All we heard from the American Left since 1970s is condemnation of how the American government supported dictators such as the Shah, Pinochet, and Noriega. The Left has blamed all ills of the world on America’s puppet “rightwing dictatorships.” The Left promoted an embargo of South Africa’s Afrikaaner government, even though it caused tremendous hardship on South Africans, and especially among their poor. The Left generally supported the US invasion of Somalia to depose of warlords, as well as the invasion of Bosnia to fight Milosevic. For thirty years the Left has purportedly wanted America to depose of dictators who violate “human rights” by both economic and military means. A significant portion of the Left–and probably the vast majority–are not pacifists. They have demonstrated a willingness to war for some issues.
So why is it that the Left is so vociferously opposed to deposing Saddam Hussein by war? There are a few–only a few–possibilities.
1) They aren’t opposed to war per se, just war not sanctioned by the UN.
2) They aren’t opposed to wars in which America has nothing to gain, e.g., Bosnia and Somalia. They are only opposed to war in which America has a conceivable interest, such as in Iraq.
3) They aren’t opposed to war per se–they are just opposed to war with Saddam Hussein, for some reason.
4) They aren’t opposed to war against Saddam Hussein per se, but they hate America so much that they do not want us–or perhaps President Bush–to be victorious. That is, even if they want Saddam Hussein to go, it pales in comparison to their desire to hold down America, to lessen its stature, to make it vulnerable.
I will comment on each of these possible motivations in a future post.
