Why the left loves Osama (and Saddam)

The New York Post’s Daniel Pipes has this to say about why the left loves Osama bin Laden, and for that matter Saddam. Never thought of it this way before:

For vindication of this claim, Marxists impatiently await the Third World’s rising up against the West. Sadly for them, the only true revolution since the 1950s was Iran’s in 1978-79. It ended with militant Islam in power and the Left in hiding.

Then came 9/11, which Marxists interpreted as the Third World (finally!) striking back at its American oppressor. In the Left’s imagination, Harris explains, this attack was nothing less than “world-historical in its significance: the dawn of a new revolutionary era. . . .”

So desperate is the Left for some sign of true socialism, it overlooks such pesky details. Instead, it warily admires al Qaeda, the Taliban and militant Islam in general for doing battle with the United States. The Left tries to overlook militant Islam’s slightly un-socialist practices – such as its imposing religious law, excluding women from the workplace, banning the payment of interest, encouraging private property and persecuting atheists.

As odd as it sounds, this makes a lot of sense. For those of us who can tell little difference between the IMF protesters of late last year and today’s anti-war protesters, it seems to be the same patchwork alliance of brainwashed undergraduate students, ageing hippies, Green party adherents, left-behind environmentalists, and those who just think that the protests are a way to show their ‘independence’.

I don’t want to sound cruel or petty towards the anti-war left. They are probably some of the nicest folks in the world (so long as you keep your contrary political views to yourself). But really, is there any other way to describe the hodgepodge IMF/anti-war left? And let’s not leave out the anti-war right. . . I’m sure there are plenty of them out there as well who see the IMF as harmful and our efforts in Iraq contravening everything George Washington ever warned against.

Unfortunately in the 21st century world of global terrorism and global economy, an economic depression in one part of the world or a terrorist state in another must draw our attention. So it is with foreign aid and the IMF, so it must be with Iraq. It would take a radical altering of the political landscape – isolationism for lack of a better term – to resolve either one to the tastes of the anti-war left (and right).

Sure one could argue that we cause our own problems overseas, but for the life of me I can’t sympathize with the argument that the world is a worse place because of America. Not unless you enjoy goose-stepping.