In any case, my reading of the Israeli press shows them a little more critical in their impact on Hezbollah. The main worry seems to be that Hezbollah, at least politically, is now stronger than ever.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that there are no military solutions for any side in these conflicts. Of course, any people has the right to defend itself with arms, but if you’re looking for a solution, rather than deepening the problem, I think it starts with setting aside the delusion of vanquishing your adversaries via military victory. It’s way past time for the pragmatists on all sides to each isolate their own fanatics and make a deal.

Otherwise, it’s war without end, and it’s not in Israel’s or anyone else’s interest to be surrounded by chaos and semi-anarchy forever, is it?

After Israel kicked the snot our of Hezbollah in their recent conflict, the United Nations got involved and drew up resolutions. Those resolutions required Israel to cease hostilities and for Hezbollah to return the soldier they kidnapped. Hezbollah …

In fact, he would probably hate us even more, because this new United States would keep church and state rigorously separated, while defending all religions’ right to exist, would protect a woman’s right to abortion, would accept unions between men and women, men and men and women and women, would demand equality among men and women, and so on.

In short, we would become the kind of society that is truly the antithesis of the kind of reactionary, theocratic fascism that al Qaeda envisions.

Finally, it is sick for the left to essentially support attacks on American citizens – working class, professionals and elites without distinction – as a way to change US Foreign Policy. Changing our foreign policy is the job of a progressive, mass political movement in the United States and abroad.

To say that it’s ‘folly for the Left to expend any energy opposing al Qaeda’ is like saying it was folly for the left to oppose Franco, Mussolini and Hitler – they all ‘opposed’ US Imperialism in some way with a more reactionary, violent vision.

The enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend.

Plus, I don’t think it’s too difficult intellectually, strategically or tactically to oppose terrorism IN ALL ITS FORMS, theocratic fascism at home and abroad, and Bin Laden’s AND Bush’s reactionary vision for the world.

The future of humanity depends on doing both.

But it was certainly a day that changed the political landscape and priorities, for the left and everyone else, here in the U.S for sure, and to a lesser extent in some other countries. For one thing, it certainly took the wind out of the sails of the anti-globalization protests for a period.

Nor will you find any argument from me about who has spilled more blood over the 20 Century, not to mention the toll of the U.S. Civil War the century before.

But history doesn’t tell us that only one nation is sick and twisted enough to use nuclear weapons; it only tells us that one has so far, because it deemed humans of its own nation more precious than those humans in Japan. And that tribal or national notion, unfortunately, is still very common around the globe.

Moreover, there are a good number of nukes unaccounted for today, if not here then abroad. And we know there are people under the sway of al-Qaeda who will blow up schoolbuses with children or markets full of women shopping, because they belong to a rival branch of Islam. As an Iraqi trade unionist told us during their stay here in Chicago, what this has to do with resisting occupation, heaven only knows.

So I think it’s not unwarranted to worry that ‘suitcase nukes’ or something deadly on a mass scale in fanatical hands like these could be used by someone other than those you mention.

Also, I’m probably one of the few people on the left who’s actually carefully read everything al-Quaeda and bin Laden has put out in English. If you think they just want the US of out the Middle East, then I think you do quite the opposite of ‘exaggerating’ their significance.

I hope you’re right that the Arab world is enlightened enough to oppose its fanatics. In fact, we’re counting on it, but we need to see a lot more evidence of it than we have so far. And concurrently, I would agree that our main task here is to take on our home-grown theocratic fascists of the ‘Christian’ variety, which I have done in a number of ways. Check out carldavidson.blogspot.com to see my slideshow on them for starters.

But here’s a shorthand, somewhat oversimplified, way of stating what I think HAS changed.

In the WW2 era, the US left correctly took a defencist line in the War against Fascism.

In the Vietnam era, the US left correctly took a defeatist line in relation to the liberation movements fighting US imperialism.

Today, however, for a number of reasons, objective and subjective, we have to do both, I think. We have to be defencists against the reactionary terrorist assaults and crimes, not only on our country, but others as well. al-Quaeda’s attacks in Spain and Africa come to mind. At the same time, we should be defeatists in regard to the wars waged by our ruling class in Iraq, Afghanistan and potentially Iran and Korea.

This calls for complex strategy and tactics, and not a matter of simple oppositionism.

That’s why I threw out the challenge: if we were in charge, how would we face and deal with these matters differently than the Bush regime and its defenders? If you want to lead, it’s not enough to just say what you’re against. More is demanded of you.

