Unholy Alliance

The "Peace Left" and the Islamic Jihad Against America
By David Horowitz and John Perazzo -- (excerpt)

This article focuses on the so-called "peace left" -- so called because most of the individuals participating in it are not pacifists and are not really interested in peace as such but in radical agendas that are served by opposing America’s war on terror. (Thus there were no "peace" demonstrations at the Iraqi embassy calling on the government of Saddam Hussein to comply with seventeen U.N. resolutions which the war was undertaken to enforce.)

The peace left’s core consists of the ideological descendents of the communist/progressive left that wanted the West to lose the Cold War to the Soviet Union. This isn't a motley crew of inconsequential fringe extremists but is, in fact/ the well-organized, militant, and immensely influential driving force behind the contemporary peace movement and the enormous anti-war rallies it has recently staged. Upon the foundation of its hatred for the United States, the peace left has forged its alliance with radical Islam, whose wellspring of anti-American hatred runs just as deep.

In word and deed, both of these allies make it plain that they consider everything about the United States to be evil and unworthy of preservation; that they wish to see American society and its way of life crushed by any means necessary, including violent revolution. Their position was well summarized by the now-infamous professor Ward Churchill, who asserted that terrorist violence directed against the United States is a morally justifiable response to what he characterizes as the U.S. government’s "rape and murder" of other peoples. "If we want an end to violence," says Churchill, "especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world." Churchill does not, however, harbor any hopes that America might mend its alleged flaws; rather, he advocates the country’s destruction: "I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether." Toward this end, Churchill candidly endorses further acts of anti-American terror. "One of the things I’ve suggested," he says, "is that it may be that more 9/11s are necessary." Lamenting that the terrorism of 9/11 had proved "insufficient to accomplish its purpose" of eviscerating the United States, Churchill wrote, "What the hell? It was worth a try."

These sentiments are echoed by no less a figure than Osama bin Laden, who in 1998 issued the following edict: "We -- with God’s help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson. The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

By drawing attention to the alliances between (and the common objectives of) the radical left and radical Islam, DiscoverTheNetwork (DTN) has hit a raw nerve for some. Critics have accused DTN of lumping together all leftists as traitors who sympathize with America’s jihadist enemies. In an effort to make clear the distinctions between the most radical and the more moderate gradations of leftism, DTN has refined the photo grid that was the source of much indignation. Yet the source of the criticism -- the self-described patriotic left -- has failed to draw any similar distinctions between itself and the radical, anti-American left that in fact does endorse the permanent evisceration of American society. Nowhere is this failure to dissociate from America’s enemies more evident than in the peace movement, where teeming masses of people have participated in demonstrations organized by hard-line Communists whose most fervent wish is not to bring about the establishment of a lasting peace but rather to see the United States toppled by an attack from without or a revolution from within.

Patriotism As an "Embarrassment"

Such are some of the leading lights of the so-called "peace movement" today. The self-described patriotic left has, for the most part, not bothered to dissociate itself from this socialist, radical, anti-American left whose primary agenda is not to achieve a lasting peace but rather to discredit the United States in the eyes of the world and to condemn America as a racist, imperialist, aggressor seeking nothing less than world domination and control of the earth’s oil reserves. Similarly, the leftwing media have all but failed to distance themselves from these radical elements or to bluntly call them what they in fact are: America-hating Communists who want the nation’s Islamist foes to emerge victorious in the War on Terror. To their credit, a few media outlets such as Salon and The Nation have distanced themselves from American some of the leftist organizations.

These groups share with the Islamists a negative bond of intense anti-American hatred. While they do not share the Islamists’ religious ideals, they fervently wish to see the United States and its capitalist economic system crumble. As Osama bin Laden declared in a fatwa issued on Al-Jazeera Television just before American and British troops entered Iraq in March 2003: "The interests of Muslims and the interests of the socialists coincide in the war against the crusaders." Just as bin Laden characterizes Americans as "crusaders seeking to expand their empire into Muslim lands," so does the socialist left charge that all American foreign policy is predicated on imperialistic ambition and a lust for oil. Just as Islamic radicals wish to impose their brand of Islam on America and institute strict Islamic law on a global scale, so does the radical left seek to create a socialist ideal state and abolish capitalism from the earth. In the lexicon of Muslim fundamentalists, America is the Great Satan; to the radical left, America is a nation worthy of destruction because it is the embodiment of evil and injustice. The spirit of contempt and the impulse to sow the seeds of destruction is equally intense in both camps.

As Middle East expert Bernard Lewis observes, "the sinfulness and also the degeneracy of America and its consequent threat to Islam and the Muslim peoples [have become] articles of faith in Muslim fundamentalist circles." In The Crisis of Islam, Lewis writes, "By now there is an almost standardized litany of American offenses recited in the lands of Islam, in the media, pamphlets, in sermons, and in public speeches."

The same litany can be found in the writings and oratory of the American peace left, whose mouthpieces regularly impugn every conceivable aspect of U.S. culture and policy. Against the backdrop of their negative view of their country, they consider patriotism to be nothing short of shameful. This mindset is explained by Professor Todd Gitlin, a former president of Students for a Democratic Society and a self-declared "anti-anti Communist" of the 1960s who chose not to support the West during the Cold War against the Communist states. Notably, Gitlin did not feel a positive identification with the Soviet Union but rather with a utopian ideal that he expected to emerge in Vietnam, Cuba, or some other revolutionary state. His rejection of patriotism as an American did not stem from his love for any particular enemy of the United States but rather from a negative revulsion he felt toward America as a result of its participation in the Vietnam War.

