Moral Inversions

Submitted by Janice Sentara (Canada), Mar 19, 2003 at 19:39

I wish to briefly comment on Dr. Pipe's excellent observations in the article, "Why the Left Loves Osama."

Recently, I happened to see a retrospective on Iraq (detailing Iraq's invasion of Kurwait, followed by Iraq's continued defiance of the UN resolutions, and the Clinton administration's attempts to deal with Saddam -- in the program "Frontline.") The program noted that on Feb. 10, 1998 the Clinton administration threatened Iraq with force (due to non-compliance and kicking the weapons' inspectors out of Iraq.)

Then, the telling moment came. Clinton sent a delegation of his advisors to Ohio State University to marshall support for the use of force against Iraq. The debate was immediately hi-jacked by pro-Iraqi, pro-Saddam supporters.

One "student" (voice quavering with moral indignation) demanded to know why it was that the U.S. was supporting and supplying weapons of mass destruction to the state of Israel (i.e., a "terrorist state"), while the US simultaneously denounced Iraq's attempt to acquire similar weapons. The camera then swung over to record the expression on Madeleine Albright's face...

I think it was at that moment that Clinton's "leftists" realized that Saddam's propagandists had won. What a horrific moment.

In my opinion, what had happened was a reversal (an inversion) of morality. The "bad guys" were the U.S. and Israel, the "victims" (and "heroic defiers") Iraqis and Palestinian terrorists. One defies the US, the other the Israelis...

Thus, as Dr. Pipe argues, the Left overlooks "the pesky details" of what Saddam, Osama, Arafat, and other Islamists actually stand for (which is an orientation completely at odds with Leftist "humanitarian" principles). So long as the Islamists defy the U.S. or Israel, they are applauded. Defiance, then, acquires supreme importance. How tragic.

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