Unfriendly Fire from Left

Campus Report ^ | May 13, 2008 | Malcolm Kline

[bs9021]

Unfriendly Fire From Left

by: Malcolm A. Kline, May 13, 2008

In World War II and even into the Cold War, academics, journalists and politicians tempered their criticism of American foreign policy with a concern for U. S. troops serving in harms way. Sixty years later, men and women in U. S. military combat fatigues can count on no such sympathy from American elites.

This treatment is on vivid display in the new book Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War on Terror Before and After 9-11 by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the most unrepentant offenders were the renegades cocooned in academia.

“Seeing an opportunity to discredit the allied cause, American radicals began an anti-sanctions movement based solely on the Iraqi regime’s propaganda,” Horowitz and Johnson write of the Left’s efforts in the run-up to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. “The founder of the movement was [University of] Texas journalism professor and jihadist sympathizer Robert Jensen, who claimed that ‘each month 5,000 to 6,000 children die because of the sanctions.’”

Working journalists were not much less reckless than journalism professors such as Jenson. The outlook of the fourth estate can be seen in, among other ways, their coverage of abuses, verifiable or alleged, at the Abu Ghraib prison for prisoners of war.

If the number of stories on Abu Ghraib equaled the number of legitimate complaints unearthed by every bipartisan official source, all the major media would have tapped and sapped this journalistic well in about a month. Instead, we are still seeing Abu Ghraib stories four years after the last official report was submitted. ...

[Eye On The Left]

I like this final paragraph in the article.

"[David] Horowitz also criticized elements of the first President Bush’s incursion into the Gulf. 'The coalition that Bush 41 assembled to go into the war in Iraq was too multilateral,' Horowitz said. 'It included the Arabs, Chinese and Russians, all of whom were doing business with Saddam and had no interest in overthrowing him.'"

"David Horowitz talked about his book Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America's War on Terror Before and After 9-11, published by Spence. In his book he criticizes members of the Democratic Party that, he says, are undermining the U.S.'s efforts in Iraq. This event was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C."

Watch now on c-span video: Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America's War on Terror Before and After 9-11
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=205154-1&highlight=

Amazon Book Review:
"Vastly Illuminating!" September 25, 2004
By Kat Bakhu

"I had long wondered why people on the Left had the propensity to speak more positively about people who would slit their throats than they do about their own country, which affords them more freedom and opportunity than anywhere else. David Horowitz has answered that question thoroughly and convincingly in his Unholy Alliance. Where I felt bewildered and confused, I now feel crystal clear. Unholy Alliance is such a great book.

It begins with the leftist movements at the beginning of the 20th Century, and works its way up to the present day, exploring the anti-American attitude of these movements in detail. Horowitz shows that the enemies of the US back then are largely the same group today, operating under the same misperceptions, making the same mistakes, and pursuing the same impossible utopia.

Individual chapters are included on the Patriot Act (I was persuaded that it is a GOOD thing); the democratic flip-flop on Iraq once G.W. Bush implemented what they agreed with Clinton needed to be done; the driving components of the current anti-war movement; as well as chapters on individual personalities who are major spokespeople of the Left. Horowitz covers a lot of ground, and he covers it concisely and clearly. Unholy Alliance is richly informative without ever being boring or plodding.

This book is so illuminating that I simply cannot do justice to it here. I love people who reason so clearly that they help me get my own reasoning clear. Horowitz is just that type of person! In the terrain of mindless clichés (no-blood-for-oil, etc.), he is a breath of real fresh air."

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Alliance-Radical-Islam-American/dp/089526076X

[Anti-Bubba182]

Noam Chomsky on 1968 - It was the beginning of it all

"..You have to remember that, during Vietnam, there was no opposition at the beginning of the war. It did develop, but only six years after John F Kennedy attacked South Vietnam and troop casualties were mounting. However, with the Iraq War, opposition was there from the very beginning, before an attack was even initiated. The Iraq War was the first conflict in western history in which an imperialist war was massively protested against before it had even been launched..."