Why the Left Loves Osama

Nelson Ascher has a good piece titled Why the Left Loves Osama at Front Page Mag.

Ascher argues that the ideological Left was orphaned by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and bereft of a powerful sponsor in its protracted quest to destroy the United States and its system of democratic capitalism, both of which they heartily despise. Some excerpts:

Now, [since the demise of Soviet communism] whatever [the Left] wanted to defend or protect doesn't exist anymore. They have only things to destroy, and all those things are personified in the US, in its very existence. They may, outwardly, fight for some positive cause: save the whales, rescue the world from global heating and so on. But let's not be deceived by this: they choose as their so-called positive causes only the ones that have both the potential of conferring some kind of innocent legitimacy on themselves and, much more important, that of doing most harm to their enemy, whether physically or to its image.

This newly ever-growing Western left, not only in Europe, but in Latin America and even in the U.S. itself, has a clear goal: the destruction of the country and society that vanquished its dreams fifteen years ago [when the Soviet Union collapsed]. But it does not have, as in the old days of the Soviet Union, the hard power to accomplish this by itself. Thanks to this, all our leftist friends' bets are now on radical Islam. What can they do to help it? Answer: tie down America's superior strength with a million Liliputian ropes: legal ones, political ones, with propaganda and disinformation etc. Anything and everything will do.

In the same way as the murderers of 9/11 used the West's technology against itself, the contemporary left will do its best to turn democracy into a suicide pact. This is already being done, obviously. The fight for Guantanamo Bay is, in many ways, as important as that for Baghdad. And, whenever a British born terrorist is released and sent back to the UK, to be joyfully acclaimed by the pages of "The Guardian", "The Independent" or through the waves of the BBC, that fight is being lost. Radical Islam is being given one more tactical victory and the left's strategy is being vindicated.

There has been some talk recently about the probable inevitability of a nuclear attack on the mainland U.S. in, say, the next ten or fifteen years. The Berlin Wall's orphans are already busy creating the slogans, formulating the dogmas, writing down the articles and books that will allow them, when the worst happens, to lay all the blame on the victims, making retaliation as difficult as it can be. They're carefully preparing their case and the court is already in session.

Ascher's point is well-taken. It doesn't matter how noble the cause the U.S. undertakes in the world or how odious the foe it confronts, the Left will invariably align itself in opposition to American policy. It will tenaciously resist anything America does that will strengthen its image around the globe and redound to its credit. The Left is engaged in a kind of cold war with the very idea of America. Nothing it stands for, does, or has ever done, short of self-immolation, could ever gain their approval. They have nothing but contempt for the mass of American people and for their values, a contempt, one suspects, spawned by their own self-loathing and miserable childhoods.

Leftist theorists have written much about the necessity of a long march through the institutions. It is only, they write, by means of a generational movement to take over and undermine the traditions and institutions upon which the social and economic health of the nation are based that the United States, as we have known it, can be toppled. Marriage, family, church, schools, language, the military, news media, the entertainment industry, government, the courts, and business are each glues that in different ways hold a disparate nation together. Dissolve these, or take control of them so that they may be used for their own purposes, and America will collapse like the World Trade Towers on 9/11. The longing to bring about this reckoning is what animates the Left. It is why they agitate so obsessively for and support so ardently any measure or movement which would cripple these institutions.

Their project is far advanced. They have pretty much gained a monopoly of influence in the news media (until recently), in the entertainment world, and in the universities. They have managed to severely undermine the bonds of marriage and family through radical feminist ideology, relaxed sexual mores, cohabitation, and easy divorce. Gay marriage would create even more cracks in the foundation of marriage itself and is therefore vigorously promoted by the Left. Religious belief and expression is being pushed into ever smaller corners of relevance in people's lives as they find fewer affirmations of its validity and importance in cultural and public spheres. For much of the last fifty five years government and courts of law have been largely in the hands of liberals and could be counted on to support and implement the Leftist agenda. Bilingualism and multiculturalism could be employed to drive wedges between people by celebrating what makes us different rather than focusing on what makes us alike and by eroding the unifying power a single language exerts on a culture. And, of course, any scandal at all involving the military, even if it must be fabricated, as Eason Jordan's was, will be milked for every drop of propaganda value to discredit this last outpost of character, values, and ideals in our culture.

They have suffered setbacks along the way, of course. The collapse of world communism, as Aschler describes, deprived the Left of a major resource and sponsor and left them severely shaken. Leftists were shaken and disillusioned not by the successes of the former Soviet Union nor by their crimes, but ultimately by their disappointing failure to squeeze their own people into the Procrustean bed of a materialist ideology.

They were also stymied by the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and of the coming to political power of Republican conservatives in general. They could wait out these reactionary administrations if need be, but the long term threat they pose to the Left is in their appointments to the judiciary. A conservative federal bench and Supreme Court would be an unsustainable blow to Left-wing aspirations and must be resisted with every weapon that can be mustered for the fight. We will no doubt witness this fight in all its ugliness when President Bush announces his first Supreme Court nominee.

Military successes in Afghanistan and especially Iraq are also a setback to the Left who miss no opportunity to minimize those successes by finding the cloud in every silver lining. In their view the U.S. must be prevented from achieving any more such triumphs. The new champions of the Left are the Islamo-fascists, and they must not be thwarted in their struggle to paralyze the American Satan. They are a force which threatens the United States with great harm, and Leftists are hopeful that they'll succeed, at least in part. That's why people like Ward Churchill have justified their attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and people like Michael Moore pooh-pooh the extent of the terrorist threat. The Left believes America deserves to be punished, if not to die, and those who struggle to bring about this blessed outcome must be given every encouragement.

It might be comforting to think that if we do defeat the Wahhabis and other radical Islamists that that will bring peace and security, and that the Left will slink away in utter despair, but it won't and they won't. China and North Korea are looming on the horizon, and, if the Islamists fail, the Left will doubtless turn to them with hope that they will prove to be worthy rivals to the American colossus. In these tyrannical states the Left will invest their dreams and ambitions of an America brought low.