Pat Buchanan, apologist for terror

[Carrol Cox]

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