Why the Left Opposes the War on Terror

[bfp]

As someone raised by communist parents in the McCarthy era, ex-leftist David Horowitz knows about witch hunts. In "Left Illusions Horowitz reveals the truth about the leftist witch hunts that continue today, compared with the justifiable investigations of the vilified McCarthy era.

With gut-wrenching examples of the hypocrisy of the left, Horowitz details venomous betrayals of those who preach tolerance but refuse to tolerate those who disagree with them, and how they want to silence or destroy.

“As the recently opened Soviet archives attest, American Communists were willing enlistees in a secretive movement that did take its orders and money from Moscow,” writes Horowitz. “This movement was self-consciously dedicated not only to the overthrow of American democracy, but to the undermining of America’s security.”

These American communists included many who were members of or controlled numerous labor and teachers’ unions, members of the Democratic Party, and adults from Horowitz’s own childhood who revealed to him more than 20 years later the secret illegal acts they committed out of allegiance to the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

“As a youngster in the 1940s, I could observe the FBI agents who regularly staked out the streets of our neighborhood, a center of communist activity, to chart people’s comings and going,” Horowitz remembers. “Unfair as the treatment of my family and our communist friends may have seemed to us at the time, there was a reasonable explanation for it, and a large element of truth to the conspiracy charges themselves. ... [M]ost of those who fell into McCarthy’s net were indeed loyal to a foreign dictatorship and actively supported its anti-American agendas.”

Horowitz scoffs at the phrase “reign of terror” as Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein quotes his father, Al, in his book “Loyalties,” in which he writes about his parents’ involvement in the Communist Party. Though Bernstein writes that the phrase was not just a cliché, Horowitz answers, “It’s a lie.”

Horowitz discloses how active communists such as Al Bernstein and others went on to enjoy lucrative careers. Indeed Carl Bernstein himself ended up at the Washington Post, poised to topple President Richard Nixon, when he confessed to editor Ben Bradley the involvement of his parents in the Communist Party. Bradley, of course, did not remove him.

“... [I]n anti-communist, paranoid America, home of the reign of terror, the editor of the most politically powerful media organ in the nation told you to get on with the job of removing a president in the middle of an anti-communist war,” Horowitz addresses Bernstein. “And what did you learn from that experience? Exactly nothing.”

But the left was not as gracious with dissenters as America was with the left. With example after example, Horowitz details how those who refused to go along with the communist agenda, or who – like him – left the faith altogether, were and continue to be shunned, harassed and vilified.

Leftists Admit Viewing Non-Communists as 'the Enemy'

Even Bernstein writes, “There was a feeling that unless you joined [the Communist Party] ... you were the enemy.”

As Horowitz notes, United Mine Workers head and party ally John Lewis was attacked as a pro-Nazi treasonist when he refused to align with the communist-supported no-strike pledge after the Germany’s invasion of Russia.

“... The communists were not ... compassionate pilgrims ... but political conspirators who had infiltrated and manipulated and taken over their own organizations to subvert them for hidden agendas. They were leftwing zealots who slandered, libeled and blacklisted those who opposed the party line.(This would explain why the far-left has hijacked the party.) They were self-conscious subversives who lied to the public, pretending that they were not Marxists or loyal to soviet Russia when in fact they were. ... The communists lied to everyone then, and the new keepers of the faith are still lying today.”

Horowitz also exposes examples of recent attacks during the Clinton administration on himself, journalists such as Matt Drudge, philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaif and others, by leftists such as Sidney Blumenthal, James Carville, David Brock and Joe Conason.

Even faithful leftist Christopher Hitchens was labeled a Judas by his “friends” who heaped outlandish false attacks in retribution for Hitchens’ writing of "No One Left to Lie To," detailing Bill Clinton’s prostituting of the Lincoln bedroom, the selling of advanced military technology to America’s enemies, and the numerous other atrocities of the Clinton administration.
“Using the most advanced weaponry the world has ever seen, Clinton launched missiles into the Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq for only one tangible political purpose (as Christopher Hitchens put it): to ‘distract attention from his filthy lunge at a beret-wearing cupcake.’

