Thursday, July 21, 2011

I Hate The War

Toad Gitlin wrote an embarrassing piece of trash that justified the Libyan War and tried to provide cover to cop outs like himself. Naturally, when trash floats online it can be traced to Salon. We called it out Sunday. Medea Benjamin called it out Tuesday and, just published online, Justin Raimondo writes the definitive rebuttal:

The last person we need to hear from on the state of the antiwar movement is surely Todd Gitlin, the has-been "New" Left leader now a college professor of something-or-other. After all, it was none other than Gitlin, in the run up to the invasion of Iraq – and the biggest antiwar demonstrations since his own heyday – who took to the pages of Mother Jones magazine and criticized the antiwar movement for not "rebuking" Saddam Hussein. He was appalled at the signs at antiwar rallies calling for "No Sanctions" and "No Bombing." Sure, the sanctions were "a humanitarian disaster for the country’s civilians," wrote Gitlin, but –echoing the claims made by Washington – he averred that the Iraqi government "bears some responsibility for that disaster." This was nonsensical back then, and it is even more so now that we know there never were any "weapons of mass destruction," as the US government claimed, and therefore no justification for the sanctions.

And what, pray tell, would an "antiwar" movement that refused to oppose bombing amount to, exactly? What universe is Gitlin living in? The same universe he’s living in today – one in which a former antiwar "leader" has turned into a cheerleader for "liberal" imperialism of the sort practiced by his hero, Barack Obama. This is clear from the content of his latest screed, a tract purporting to explain why the antiwar movement is in the doldrums.

The thing is -- and this takes nothing away from Justin, he wrote an amazing piece, the piece -- the rebuttals? They're an indictment of the current state of the left in that that's it. Three. (And Justin's rebuttal comes from the Libertarian, so we can't count it as a left reply.) I'm sure I've missed one or two on the left. But if Toad had puked up that garbage in 2004, 2005 or 2006, he would have been run screaming back to Columbia, pissing his pants the entire time. Because had it happened then, there would have been a multitude of voices decrying his garbage.

Toad is the problem and he is also the prototype of so many other problems on the left.

When you read Justin's piece in full -- and it needs to be read in full -- know that he nails Toad to the wall but grasp that all the silence since Sunday when Toad spewed is also being indicted.

If you ever wondered what soul-less looked like, cruise on over to The Nation website. Grasp how quickly beliefs and convictions were discarded. The exact same wars are going on -- and news ones have been by Barack -- but you'd never know it to watch their trash they offer up. If you do not have a sense of ethics, if you do not have a set of core beliefs, you have nothing. And your soul-less. And you're Katrina vanden Heuvel and all of her disgusting buddies.


It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4475. Tonight it is [PDF format warning] 4477.



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