin American democracies too) and people of the United States, though—that is not good. That is really quite worrisome. This is what happens when you start preventive wars and occupy a soverein state, and when you can’t stop threatening people!! The E.U., NATO, the western alliance—for all the posturing, for all the debates and summits that don’t accomplish anything, for all the silly bureaucracy and sillier comic books glorifying it, they have really made the world a better place for many, many people these last sixty-odd years. What has happened to Western Europe since 1945, and for a number of countries in Eastern Europe since 1989 (with some obvious glaring exceptions—namely Russia and the Balkans) has got to be one of the most amazing changes for the better in human history. NATO is dead, with any luck the EU will become a political & military counter weight to the US. It can survive Chirac and Bush. But it cannot survive if the people of the free democracies give up on one another. The people of a free democracy elected a leader that started an illegal war ,is occupying a foreign state, has condoned torture, and is in the process of working up the populace for another war (I won’t even discuss his economic policies).
Saigon Downer, nothing takes the sparkle off a one post gag that depends on a formating stunt like being mistaken for someone else’s multiple posts. Although I think Steve J got it.
And so the penny finally begins to drop, as intellectuals on the left – or in the center for that matter – begin to realise that the modern right isn’t just a bunch of people with a different point of view, or for that matter a group of fellow seekers after knowledge who’d be prepared to have a clever-clever debate with you about casualty figures or philosophy. These people genuinely hate you. That’s just it, though—I know a lot of people who are part of “the right”, in my family and at my workplace. And as far as I can tell, they don’t personally hate me. They’re not plotting to murder me. They hate a cartoon liberal who lives in outer space. Sometimes they try to convince me I’m wrong. If asked they’d probably profess puzzlement at my liberalism and describe me as atypical of those bastards. If Fox News told my aunt to strangle me in my bed, I doubt she’d do it. So I’m not going to play the “hate them back” game. Hate the powerful sleazebags who are lying to them, sure.
The last unitalicized line was supposed to be part of the quote… oh never mind.
For every Juan Cole there is a Jonah Goldberg. This is a bit like saying for every Gershom Sholem there’s a Henry Ford. Juan Cole is one of the leading scholars on Iraq. Jonah Goldberg, by his own admission, has never read a single book about Iraq (which arguably puts him a bit behind Henry Ford, who had at least read “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which, while a libelous, antisemitic forgery, is at least a book about the Jews). If we are to take Goldberg and Cole as representatives of the right and left on Iraq, the comparison speaks volumes about why this is not a symmetrical situation, either in terms of power or knowledge.
What everyone has already said about Ward Churchill—his obscurity, the extent to which his views are out of step with the vast majority of both liberals and the left, and the willingness of the left blogosphere to separate itself from those views quite unprompted—are all correct. But it’s worth adding one more thing to this litany. Even Ward Churchill’s “bets” are not on “radical Islam.” Gareth Wilson quotes Churchill saying “I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether.” Certainly opposed to the U.S. But where’s the support for radical Islam? I certainly don’t know Ward Churchill’s beliefs in any detail. But, as this quote suggests, he seems if anything to be something of an anarchist. Last I checked, supporters of “radical Islam” tend to be theocrats who believe in a robust and repressive state. What’s the point? Churchill is, once again, a side show. We have still yet to see a single example of a leftist, however obscure, who’s supporting radical Islam. Even Churchill won’t fit the bill.
If Fox News told my aunt to strangle me in my bed, I doubt she’d do it. Hopefully she’ll be willing to hide you in her cellar for a few years. Lucky bastard.
