There's an old observation about cookbook writers; called upon to revieweach others' books, they work them selves into contortions slapping each otheron the back to boost each others'sales. It works out fine for everybody concerned. This is the picture that comes to mind listening to those who have takento referring to themselves as "the loyal opposition"- or something likethat. These are the same commentators who roundly castigated the leftand the anti-war movement post 911 and tried to sign us all up in the"war on terrorism." They're still in fine form. Bill Keller, Todd Gitlin,Christopher Hitchens and the others are busily citing each other to provethey were right all along. Keller calls the target of their vituperation,"people who are reflexively against the American use of power." Gitlinsummons into action "post-Vietnam liberals" who are now "freed from our'60s flag anxiety and our reflexive negativity."
The premise of this line of reasoning is that the anti-war actions that followed the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were organizedand participated in by people who are somehow sympathetic to al Qaeda,who justified terrorism and suggested our country had brought the atrocityof Sept. 11 on itself. It was never true. Yes, there was a handful ofpeople who tried to justify the attacks and refused to call for the perpetratorsto be brought to justice. Yes, they're still around and can be expected toshow up at demonstrations and rallies with their signs. But that's notthe anti-war movement and the self-righteous "loyal oppositionists" knowit. But a straw man can be a useful instrument when you're sowing confusionin others to mask your own.
Actually, Keller and Gitlin got the reflex diagnosis partly right. Onlyit's not the disease they say it is. Rather, it is a healthy skepticism bornof wars past, not just Vietnam but Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, Iranand so forth. It's a conditioned tendency to first ask who's doing whatto whom and why. It's a reflexive suspicion of anything that links oiland war. It is a healthy reluctance to believe that the people presentlyrunning the Washington national security apparatus could be up to anything good.
It rather pathetic to witness Gitlin squirm. Now, he's opposed to waragainst Iraq and thinks that all his fellow "liberals" should be as well. Why?Because such a war is "unlikely" to "advance democratic values" the waymilitary action did in Bosnia and Kosovo (actually, Todd, the jury'sstill out on that one). For a year now, young anti-war activists havebeen pounded from all sides for suggesting that terrorism has roots insocial and economic conditions. Now, Gitlin makes it onto the New York Times commentary page advocating a"Marshall Plan for Afghanistan and elsewhere" that he says would help "stifle terrorism."
After 911, "intellectuals and activists on the far left could not betroubled much with compassion or defense," Gitlin wrote in the Times. "Disconnectedfrom Americans who reasonably felt their patriotic selves attacked, theywere uncomprehending." That's worse than slander, it's silly. The formerleftist would like us to think he's connected to the heartbeat of Americaand those of us on the left are not? Not likely.
"Knowing, little about al Qaeda, they filed it under anti-imperialism,and American attacks on the Taliban under Vietnam Quagmire," writes Gitlin.Nonsense, the left knows as much about al Qaeda as he does. They knowit stands against nearly everything any leftist upholds. They know thatwhile the Taliban could negotiate with the Bush Administration aboutpipeline concession right up to the eve of 911, any suspected leftist in Afghanistan underits rule would be either in jail or dead.
"Quagmire?" Interesting that Gitlin would bring that up. So did Kellera couple of weeks earlier. When the U.S. started bombing Afghanistan, he wrotein the Times August 24, "There were pundits who whispered 'quagmire'and allies whose applause for the effort was one-handed, but the outrightopposition came from isolationists, the doctrinaire left and the soft-headedtypes Christopher Hitchens described as people who, 'discovering a viperin the bed of their child, would place the first call to People for theEthical Treatment of Animals." Well, the left does think it's importantto figure out how the viper got there, and is a tad shy about puttingits trust in the Association of Snake Breeders.
The reactionary religious terrorists now duking it out amongst themselvesin Afghanistan were nourished by somebody during the holy jihad againstthe leftist government in Kabul and the USSR--with a little help fromits allies in Riyadh-- and guess who that somebody was?
"Soft-headed" is the quality of those who didn't see the quagmire coming,not those who did. The U.S. is officially "bogged down" and it could getreally explosive. The famous "freedom fighter" Gulbuddin Hekmatyar isback in action and he probably knows where the rest of the U.S. donatedStinger missiles are - since most of them were handed over to him. UnlessGitlin's Marshall Plan gets there soon, Afghanistan appears destinedto revisit the kind of brutal war and destruction that marked the 10 years before the Taliban came to power.
The question that arises from all this, is what happened to these guys' analytical abilities? Why didn't they see what was coming? Sept. 11 wasa monstrous crime. The trauma it induced rendered it difficult but notimpossible to ask the really critical questions. Gitlin now says peoplelike himself "posed necessary question at the time. What was a war againstterrorism? To what did it bind the nation? War against whom and for how long? Why should American foreign policy be held hostage to oil? How should strong andprivileged America belong to the word? Was the United States to be aone-nation tribunal of 'regime change' wherever it detected evil spinningon an axis?" If, indeed, they asked those questions, they didn't doit very loud.
Gitlin charges that after 911 "not flying the flag became an urgent cause"for left intellectuals and anti-war activists. That's rewriting history.Actually, it was because Gitlin recovered from "flag anxiety" that hewas cited so often in the major media. More cautious voices (who forthe most part didn't make flag waving an issue) sensed that there wasa danger that enlisting emotionally in the Administration's "war on terrorism"could easily lead us to place we didn't want to go - like Baghdad.
--- Marc Rodrigues Voicemail: 866.206.9067 x4217 Students for a Free Society: http://qcsfs.tripod.com
"Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white?.. the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace." -Nelson Mandela