British lefty, Nick Cohen, assails the anti-war movement’s collaboration with oppression and terror:
The Iraqis must now accept that they will have to fight for democracy without the support of the British Left. Disgraceful though our failure to hear them has been, I can’t help thinking that they’ll be better off without us.
Read the whole thing – about Harold Pinter’s hypocrisy over Kurdish autonomy and democracy, of the way in which European socialists, gripped by anti-Americanism, now back a genocidal dictator against the democratic aspirations of his own people. I think yesterday’s massive marches represent something deeply, deeply corrupt in the soul of the left: a form of Western self-loathing that, unless it is resisted, will lead not just to tyranny for more people in the Middle East, but for the slow erosion of Western freedom itself in the face of terror. The only response is resistance. Not from the governments in Washington and London; but from the rest of us. The lies must be challenged day by day, hour by hour. The self-hatred must be countered with calm recitation of the West’s proud history; the excuses for tyranny opposed by a growing demand that the Arab world not be tool in the Western left’s attempt to destroy Western freedom, but seen as a part of humanity that deserves the freedom that the rest of us enjoy. No justice. No peace. As the left used to say.
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “This is a president who uses the death penalty with complete abandon and disregard for any respect for life. This is no example. So let everyone recognise what has happened here today: that Britain does not support this war for oil. The British people will not tolerate being used to prop up the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years.” – Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, accusing Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice of being racists.
The Dish 