Gareth Wilson quotes Churchill saying “I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether.” ben, I read that interview, he was talking of some crazy futuristic/nostalgic idea of substituting the US with a sort of Native-American style alliance of small nations. (I’m one of those who never heard of Ward Churchill until last week, so I had to go and look up some interviews and articles to get an idea.) Doesn’t sound much like a caliphate to me. But what do I know. Here’s the rest of that quote: bq. So what does that look like? There’s no U.S. in America anymore. What’s on the map instead? Well let’s just start with territoralities often delineated in treaties of fact—territoralities of 500 indigenous nations imbued with an inalienable right to self-determination, definable territoralities which are jurisdictionally separate. Then you’ve got things like the internal diasporic population of African Americans in internal colonies that have been established by the imposition of labor patterns upon them. You’ve got Appalachian whites. Since the U.S. unilaterally violated its treaty obligations, it forfeits its rights—or presumption of rights—under international law. Basically, you’ve got a dismantlement and devolution of the U.S. territorial and jurisdictional corpus into something that would be more akin to diasporic self-governing entities and a multiplicity of geographical locations. A-ha, chew on that one for awhile. A-ha, yeah, dude. That would be, like, so cool. Although, I personally would prefer a confederation of free-love hippie communes where private property is abolished, except for private cd collections, whose theft is punished by sentencing the culprit to three months in a recording studio with squeaking monkeys. I think my vision for the New America would be more feasible, too. Everyone on The Left™, please, distance yourselves from me now, or be forever damned by association. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. (I have a feeling I know which listed crime Churchill could be, like millions of others, actually found guilty of, but I’m not a snitch.)
Hmm, I’ve been called a Nazi and racist by leftists for a decade. I’m not feeling your pain much. I never have, Sevastian, which yet again goes to the heart of the matter: 1.) When you use a broad brush to paint an entire group the same, you smear. 2.) Hold those responsible for their actions, not someone else’s. Got it?
Sorry, that’s a typo. I know, of course that your name is Sebastian.
I know it’s nice to mock these fools, and it is REALLY good title, but let’s not shilly-shally about it: there’s part of us that would like American governmental power to be given a bloody nose. That’s not the same as supporting the agenda of the people who might give it a bloody nose, and it’s not the only thing we care about – all the stuff Radical Islam is against, we’re pretty much for, for example – but we do think that one of the ways to stop America from running round the world, invading places, f*cking them up and exploiting their resources is by people making it difficult for them to do that.
You’re an idiot
You’re an idiot
there’s part of us that would like American governmental power to be given a bloody nose No, there’s a part of you that feels that way.
This is what happens when you read too much Instaborg. The solution for that is: don’t read Instaborg. The problem is that Big Media takes their cues from him and the other right-wing crazies, so we have to read him to figure out what bullshit trial balloons are being launched so we can have a hope of countering them before Big Media starts trumpeting them to all and sundry.
This is what happens when you read too much Instaborg. The solution for that is: don’t read Instaborg. The problem is that Big Media takes their cues from him and the other right-wing crazies, so we have to read him to figure out what bullshit trial balloons are being launched so we can have a hope of countering them before Big Media starts trumpeting them to all and sundry.
Sorry, Rob. I don’t want “America” to be given a bloody nose. I don’t even want happy authoritarian enablers like Glenn or Asher to be proven wrong, or see bumblers like Bush or Rice get their just desserts, if it means people, especially American people, will be maimed, or killed, or made destitute. I object to this neocon, American-greatness, think-tank sponsored parade precisely because I think it will lead to an enormity far worse than some “bloody nose”, one that the United States will not escape, even if we do not suffer the worst of it. Which we might. I like to think that it’s our side that wants to keep Americans alive, while it’s the 101 Fighting Keyboard Regiment that treats us as the fodder that feeds their grand ambitions.
Brilliant post. Rebranding the right shouldn’t be so hard, should it? I mean, what if NOW started a campaign against the advocacy of traditional sex roles by Pat Robertson and Ayatollah Khamenei, while the Union of Concerned Scientists criticize Putin and Rumsfeld for encouraging proliferation, and human rights groups criticize the slaughter of innocents in Fallujah and New York. We need a concerted effort to show that right-wing is right-wing across the globe, one that will make it clear that the fellow travellers these days are Republicans.
