How are the WWP hypocrites? Because they don't say that they are for the US's defeat by anti-imperial forces, which would be honest, but instead create a front group that only speaks of opposing war in general. To quote one of the initial paragraphs of their original call:
"Unless we stop President Bush and NATO from carrying out a new, wider war in the Middle East, the number of innocent victims will grow from the thousands to the tens of thousands and possibly more. A new, wider U.S. and NATO war in the Middle East can only lead to an escalating cycle of violence. War is not the answer."
That is the sum total of analysis of the war in Afghanistan by the IAC/International ANSWER folks which they based the call to rallies upon. The hypocrisy is that they privately (outside their front group) justify the murder of "innocent victims" by the Soviets and think war was very much the answer when conducted by the Soviets. Too bad this same anlysis - of "escalating cycle of violence" - had not been applied by them to the Soviet invasion.
That so many folks justify these double-standards is at least one reason why the left gets pinned with the "hate America" label- yep, it's okay for the Soviets to invade Afghanistan, but even when 5000 Americans are murdered, the US should be attacked.
There are honest leftists who opposed both US and Soviet attacks on Afghanistan, but by associating with the IAC/WWP, they lose a lot of credibility.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Farmelant
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: Workers World Support for War in Afghanistan- by the Soviets of course
Perhaps, I have missed something but I was unware that
the WWP were passing themselves off as pacifists. If they
are, perhaps Nathan would do us the favor of providing us
with appropriate citations. If they are not, then how
can they be accused of being hypocrites because they
pick and choose which wars to support, and which to
oppose. That is after what most of us, who are not
absolute pacifists do, and I don't think that makes
one necessarily a hypocrite because one might choose
in a particular instance to support an antiwar movement
even though one is not in general a pacifist.
Also, I would like Nathan's opinion of whether he thinks
that Afghanistan would be better off today, if the Soviet
invasion had been successful.
Jim F.
On Mon, 19 Nov 2001 14:42:44 -0500 "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org> writes:
Just to note the real hypocrisy of the Workers World folks in the present "antiwar movement"-- they were vociferous supporters of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, in fact denouncing Gorbachev and Shevardnadze for ending the war and apologizing for it. They dismissed their views as "bourgois pacifism." The WWP's contempt for "bourgois pacificism" and those who would "humiliate the military" might come as a surprise to many of the people attending their "antiwar" rallies. I'm attaching Sam Marcy's 1991 analysis of a late 80s speech by Shevardnadze where he defends "defensive war" in the name of the Soviet national interests - a line of argument I am sure George Bush would find quite comfortable for his own purposes.
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