Norm Geras launched it last night in London at a public meeting. He recalls what prompted this gathering of parts of the left to fight Islamo-fascism:
This brings me to a second end and beginning… It happened in the days immediately following 9/11. Not just simple-minded, but cold, shameful, appalling responses to the crime that had been perpetrated, parading across the pages of the liberal and left press. You know the terms of it: blowback; comeuppance; yes, a crime of course but… But what? But a crime to be contextualized immediately, just in case you might be unaware that it wasn’t the first or the worst crime in human history.
This kind of stuff, I regret to say, was coming principally from a part of the left. And in those few days, 12, 13, 14 September 2001, it became clear to me that this part of the left wasn’t a part one should have anything – or anything more, depending on where you were at the time – to do with if the left was to have a worthwhile future and merit anybody’s support.
Anyone who’s ever belonged to anything, as we all have – a family, a group, a club, a movement – will know that this involves having some quarrels. If you’re part of the left then you have your quarrels; and having been a part of the left all my adult life, I’ve had my share. But some things you quarrel about. About other things you draw a line.
And so parts of the left – including Peter Beinart’s upcoming book – refuse to be bystanders on the war against Islamist terror. If the Democrats are smart, they will follow their lead. We have real enemies out there; and they need to be uncovered, fought and killed before they kill us. And the primary victims of our enemies – ordinary Muslims across the Middle East – need our democratic support now as much as they ever have.
The Dish 