…would like American governmental power to be given a bloody nose… Not the American governmental power as such necessarily, but the bastards who usurped it. I don’t think somebody like Bertolt Brecht, for example, wanted Germany to be harmed – only the Nazis; probably only the top Nazies. The Nazis getting a bloody nose would be good for Germany.
And, I’d add, directly on topic: Who is it, really, who misses so much the Soviet Union? I don’t think it’s us American liberals, who by and large enjoyed seeing the fall of a totalitarian empire and the peaceful maturation (in some places, at least) of democratic institutions. No, Ascher and his acolytes are engaging in that right-wing sport: projection. These are people, as a group, who longed for an adversary like the one who threatened dear old Dad—literally, in the case of the Kristol family—because it called our nation to high purpose. Some of them, I read, greeted 11 September with horror, of course, but also with a relieved sense of calling and a rush to that well-thumbed volume of Winston Churchill’s orations. One can see it in the rhetoric today that inflates a virulent few fanatical criminals, and fat, impotent mass-murdering tyrant like Saddam Hussein, with the Third Reich or Stalin. And, I think, that’s the crime of us liberals, as far as the Ascher-ilk is concerned: we think Osama bin Laden is beneath contempt and should be scrubbed out as a matter of course, but is man who can’t destroy our polity, and we viewed Saddam Hussein and see Iran without real worry, confident in our power to crush any nation should it strike. We won’t agree that these petty thugs are the challenge of our time and that we are called to eliminate it and establish an empire suitable to us it its place.
With these sorts of bozos, I occasionally like bringing up Saint Reagan’s appeasement of the Soviet Union not to mention funnelling money to the mujahedin in Afghanistan. Oh, and who knows what happened in the autumn of 1980 between Reagan’s campaign team and Iran? It’d be easy to ignore Perfesser Alfalfa if Howie Kurtz didn’t have him on bloody speed-dial.
What I was trying to say was that, given that the left would generally prefer the US not to act in the way it does in foreign policy, things which make it more difficult for the US to act in the way it does in foreign policy have something to be said for them, specifically, that they make it more difficult for the US to act in the way it does in foreign policy. In the huge majority of cases, that’s nothing like the be-all-and-end-all, but it is a consideration of some kind, even if that consideration is vastly outweighed by the horror of violence against anyone. It remains a consideration, I think, probably a prudential consideration, but a consideration none the less. Think of it this way: if there hadn’t been a substanial resistance/insurgency in Iraq, there probably be marines in Iran. If it’s a good that there aren’t marines in Iran, that’s something in favour of the resistance/insurgency. Obviously, blowing innocent people up is wrong: it’s wrong when Americans do it, and it’s wrong when Iraqis do it. But that doesn’t destroy the fact that successful resistance to American power prevents it being used elsewhere.
“Liberals have yearned to destroy the sun??” Well, it will have to be replaced eventually, and look what it did to Mars.
We want to destroy the sun? In broad daylight?? Is this what comes from asking why Osama came after us? Is there no conceivable reason why this question should be asked? As I recall, his six or seven points all made sense.
ben alpers wrote: For every Juan Cole there is a Jonah Goldberg. This is a bit like saying for every Gershom Sholem there’s a Henry Ford. Juan Cole is one of the leading scholars on Iraq. Jonah Goldberg, by his own admission, has never read a single book about Iraq (which arguably puts him a bit behind Henry Ford, who had at least read “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which, while a libelous, antisemitic forgery, is at least a book about the Jews). If we are to take Goldberg and Cole as representatives of the right and left on Iraq, the comparison speaks volumes about why this is not a symmetrical situation, either in terms of power or knowledge. Exactly. There’s this false symmetry going on here. And, Goldberg is a nationally syndicated columnist whose essays are printed in hundreds if not thousands of newspapers; Cole has a website. There is no symmetry. It’s a lie.
