Friday, August 12, 2005
Hitch
"If there was a Democratic president on 9/11, would there have been a difference of opinion in the American left about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?" an interviewer asks Chris Hitchens:
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Not from people like Michael Moore... who makes a perfectly good brownshirt... Or Noam Chomsky. No, it would not. To them it would have been further proof that the ruling class just has two faces and one party. But I think, in the mainstream of the democratic and Republican parties, you would have seen an exact switch. Richard Holbrooke's position (Holbrooke was Clinton's UN Ambassador and is a leading Democratic foreign policy thinker) would be Dick Cheney's position. The ones in the middle would have just done a switch, finding arguments to support or criticize the war. In fact, I remember that people in the Clinton administration spoke of an inevitable confrontation coming with Saddam. They dropped this idea only because it was a Republican president. That is simply disgraceful. It is likewise disgraceful how many Republicans ran as isolationists against... Al Gore in the 2000 elections. The only people who come out of this whole affair well are an odd fusion of the old left - the small pro regime change left - and some of the people known as neoconservatives who have a commitment to liberal democracy. Many of the neocons have Marxist backgrounds and believe in ideas and principles and have worked with both parties in power.The angry older man of the new anti-totalitarian left is always interesting to read, although you might find that on some things you might have to agree to disagree on, like this statement: "All political factions in this country have been lousy on this issue [the Palestinians], but none lousier than the Democratic party. The Democrat party truly is what some people crudely say: a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Israeli lobby. It is one thing it has never deviated on: that and abortion. The only two things the Democrats have never flip flopped about."
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