And such like reasoning could underpin the Iraq position of neo-cons
and C. Hitchens. The answer to the question is: "Destiny? What's
*destiny* got to do with it?"
--
Sandwichman
The Independent (London)
February 25, 2003, Tuesday
MEDIA: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?;
AS TROOPS PREPARE FOR WAR IN IRAQ, A BATTLE OF IDEAS IS TAKING PLACE
BYLINE: JOHANN HARI
A year ago, the proposals for a second Gulf War seemed very much the
brainchild of the American right. The intellectual arguments backing
the conflict emerged almost entirely from hard-right US think-tanks
and senators. But then, a funny thing happened: a significant portion
of the dissident left began to come out, in dribs and drabs, for
overthrowing Saddam by force. There is now a considerable school of
British centre-left thinkers and commentators who are lobbying hard
for war, so that the Iraqi people can be freed: Christopher Hitchens,
Nick Cohen, John Lloyd, Julie Burchill, Roger Alton and David Aaronovitch
On the surface, there seem to be few similarities between these
lefties-for-the-war. Lloyd, senior reporter on the Financial Times
and contributing editor at the New Statesman, for example, is a
fierce defender of the Blair government, while Cohen detests New
Labour. Yet, below the surface, there is an intriguing commonality:
almost all of them are former communists.
John Lloyd, who was a member of the Communist Party and considered
himself a Marxist until his early thirties, identifies a strand of
Marxism that seems to have echoes in the pro-war arguments being made
today. He explains: "It's that side of Marx that argues that
imperialism was good for India, and industrialisation good for the
working class. It's the side of Marx that disliked soft liberals and
said that if you're going to make the world better, you have to go
through a number of necessary evils." Although Lloyd was never what
he calls a "break-any-amount-of-eggs-to-make-an-omelette communist",
there is a similar acceptance on the pro-war left of necessary
violence and the creation of victims, which "soft liberals" blanch at.
(clip)
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