St. Reagan also bears significant responsibility for inspiring terrorists by his tail-between-the-legs retreat from Lebanon in the early 1980’s following the attack on the Marine barracks. Don’t ever think that bin Laden didn’t take note of that.
Who is it, really, who misses so much the Soviet Union? I don’t think it’s us American liberals, who by and large enjoyed seeing the fall of a totalitarian empire and the peaceful maturation (in some places, at least) of democratic institutions. I hope that I can say this without later getting branded a neo-Stalinist moonbat etc., but I just read (via Yglesias an article pointing out that Russian men’s life expectancy has dropped by 5 years since 1990, complete with this quote: “Normally only during wartime do we see the kind of decreases in men’s longevity that we’ve seen recently in Russia.” (Women have not been so badly affected.) So while the fall of a truly evil regime was great, and the spread of democratic institutions in Eastern and Central Europe was fantastic. But there is some reason to reject subsequent events in Russia. (This doesn’t mean I want to destroy the US and its society, as I hope is clear.)
“reject” should be “regret” (in the faith that the last comment went through).
Reagan didn’t just help bring about terrorism by running from Lebanon. You’re thinking of terror against us. Reagan was an enthusiastic supporter of almost every blood-soaked, baby-killing mass murderer who called himself an anti-communist. That’s terror against others. Some people notice, particularly the others.
I don’t hear any of this “lefty treason” crap in my normal meat life. You live in Australia. In America, it’s real. No, your conservative relatives don’t hate you personally, but you’re different, you’re just misguided and will come around. They have forceful yet soothing electronic devices in their homes that tell them all day every day that Liberals are evil and out to ruin the nation, gently easing them back into the fold after scary, nauseating moments when people like you make them think otherwise.
“Hmm, I’ve been called a Nazi and racist by leftists for a decade. I’m not feeling your pain much.” by which leftists, specifically? Some jerks you met? Or a healthy and increasing %, if not an outright majority, of the left-of-center media?
The ‘want to destroy the sun’ bit is over the top, of course, but there’s not denying there has been some level of cozying up to the Islamofascists on the left. On the far left, we find Saddam’s new buddy Ramsey Clark, for example, and Lynn Stewart. Less extreme, we have Michael Moore’s idyllic picture-postcard images of pre-war Iraq. And then there is the purely pragmatic (I almost said ‘Machiavellian’) cozying of the type we’ve seen in the comments here, to wit: “…we do think that one of the ways to stop America from running round the world, invading places, f*cking them up and exploiting their resources is by people making it difficult for them to do that.” In other words, we don’t support the goals of the Islamofascists, but hey if their terror helps frustrate the U.S.’s purposes in the world—well, we’re willing to overlook suicide bombings, the imposition of sharia, the repression of women, etc. What else? Well, we have the grudging…always heavily qualified support of the Iraqi election (like the elections in Afghanistan before them). We have Juan Cole passing on the speculation that Iraqi liberal bloggers may well be CIA agents based on no evidence at all…for no reason other than their form liberalism includes supports Bush in Iraq. We have leftists on American college campuses embracing Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And so on. So yes, article in question is over the top. But there’s no denying there’s a DEEP current of anti-Americanism on the left that regards Bush’s America as a greater danger to the world than the Islamic terrorists. I doesn’t strike me that most commenters here are even disputing that.
Best post title ever? Yeah, I suppose if lifting lines from the Simpsons is your idea of wit, but isn’t that more Chickenhack Goldberg’s speed? “Worst title ever.”
Deceptive quoting in this post. Although Reynolds does link to Ascher’s article the only piece he quotes, and agrees with in his post, does not include any of the material quoted here. He may or may not agree with the bolded statement – why not ask him? – but “Sigh. I wish he were wrong.” doesn’t apply to it.
