Letter to Michael Ignatieff

[Louis Proyect]

Dear Professor Ignatieff,

In today's NY Times Magazine section, you write: "Back in the 60's, when I 
marched against the war in Vietnam, I learned that it is a mistake to judge 
a cause by the company it makes you keep. I slogged through the streets 
with Trotskyites who thought America was an evil empire, and I chanted 
slogans under banners that called for socialist revolution in Brooklyn. I 
stood arm in arm with pacifists, who made me wonder whether they would have 
fought Hitler."

Just a few comments on this idiotic statement.

Since I was one of those "Trotskyites" (did you pick up this term of abuse 
from your aunt Gertie in the Furriers Union, I wonder? Interesting how the 
discourse of the Stalinists and American liberalism overlaps on occasion), 
let me first of all explain that without those pacifists and reds you sneer 
at, you probably would never had found yourself marching to begin with. It 
was they who risked arrest and persecution for taking the first steps 
against the Vietnam war, not the liberal pundits like Max Lerner who 
supported the war and in whose careerist footpath you are following.

Secondly, as I am sure you are aware, the pacifists would not have fought 
Hitler. One of them, Lew Hill, spent time in a detention camp for opposing 
the war. He later went on to launch the Pacifica Network, the only 
alternative to the commercial networks that are now spewing out a polluted 
river of lies. If there is any justice in the world, these networks, and 
the generals and politicians they are subservient to, will someday be found 
guilty of war crimes and spend time behind bars. They should also reserve a 
place there for you, Paul Berman, Christopher Hitchens and the rest of the 
liberal warmongering crew.

Thirdly, as you well know, nobody carried banners calling for "socialist 
revolution in Brooklyn." While this might be a joke, it is also entirely 
possible that you were so unschooled in Marxism that you believe that a 
socialist revolution can take place in the borough of a city. The real 
joke, however, is that you go on to say that the Bush administration is 
"right on the issue. and that supporting the war does  not make you "a 
Cheney conservative or an apologist for American imperialism." Now, 
Professor Ignatieff, nobody believes that you are a "Cheney conservative." 
We understand that you are a Democratic Party ideologue who is following 
the lead of people like Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. But, on the 
other hand, there is little question that you are an apologist for American 
imperialism.

The war against Iraq is virtually identical to the war that the British 
fought in 1921, when Winston Churchill urged the use of poison gas against 
the upstart Kurds, just as the US has openly stated that it will now use 
tear gas--illegally--if the need arises. The British were always quite open 
about their war aims, at least within their own elite circles. In a 1919 
letter to a British foreign service functionary Alan Dawnay, T.E. Lawrence 
wrote:

"The future is ours, as long as the Arabs of Mesopotamia [Iraq] back us, 
for the population of Syria is never to be more than 5,000,000 (no metals 
no fuel . . .no industry; and little arable land) and Mesopotamia has 
thrice the acreage of Egypt (Egypt 13,000,000 /. Mesopotamia = 39,000,000) 
and besides agriculture it has more petrol than any place on earth (cheap 
fuel = industry) and about it, in Persia and the Kurdish hills, are copper, 
lead and iron."

Do you seriously think that the calculations of people with long-standing 
ties to the oil industry like Cheney, Bush and company are any different? 
Do you believe that this war is about anything except oil and other 
geopolitical interests? If so, it is very difficult to understand why the 
USA has not invaded Israel, which routinely ignores UN resolutions, builds 
nuclear weapons, tortures political prisoners, and bulldozes peace 
activists to death within the context of building an apartheid state.

In any case, I wouldn't worry that much about whether or not the 14,000 
academics who signed a petition against the war think that your hands are 
dripping with blood. The career path to becoming a big-time liberal 
imperialist spokesman is strewn with obstacles, not the least of which is 
moral qualms. I am quite sure that in the course of rising to the top of 
this garbage heap, you will find it easy to dispense with them.

Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org