Sleeping with the Enemy: The Global Left and the 'No to War' Discourse

"It was the same imperialist trap that pushed other leftists to switch over to the call for peace. Theirs is an auspicious call, yet surprising in that it comes directly after the moment chemical weapons were used, as if whoever wielded them is asking the victims to embrace Sarin gas after inhaling it. The sense of surprise does not last long upon realizing that these are peaceful calls of despair from all that moves on Syrian soil. Perhaps those who sounded this call do not see a need for a conflict to begin with, so long as those fighting in it do not match the profile according to the imperialist catalog, itself.

The danger of the global left’s discourse in its many permutations is not only that it dons imperialist garb in making its supposedly anti-imperialist argument, but that its logic betrays its opposition to any sort of interference whatsoever—whether imperialist or otherwise, under UN auspices or not, in or out of line with international law. Those who have built this discourse oppose military intervention not because of the intervening power’s identity, but because of the people on whose behalf that power would be intervening. They oppose intervention not because of the objectives of the former, but because of the lacking qualifications of the latter.
The issue here is not one of sorting the “good leftists” from the “bad leftists.” I do not think that such a categorization is possible, anyway. However, I am haunted by a question: What makes a sincere leftist discourse slip into becoming a retouched version of the Islamophobic right?"