“One after another they [Hitchens’ comrades] rushed into print to tell the world at large how repulsed they were by a man whom only yesterday they still called 'friend' and whom they no longer wished to know.”

Notes Horowitz, none of Hitchens’ leftist allies of 30 years came forward to stand up for him.

Horowitz can relate, as he and friends Ronald Radosh and Phillip Collier – also former leftists – have been labeled as murderers, racists and homophobes in the campaign of hatred against them, which began from the first moments they had a political change of heart. In short, the same political left that coined the phrase “the politics of personal destruction” has made it its mission to engage in such personal destruction.

“This tainting and ostracism of sinners is, in fact, the secret power of the leftist faith. It is what keeps the faithful, faithful. ... This is why Alger Hiss kept his silence to the end, and why, even thirty and fifty years after the fact, the memories of leftists are so elusive and disingenuous when it comes to telling the hard political and personal truths about who they were and what they did.”

And the left continues to perpetuate the lies. Far from dead, the tenets of leftism are thriving in 21st-century America. Horowitz points out that Bernstein’s book, praised by prestigious reviewers such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, received one criticism from the leftist critics: that he did not give enough justification for his parents' communist activities.

“... [T]he left aims to be born again by erasing the embarrassment of its disreputable past, by hiding the shame of having supported Stalin and Mao and Fidel and Ho and all the purges, mass murders, and other 'necessary' means that finally served no beneficial ends. But the real embarrassment for the left is to have been so stubbornly and perversely on the wrong side of history; to have embraced 'solutions' that were morally, politically and economically bankrupt in the important struggles of our time. As Joseph Stalin was the first socialist to truly understand, the airbrushing of history is the only sure means to preserve the honor of the left.”

Nearly 40 years have passed since the days of McCarthy, “the most irretrievable political corpse of the McCarthy era,” Horowitz observes.

But the enemy is still alive and well, and more dangerous than ever.

“The era of the progressive witch-hunt has been far worse in its consequences to individuals and freedom for expression than was the McCarthy era,” writes Horowitz. “Worse, unlike the McCarthy era witch-hunt, which lasted only a few years, the one enforced by left-wing progressives is now entering its third decade and shows no signs of abating.”

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So there.

Moscow did fund large scale operstions in the US - this is simply fact and verifiable.

The US did what we could to nip at communism. We fought a Cold War.

What is not commonly known was the level of funding and how prominent many who received Soviet money were in the American political landscape.

Most scoff at the allegations thinking that this is just propaganda - well - it ain't.

Whether that has anything to do with an opposition to Bush foreign policy in general or specific - who knows.

[Adam D]

[bfp]

Originally posted by Adam D

What else would one do? Besides rolling their eyes? I know, finding out that you've been supporting communist-lite candidates is hard to swallow.

[Adam D]

Originally posted by bfp
What else would one do? Besides rolling their eyes? I know, finding out that you've been supporting communist-lite candidates is hard to swallow.

I'm not sure what communist-lite candidates I've been supporting. Horowitz has repeatedly proven himself to be a liar, to have distorted the truth, and in general discredited.

Although, I would rather support communist-lite candidates than fascist-lite candidates.

[Adam D]

http://www.democraticunderground.com...delusions.html

[USAcommitteeX]

If Bill Clinton were President they would have supported the war

[Adam D]

Originally posted by USAcommitteeX
If Bill Clinton were President they would have supported the war

No, there still would have been serious opposition from the left, as there was during the Yugoslavian conflicts.

[USAcommitteeX]

Senator Tom Daschle’s Hypocrisy




In late 2002 President Bush was addressing the fact that the Democrat lead senators were holding up the Homeland Security bill on a specific issue – unions.

