The Phony 'Peace Movement' >> by David Gould • February 13, 2003

The Phony 'Peace Movement'

>> By DAVID GOULD

There is something pathetic, but for the most part something appalling, about the motley collection of liars, fascists and hate-mongers who populate the fundamentally phony "peace movement" that loiters in public spaces to squeak and beep about the evil that is America.

From unreconstructed communists to outright racists, from dupes moronically romanticizing the old left and its fashions, to a bizarre array of special-interest whiners and hacks, the rallies in Washington and elsewhere have brought together a laughable compendium of disparate fools in an intellectually fraudulent and morally bankrupt rape of the word "peace."

Perhaps most pathetic of all is that lost among these milling thugs and weasels are but a handful of idealistic souls who actually believe in peace as a virtue to be realized. Right or wrong on the issues of terrorism and Iraq, they deserve better than to be swallowed up by a mob of conspirators in the perpetration of a fraud.

Certainly most appalling of all is that this phony "peace movement" is being led by people who support both terrorism and war – as long they are waged against democracy in general and the United States in particular.

A group calling itself "International ANSWER," which, laughably, stands for "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism," is the chief sponsor and organizing force behind rallies in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere. It has brought together this scruffy mess of leftist special interests – in the process co-opting legitimate peace groups motivated by moral idealism, not hypocritical ideology – and made itself the de-facto leader of the current "anti-war movement" opposed to fighting terrorism and disarming Iraq.

The truth about this group is something that exceeds irony to the point of being truly frightening. As reported by the Washington Post and other journalistically legitimate news outfits, International ANSWER is a front organization for the Workers World Party, a vicious Stalinist group that supports terrorism, political violence and war against democracy:

• The Workers World Party supports Kim Jong Il in his savage repression and murderous starvation of the North Korean populace while pursuing nuclear arms and a policy of conquest directed at South Korea and Japan.

• The Workers World Party supported Serbian nazi Slobodan Milosovic as he practiced genocide in the former Yugoslavia.

• The Workers World Party supported the butchering of Chinese students in Tiananmen Square by the Beijing communist regime.

• The Workers World Party supports the terrorism sponsored by Iran’s government of violent religious fascists.

• The Workers World Party supports South American narco-terrorists and the hired armies used by drug cartels.

• The Workers World Party supports the Hamas bombers who murder school children and old women.

• And the Workers World Party supports Saddam Hussein in the gassing of Kurdish villages, torturing and murdering tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens and developing – with the intent to use – nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

This is the "peace" and "anti-war" movement.

Throwing in their lot with these evil, savage fascists are the remnants of an intellectually discredited and morally bankrupt left-wing catch-all, ranging from knee-jerk anti-Americans of all sorts to the silly twits who want to dress up like hippies and feel superior to those who waste their time doing anything useful.

There are the new Black Panthers with their race-war rhetoric, who think Robert Mugabe, the Hitler of Africa, is a hero.

There are AARP-eligible leftovers from the ’60s, their gray pony tails pulled too tight and their frayed tie-dye still reeking of patchouli, who think they’ll finally justify their selfish wrong-headedness of yesterday with their self-righteous stupidity of today.

There are grudge-bearing special interests with their endless whining and bleating, who mug for photographers and cheer venomous speakers who accuse America of every sin, evil and misdeed in human history, up to and including the heartbreak of psoriasis.

And most precious of all, there are the groupies, wannabes and bored dilettantes for whom radical leftism holds a romantic, sanctimonious appeal that validates an instinct for the intellectually fraudulent and morally indefensible.

Again, lost in the din of these screaming haters and foaming liars, are the handful of Quakers and suchlike who see Saddam Hussein, terrorist groups and these other practitioners of malevolence for the evil they are, but for whom war is always too deadly a means no matter how justified.

Right or wrong, they believe in peace and they do not pretend to a morality they do not practice, unlike the people behind the "anti-war" movement, who chant for peace as they surreptitiously advocate war for their own ends.

David Gould is managing editor of MODE Weekly. His column appears regularly on the Opinion page.