This writer does not get to listen to Democracy Now every day. But I have not in recent weeks heard a full-throated denunciation of the war on Libya from host or guests. Certainly according to a search on the DN web site, Cynthia McKinney did not appear as a guest nor Ramsey Clark after their courageous fact finding tour to Libya. There was only one all out denunciation of the war -- on the day when the guests were Rev. Jesse Jackson and Vincent Harding who was King's speechwriter on the famous speech "Beyond Vietnam" in 1967 in which King condemned the U.S. war on Vietnam. Jackson and the wise and keenly intelligent Harding were there not to discuss Libya but to discuss the MLK Jr. monument. Nonetheless Jackson and Harding made clear that they did not like the U.S. war in Libya one bit, nor the militarism it entails.
If one reads CounterPunch, Antiwar.com or The American Conservative, one knows that one is reading those who are anti-interventionist on the basis of principle. With Democracy Now and kindred progressive outlets, one is not so sure where some segments of the "Left" stand, especially since the advent of Obama. In his superb little book Humanitarian Imperialism Jean Bricmont criticizes much of the Left for falling prey to advocacy of wars, supposedly based on good intentions. And Alexander Cockburn has often wondered aloud whether many progressives are actually quite fond of "humanitarian" interventionism. Both here and in Europe this fondness seems to be especially true of Obama's latest war, the war on Libya. It is little wonder that the "progressives" are losing their antiwar following to Ron Paul and the Libertarians who are consistent and principled on the issue of anti-interventionism.
-- John Walsh, "Juan Cole, Consultant to the CIA, Et tu, Amy Goodman?" (Antiwar.com).