My question is: how can we be Islamofascists and Saddamites at the same time? That sort of cognitive dissonance is reserved for the Republican Party (who actually did court Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden at the same time).
Hmm, I’ve been called a Nazi and racist by leftists for a decade. I’m not feeling your pain much. I’m thinking it probably wasn’t too painful for you at the time. You seem to enjoy prodding “leftists” (a group you don’t really know very much about, at least judging from your writings on the subject) and making them yell. By and large, readers to the left of yourself who still visit your site are big fans of the same kind of communication you enjoy. If you spend your time hunting for Bad Things to hang a lefty label on and squabbling with people who share your kink for squatting near the water source, you’re most likely going to have a – special – view of the world.
And now mw has stepped forward with more nominees for the first identified lefty to support radical Islam. Let’s see what he’s got shall we? 1) Ramsay Clark. Certainly a fringe figure, but since we’re still searching any sign of pro-radical Islam views on the left, we need to check him out. What’s mw’s brief on Clark? That he’s defended Saddam Hussein. Well, he has. But perhaps mw didn’t get the memo: Saddam Hussein, odious though he may have been, had nothing whatsoever to do with radical Islam. Radical Islamists hated Saddam Hussein, who was a secular Arab nationalist. So much for Ramsay Clark. 2) Lynn Stewart. Gotta admit I had to look this one up. Lynn Stewart was the lawyer for Sheik Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian cleric convicted in his involvement with the 1995 World Trade Center bombings. I’m not sure what her politics are. Surely acting as a defense attorney for somebody is not the same thing as endorsing their political viewpoint. 3) Michael Moore (somehow I knew he’d show up eventually) for his “idyllic picture-postcard images of pre-war Iraq.” I’d disagree with the description of his depiction of pre-war Iraq, but that’s beside the point, as pre-war Iraq had nothing to do with radical Islam. 4) All those who don’t support the Iraqi elections with sufficient enthusiasm. Actually, those in favor of a more theocratic Iraq were the big winners in these elections, so I’m a bit puzzled by this. At any rate, I don’t see how skepticism about these elections—let alone insufficiently robust support—constitutes endorsing radical Islam. 5) Juan Cole. For speculating—no wait—passing on someone else’s speculation that two Iraqi bloggers may have had CIA connections. Again, not sure how this constitutes supporting radical Islam, especially as Cole has written strongly, repeatedly, and expressly against radical Islam, as anyone who actually read his blog would know. 6) “Leftists on American college campuses embracing Hamas and Islamic Jihad.” Not so much, I’d say. At any rate, this is one of those utterly nonspecific, gross generalizations with which this whole conversation started. So we’ve yet to find a single example of a phenomenon that the rightwing of the blogosphere says is widespread. Oh…at the end of mw’s post, it turns out that the problem is this was just an exaggeration. What they’re really saying is that “there’s no denying there’s a DEEP current of anti-Americanism on the left that regards Bush’s America as a greater danger to the world than the Islamic terrorists.” First, this is an entirely different claim (i.e. one can argue about the relative dangers of two evils without in any way endorsing the less dangerous one). Secondly, I’m not at all sure that even this is entirely a fair characterization of the left, many of whom believe that Bush’s policies actually strengthen and encourage radical Islam (so it’s not really an either/or question in the first place). So we still haven’t found our Islamofascist leftist. And perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. As Atrios, digby, and many others have pointed out, Islamic fundamentalists have much, much more in common with the right than the left. But we have learned something in this little exercise. The root assumption that lets mw and others make this claim while ignoring the little stumbling block of the facts is the strictly manichaean way they view the world. If you are not in lockstep support of the Bush administration, you are with the enemy. Opposition to Bush = support for Islamic fundamentalism. That’s really all there is to their “argument.”
