The Antiwar Movement and Its Critics

Beat the Devil

By Alexander Cockburn

This article appeared in the December 2, 2002 edition of The Nation.

November 14, 2002

Do we have an antiwar movement? We're getting there. We must be, because we're catching flak from the anti-antiwar movement, Light Infantry Division, staffed by Marc Cooper, Todd Gitlin, David Corn and Christopher Hitchens.

Cooper, like Gitlin, has carved out a pleasant niche for himself, belaboring various left causes from a position purporting to represent robust common sense. It's a posture endearing to op-ed editors, particularly if there's an insinuation that somewhere, way back, the author had left credentials. It's fair to raise the issue of credentials, since the prime line of attack by the light infantry is to belabor the credentials of the antiwar left as dumbos, cat's-paws, dictator-lovers, cultists.

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About Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Cockburn has been The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist since 1984. He is the author or co-author of several books, including the best-selling collection of essays Corruptions of Empire (1987), and a contributor to many publications, from The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal to alternative publications such as In These Times and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. With Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch, which have a substantial world audience. more...
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