[lbo-talk] Move On: We Betray Ourselves

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Jun 25 17:53:51 PDT 2010


http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2010/06/more-on-lefty-silence-on-afghanistan.html

June 25, 2010

More on Lefty Silence on Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

<snip>

I'm not always in agreement with MoveOn, but in general I think they

do important work on behalf of progressive goals. One notable

exception was this ad that referred to General David Petraeus as

General Betray Us. While I was sympathetic to the notion that

General Petraeus was presenting Congress and the American people wit

an overly rosy view of the war in Iraq (and said so at the time)

this ad was in incredibly poor taste and actually undercut the

progressive argument against the surge.

Yet, MoveOn kept that ad up on its website for three years . . .

until a few days ago when it decided to remove it. One can draw

their own conclusions as to the reasons for its sudden removal, but

clearly it's not too hard to figure out why: Petraeus is on our team

now!

Surely if MoveOn believed its "Betray Us" ad was correct then (and

has been correct for the past three years) I can't see how President

Obama appointing Petraeus to be the US commander in Afghanistan

changes anything.

What's even more surprising is that MoveOn has been critical of the

war in Afghanistan and of escalation (although there is no mention

of the war on its homepage today). The fact is, a change in command

doesn't change the fundamental incoherence of our current strategy,

which President Obama made clear on Wednesday will remain the same.

If MoveOn thinks the war is a mistake it should say so - but then

again so should a lot of people.

June 25, 2010 at 12:49 PM



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