But there’s no denying there’s a DEEP current of anti-Americanism on the left that regards Bush’s America as a greater danger to the world than the Islamic terrorists. That Bush’s America as a greater danger to the world (indeed, the greatest danger) than the Islamic terrorists is the most obvious and commonly accepted opinon in the world. And who if not the World should know what’s the greatest danger to the World? Michael Moore’s idyllic picture-postcard images of pre-war Iraq It sure was idyllic compare to what it is now; so what’s the problem with Moore’s images? If a place is not perfect you have a right to bomb it into the stone age – is that it?
Didn’t you know? They don’t call the authorities because the FBI and Interpol are in on the conspiracy.
Hmm, I’ve been called a Nazi and racist by leftists for a decade. I’m not feeling your pain much. That’s ok
you’ll get over it
I h’ve been called unAmerican, AntiAmerican & a traitor despite having served 4 years in the Corps by shit-heads who have never worn a uniform in their lives & who can’t wait to send other people’s kids to war!
But there’s no denying there’s a DEEP current of anti-Americanism on the left that regards Bush’s America as a greater danger to the world than the Islamic terrorists.
On a really bad day if every thing goes their way the average Terrorist Organization can kill a few thousand people, on a bad day Shrub can turn this planet into a radio active lump of stone orbiting an unimportant star at the edge of a not particularly noticeable galaxy.
We have leftists on American college campuses embracing Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Dear me. What is the world coming to. Maybe college fees should be raised so students wouldn’t have all that extra money to pour into jihadi training and recruiting. They’re financing more “freedom” fighters than the CIA ever did. Honestly. The government has to do something about that. If only for the sake of historical reputation. The CIA outsmarted by students, for gosh’s sake. It has to stop. Just out of curiosity: how do that other notoriously traitorous bunch bent on destroying real American values, the GLBT people, fare in respect to their leftist credentals these days? How do they manage to be for gay marriage and bin Laden at the same time? It must take some talent. But there’s no denying there’s a DEEP current of anti-Americanism on the left that regards Bush’s America as a greater danger to the world than the Islamic terrorists. True. I guess that wacky belief that the danger may come from both those items at the same time my have some basis in the perception that Bush’s America’s policies have helped to create more terrorists than the world ever remembers. But that perception is totally unsupported, of course. Just another of those crazy stories leftists make up to justify their hatred. Hate is all they have because their great hero, Stalin, is gone. Che Guevara is dead. Castro isn’t looking very healthy either. Michael Moore is fat and rich. And those stalinist Democrat candidates keep losing elections. Have some pity on the poor bastards.
MW: You’re grossly mis-characterizing Juan Cole’s reference to another blogger’s speculation that American interests might “astroturf” in the Iraqi blogosphere for American consumption, given the minority views certain Iraqi bloggers represented and past acts of clandestine public diplomacy by the United States. (Not to mention the recent exposure of Administration pundit-buying.) You can read the account of this smear on his own website. What Cole actually did was insufficiently reprehensible to tar liberals, so it had to be exaggerated by the Noise Machine. Liberal objections to the Iraqi elections amount to simply not being tearfully swept away by their only having taken place. Will they result in a stable government, and an independent one, that has the backing of the Iraqi people to the point that the government can field police and military forces sufficient to monoplolize violence, yet preserve liberty? Or will they lead to civil war or, as so far in Afghanistan, a kind of tribalist criminal enterprise? Because, this isn’t the first triumphalist incident we’ve witnessed in the past two years, and some of us are kind of worried that we could spend $200 billion and thousands of lives, not a few of them American, and end up with a “Saddam Lite” or a theocracy with “the imposition of sharia, the repression of women, etc.”. (And we’ve sown Iraq with Islamist suicide bombings on the way.) We want results, not genuine televised, heartfelt sentiments at Iraqi polling stations that are later disappointed, or nearly-staged moments of televised Iraqi gratitude in the SotU gallery. As for Palestine, we want an enfranchised Palestinian people living independently alongside a Jewish republic, or we want a single, larger non-ethnic state uniting Israeli Arabs (including the Palestinians) and Jews in its governance. The general Left no more supports Islamic Jihad’s rocket attacks than the general Right supports Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian schoolgirls. Hard for me to see this desire as either anti-American or anti-democratic, but then, I’m not killing time before the Rapture. If there’s a deep current of anti-Americanism on the Left, I neither see it here or anywhere. What we demonstrate is a refusal to drink deeply of the Flav-r-Aid that is being poured out by the national greatness crowd, or to acknowledge that Bush is somehow supernaturally ordained as our Generational Leader and to be granted extralegal authority. Indeed, it’s our unwillingness to redefine Americanism away from a love for our historic rule of law, our eagerness to lead by example, for transparency and accountability in government, and into some kind of providential, nationalistic imperialism riding on a cult of personality that the Right finds most infuriating.
