"No Blood for Oil" still becomes a bottom line in discussing Iraq and little does get said about the Kurds. And Hitchens actually emphasized that the Left was the major group talking about the Kurds for years but that they drop it when it becomes inconvenient for antiwar rhetoric.
If you can find even a mention of the word "Kurds" on the International ANSWER web site, you are a better detective than me. Same is true over at "Not in Our Name."
I am against this war but an antiwar movement than cannot move begun ritualistic denunciations of Saddam to detailing an alternative vision of addressing the just demands of Kurds and other Iraqis for democracy is not a Left that is relevant or that will command my real loyalty on the issue. Or a lot of others who are needed to stop war and see the injustice of Hussein's regime as a reason to put their misgivings aside.
-- Nathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 11:24 AM Subject: Re: Hitch on Hardball
Nathan Newman wrote:
>Have to say, I still have great sympathy for what Hitchens is saying about
>too much antiwar rhetoric lacking new analysis, his point that the Kurds
>barely get mentioned by the antiwar left being spot on.
In the interviews I did with Tariq Ali and Noam Chomsky for yesterday's radio show - which will be up on the web, if all goes well, this afternoon - both mentioned the treatment of the Kurds, and both denounced both Saddam and Osama as monsters. These are two icons of the antiwar left. The alleged silence on these issues is just that - alleged. Besides, left critics of the U.S. empire have been talking about these things for ages - it was the mainstream that didn't, because Saddam, the Taliban, and Saudi Arabia were our friends.
Doug