Debating the War

Last week Christopher Hitchens debated George Galloway on the Iraq war. This is an interesting matchup. Hitchens is a former leftist turned neoconservative. Galloway, an unreformed leftist, is a MP representing the most Moslem district in Britian. He is currently on an anti-war tour of the US with Jane Fonda.

Eric Alterman has this to say about the debate:

I was disgusted to watch the Hitchens/Galloway debate on CSPAN yesterday. Both are brilliant debaters without much care whether the points they are making are consistent with the known evidence. Galloway is a considerably more offensive individual, and while he’s right about much of what he says regarding Iraq, he’s right for all the wrong reasons. He is the face of that part of the global left that really does abhor democracy and blames Israel for everything.

Alterman's description of Galoway is rather mild. He was ejected from the Labour party for encouraging Iraqi insurgents to kill British soldiers. He has also been implicated as a recipient of nearly a half million dollars in oil-for-food bribes.

A transcript of the debate is here. A couple of Galloway's points stand out. Here is the first:

Are you with the foreign occupation of Iraq, or are you with the right of the Iraqi people to be free and to resist the foreign armies who have violently invaded them.

Saddam attempted genocide against his own people but Galloway refuses to recognize this. Then of course, there is the paradox that the US will leave when the resistance ends.

And the second:

It won't matter, how many fly-swats we invest in, how many PATRIOT Acts we pass, how many anti-terrorist measures we pass. If you live beside a swamp, no amount of fly-swats will protect you from the monsters who will come out of that swamp. We have to drain that swamp by stopping that support for Sharon's Israel, his apartheid war, his crimes against the Palestinians.

It all comes down to the Jews. Saudis killed Americans in order to help Palestinians agaisnt Israel.

Cindy Shehan has said things very similar to both of these statements and she continues to be the most visible face of the anti-war movement.

So, when Eric Alterman says that Galloway is right for the wrong reasons, what does he expect? Why are the anti-war leaders also anti-democracy?

Then there is the anti-semitism. Ever since September 12, 2001, the left has been making noises about root causes. This is usually thinly disguised code to mean that we should cut all ties with Israel.

I read the influential blogs from both the far-right and the far-left. What the right says in private is pretty much the same thing that they say in public. The far-left, on the other hand, feels the need to clean up their language. Shehan disowned some of her statements. The anti-war group International ANSWER is a front for socialists.

Then there is the logical disconnect within the anti-war movement. Four years ago the woman's group Not In Our Name was demonstrating in favor of the Taliban. How in heaven's name can any American woman say anything in favor of the Taliban? The same is true when Shehan acts as though Iraq was a paradise prior to the US invasion. Galloway has gone as far as suggesting that the socialists and the Islamists make a common cause against the West.

The people opposing the war need to look more closely at the adgenda being pushed by their leaders. I doubt that most people who oppose the war ethically are in favor of the socialist platform they are supporting.