Marx was surely sincere when he raised the cause of the north in the
> American civil war. It was not some kind of tactical jiggery-pokery, but an
> understanding that in all senses reaction was on the side of the South, and
> progress on the side of the north. The labour movement that wavered on that
> question would not be worth the name.
>
If we choose "reaction" vs. "progress" as our litmus test, we will find ourselves on the side of empire in Afghanistan and any number of other conflicts. (Doesn't that almost precisely summarize Hitchens' Faustian bargain?)
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."