Why the anti-war side isn't bothered by following the script set by the murderous thugs of ANSWER is beyond me. But in the name of "debate" they go.
Sadly, Michael Kelly notes that the debate is over and the anti-war side has effectively decided that America can never be right. And so the opposite side, whether Taliban or Saddam or whoever, by definition must be right:
The debate is over. The left has hardened itself around the core value of a furious, permanent, reactionary opposition to the devil-state America, which stands as the paramount evil of the world and the paramount threat to the world, and whose aims must be thwarted even at the cost of supporting fascists and tyrants. Those who could not stomach this have left the left -- a few publicly, as did Hitchens and Rosenbaum, and many more, I am sure, in the privacy of their consciences.
It is sad that so many have chosen sides this way. Please don't object that people have a right to protest in this country against government policies. Quite obviously, people do, even to the extent of marching shoulder to shoulder with Stalinists without fear of retribution. Yet must opposition include marching with these killers? Would they march with Nazis? Would a Klan rally that opposes sacrificing nice young Aryan boys so that Semitic Iraqis can breathe freely attract Jesse Jackson simply because they are "anti-war?" Would the press mention this little fact?
The anti-war people are free to associate with communists. Yet why pretend that the moving force behind the protests is mainstream? Why deny their pedigree?
More basically, why descend to this level of protest when we are free to dissent as Americans? For International ANSWER, the anti-war protests are a means to achieve their objective of bringing down our government. Yes, their objective is out of the reach of such a bunch of ghoulish clowns. But protesters shouldn't jump on the bandwagon just because they don't believe it will ever reach the Stalinist gulag station that ANSWER seeks. Remember, if you won't part with ANSWER, you're part of the problem.
