As war with Iraq approaches, the so-called "anti-war" movement is gearing itself up to protest the long overdue removal of a psychopathic dictator. I say "so-called," because closer inspection of the groups participating in organizing marches and rallies reveals that rather than protesting the war, they are using it to advance the Communist agenda.
Take a look, for example, at the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, a member of International ANSWER's steering committee. ANSWER, as readers of FrontPage know, is a front for the pro-Korean communist Workers World Party. Judging from its web site, the IFCO's real sympathies are just as red.
What else, for example, explains the inordinate amount of adulation the IFCO gives to Cuba? A typical bit of propaganda is their "Call to free the Miami 5." These are Cuban spies convicted a few years back on charges of spying on U.S. military installations such as the U.S. Southern Command Headquarters in Miami and the Boca Chica Naval Air Station in the Florida Keys. One of the five also was convicted of participating in shooting down a plane flown by Brothers to the Rescue, a search-and-rescue operation for Cuban refugees trying to sail to the U.S., and killing four people. There's no question the "Miami 5" are spies; even the mother of one reported how relieved she was to find out her son had been arrested for spying, "a crime she could be proud of."
To IFCO, however, the five are "political prisoners," "convicted after a politically-charged trial, in which the U.S. government claimed they were engaging in espionage against U.S. military bases and threatening 'national security.'" Despite the admission by one spy's mother, the IFCO claimed the five were not spying but merely "monitoring the actions of the Miami-based right-wing groups." The IFCO explains further, "Because neo-fascist, anti-Cuba organizations continue to operate with impunity from within the US. - with the full knowledge and support of the FBI and CIA - the Cuban government made a decision to send Cuban security agents to Florida, to monitor the activities of the terrorists." The peace-loving Castro is just defending himself, you see.
Of course, this specious rationalization doesn't explain the several other Castro spies caught in the U.S. recently, such as Ana Belen Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who transmitted national defense information to Cuba. Hard to see how that forestalls terrorism against Cuba. Given these embarrassments, then, it's no wonder that Castro has orchestrated a propaganda campaign attempting to repackage the espionage of the Miami 5 as an effort to prevent terrorist attacks against Cuba, thus capitalizing on 9/11 and the U.S. war on terrorism. This PR campaign dominates the Cuban state-run media, which features a show, "In the Entrails of the Monster," that provides frequent updates on the five spies and features their letters and poems.
In parroting the Castro party line chapter-and-verse, the IFCO is functioning as a U.S. affiliate of Castro's propaganda machine, just like "Not In Our Name" organizer Leslie Cagan, long-time apologist for Catro's regime. That would also explain the site's peddling, with a straight face, a book called Democracy in Cuba, which "offers you a profound historical view followed by a thorough inside look at how this 'rule of the people' is now working in Cuba." It also sheds light on the IFCO's junket to Cuba this July, undertaken "to express fellowship with our Cuban brothers and sisters, especially the elders, and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Revolution!" This is useful idiocy of a breathtaking scope.
This programmatic leftism is obvious everywhere in the IFCO website. Its statement on the 9/11 attacks is a classic example of anti-American phrase-mongering: "the outpouring of racist, xenophobic behavior" against Arabs is decried, the "vilification of Islam" is condemned, "blind nationalism" is cautioned against, and we are offered this Chomskyean gem: "We cannot ignore the fact that more than 1.7 million people in Iraq have died as a direct result of U.S. government bombs and sanctions. Countless thousands have died in our own hemisphere as a result of U.S.-orchestrated coups and so-called 'low-intensity' wars. And millions more lives are threatened by the U.S./World Bank/IMF policy of 'structural adjustment,' which deprives basic social services to poor nations in exchange for usury and economic plunder." The point? We Americans had some payback coming: "The tragic reality is that people in many parts of the world have been the victims of terrorism, and that much of that terrorism has been fomented by our government."
What clinches the IFCO's knee-jerk leftoid perspective, however, is the link to the "Free Mumia" web page. Nothing displays the irrational fanaticism of the anti-American left more than the transformation of this murderer into a "political prisoner." Given the overwhelming evidence of Mumia's guilt, only a fanaticism of religious proportions, or a blind allegiance to ideology, could explain the belief that he was framed by the cops because he's some sort of "activist."
When one considers the many brutal conflicts raging all over the world, from the Sudan to the Congo to Kashmir, it's interesting that an "anti-war" movement concentrates its attention on a war that will liberate a whole people from a brutal dictator and keep weapons of mass destruction from the hands of terrorist murderers. But as the ideological prejudices of the "peace" movement's sponsors show, fighting war isn't the point so much as fighting America and giving comfort to America's Communist enemies.
