Monday, January 10, 2005

The left on trial

In the trial of radical attorney Lynne Stewart, for aiding and abetting terrorism, we are seeing also the larger trial of the left. Stewart famously defended the "blind sheik", Omar Abdul Rahman, the terrorist convicted of masterminding the first World Trade Center bombing.

Stewart is being defended by one Michael Tigar, another radical activist lawyer. To Stewart, Rahman is not a convicted terrorist, but an "‘old man’ held in conditions of cruel isolation, in a federal prison in Rochester, Minnesota." Tigar perhaps goes one better, comparing the sheik to Nelson Mandela and Menahem Begin, "who were treated as terrorists at one time in their careers.”

Morphing terrorists into liberators is a central tenet of this faction. That the left is in "full attack mode against its own democratic government in a time of war" is beyond question. David Horowitz watches, and observes that

"This is no longer a loyal opposition. It is no longer the voice of a progressive future that previously would have opposed the misogyny, thuggery and even depravity of regimes like Saddam Hussein’s or movements like Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman’s Islamic Group. Whatever the outcome of the Stewart trial, the larger trial of the left she represents – a trial that will one day pronounce a verdict on its loyalties and its integrity -- will go on."

Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?