[PEN-L] Bill Weinberg: redbaiter

[Louis Proyect]

Today Znet features a redbaiting attack on the antiwar movement focused on
the ANSWER coalition by Bill Weinberg, a journalist who has written about
the Zapatistas. He also hosts a late night talk show on WBAI in NYC and
operates a website called World War Four Report
(<http://www.ww3report.com/>http://www.ww3report.com/), where the Znet
article originally appeared. So he has a pretty big megaphone to spread his
filth. Despite his self-professed anarchism, Weinberg has much in common
with journalist Marc Cooper, who has perfected these sorts of redbaiting
attacks.

Weinberg complains:

"International ANSWER formed after 9-11 around the core of the
International Action Center (IAC), itself formed by Workers World. ANSWER's
most visible spokespersons have almost invariably been longtime IAC/WWP
adherents.

"Many in the movement are both unaware of these organizational connections,
as well as WWP's history of orthodox and problematic political positions.
In 1956, WWP supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary, claiming the
Hungarian striking workers were 'counterrevolutionary'; in response to the
Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, WWP charged that protesters had launched
'violent attacks on the soldiers,' provoking the military's actions; during
the Bosnian war in the 1990s, WWP portrayed reports of atrocities and mass
rape by the Serb forces as 'imperialist lies,' and now supports Slobodan
Milosevic in his battle against war crimes charges at The Hague.

"Ramsey Clark, the visible leader of the International Action Center, is a
founder of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, and
has also provided legal representation for some accused of participating in
the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He has more recently volunteered for Saddam
Hussein's legal team."

These are the same talking points you have heard from David Corn, Doug
Ireland, Marc Cooper and other contributors to mainstream liberal
publications. It differs little from attacks that have appeared in the
Washington Post and NY Times.

Weinberg really doesn't care much for the Iraqi resistance. In the past
(<http://ww3report.com/warmovement.html>http://ww3report.com/warmovement.html)
, he has argued for continued American occupation of Iraq in the same terms
as John Kerry (at least Kerry has the decency not to pretend that he is
some kind of radical):

"Slogans like 'Bring the troops home' and 'US out of Iraq' are handy for
fitting on a placard, but they inevitably dodge the really tough questions.
Having now plunged Iraq into social entropy, destroyed the country's
infrastructure and brought to a boil myriad ethnic and religious conflicts
which had been simmering under the Saddam dictatorship, it might be the
height of irresponsibility for the US to just unilaterally withdraw. It
would, in fact, be a violation of the responsibilities of an occupying
power under international law."

Weinberg just doesn't care for "extremist" protests of the kind mounted by
the antiwar movement. He has a different model entirely:

"Whatever happened to CARDRI, the Committee Against Repression and for
Democratic Rights in Iraq , the progressive London-based exile group that
opposed both the Saddam dictatorship and US imperialist designs in the
1980s? Does CARDRI still exist? Are any of its members still vocal and
active? It is from such voices that we must seek leadership--not from the
self-appointed cadre of Workers World, or even the comparatively innocuous
Leslie Cagan."

CARDRI was run by the atrocious Ann Clwyd, a Blairite MP. Speaking in the
name of CARDRI, Clywd told the Guardian in 2004 that "Iraq is free at
last," "has a chance for a better future," and that "a vibrant civil
society is emerging from the decades of war and dictatorship."
(<http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1180746,00.html>http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1180746,00.html).
Ann Clwyd is a pretty good fund-raiser. She got her hands on $3 million
under the Iraq Liberation Act passed by the US Congress in 1998. I wonder
if she passed some of that dough on to Weinberg to help keep his redbaiting
website afloat.


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