I know it’s nice to mock these fools, and it is REALLY good title, but let’s not shilly-shally about it: there’s part of us that would like American governmental power to be given a bloody nose. That’s not the same as supporting the agenda of the people who might give it a bloody nose, and it’s not the only thing we care about – all the stuff Radical Islam is against, we’re pretty much for, for example – but we do think that one of the ways to stop America from running round the world, invading places, f*cking them up and exploiting their resources is by people making it difficult for them to do that. If Americans can’t understand this perspective, try this as an analogy: how did you feel during the eighties when you heard about the Soviet Union being given a bloody nose in Afghanistan? Assuming that, as I did, you felt a certain grim satisfaction at the thought, did that mean you supported everything the mujahadeen stood for, or just their right to fight for their freedom against an occupying empire? I don’t support journalists getting their heads cut off. I don’t support Al Qaeda flying planes into NY skyscrapers. I don’t support the slow slide into civil war Iraq seems likely to follow. But I don’t have any problem at all with Iraqis blowing up or shooting American soldiers engaged in occupying their country after an illegal invasion.
Hey Phonecian, my brother is a Marine who has lost friends in Iraq, and he is himself going to be deploying there himself in a few months. I would very, very much like to see what happened if you or one of your fellow keyboard guerillas expressed those same sentiments face to face.
“I’m not sure what her politics are. Surely acting as a defense attorney for somebody is not the same thing as endorsing their political viewpoint.” I don’t know how I ever managed without Wikipedia. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Stewart Acting as a defense attorney is fine. What she did wasn’t, and the flurry of liberal groups sticking up for her right to organise terrorism is shameful.
Hey Phonecian, my brother is a Marine who has lost friends in Iraq, and he is himself going to be deploying there himself in a few months. I would very, very much like to see what happened if you or one of your fellow keyboard guerillas expressed those same sentiments face to face. Thank you for that well-reasoned and rational response to my analogy. As I understand it, the Soviet veterans of the Afghani adventure were a bit upset with people condemning the war when they got home, too. Which, I guess, made Russian occupation of Afghanistan okay, right? Try harder, Andrew. I’m not an American; explain to me what the moral difference between the two situations is, rather than blustering about your brother being able to kick my ass.
Hey Phonecian, my brother is a Marine who has lost friends in Iraq, and he is himself going to be deploying there himself in a few months. I would very, very much like to see what happened if you or one of your fellow keyboard guerillas expressed those same sentiments face to face. Thank you for that well-reasoned and rational response to my analogy. As I understand it, the Soviet veterans of the Afghani adventure were a bit upset with people condemning the war when they got home, too. Which, I guess, made Russian occupation of Afghanistan okay, right? Try harder, Andrew. I’m not an American; explain to me what the moral difference between the two situations is, rather than blustering about your brother being able to kick my ass.
If you honestly cannot figure out the difference between the U.S. in Iraq and the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan, then there is really no way to have a conversation with you. So by all means, sit there cheering on each bombing from the comfort and safety of your living room feeling smugly superior to the evil Americans.
