Reply #17: Martial Law And Checkpoints, Sir [View All]

Are the basic tools of counter-insurgency, serving the same function of interdicting movement of personnel and supplies in such a conflict as bombardment of road and rail communication serves in conventional conflict. They do not constitute collective punishment per se, and will never disappear from the military lexicon where irregular forces form a leading party to any conflict.

The allegations you reference against Catholics do constitute a form of bigotry, on with sturdy roots in the United States, and routinely denounced as such. It is something very different from, say, denunciations of elements of Catholic dogma, or news coverage of the persions of certain priests, and the actions of certain bishops to conceal same, which some attempt also to denounce as bigotry against Catholics. There is no particular deep and traditional bigotry against Cubans, and it is certainly truth both that some Cuban exiles in this country do display more concern with their abhorence than any other political matter, as well as that many Cubans here do not do so.

It does sometimes seem here that any who uphold the legitimacy of the existance of Israel, its right to exist, and its actions in a state of war none can reasonably deny exist, can expect to be denounced as Likudniks and worse, as a routine tactic of debate. Doubtless many on the other side of the question feel they can expect to be denounced in mirrored wise, and perhaps we are all a little gun-shy in our subjective impressions, and prone to take the most extreme recollection for the general case.

One of the weaknesses of what you refer to as "the leftist critique of Western Civilization" is that this is itself a product of Western Civilization. The conduct of the West is criticized, not by measure against some different standard, but for the gap between its actuality and its own stated ideals. It would be well that this were remembered, when the urge to defend some traditional atrocity or obscurantism grows too strong.

While there may be no long tradition of Anti-Semitism among the left in the United States, there has certainly been, for several decades, such a concentration on the evils of Israel specifically, that such a tradition may well be taking form. It would certainly have long extra-left cultural roots, for Anti-Semitism was part of the ordinary mental furniture of the upper and academic classes in our country prior to the Second World War, and these are, after all, the roots of origin for many radical leftists from the sixties on.