I 'sold out' and became a hawk

I was too young to fight in Vietnam, but I like to think that, had I been born in America a few years earlier, I would not have flinched from doing my duty. Not for me the soft option of the draft dodger. I would have been bearing arms, all right - for the Vietcong.

And now, some 30 years later, I find myself on public platforms defending American military action against an enemy the CIA helped to create. In the House of Commons, I've just voted to give the Home Secretary draconian powers to intern foreign nationals without charge.

What on earth has happened to the early 1970s radicals, like myself, who have found themselves in Parliament 25 years later? Have we sold out - or simply grown up? Or was September 11 so appalling that all our value systems have been turned inside out?

There are no easy answers, but I do know that the crude but comfortable anti-Americanism that has been the hallmark of the British Left is no longer intellectually credible.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on America, I felt extremely apprehensive about how the United States would respond. Mindful of past fiascos, I tried to recall a single example of a successful American foreign intervention in the past 50 years.

There is quite a list: Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, El Salvador, Panama, Chile, Somalia - none of which inspires confidence. The prospect of a hawkish Right-wing regime under George W Bush, blindly carpet-bombing thousands of innocent civilians in revenge, filled me with dread. There was talk of nuclear retaliation, even of world war.

For 24 hours, Britain had no influence on the shell-shocked Bush administration. But, even at that early stage, our Prime Minister was already helping to forge an international coalition against terrorism.

By standing firm as a partner in Nato and by pledging full support for a measured and proportionate response, Tony Blair won us a seat at the top table. The hawks were tethered; there would be no senseless bombing in the name of revenge.

Ten years ago, I would probably have been on the other side of the argument. My instinct would have been to see any attack on America as chickens coming home to roost - an inevitable consequence of an unjust foreign policy designed to bolster the over-mighty dollar at the expense of the world's poor.

But, this time, there was a difference. The main protagonist was a spoilt rich kid from the Saudi plutocracy who had discovered religion. My own experience of Northern Ireland and Right-wing Christian evangelists had taught me that religious and political fanaticism make a lethal cocktail.

This was no desperate act by a bunch of misguided freedom fighters. What occurred on September 11 could have happened in London, Paris or Delhi. We are dealing with a global conspiracy to bomb the planet back into a medieval age in which democracy and freedom are replaced by an ultra-conservative religious order.

I still believe that America has much to answer for, and must break out of the arrogant pursuit of self-interest that has been a hallmark of its foreign policy. It still refuses to work with the rest of the world to tackle climate change; it is doing precious little to press Israel to end the assaults on Palestinians.

Yet none of that is justification for what happened on September 11 or for opposing the alliance against international terrorism. This is a coalition backed by the United Nations - the very institution so revered by my friends on the Left.

Every argument against the use of force has proven false. It was said that bombing would only strengthen the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan. Really? Military action would impede the flow of humanitarian aid.

Hardly: it is actually increasing, following the fall of Kabul. It was said that the West should negotiate with the Taliban. Funny - I don't remember hearing this demand when it came to stopping Slobodan Milosevic from butchering the Kosovan Muslims. And so on.

So, yes, I find it strange to be numbered among the hawks, but I make no apologies for my position. A new world order is possible; it can start with the West rebuilding the shattered infrastructure of Afghanistan. There must be an enhanced role for the UN.

And there must be recognition that the next generation of suicide bombers is growing up in Palestinian refugee camps, in the grinding poverty that so scars the Third World and that we have done insufficient to address.

I am no great convert to the American Dream. I still have huge reservations about President Bush's willingness to do more than simply hunt down bin Laden and his network. I'm still proud to call myself a socialist - but I would choose America every time over the brutal, fascistic regime of the Taliban and their type.

I respect the rights of those who, through their own deeply held beliefs, oppose armed conflict. It's just that, this time, they are wrong.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck 'im out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;

There are those of us that honor them, ev'n when we're not at war,
but we're few and far between, except in places like FR;

"...but I do know that the crude but comfortable anti-Americanism that has been the hallmark of the British Left is no longer intellectually credible."

Awwww...don't feel too bad, mate.
Why don'tcha know the American Left is just as bereft of *credibilty* too, Comrade??
You're still in *good* company; eye-to-eye with your peers somewhere, down there.

"A new world order is possible...There must be an enhanced role for the UN."

In your dreams, Comrade; only in your screwed-up dreams.

"I'm still proud to call myself a socialist - but I would choose America every time over the..."

Over what, Comrade?
Over the communists?
Blime!!
You may keep your *support* comrade; just as you may keep your enlightened, albeit diversified STDs.
It 'taint needed by most of we Yanks any more than your dour English form of Leftist pap.

In other words, America, repent your sins, you still need to do it, we liberals have no need to repent on above wishes, our ideology is just as perfect as Bin Laden's.

Exactly: institutions revered by the left, a left supposedly distancing itself from fanaticism.

Am I understanding this right? The left is using the situation to push its agenda, hidding behind terrorists, much like when Stalin hid behind Hitler.

We are not rid of the left's incomepetence and unrepentance. Beware. It is more and more sinister.

Martin Salter is a Trotskyist Labor "queen" whose enlistment would be turned down for rather obvious reasons.

And the reason he's in the Telegraph and not the Guardian is .... ? (Becaause he's not adhering to the anti-American line?)

One reason some of the leftists aren't spewing their usual bile about the war on OBLland is simple - he isn't a Marxist. Leftists like to think of themselves as an elite - they like the idea of Marxism's central control by n elite. When have the leftists NOT supported avowed Communists? IMO they get a nasty little thrill in their hearts when capitalism is attacked. They opposed the efforts of the Contras, yet they didn't want us to support the guerrillas in El Salvador.

Speaking to the idiot that wrote this crap ... not the person who posted it .... Why don't we get together and play "Vietnam" You pretend you ARE a VC and Ill pretend that I'm still in country ... just for old times sake ...

shooting Communists was ALWAYS a just cause, by the way

Exactly. As others have pointed out here, it's only because it seems the bullets are flying their way, that the leftists are suddenly concerned with defense. In Vietnam, there was no threat to western leftists, so it was convenient and fun to say things like "take up arms on the side of the Vietcong" while all the time staying in their comfy homes, going to their cushy jobs and sharing cocktails in indignation with their like-minded friends.

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