Dot Comrade across the way at Harry's has already drawn attention to this piece by John Pilger, which argues that there's no difference between Kerry and Bush, and more generally between a Democratic and Republican administration. I just want to comment on one feature of it. This one:
The truth is that Clinton was little different from Bush, a crypto-fascist.On the other hand, a point Pilger is happy to make against Leon Fuerth, an Al Gore adviser, as damning him, is that he thought...
... the US should "destroy the Iraqi regime, root and branch".And Pilger it is, of course, who has come out for supporting the bombers in Iraq with the words:
We cannot afford to be choosy.I'm reminded of so-called Third Period Comintern policy in the early 1930s, when the German Social Democrats were dubbed 'Social Fascists' by the Communist Party and regarded as a greater menace than a certain other political outfit which was just then on the verge of inaugurating a German - and European, and global - catastrophe.
Why bother, it is regularly asked by saner voices on the anti-war left, with this kind of stuff? These are (the question implies) a few nut-cases who don't speak for the entirety or even the majority of anti-war people. This is why bother. John Pilger, just to start with him, is not in fact some lonely nut-case, even if there are signs that his judgement is now rather disturbed. He is a journalist of world renown, who has a reputation for good work in the past, and also access to prominent media outlets. In these respects he is far from alone. Other very prominent figures of the left, with similar access to reputable and wide-circulation newspapers, broadcasting organizations and so forth - you will all have heard of Harold Pinter, for example, a playwright of some achievement - put forth opinions similar to those voiced by Pilger. Moreover, newspapers like the Guardian and the Independent in this country, not widely thought of as papers of the sectarian far left, regulary feature in their opinion and letters columns views that are close to or identical with his. I don't care to estimate, and I do not have the means to estimate, just how big a slice of anti-war opinion this stuff represents. But I'm unimpressed by the suggestion that it's not of significant influence. It needs to be answered. It needs to be characterized for what it is: at worst pro-tyrant, at best deluded, leftism. For the rest, it doesn't implicate anyone on the anti-war left who doesn't want to be implicated. They are capable of stating their own viewpoints, and - within that - their better positions on these issues.
The post immediately below is there and thereabouts on the same question.