http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020923&s=shatz
Since the September 11 attacks, it's become a cliché to say that the left is divided over American foreign policy. But "divided" doesn't begin to capture the diversity of opinion about the war in Afghanistan and the war on terror--or, for that matter, the inner conflicts that have racked many people on the left. Standing outside my apartment on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on September 11, I saw the towers on fire. As shaken and horrified as I was, I knew two things: (1) the American government--my government, for better or for worse--would respond; and (2) that despite my fear that the response would be disproportionate, I wasn't going to be attending any peace rallies, at least not yet.
Since then, the fog of war has grown thicker and thicker. On some days, I'm sympathetic to Noam Chomsky's critique of the war on terrorism as an arrogant war of empire. On other days, I remember the view from Flatbush Avenue on September 11, and I'm gripped by the sense that anti-imperialism is a woefully incomplete guide to today's situation...
Curious whether others shared my own ambivalence, I undertook an informal investigation of left-wing opinion on American foreign policy since 9/11. I spoke to a range of left intellectuals, from social democrats who were convinced that Afghanistan was a necessary and just war, to anti-imperialists who believed that it was a nasty war of retribution. More important, I spoke with people, arguably the left majority, who fell somewhere in between, in that sea of uncertainty that is the post-9/11 condition. They weren't ecstatic about the war in Afghanistan, but they couldn't bring themselves to oppose it either. The question that has vexed them is where to draw the line between self-defense and imperial aggrandizement.
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