jihad chic

In early July I wrote:

We are perilously close to a revival of domestic terrorism, and not from right-wing militia types. The Left—both domestic and international—is already making common cause with Islamists. It is only a matter of time before some in those camps decide to cement that alignment with more than mere words.

This red and black alignment is a fact on the ground in Europe. In the US it has thus far remained a phenomenon of the fringe.

But perhaps not for much longer. Here's the conclusion of Christopher Hitchens' 7 September Slate column, which I just got around to finishing.

Another small but interesting development has occurred among my former comrades at The Nation magazine. In its “GOP Convention Issue” dated Sept. 13, the editors decided to run a piece by Naomi Klein titled “Bring Najaf to New York.” If you think this sounds suspiciously like an endorsement of Muqtada Sadr and his black-masked clerical bandits, you are not mistaken. The article, indeed, went somewhat further, and lower, than the headline did. Ms. Klein is known as a salient figure in the so-called antiglobalization movement, and for a book proclaiming her hostility to logos and other forms of oppression: She's not marginal to what remains of the left. Her nasty, stupid article has evoked two excellent blog responses from two pillars of the Nation family: Marc Cooper in Los Angeles and Doug Ireland in New York. What gives, they want to know, with a supposed socialist-feminist offering swooning support to theocratic fascists? It's a good question, and I understand that it's ignited quite a debate among the magazine's staff and periphery.

When I quit writing my column for The Nation a couple of years ago, I wrote semi-sarcastically that it had become an echo chamber for those who were more afraid of John Ashcroft than Osama Bin Laden. I honestly did not then expect to find it publishing actual endorsements of jihad. But, as Marxism taught me, the logic of history and politics is a pitiless one. The antiwar isolationist “left” started by being merely “status quo”: opposing regime change and hinting at moral equivalence between Bush's “terrorism” and the other sort. This conservative position didn't take very long to metastasize into a flat-out reactionary one, with Michael Moore saying that the Iraqi “resistance” was the equivalent of the Revolutionary Minutemen, Tariq Ali calling for solidarity with the “insurgents,” and now Ms. Klein, among many others, wanting to bring the war home because any kind of anti-Americanism is better than none at all. These fellow-travelers with fascism are also changing ships on a falling tide: Their applause for the holy warriors comes at a time when wide swathes of the Arab and Muslim world are sickening of the mindless blasphemy and the sectarian bigotry. It took an effort for American pseudo-radicals to be outflanked on the left by Ayatollah Sistani, but they managed it somehow.

As Hitchens notes, Klein's fetishization of Islamist brutality was slapped down by some of her colleagues. But her amoral idiocy was nonetheless granted pride of place in the flagship of the American Left. And don't forget that—at least among the Party delegates—the living icon of July's DNC convention was Michael Moore, not the wooden antiwar war hero.

Ideas matter. If the glitterati of the domestic Left continue to romanticize Islamist nihilism, the rank and file will follow. Nothing good will come of this.

Is there still time for the Democrats to dump Kerry and change the ticket to Moore/Edwards? That seems to be where their 'soul' is.

They did have their chance with Howlin' Howard, but chose the "electable" one.

Buyer's remorse? I hope so.