I tried to give the beginnings of an answer, which opposed Bush’s phoney ‘war on terror’ in favor of collective security to oppose the danger of wider war and bring terrorists, of all varieties, to justice.

Hindsight is 20-20, as they say, and I’m sure I could have done better in a number of ways.

But if you go out and organize among ordinary people on the war, one of the first questions they ask is how you think terrorism should be dealt with–and saying it’s not really a problem will not enable you to accomplish much beyond your own marginalization.

So from that perspective, I think the piece, on the whole, holds up rather well, and has helped me, if not a good number of others, to develop a majority movement against Bush, the war and the danger from the far right.

We’ll see. There’s stil a long ways to go, and neither Bush nor our movement has decisively won the day.

The only significance of 9/11 was that the victimizer became the victim for once. Unfortunately, the victimizer did not learn a thing.

It’s folly for the Left to expend any energy opposing al Qaeda. Bin Laden, the U.S. ally in the 1980s, only wanted the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. built bases for the first Gulf War. Once the U.S. gets its foot in the door, it has to be blasted out. Bin Laden knew that from numerous other examples including Vietnam and the Philippines. Clinton should have done that and didn’t. After 9/11, Bush removed them. That’s the main reason we have not suffered another attack. Bin Laden got what he wanted.

In the meantime, the bumbling Bush has damaged foreign policy almost as much as he has damaged this nation with runaway debt, deficits and economic instability. The great uniter has united the world against the U.S.

The greatest danger to the world is the U.S. as the leader of the Capitalist-Christian world. The U.S. invades another nation every one and one-half years on average. As long as it is a power, there can be neither peace nor civillization. As long as U.S. predatory capitalism lauds greed and gluttony as the highest virtues, there can not be world peace. If al Qaeda weakens the U.S., as those same people did to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, that’s to the good of the world. The BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares,” claimed fanatic Muslim tactics disgraced and discredited the practitioners. U.S. involvement in the Gulf revived them and generated unlimited recruits.

History tells us only one nation is sick and twisted enough to use nuclear weapons. That nation still has them and has threatened to use them on several occasions. We just learned that Pakistan receive the latest threat. The only reason there is life on earth today higher than a cockroach is because the Soveit Union never put a Ronald Reagan in its highest office. MAD was no bluff in the hands of a Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. When they said “better dead than red,” they were serious.

As “The Power of nightmares” concluded, the Arab world is enlightened enough to oppose its fanatics. There is every indication that the Christian world will support its fanatics. Nazi Germany did it. Fascist Italy did it. The U.S. put its neo-con fanatics in charge of its government.

The world’s worst threat is not on the other side of the world.

2) First, no one can predict, with certainty, what will happen. Minus the US, most Iraqis just may find a way to make some accomodation among themselves. But it’s for the people of Iraq to sort out, and I tell them Bush has given us nothing but bad choices, and the longer we stay, the worse will be the effect and outcome. It stems from the injustice, cruelty and insanity of the invasion in the first place, and there’s no way to ‘make it right.’ I also say we’ll have a moral obligation for reparations at some point, but here, don’t hold your breath, the Vietnamese are still waiting in line.

When I first read it, I was a student activist and was appalled by the idea that the left should have a military policy. The only option was opposition to the war… but if we’re part of a left that wants to go beyond opposition to proposition, we have to ask ourselves: how would we deal with al-Qaeda?

While many of bin Laden’s recruits may come from among the poor and oppressed of the world, bin Laden does not and does not represent a brighter future, free from oppression and injustice for those people. I think the word “fascist” aptly describes his vision. So, bin Laden doesn’t represent progress. And just because he’s an enemy of Bush and US Imperialism, doesn’t make him a friend of the left. In fact, he probably has more in common with the Christian-right: both are FOR a theocratic state, and AGAINST the enlightenment, equality among men and women, abortion, gay marriage, etc.

Two questions for you:

(1) what do you make of the right (Bush, Rick Santorum, etc.) using the term “Islamic Fascism?” I was particularly surprised to hear Santorum, in a recent interview, echo your words when he criticized the use of the term “war on terror.” We’re not fighting terror, he argued, any more than we were fighting blitzkrieg in the 1940s. The enemy is Islamic fascism.

(2) how do you respond to those who argue “I was opposed to the war initially, but we’ve created such a mess that we have to stay there… there’s the real danger that Iraq turns into a new recruiting and training ground for terrorists… just like Afghanistan was!”