"The war went on so long and so destructively," says Gitlin, "it felt like more than the consequence of a wrong-headed policy. My country must have been revealing some fundamental core of wrongness by going on, and on, with an indefensible war. The American flag did not feel like my flag, even though I could recognize -- in the abstract -- that it made sense for others to wave it in the anti-war cause." In the early stages of the war, Gitlin argued against waving the North Vietnamese flag or burning the Stars and Stripes. But the hatred of a bad war, in what was evidently a pattern of bad wars -- though none so bad as Vietnam -- turned us inside out. It inflamed our hearts. You can hate your country in such a way that the hatred becomes fundamental. A hatred so clear and intense came to feel like a cleansing flame. By the late ’60s, this is what became of much of the New Left." Adds Gitlin, "For a large bloc of Americans, my age and younger, too young to remember World War II -- the generation for whom 'the war’ meant Vietnam and possibly always would, to the end of our days -- the case against patriotism was not an abstraction. There was a powerful experience underlying it: as powerful an eruption of our feelings as the experience of patriotism is supposed to be for patriots. Indeed, it could be said that in the course of our political history we experienced a very odd turn about: The most powerful public emotion in our lives was rejecting patriotism."

This negative view of America, rather than a positive view of America’s Islamist enemies, is what animates much of the contemporary peace movement as well. Many of the movement’s leaders are New Leftists who, like Gitlin, developed their anti-American hatred during the Vietnam era.

Conclusion

The American peace left is heavily populated by radical and Communist groups whose foremost ambition is to facilitate the downfall of the U.S. -- by any means necessary and through any alliances which may further that cause, as evidenced by leftist and Muslim organizations with passionately anti-American and anti-Israel agendas. Their ally in the current war against America is radical Islam, the murderous doctrine personified by Mohammed Atta and his fellow 9/11 hijackers, and by the masterminds of 9/11 and other attacks -- bin Laden, Omar Abdel Rahman, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and many more.

How is it possible that such a seemingly unlikely alliance has been forged? After all, the Islamic radicals emphatically reject virtually everything for which the peace left claims to stand: the peaceful resolution of international conflict; respect and tolerance for other cultures and faiths; civil liberties; freedom of expression; freedom of thought; human rights; democracy; women’s rights; gay rights; and the separation of church and state. There could be no stranger bedfellows than American leftists and Islamic extremists. Yet they have been brought together by the one overriding trait they do share -- their hatred for America; their belief that the U.S. is the very embodiment of evil on earth and must consequently be destroyed.

As Osama bin Laden told a CNN interviewer in 1997, "We declared jihad against America because America is unjust, criminal and tyrannical." This pronouncement does not differ at all, either in substance or tone, from the declarations of the peace left, whose sentiments are similarly detectable in the following excerpt from an al Qaeda manifesto: "America is the head of heresy in our modern world and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by the people via legislating laws that contradict the way of Allah and permit what Allah has prohibited. This compels the other countries to act in accordance with the same laws in the same ways ... and punishes any country [that rebels against these laws] by besieging it, and then by boycotting it. By so doing [America] seeks to impose on the world a religion that is not Allah’s." While the peace left makes no similar religious references, its assessments of America are essentially the same -- alleging that the United States is determined to overrun other nations and dominate the world.

Radical Islam seeks purification and social justice by means of jihad, or holy war, whose highest ideal is martyrdom achieved while attempting to conquer an evil worldly power such as the United States, the Great Satan (and Israel, the Little Satan). The radical Islamist’s ultimate goal is to subdue the "infidel nations" and therein institute Sharia, or Islamic law, so as to redeem the world for Allah. The socialist left, similarly, advocates revolution as the means of achieving its ends -- eliminating capitalism and creating a socialist paradise on earth. Whereas Islamic radicals seek to purify the world of heresies and of the infidels who practice them, the radical left seeks to purify society’s "collective soul" of the vices allegedly spawned by capitalism -- those being racism, sexism, imperialism, and greed. Just as Islamic radicals seek to impose their religion on the rest of the world in a totalitarian fashion requiring unwavering obedience, so do radical leftists seek to create an omnipotent socialist state that will control every aspect of daily life and will impose a universal brand of "social justice" on all mankind.

Central to both radical Islam and the radical left is an inclination to overthrow the existing order by any means necessary, so as to create a paradise on earth. This end ultimately justifies any means, and any alliance, that leads there. American leftists may find the bigotry and intolerance of Islamic radicals repugnant but their desire to rid the world of U.S. imperialism and capitalism overrides this revulsion and beckons them to forge the unholy alliance. Moreover, radical American leftists practice their own brand of bigotry and intolerance, aiming their wrath and condemnation at all who disagree with them.

The leftist Australian journalist John Pilger, who denounces "American imperialism" even as he praises Fidel Castro’s dictatorship, has publicly endorsed the killing of American troops in Iraq. "They’re legitimate targets," he says. "They’re illegally occupying a country." He openly supports the Iraqi resistance on the grounds that "we can’t afford to be choosy" in acquiring much-needed allies. Pilger’s sentiment perfectly expresses the governing principle of the unholy alliance; it is, as stated at the beginning of this essay, akin to the cliche, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."