"only “a few decades ago, “the Left” was considered the center of opposition to imperialism, and champion of the right of peoples to self-determination.”
Johnstone is part of a distinguished line of American expatriate writers, who, perhaps because of an objectivity conferred by distance, saw their country more clearly than many of their stateside contemporaries. Members of the club include William Pfaff who for many years wrote from Paris and the longtime Asia correspondent Patrick Lawrence. The Paris based Johnstone brings a moral clarity to matters of war and peace that is, alas, too often absent from most contemporary foreign affairs writing. Its near total absence on the Left during the Trump years should be cause for reflection, and concern.
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination program." Carden
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Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/01/the-return-of-the-anti-antiwar-left/
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the “left” sells out on war issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists, especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and support.
Col Lang,
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to the rise of what is defined as the “anti-Anti War left”. I should note that there are eerily similar parralels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists, and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today’s BLM, Antifa, ‘woke’ types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials. While the former’s rise in the Democratic Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman (since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr. Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar. He won on a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles’ which is very interesting since, Engel has been known for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi’s planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and Arizona Senate whose ppointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers (The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and 80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+ years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post 2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be “persuaded” to team up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin til her mother emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she never has had US citizenship. Christopher Hitchens is English born, never visited America unti he was 32. And even then kept his British citizenship for another 26 years, only becoming a US citizen in 2007. Probably to take advantage of favorable US income tax on his book earnings.
WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why did we let these halfwits in the country?
Seems to me we are better off by letting in a few more Sikh farmers from India or more wannabee restaurant owners from Ethiopia. Or maybe even more wannabee bodega empresarios from south of our border.
leith
I could not agree more. I am a child of the original settlers and I think that we need controlled but continuous immigration from the people you mention.
Anyone remember John Kerry, who criticized the anti-war movement and enlisted and served in Vietnam, only to opportunistically turn against the war. As long as the winds blew anti-war, he continued to posture that way. Then he reversed course, maybe sensing an SOS opportunity, and voted for the War in Iraq, meanwhile posturing against it on the grounds that it wasn’t being fought right!
Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical ‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!!
Sikh farmers have done extremely well in Yuba City, California. And proudly belong to the Sikh-American Friendship organization celebrating both traditions – great food at their annual festival in Yuba City.
Travel story about the Punjabi-Sikh-Hunza farmer: US astronauts finally land on the moon for the first time and find lush gardens full of fruits and vegetables; only to learn Hunza farmers got there first.
The “anti-antiwar left” is of course an oxymoron. In reality, they are neo-McCarthyites, neocons, and Israel-firsters. Nothing new. They were never leftists to begin with and certainly never will be.
To add onto the comments by Polish Janitor regarding Jamaal Bowman, I have this to say. Just like AOC, he’ll cuck out to Israel. He’ll take the money and he’ll probably take that “educational” trip to Israel as well. While he’s there, would anyone be surprised if he had a hot time with some honey pie and they got him on Kodak? They’ll only drop hints about the stick, in the meantime, they’ll be stuffing his face with carrots as he comes around to the Zionist agenda.
Outrage Beyond
Bull! Neither BLM nor Antifa fits any of the provenance you mentioned. You are just making excuses for your fellow travelers.
Deap – We have quite a few Sikhs in WA also. Some have been here since the 19th Century.
@exiled off mainstreet
The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement, if only conservatives weren’t afraid of being called ‘racist’ by people who hate them anyway.
Colonel,
There are rumblings on the net that the ANTIFA/BLM types plan to start a civil war in the September-October time frame just before the November elections. I hope that relevant Federal Agencies takes appropriate steps to nullify them before they can start.
Colonel, if I may:
Outrage Beyond,
Both ANTIFA and BLM leadership three years ago were receiving hand to hand combat training, and urban guerilla warfare techniques in Venezuela under Maduro. It was documented.
There are smiley pics of the BLM co-founding leadership personas with Maduro. These BLM are self-avowed Communist Marxist-Leninist, who have stated openly they are trying to prevent Trump’s re-election, AND to bring down the entire U.S. Government.
Communist China has been assisting them in weapons and weapons parts smuggling, that also has been documented.
The ANTIFA/BLM are far far from Neo-McCarthyism, neocons, OR Israel-first crowd.
The ANTIFA/BLM are hardened Communist Marxist-Leninist guerilla warfare antagonists, that will put a bullet to your head just as soon as look at you.
Deap,
A few years back our local museum had a photo exhibit of Sikh-Mexican families who were part of the farming communities in the early 20th century.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/punjabi-sikh-mexican-american-community-fading-into-history/2012/08/13/cc6b7b98-e26b-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html
https://vimeo.com/237489664
Jack –
I have a hankering to sample some of those ‘curry enchiladas’ your article mentions.
Fourth and Long
Are they maintaining that Jamestown was founded in 1607 to find a place to institute African slavery in the New World?
J,
I still feel very safe and secure. I am not sure why you are so worried. There are radicals out there of all kinds who may believe many things and want many changes to happen but that doesn’t mean that they will.
Did you realize that the Black Lives Matter group only has 14 local chapters in America and 3 in Canada? I don’t think there are many actual Antifa members out there either. Now of course a few determined troublemakers can cause a lot of problems but still I can’t see how the country is in real danger.
Probably the real danger here is that these groups get moral support from nonradical people for radical actions and policies. Right now there are a lot more people against getting rid of the police than are for it. Now if that changed I would get worried. I have to admit that I don’t like the fact that we do not know who’s funding the radicals and that many are anonymous but I am not afraid of them. I can’t imagine a situation in which they would win and we would lose over time.
fourth and long
I do not consider the Confederates to be representative of “America’s sordid past.” I consider them to be the defeated.
fourth and long
For 150 years the US treated its defeated internal enemy with respect in the interest of re-unification and reconciliation. Now that is gone destroyed by marxist vanguard conspiratorial parties like antifa and BLM and the the power hungry Democrat Party pols who have made a deal with their soul mate extremists. Well, laissez les bon temps roulez!
I don’t understand all the concern about Antifa. They show up at protests with bricks and get into fistfights with right wing Brown Shirt wanabees. I am more concerned about these wanabee Nazi types that show up at protests with firearms. Who is more dangerous, the guy with the brick in his hand or the guy with an AR-15?
Defund the police? I agree to a certain extent. Take away all their military toys. They are police, not soldiers who should consider citizens the enemy. I say this as a white man who was stopped for a registration question and the cop came up to my car with his hand on his weapon looking like he wanted an excuse to use it. It wasn’t like this 20-30 years ago. I still remeber the Officer Friendly campaign. LOL.