Bush had been arguing that a Homeland Security office should be exempt from normal hiring/firing/union regulations (the CIA, FBI, etc. are exempt from such regulations), which typically slow down other agencies. For agencies dealing with time sensitive security issues, I agree completely that unions are not the answer and that last thing we need is an intelligence organization effectively hamstrung by inefficient regulations related to unions. Referring to the holdup in the senate:

"The House responded," Mr. Bush said, "but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people. I will not accept a Department of Homeland Security that does not allow this president, and future presidents, to better keep the American people secure." (Stout, 2002)

And Daschle’s response:

Mr. Daschle practically shouted his disdain for those words today. "You tell those who fought in Vietnam and World War II they are not interested in the security of the American people" because they are Democrats, Daschle said. "That is outrageous. Outrageous." (Stout, 2002)

Daschle followed that vein for awhile. However, while what the president said was less than flattering, and is an accusation, Daschle’s comments were a bit shrill, out of proportion, and out of context – besides not addressing the issue that the president brought up concerning unions. But when one considers Daschle’s position on Iraq from 1998 to 2002, his comments were probably hypocritical as well, without even touching on the issue of contributions to democrats from unions...

In late October of 1997, Iraq barred US weapons inspectors. Russia stepped in to broker a deal, and inspectors soon returned. Then, on January 13, 1998, Iraq again barred U.S. weapons inspectors, and accused Scott Ritter of being a U.S. spy. (Timeline, 2002) No inspections took place until 2002 December. At that time, 1998, the Republicans of both houses, “lined up behind President Clinton's Iraq policy today, saying the [sex] scandal absorbing the White House should not be allowed to affect America's response to a foreign-policy problem.” (Erlanger, 1998)

But more importantly, in 1998 “Tom Daschle endorsed Mr. Clinton's position. Both warning the country, if something wasn't done, sooner or later, Saddam Hussein was going to use a bomb.” (Gibson, 2002)

In 1998, President Clinton sought support from the house and senate for the use of military force against Iraq, said the Saddam was a murderer who was acquiring weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and that he had failed to comply with the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement of the Persian Gulf War. (Hannity, 2002) In 1998 Democratic lawmakers, including Tom Daschle:
Did not request that Clinton to seek another resolution from the UN
Did not request that president Clinton seek multi-lateral support
Did not request hearings on the cost of the proposed operations
Did not request more intelligence information for approval of presidential plans
Yet they request and demand those very things of Bush in 2002. (Hannity, 2002)

Video clips aired on Fox News showed Daschle, from 1998, strongly supporting a unilateral attack on Iraq if it did not allow weapons inspectors back into the nation (Iraq said they would, the US backed down, and shortly thereafter Iraq again refused to let inspectors in – the US did not retaliate). The reasons given by both Clinton and Daschle in 1998 were, ironically, almost identical to the reasons Bush has for an attack in 2002 – yet now there is severe opposition to the proposed course of action. It should be noted that regime change was also a possibility in 1998, i.e., what else do you do with the hostile leader of a defeated nation?

It seems fairly obvious that the situation concerning Iraq has deteriorated, not improved, since inspectors left nearly five years ago (if an Internet search can turn up the increased risk Iraq poses, surely the US Senate is aware of it).

So there are two clear differences between the situation in 1998 and 2002: a) the situation has clearly gotten worse in Iraq and there is even more evidence of Saddam Hussein seeking WMD, and b) a change in the leadership of the White House.

I would really like to hear Tom Daschle attempt to clearly explain what made him change his mind, and why the move on a more dangerous Iraq requires some many additional hurdles before receiving approval.

But then there is this Daschle quote to consider - referring to elections in late 2002. I could take it out of context and ask him if 9.11 wasn't a tad bit worse, but we all know what he really meant ~ do unto others, Tom:

[USAcommitteeX]

In 1998 Democratic lawmakers, including Tom Daschle:
Did not request that Clinton to seek another resolution from the UN
Did not request that president Clinton seek multi-lateral support
Did not request hearings on the cost of the proposed operations
Did not request more intelligence information for approval of presidential plans
Yet they request and demand those very things of Bush in 2002.
and I will quote Bill O'Reily " What say you?"

[Adam D]

I, and many anti-war leftists were contending that Clinton should have done what was called for Bush to do back in 1998, too.

[willy_jack]

you know i started to read this thread.....

but then i realized it was just nonsense.

so now i wipe my ass with this thread.

[USAcommitteeX]

well then I hope you don't get a rash