Skip to comments.

Posted on 11/06/2001 9:04:57 AM PST by LiveFree2000

Where is the left?

By Penelope Purdy
Denver Post Editorial Board

Tuesday, November 06, 2001 - America needs its political left as the country decides how to fight terrorism, but sadly the left is relegating itself to the realm of the irrelevant.

It's not that the U.S. left is silent. There are protests against bombing Afghanistan, claims that our violent response begets more violence, and cries against using the military for a criminal justice objective - namely, the capture of Osama bin Laden and others responsible for the Sept. 11 massacres.

Admittedly, the Bush administration is still cobbling together an ad hoc strategy, and its prototype is ungainly and flawed. The trouble is, the left hasn't offered a realistic alternative. Just when effective political opposition is needed to guard against group-think and atavistic McCarthyism, the left has managed to marginalize itself.

For example, bin Laden long has been under federal indictment for bombing U.S. embassies in Africa, yet the U.S. has never found a way to arrest him. So scratch the idea that the criminal justice system alone can corral global terrorism. It'll take smart diplomacy, a long-term commitment and, unfortunately, military might.

As to the idea we shouldn't respond with force: In their writings and speeches, al-Qaeda's chiefs repeatedly have called for slaughtering Americans. If we didn't bloody al-Qaeda's nose, other terrorists worldwide would assume they, too, could force the United States to retreat by massacring Americans. Far from preventing violence, failure to defend ourselves would invite future mayhem.

That leaves the matter of the bombing of Afghanistan. It's a common military tactic to protect your own foot soldiers by first destroying the enemy's big guns through aerial bombing or with on-the-ground artillery. If the Pentagon neglected this fundamental protective move, thousands of U.S. troops would come home in body bags - and then my fellow liberals would berate military leaders for needlessly squandering American lives. Nobody likes the bombing, but what's the alternative: people?

There is a legitimate, nearly universal grief for civilian deaths. But even if the United States were entirely out of the picture, Afghanistan's people would still suffer horribly, because nearly six years of Taliban rule has brought the central Asian nation nothing but hunger, despair and deprivation.

Last winter, thousands of Afghans died from cold and starvation while trying to flee into Pakistan - and it was the Taliban's ruthless rule, not American bombs, driving them from their homes. Where was the world's righteous indignation then?

For a year and a half, several thousand Afghan refugees have huddled on a small island on the river dividing Afghanistan from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic. Although most of these refugees are ethnic Tajiks, the Tajikistan government won't let them cross the border. The island has no shelter, food or sanitary facilities, so refugees have survived (barely) thanks only to international aid groups. Yet the bash-America-first crowd doesn't mention this horror, since U.S. bombs didn't cause it.

Arguably, Afghan women are far worse off with the Taliban, under whose rule they aren't allowed to work, can't send their daughters over age 8 to school, but can be beaten for laughing or listening to music. At least in Pakistan's refuge camps, they and their children can get fed, their daughters can get educated and they can giggle and sing as they please.

The Taliban's fall from power could be a very good thing for the Afghan people, yet bringing about that change will take a bloody fight. Protesters who think America shouldn't scrape its knuckles in the process expect the impossible.

But because the U.S. left isn't offering effective foreign policy options, it undermines it own credibility about truly alarming develop-ments on the home front. Contrary to popular notion (fed by a lazy press and opportunistic politicians), several of the most troubling provisions in the recently passed anti-terrorism law will NOT expire in five years. What we've done to ourselves in panic could haunt us long after bin Laden's corpse is rotting.

American liberals should be screaming about how a very conservative Bush government is using national fear to shred our basic freedoms. But unless it offers realistic alternatives to war with al-Qaeda, the American left will be stranded, simpering, on the sidelines.

Penelope Purdy (ppurdy@denverpost.com) is a member of The Denver Post editorial board.

Why the left is right here. Worshipping people like this idiot.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.