Monday, August 19, 2002
Old Leftie geezer alert: After Sept. 11, some of the old geezers of the Left -- many of whom you wrongly might have thought were long dead -- started coming out of the woodwork, most prominently Noam Chomsky, spouting the exact same things they spouted 30 years ago. Now comes Howard Zinn, author of ''A People's History of the United States,'' with an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe. Hey, I can’t blame the Globe for running a piece by Zinn. It’s a Monday. It’s a slow news day in the middle of August. Might as well give old Howie a shot, for old time’s sake. Predictably, Howie attacks the United State’s foreign policy, using the old moral-relativism, America-is-just-as-bad argument against going to war with Iraq.
Take it away, Howie: “The fact that Iraq is a tyranny would not, in itself, constitute grounds for preemptive war. There are many tyrannies in the world, some kept in power by the United States. ... That Iraq has cruelly attacked its Kurdish minority can hardly be a justification for war. After all, the United States remained silent, and indeed was a supporter of the Iraqi regime, when it committed that act. ... Other nations which killed hundreds of thousands of their own people (Indonesia, Guatemala) not only were not threatened with war, but received weapons from the United States. Iraq's history of invading Kuwait is matched by other countries, among them the United States, which has invaded Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, and Panama. ... Other nations have such weapons (of mass destruction). Israel has nuclear weapons. Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons and have come close to using them. And what country has by far the largest store of weapons of mass destruction in the world? And has used them with deadly consequences to millions of people: in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Southeast Asia?”
Hey, I’m not too wild about going to war with Iraq. I haven’t been convinced by the Bush crowd. But Zinn isn’t presenting new, insightful arguments. He’s merely repeating the same dogmatic gibberish he’s been mouthing for decades.
Take it away, Howie: “The fact that Iraq is a tyranny would not, in itself, constitute grounds for preemptive war. There are many tyrannies in the world, some kept in power by the United States. ... That Iraq has cruelly attacked its Kurdish minority can hardly be a justification for war. After all, the United States remained silent, and indeed was a supporter of the Iraqi regime, when it committed that act. ... Other nations which killed hundreds of thousands of their own people (Indonesia, Guatemala) not only were not threatened with war, but received weapons from the United States. Iraq's history of invading Kuwait is matched by other countries, among them the United States, which has invaded Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, and Panama. ... Other nations have such weapons (of mass destruction). Israel has nuclear weapons. Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons and have come close to using them. And what country has by far the largest store of weapons of mass destruction in the world? And has used them with deadly consequences to millions of people: in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Southeast Asia?”
Hey, I’m not too wild about going to war with Iraq. I haven’t been convinced by the Bush crowd. But Zinn isn’t presenting new, insightful arguments. He’s merely repeating the same dogmatic gibberish he’s been mouthing for decades.
