April 15, 2003

FORMER MAOIST Barry York writes

FORMER MAOIST Barry York writes that good Marxists would have supported the war in Iraq:

It is too late for the so-called Left in Australia to stand anywhere but condemned for its failure to support the successful war to liberate Iraq. It stood on the side of reaction, and the history books must place its leaders alongside the British pacifists of the '30s who, as George Orwell pointed out, gave comfort and objective support to Hitler. The pseudo-Left proved not just that it can be wrong but that in the name of anti-Americanism it can support fascism.

The leaders of the anti-war movement predicted the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the war. They warned of ferocious resistance to US-led forces by a people whose opposition to Saddam Hussein would be displaced by hatred of the invaders. I had a different view: I was confident the paper tiger would crumple. Faced with a choice between a fascist regime in Iraq or a bourgeois-democratic one, I retained enough Marxism to tick the right box.

Posted by Tim Blair at April 15, 2003 03:16 AM
Comments