----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at attbi.com> To: "Lbo-Talk at Lists. Panix. Com" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 8:40 PM Subject: delicate times for the left
Did the left lose the war?
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[From the letters section of the Guardian. The deontological approach of the second letter reminds one of Terry Eagleton's essay in SR 2000]
Left behind by the war
Friday January 18, 2002 The Guardian
Guy Taylor, quoted by Andy Beckett, promises "more confrontational stuff in the offing" if the war against terrorism widens (Did the left lose the war?, January 17). "We're learning a lot from the anti-Vietnam war movement." If the left did lose the war, it was due in no small part to the naive political posturing of people like Taylor, and the almost sentimental anti-American nonsense from John Pilger, Tariq Ali et al. The Vietnam war ended nearly 30 years ago: don't these people realise that the tactics of yesteryear are about as relevant as cavalry in the Gulf war?
What really undermined the "leftist" protesters was their barely concealed glee at such horrors being visited on America. Though the anti-war left tries to ignore the fact, most people do not see the US as the great imperial enemy of Leninist-Stalinist lore. Anyway, isn't Seattle - where the anti-globalisation protesters had their greatest triumph - in the US?
Perhaps the demise of the good old USSR has turned too many heads: how many "leftists" would have believed 20 years ago that they would end up marching alongside misogynists, religious bigots, fascists and fundamentalist fanatics, united in their hatred of the "Great Satan"? Taliban and Trots together, off on the road to yesterday. Brian Glancey Glasgow
There are many of us who believe that the bombing of Afghanistan is wrong - not ill-advised, strategically unsound or politically dangerous; just morally wrong. And that whatever the outcome, it is still wrong. And here's another thing: we are capable of the subtlety of thinking that understands that if one side is wrong, it doesn't make the other side right, and that al-Qaida and its actions are equally abhorrent. Judy Turner Topcliffe, N Yorks