I am taking some grief for the statement "The idea that we are winning in Iraq will make much of the Left angry." If I had a do-over I would have written "some of the Left" or "important factions of the Left." I was attempting to say that parts, but not all, of the Left would like the US to lose in Iraq. But while I was attempting to paint with a narrow, rather than broad, brush, I should have been more careful in my language.
That aside, do I have evidence that portions of the Left want America to lose in Iraq? Here is Christopher Hitchens rhetorically (I think) asking "Losing the Iraq War: Can the left really want us to?"
How can so many people watch this as if they were spectators, handicapping and rating the successes and failures from some imagined position of neutrality? Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration? The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of "missing" Iraqis, to support Iraqi women's battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?
Do we remember these words from Michael Moore?
First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not �contractors� in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it.
Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested -- or worse.
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?
...I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.
What do we say about a person who says that Americans attempting to rebuild Iraq are nothing but "war profiteers"? What do you conclude about a man who thinks that those who kill American soldiers are not "the enemy" but in fact are morally equivalent to the American revolutionaries? Does this sound like a guy roots for American success in Iraq? Do we need to be reminded that this man was given a place of honor next to Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention? I don't claim that Michael Moore speaks for the Left, no one could claim that mantle, but he obviously speaks for an influential portion of it. (For a critique of Moore, especially Fahrenheit 911, see Hitchens here).
How about International ANSWER, the sponsors of many of the anti-war protests? Here's what Byron York reports regarding an ANSWER rally in 2003:
ANSWER is an outgrowth of another group called the International Action Center, a San Francisco-based organization that showcases the work of Ramsey Clark, the Johnson administration attorney general who has specialized in anti-American causes. Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party, which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea.
The WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regime in Iraq. Is it foolish to suspect their anti-war motives? Do I need to remind readers that aforementioned Ramsey Clark just flew to Iraq to defend Saddam Hussein at trial?
Might there be portions of the Left, such as ANSWER and Michael Moore, that stand disappointed at American successes in Iraq? I report; you decide. And if you are on the left and don't support these positions staked out by Moore and ANSWER then you are not part of the Left that wants America to lose.
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