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| Lileks - America's Peaceniks Rally for the Wrong Side |
| 2006-07-26 |
| As invasions go, it lacked punch: 200 troops and five pickup trucks with machine guns. You can find 10 times the firepower in a NASCAR parking lot. Still, it was an invasion, and as the Ethiopia-Somalia war threatened to enter its second week ... Oh, who cares. Even though Somalia is run by Islamists so extreme they make the Taliban look like lapsed Unitarians, the progressive peace movement would take notice of the region only if Uncle Satan intervened to help Ethiopia support the U.N.-recognized government. And then the progressives would rally to the Islamist cause. Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: The most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side. The usual delusions are abundant. The progressives imagine they're the vanguard shielding the last jot of human rights from the ever-gathering fascist storm. (Forget the executions in Somalia for the crime of watching the World Cup; there's a rumor Wal-Mart won't offer the usual new-release discount for DVDs of Al Gore's eco-doc.) They imagine that conservatives support Israel because they want to convert Jews and usher in the last book in the "Left Behind" series. They have internalized the Palestinian narrative so deeply they blame the "occupation" for rocket attacks coming out of territory no longer occupied. They're so convinced of their rectitude that the obscenity of an Israeli flag spattered with swastikas makes perfect sense: Why, if the Israelis weren't actually Nazis, the progressives wouldn't oppose them. They marched with communists for Worker's Rights, regardless of whether anyone in communist countries had a job or any rights. And now they march with Hezbollah supporters for Peace and Justice. And so you have George Galloway, the British politician who was the progressives' darling when he sparred with Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., in some Senate hearings about Oil for Food corruption, proclaiming his love and support for Hezbollah's leader. You have the Dutch Socialist Party leader equating Islamic terrorism to the resistance of the Dutch against the Nazis. In London, the woolly-minded pawns marched beneath banners that said "We are all Hizbullah." Really? Is that why there's a rocket launcher at my kid's day care? Makes sense now. In Sydney, the progressives dutifully trotted alongside the city's Islamic "spiritual leader" under a sign that called Gaza a "holocaust" -- a word no doubt chosen at random without knowledge of its historical antecedents. In Montreal, in Los Angeles, in Boston: City after city hosts merry rallies where Hezbollah sympathizers join earnest Greens and "peace" activists to howl out support for an Iranian-funded army that has taken Lebanon away from its people and strangled its revolution. You'd think they would root for the people who rose up against the Syrian occupation, no? Wouldn't that be, well, progressive? Not if the U.S. is shipping guided munitions to help Israel blow up bad guy hidey-holes. That trumps all. Given the left's romance with revolution and guerrillas, it'll be only a matter of time before Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah appears on T-shirts like Che, and his merry band are lionized as the new Viet Cong. Hezbollah builds schools, you know. Granted, they're schools where the biology lesson consists of sawing off the heads of infidel frogs. But they build schools! Imagine rallies in 1939 in which brownshirts taunted Jews, screamed NO BLOOD FOR BEER, blamed Pearl Harbor on FDR, and called for the destruction of the French Entity while peace activists applauded. That's what we have today. It's like watching Nazis and Quakers as ballroom dance partners. This hasn't infected the mainstream left, but the Democrats have a nasty chancre on their periphery. There has been a fascinating debate over a Daily Kos blog about whether Israel has a right to exist, and whether the U.S. should be attacked for supporting the Zionist Thingamabob. (To quote Rev. Lovejoy of "The Simpsons": Short answer, no with a but; long answer, yes with a maybe.) It's a site many high-profile Democrats have courted. Jimmy Carter posted there, as did John Kerry. There'll be a Sister Souljah moment when the Democrats have to disavow the progressive base, and the sooner the better. If only Halliburton had built Hezbollah's underground bunkers. That would change a few minds. Ah -- the real enemy shows its face again. What could I possibly add? |
| Posted by:Brett |
| #1 so extreme they make the Taliban look like lapsed Unitarians This guy is good. |
| Posted by: Xbalanke 2006-07-26 17:08 |