> > Los Angeles Times - September 29, 2002
> > PROTEST
> > A Smart Peace Movement Is MIA
> > By MARC COOPER
> >
> > Instead, the knee-jerk faction of the left came up with every
> > possible bogus explanation for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and
> > the Pentagon. Some said Osama bin Laden was purely an American
> > creation, that the U.S. somehow "deserved" this barbaric attack. They
> > refused to see the obvious: Sept. 11 was the handiwork of a
> > conspiracy of bloodthirsty religious fascists.
Dennis Redmond replied:
> Will someone please inform Cooper that OSAMA BIN LADEN WAS THE ISI/CIA's
> CREATION. Bush Senior armed, trained and financed the future Taliban, and
> the monsters of the US Empire's Id turned against it. Most Lefties I know
> understand the difference between a necessary international police action
> by the UN in Afghanistan and a permanent, undefined, scary war against
> terror, the twisted jihad of an unelected, unaccountable, braindead
> oiligarchy against the entire planet.
Hear, hear, say I. Of course September 11, 2001 was "the handiwork of a conspiracy of bloodthirsty religious fascists." It was also an obvious case of "blowback," as I've thought since about the morning of September 12, 2001.
Cooper's repeated blasts at "the left" seem a little misplaced. Sure, this or that utterance of Ramsey Clark or ANSWER or Noam Chomsky may be questionable, but it seems to me that the overall response of the "broad left," from DSA to Soli to SPUSA to the NGO crowd to the Dem party left to the religious left has been reasonable and fairly consistent; the CPUSA, CoCSD, and WSWS Trots seem to be in general agreement as well. Moreover, senior figures of the bourgeois establishment, Scowcrofts and Byrds and Kissingers, appear to be sceptical of the Bush administration's war plans, on "pragmatic" grounds. This is reminiscent of the Vietnam era, when the resistance in the streets and on the campuses was echoed in the halls of power by Fulbrights and Lippmanns and Morgenthaus.
Saddam is a pig; he's not Ho, and he's certainly not Castro. As an American leftist, though, I am concerned primarily with my own country, and the role that it plays in the world. Resisting the war isn't about Saddam, but about our own oligarchy.
Cooper goes on to say:
> These are devilishly complex questions that deserve much more
> meditation, debate and elaboration than the sort of bumper-sticker
> answers provided by the White House. Or by Ramsey Clark.
Or by Marc Cooper.
For a popular front, Jacob Conrad