Frequently, those on the left of the political spectrum in America toss about the terms "wack job" and "loony" to describe far right wingers like Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Tom Coburn (R-OK), Richard Pombo (R-CA), Dick Cheney and others. And they're correct - those people ARE right-wing wack jobs. For its part, the right wing likes to call just about anyone who's a Democrat -- Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, or even John Murtha -- a left wing weenie or worse. I suppose this state of affairs isn't exactly surprising; after all, political rhetoric has long tended to be overheated, and probably will always be that way. It tends to get particularly overheated when one side of the aisle is bashing the other side. However, criticism WITHIN a political party can be nasty as well. Sometimes it's deserved, but oftentimes it's not. Here's a case where it most certainly IS deserved!
Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson (during which time he prosecuted anti-war activists like Dr. Benjamin Spock!), has long been viewed as having gone completely off the deep end. Just look at some of the people he's defended over the years: former Liberian President Charles Taylor (indicted for crimes against humanity), former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic (another accused war criminal), former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (another accused war criminal), Elizaphan Ntakirutimana (a leader of the Rwandan genocide), and David Koresh (cult leader of the Branch Davidians). Starting to sense a pattern here?
Well, Clark has now topped all of these with his defense of Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity. This is what Clark had to say recently about the Saddam-ordered torture and murder of 148 men and boys in the Iraqi Shiite town of Dujail back in 1982:
He (Saddam) had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt.
That's right, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark is busy justifying and excusing a massacre of 148 men and boys. As far as Saddam having "this huge war going on," well, HELLO? Saddam STARTED that war by invading Iran on September 22, 1980.
OK, so Ramsey Clark is a wack job, that's a given. He also gets off on defending the most heinous members of the human race, so he's a wack job without a conscience, to boot. That would be bad enough in itself, but there's more. You see, Clark is not just some lone nutjob, oh no. To the contrary, Clark leads the International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition, a leader of the U.S. anti-war movement. A.N.S.W.E.R. claims to be "progressive" and "anti-imperialist," but most of its leaders are actually Marxist-Leninists and the like. Among other things, International A.N.S.W.E.R. has been (correctly, in my opinion) accused of being anti-Semitic. Whether or not this is true can be debated, but A.N.S.W.E.R. is virulently anti-Israel, no doubt. It is also filled with the most extreme of the far left: Marxists, Stalinists,"socialists," anarchists, etc. Whatever they are, these people are certainly not Democrats (or "democrats"), that's for sure.
In addition to his work with A.N.S.W.E.R., Clark is also a founder of the International Action Center (IAC) a left-wing group whose purpose is to coordinate "activism and information opposing domestic and international injustices." Like massacres and war crimes, no doubt? According to the Anti-Defamation League, IAC is "a front group for the Stalinist Workers World Party?which founded spun off International ANSWER...in September 2001 to protest the bombing of Afghanistan." Lovely.
Given all this, what on earth is someone like Ramsey Clark doing as a "leader" of the anti-war movement in this country? And why hasn't his statement justifying Saddam Hussein's massacre of 148 men and boys been condemned by legitimate leaders of the anti-war left (Michael Moore? Cindy Sheehan?). In my view, if Clark's comments are allowed to stand without condemnation, they simply make it easier for the right wing to (unfairly) tar the entire political left in this country as a bunch of anti-American nutjobs. If, on the other hand, we on the center-left DO condemn Ramsey Clark, it makes it that much more difficult for the right wing to lump us all together. It also is the morally correct thing to do: massacres and torture are not acceptable, whether they are carried out by third-world dictators or anyone else. And certainly, whether or not former Attorney General Ramsey Clark says they are.
For my part, as a Teddy Roosevelt/FDR/JFK/RFK Progressive, I find Ramsey Clark to be utterly repulsive, and condemn him in no uncertain terms. How about my friends further to the left than me, will you condemn Ramsey Clark as well? And while we're at it, how about if the center/right starts condemning the Pat Robertsons of the world when they call for assassinating foreign leaders, blame 9/11 on gays, or whatever? The whole point here is that the "sensible center" (per Mark Warner) of this country needs to condemn the extremes and get down the business of moving America forward again. Frankly, we can't afford to waste our time and energy on the Ramsey Clarks -- or the Pat Robertsons -- of the world. But we do need to condemn them in no uncertain terms. These people and groups certainly have the right to say whateve they want, but - to paraprhase International A.N.S.W.E.R.'s own slogan, not in MY name!