On the left-wing site CommonDreams.org, a professor named Ira Chernus makes a point somewhat similar to something both Rob and I have touched upon:
Suppose the Bush administration had ...made stopping Osama's agents their very highest goal. How would we on the left, in the peace and justice movement, have responded?
We would have called it fear-mongering. We would have decried their skewed priorities. Every time they stopped an Arab tourist on suspicion, or made us take off our shoes at the airport, we would have denounced the emerging police state.
He then goes on to note the hypocrisy in attacking Bush for not doing what the left opposes/opposed in the first place:
If we applaud Richard Clarke and his kind now, we cannot urge the voters to do the right thing for the right reason. We cannot argue that militarism and tough "security measures" are the wrong approach to the problem. We cannot explain how Bush's foreign policy, like Clinton's, breeds anti-American violence. We cannot talk about the changes we want to see in U.S. foreign policy
