I think most PEN-L'ers recognize the article on the Iraqi CP that Joel Wendland forwarded as blatant self-justification and requiring no further commentary. One might as well spend time dissecting Chalabi's latest speech. But there is one thing in it that sticks out like a sore thumb: "In answer to some of the criticisms levelled at the Communists, Ali points out that the ICP was the only major force opposed to the invasion." Can you imagine that? A country of 25 million and the *only* group that was opposed to the invasion was a sect of a couple of thousand people? What arrogance. What stupidity. This is what happens when you build a left movement that historically identified with the same kind of cynical attitude as the CP of the Soviet Union. It is what made the New Left turn away from the CP in disgust. This is not to say that Communists did not act bravely and often intelligently in Iraq. Rather it is to say that the left *as a whole* needs to stop behaving like the scumbags in Washington who also never acknowledge that they are wrong, like Bush's last press conference.
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