My thoughts on the War.

As I have moved further to the left, I have found ideological compatibility with the hard left -- The Nation and its fellows. Many of the people with whom I agree most often are either very conflicted, or in outright opposition, to pursuing the terrorists of September 11 by military means.

That some of the Left are against the War is a fact that gives me pause. The anti-Stalinist Left has been right much more often than it has been wrong on issues of American foreign and military policy.

The Left was the first and strongest critic of Fascism. In fact, there is a chilling phrase "Premature anti-fascist" to describe persons opposed to Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, et al. before the responsible people did. In recent months an attack has been waged on the memory of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, arguing that Americans and other foreigners who fought on the Loyalist side in Spain were either dupes or worse of Stalinist Russia.

Yet the opposition to fascism by the Left is one of the things I find most admirable. The fact that the mainstream of American society came late to seeing Hitler as a greater threat to freedom even than Stalin is something that should shame us.

The left also included many anti-Stalinists who were quite aware of the horrors of Soviet-style communism. [Much more to come]