[lbo-talk] Klein's response to the hitchens, coopers, etc.

Chip Berlet c.berlet at publiceye.org
Sat Oct 2 10:46:07 PDT 2004


Hi,

I think most of what Klein writes is terrific, but I think her column being criticized was flawed. What she has done by lumping the criticism of Frank Smyth in FPIF with that of the scoundrel Hitchens is slick but slippery. Check out what Smyth actually wrote at:

http://www.fpif.org/papers/0409progiraq_body.html

I still think it is a bad idea to not explicitly point out that some of the opponenets of the US are in fact theocratic fascists. That does not mean that we support US imperialism, but that we see that others who are anti-imperialist are just as bad, or worse. This is a nuanced analysis, not Klein's in her original column--as Frank Smyh point out.

Chip Berlet

-----Original Message-----

From: Stephen Philion [mailto:philion at hawaii.edu]

Sent: Sat 10/2/2004 1:07 PM

To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org

Cc:

Subject: [lbo-talk] Klein's response to the hitchens, coopers, etc.

This response of Klein is really powerful in its refutation of people

like Chris Hitchens and Marc Cooper's attacks on Klein as a supporter of

Al Sadr...

Steve

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041018&s=kleiin

These kinds of nuanced distinctions are commonly made in Iraq: Many

people I met in Baghdad strongly condemned the attacks on Sadr as

evidence that Washington never intended to bring democracy to their

country. They backed the cleric's calls for an end to occupation and for

immediate open elections. But when asked if they would vote for him in

those elections, most laughed at the prospect.

Yet here in North America, the idea that you can support Sadr's call for

elections without endorsing him as Iraq's next prime minister has proved

harder to grasp. For arguing this position, I have been accused of

making "excuses for the theocrats and misogynists" by Nick Cohen in the

/London Observer/, of having "naively fallen for the al-Mahdi militia"

by Frank Smyth in /Foreign Policy in Focus/ and of being a

"socialist-feminist offering swooning support to theocratic fascists" by

Christopher Hitchens in /Slate/.



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