If you honestly cannot figure out the difference between the U.S. in Iraq and the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan, then there is really no way to have a conversation with you. Explain it to us in the rest of the world, Andrew. Huffing and blustering do not an argument make.
If Americans can’t understand this perspective, try this as an analogy: how did you feel during the eighties when you heard about the Soviet Union being given a bloody nose in Afghanistan? Assuming that, as I did, you felt a certain grim satisfaction at the thought, did that mean you supported everything the mujahadeen stood for, or just their right to fight for their freedom against an occupying empire? That is EXACTLY the problem—those on the left see the two situations as analogous. They see an equivalence between the gulag-building, show-trialing, totalitarian Soviet Union and the United States. That, in a nutshell, is IT. Thank you. If you’ll recall, the Soviet Union did not invade countries in order to set up democratic regimes and withdraw (as the U.S. did in Japan and western Europe after WWII). Instead, the U.S.S.R. invaded to set up client states and re-invaded them periodically as necessary when they started to get too liberal and democratic (first East Germany, then Hungary, Czeslovakia, and Poland). Remember the Iron Curtain? Remember how they used to shoot people who tried to ‘escape’ from their own coutries? So no I don’t see Afghanistan in the 80’s and Iraq in the 00’s as analogous because I see fundamental differences in the nature of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. and their goals in the world? Those on the left? Some do. Peter Beinart definitely does, for example. But many clearly just don’t.
If Americans can’t understand this perspective, try this as an analogy: how did you feel during the eighties when you heard about the Soviet Union being given a bloody nose in Afghanistan? Assuming that, as I did, you felt a certain grim satisfaction at the thought, did that mean you supported everything the mujahadeen stood for, or just their right to fight for their freedom against an occupying empire? That is EXACTLY the problem—those on the left see the two situations as analogous. They see an equivalence between the gulag-building, show-trialing, totalitarian Soviet Union and the United States. That, in a nutshell, is IT. Thank you. If you’ll recall, the Soviet Union did not invade countries in order to set up democratic regimes and withdraw (as the U.S. did in Japan and western Europe after WWII). Instead, the U.S.S.R. invaded to set up client states and re-invaded them periodically as necessary when they started to get too liberal and democratic (first East Germany, then Hungary, Czeslovakia, and Poland). Remember the Iron Curtain? Remember how they used to shoot people who tried to ‘escape’ from their own coutries? So no I don’t see Afghanistan in the 80’s and Iraq in the 00’s as analogous because I see fundamental differences in the nature of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. and their goals in the world? Those on the left? Some do. Peter Beinart definitely does, for example. But many clearly just don’t.
In response to my denial that Lynne Stewart is our elusive leftwing supporter of Islamic fundamentalism, Gareth Wilson writes: “I don’t know how I ever managed without Wikipedia. Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Stewart Acting as a defense attorney is fine. What she did wasn’t, and the flurry of liberal groups sticking up for her right to organise terrorism is shameful.” I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about the Stewart case (I already have admitted as much). But here’s how the Wikipedia article that Gareth linked to describes the position of Stewart’s supporters: “Supporters of Stewart alleged that the Government was charging her for her defense and speech for the rights of her client. They believed that Stewart’s efforts to release communications from her client were part of an appropriate defense method of trying to gain public awareness and support. They also expressed alarm that wiretraps and hidden cameras authorized by the Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act had been used by the Government in order to gather evidence against Stewart, which they called a violation of attorney-client privilege. Some of Stewart’s supporters have included the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, who both filed amicus briefs in support of Stewart. They expressed fear that the prosecution for zealous defense tactics could cause attorneys to become fearful of defending alleged terrorists and deprive individuals of their constitutional right to due process.” I don’t see any support for radical Islam in any of that. There are all kinds of arguments one might make against this defense, but the argument is simply not at all on the correctness of Stewart’s clients’ political views, let alone their terrorist tac