TownHall.com: Conservative Columnists: Jonah Goldberg
January 10, 2003
Saddam's Idiots
V.I. Lenin, the founding dictator of the Soviet Union, had a pithy phrase for the Western liberals who took the side of the Soviets in political debates. He called them "useful idiots."
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a typical misfire of the intellect on the left: the belief that intensity of passion somehow reflects greater reasoning. According to this logic, I would be morally and intellectually right by putting my body between the police and the Mafia
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The useful idiots were strangers to downtown Kabul when the Taliban or the Soviets ruled Afghanistan, but they hurried there when the United States set about to liberate that country and punish the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
No, it's not, as O'Keefe and his useful idiots claim, "oppression" or the killing of innocent men, women and children that rankles the anti-war movement; it's that the United States gets under their skin.
Moreover, they know that the United States (and Israel and the West generally) has a conscience, and they take advantage of that fact. Saddam Hussein, China and the Red Armies of the former Soviet Union would gladly roll their tanks over the screaming bodies of peace activists to achieve their goals.
"Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist," George Orwell wrote in 1942. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other."
January 10, 2003
Saddam's Idiots
V.I. Lenin, the founding dictator of the Soviet Union, had a pithy phrase for the Western liberals who took the side of the Soviets in political debates. He called them "useful idiots."
.....
a typical misfire of the intellect on the left: the belief that intensity of passion somehow reflects greater reasoning. According to this logic, I would be morally and intellectually right by putting my body between the police and the Mafia
.......
The useful idiots were strangers to downtown Kabul when the Taliban or the Soviets ruled Afghanistan, but they hurried there when the United States set about to liberate that country and punish the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
No, it's not, as O'Keefe and his useful idiots claim, "oppression" or the killing of innocent men, women and children that rankles the anti-war movement; it's that the United States gets under their skin.
Moreover, they know that the United States (and Israel and the West generally) has a conscience, and they take advantage of that fact. Saddam Hussein, China and the Red Armies of the former Soviet Union would gladly roll their tanks over the screaming bodies of peace activists to achieve their goals.
"Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist," George Orwell wrote in 1942. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other."