>My frustration in these discussions is that basic arguments I make are
>distorted, not because I think the anti-bombers are of bad faith, but
>because there is a resistance to any argument that does not follow
>traditional left orthodoxy. The lack of understanding (or
>misrepresentation) of the argument is just the sign of that intellectual
>conservatism.
Nathan, this is the same trick that Camille Paglia and Hilton Kramer have deployed with depressing frequency and success: spinning a conventional opinion as somehow freshly transgressive and counterhegemonic. The U.S. is the world's dominant power; most of NATO's members are its junior partners. They have nothing in common with the PLO or the IRA or any other plucky set of initials you want to compare them to. If calling imperialist war a bad thing makes me conservative and stuck in some old orthodoxy, so be it.
Doug