i just want to clarify where i stood regarding "the war on terrorism".
after the 2001 attacks, i was one of the first people pointing to the pnac documents. i opposed all of it, and i opposed all of it for years. i wrote songs about it:
there's no question where i stood, and it was in strict opposition to all of it.
but, unlike some other people on the left, i've never developed a level of naivete around islam and, as time went on, it became clear that the reasons i opposed this war were drastically different than the reasons i was hearing around me, and a source of disconnect in media started to become apparent.
the arguments i had heard against the war were mostly from academic secularists, of which hitchens was one of them but ended up aligned on the wrong side of the debate, who argued that this is just not how self-determination works - you can't just eradicate a despot and watch people rise up out of the desert like magnificent mushrooms. that premise is utter nonsense. there has to be a base to build on, some framework to erect the society on. otherwise, you will at best end up recreating the soviet union (which is something like what they already had). if you want a social democracy in iraq, it's necessary to build from below and not above. this may, in the end, result in supporting a bombing campaign once there is a movement on the ground to provide air support to, should it happen to align with those interests (and nobody cares what the imperialists think or why they do what they do, what's important is if they could be taken advantage of to push the goals of iraqi self-determination), but nothing of the sort seemed remotely likely to happen in the iraq of 2003. the iraqis were not ready for this kind of intervention. now, yes - it became rather apparent, rather fast that the bombing campaign was punitive in nature, but that has nothing to do with the initial logic in whether to support it or not. even a bombing campaign with punitive intent should have a positive outcome if there is a force on the ground to take advantage of it. it just doesn't matter why. but there just wasn't....
what i started to realize when i was talking to people around me was that these were not the arguments they were making. rather, they were making much more conservative arguments that the historical left would have largely rejected as utopian, backwards and naive. so, you'd hear them argue for the preservation of "iraqi culture" in the face of "american imperialism", and you just had to chuckle a little when you did, as though the culture in the region was anything worth supporting, as a leftist. you want to cut off peoples' hands? you're into corrective rape? really? but, it became apparent over time that they seemed less concerned about the nature of iraqi culture and how it may affect the lives of iraqis (that is, they weren't interested in consequences) and were more concerned about the sovereignty of iraqi citizens to make their own decisions, however terrible those decisions might be. so, they seemed perfectly happy to support the most right-wing islamic fundamentalists on the ground that they could find, if that was the opposition to "american imperialism" that actually existed. this was often kind of more about them than about the people in iraq - and they seemed to see any opposition at all as their enemy's enemy, and therefore their friend. call them useful idiots, but it's what was real.
(and, of course, most of these groups were actually created by american imperialism, and exist to carry out their goals. but, neither of us knew that then - and i suspect they mostly still don't know that, now.)
i had to grapple with this fact in front of me - the opposition to this war was widespread, and i was a part of it, but it was not a leftist opposition at all, but was rather a conservative, pacifist, non-interventionist opposition. and, if the spectrum was already confused, this is where it becomes incoherent, as the terms flipped meaning almost entirely. the quakers became the far left, and trotsky became the far right.
we can dispense of the terms. maybe you opposed the war because you thought it was wrong to intervene, in which case we have very different perspectives. i did not oppose the war out of "respect for traditional iraqi culture", but because it was clear that there was no revolutionary foundation to build upon. and, i claim my argument is left-wing and your argument is right-wing, and we might argue the point, but we can probably at least agree that the utility of these labels is not what it once was.
and, i continued to strictly oppose the war from what i claim was the left in every way up until something switched over, and that was the rise of isis. unless you are a non-interventionist pacifist that opposes all war on moral grounds (like a quaker), then you have lines where war becomes acceptable. isis is where that line crossed, for me. and, we can understand our differing reactions to isis by looking at the reasons we opposed the war to begin with.
my argument was that bombing iraq was counter-productive and would just make things worse, in the long run; your argument was that it was morally wrong to bomb other countries. so, when bombing iraq did make things worse in the long run, and created a force that actually needed to be contained, the bombing became a self-fulfilling prophesy, from my perspective - i was arguing that we shouldn't bomb iraq because something like isis would happen (whereas hitchens seemed to welcome the anarchy), and you were arguing we shouldn't bomb iraq because you thought something like isis was perfectly ok, if it was indigenous in character - i was arguing tactics, and you were pushing cultural relativism. so, when isis appeared, my argument flipped over - now we have to bomb them because we created a mess, and look what came out of it: utter barbarism that simply had to be destroyed. and, you're just still lost in the same relativistic argument you were in before, where you can't tell what's right and wrong to begin with, anyways. to me, the creation of isis proved i was right to oppose the initial invasion; to you, bombing is bombing, and there's no difference in supporting this or that campaign.
i'm a subtle, careful thinker; you're a zealot.
i was arguing for immediate withdrawal all through 2004, 2008 and into whenever it was - 2012? 2013? - that isis started appearing. but, i changed my position to bomb isis, specifically - now, we had to finish the job, first. i didn't like this change in position, i didn't want to stay in iraq, but i felt it was now the necessary position. we could cut and run when the society is in anarchy, but not when it's being taken over by fascism - you have to fight fascism, whether you like it or not.
and, yes, i was aware that isis was funded by the saudis under american influence and guidance - that we created this force to bomb it. it's a ploy. i understood that. it didn't matter - they had to be mercilessly annihilated and permanently destroyed, anyways. and, we could figure out what's next, after.
standing in 2021, i haven't rescinded my calls for the utter destruction of what is left of the caliphate, but i realize at this point that it doesn't matter. there's no group to align with on the point. the united states is in the process of recreating isis, and is using it to attack syria with. it will no doubt be used to threaten iraq and keep it in line, and it may be used to harass iran. and, we don't seem to need the fake narrative any longer - we're now just giving them direct air support, and arguing they're an indigenous uprising, which is ridiculous and directly from the fucking cia.
my solidarity is where it always was, which is with the secularist, leftist, socialist groups on the ground. i stand with the apostates and the queers looking to do away with islam and radically revolutionize the society on the ground. that's who i stood with then and who i stand with now. i have no patience for people supporting "nationalist insurgencies" or arguing that islamic rule is indigenous to the region - i support global socialist revolution, everywhere. i realize that global islam is an imperialist force in it's own right and a dominant threat to world peace that needs to be restrained and dismantled. the next world war will be fought to neutralize islam as a force of fascism, which is a historical narrative going back centuries, and not something william kristol thought up.
so, i will stand primarily with the russians and assad by proxy as the lesser evil, as they attempt to fight off an absolutely vicious saudi-american invasion force, and i will continue to cite reasons that i believe align with the internationalist left, and not with the isolationist right.
we may again find ourselves aligned in policy, even if we don't find ourselves aligned in intent or ideology. but, i've become wary of building temporary alliances with islamist sympathizers, as i no longer trust your intents, and am not likely to look the other way any longer.