Trouble on the Left.
I have always opposed the sectarian Left. This weekend, the Left marched en masse, with some exceptions, under the banner of sectarianism—particularly that of the “International ANSWER” coalition, controlled by the WWP. (*) The Left has also championed the banner of “Not in our Name,” a front group for the Revolutionary Communist Party, which explicitly supports terrorist groups like the Sendero Luminoso of Peru, the so-called “Shining Path.” (†)
I support the Iraq action as a necessary war. The Iraqi state sponsors terrorism. (‡) The Iraqi state is also trying to build a full array of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction. (§ PDF) Mirror (**) Other states that seek nuclear weapons, such as North Korea, are open to good faith negotiations. (††) (‡‡) Iraq is not open to good faith negotiations. (§§) If we do not fight to liberate Iraq, as soon as Saddam Hussein obtains nuclear weapons, terrorists of one group or another, be they Al Qaeda or some other group, will have in Iraq a permanent safe haven wherefrom to operate with impunity. This alone makes Iraq the greatest and most imminent threat to peace in the world today.
The League of Nations failed to prevent World War II because it could not, or would not, stop Hitler. (***) Now France is on the verge of preventing the United Nations from enforcing the dozen Security Council resolutions that Iraq has unapologetically broken. (†††) (‡‡‡) Saddam Hussein edges closer every day to building the weapons that would ensure terror and tyranny in the Middle East and around the world for decades to come.
Of course, there is always a good moral argument against war. It is that the ends do not justify the means. Yet, that is the very justification that many fellow American Leftists have clung to when confronted with the fact of the sectarian domination of the American Left. (§§§) (****) It is all right, they say, to support sectarian groups such as the WWP and RCP, as long as the sectarians are currently taking agreeable action. What has so terribly disappointed me in these last few weeks is how much of the Left has been so willingly seduced by the sectarians. Anti-sectarians have made their statements against the Iraq war, but I fear their voice of reason has been drowned out. (††††) Now that the moral voice of the American Left has effectively nullified itself, it’s time to rethink things.
We especially need to rethink our long-neglected political theory. There has been too much of an emphasis on organization and not enough emphasis on weighing what is right. I’m in the process of doing my own rethinking now.
Adapted from private correspondence.