Again, I would recommend that Guardian piece about the importance of leftist coalition-building ("Peace by precision" by Gary Younge) that I posted to the list earlier today. Sectarian squabbling may be one of the left's most time-honored traditions, but it constitutes rank self-indulgence in the face of the current challenge.
Nathan said in a recent LBO post that US "policy in Afghanistan is already collapsing of its own wrongheaded weight." But the left can't take any such near-term collapse for granted. The US lived in denial *for years* concerning the fact its Vietnam policy was not tenable.
This nation has an awesome capacity for obstinate idiocy, for redoubling its efforts on losing sight of its objectives. Consider, for instance, this bugle call from David Brooks in the current Weekly Standard:
"Obviously nobody knows what the future years will feel like, but we do know that the next decade will have a central feature that was lacking in the last one: The next few years will be defined by conflict. And it's possible to speculate about what that means. The institutions that fight for us and defend us against disorder--the military, the FBI, the CIA--will seem more important and more admirable. The fundamental arguments won't be over economic or social issues, they will be over how to wield power--whether to use American power aggressively or circumspectly. We will care a lot more about ends--winning the war--than we will about means. We will debate whether it is necessary to torture prisoners who have information about future biological attacks. We will destroy innocent villages by accident, shrug our shoulders, and continue fighting. In an age of conflict, bourgeois virtues like compassion, tolerance, and industriousness are valued less than the classical virtues of courage, steadfastness, and a ruthless desire for victory." (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/424hwkwa.asp)
Confronted with dangerous lunacy like that, the left has no choice but to forget its own differences and unite in opposition.
Carl
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