Chip Berlet wrote:
>
> [clip] I
> also don't like strategic (as opposed to short-term tactical) coalitions
> with fascist and right-wing populist critics of the regime. I see the same
> problem with Gore Vidal and Ralph Nader.
>
> Do you see any problems here? Or do you support the idea that "The enemy of
> my enemy is my friend?"
I agree with Chip on Buchanan, and generally with the principles he invokes here -- but I don't think "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a principle which can be defended or opposed in the abstract. It must be an empirical claim in any given context.
To start with an extreme example, if someone is engaged in beating me to death, anyone who stops him/her is indeed, at that instance, my friend. This of course could be taken care of by Chip's distinction between short-term tactical and strategic coalitions, but that is apt to be a fuzzy divide as well in actual instances rather than my fanciful one here.
Try it from the other end -- one should oppose all enemies, regardless of relationships among those enemies. That seems to be the position of anarchists on the list, and I think it as disastrous as unthinking coalitions with enemies. One cannot list in advance all or even most of the criteria for deciding when an "enemy of one's enemy is a friend or not," but pointers are possible.
A big pointer, I think, involves the relative strength of the adversaries involved, as well as the immediate danger posed by some but not by all enemies. This is, again, an empirical question unanswerable in the abstract, and it involves also recognizing that however one may dislike the history of the phraseology, it is indeed necessary to stack one's contradictions in the proper order.
Carrol