The 'decent' left?

Is there such a thing as a 'decent' left, the self-adopted name used by those who oppose political Islam, anti-Semitism, and clerical and totalitarian fascism in all its forms?

Aside from being cringingly conceited and resembling the suggestion made by Richard Dawkins that atheists nominate themselves as 'Brights', - in opposition to their monotheistic rivals - there is a fundamental truth in the defining of one's self as 'decent' when compared to those who, over recent years, have done everything from appeared on the state television channel of a tyrannical Iranian dictator, to carried placards in London declaring their support for Hamas and Hezbollah, the former who, in its charter, calls for the obliteration of the state of Israel and flirt with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Whether it be Yvonne 'Stockholm Syndrome' Ridley appearing on Press TV and talking of the 'poor' Taliban who have been, 'falsely labeled terrorists', to George Galloway fraternising with Saddam Hussain, calling for a Jihad against British troops on Al Jazeera, and saluting 'his excellency' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there is something to be said for wishing to appear poles apart from such shady characters for those of us who consider ourselves both on the left and relatively decent.

For many, the revulsion felt at the mainstream left's loss of backbone in confronting sadomasochistic tyrants was typified by the reaction to 9/11, where, as Christopher Hitchens put it,

'If there is now an international intervention, whether intelligent and humane, or brutal and stupid, against the Taliban, some people will take to the streets, or at least mount some "Candle in the Wind" or "Strawberry Fields" peace vigils. They did not take to the streets, or even go moist and musical, when the Administration supported the Taliban. But that was, surely, just as much an intervention? An intervention, moreover, that could not even pretend to be humane or democratic? I had the same concern about those who did not object when the United States safeguarded Milosevic, but did protest when it finally turned against him. Am I supposed not to notice that these two groups of "anti-interventionists" are in fact the same people?'

While the confrontation with clerical fascism remains at the forefront of international relations with Iran on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, it would appear that what began as a 'decent' left, defined by its opposition to the appeasement of tyranny, has for some morphed into a full-blown acceptance of unrestrained free-market economics, a denial of real American imperialist crimes, and for others, a borderline pathological hatred of Muslims.

This is exemplified by Harry's Place, where a strange community has evolved comprising far-right EDL sympathisers and former left-wingers who have made their peace with neo-liberal capitalism. The two tendencies unite in drawing attention to the real threat posed to civilisation by 'Trots', the BBC's 'Islamist agenda' and 'potential murderers' stood on street corners selling copies of the Socialist Worker. The typical discourse at Harry's Place brings to mind the late Isaac Deutscher's description of an ex-communist who, having disembarked from the locomotive of history, is 'haunted by a vague sense that he has betrayed either his former ideals or the ideals of bourgeois society,' and who 'tries to suppress his sense of guilt and uncertainty, or to camouflage it 'by a show of extraordinary certitude and frank aggressiveness'.

A post at Harry's Place by Michael Ezra (who has, it appears, climbed onto the locomotive of history in a quite different direction - destination the 'End of History') recently took issue with the accuracy of a Wikipedia entry on the overthrow of democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende: because it said that the US-backed coup was...US backed! He based his conclusion that this was inaccurate subterfuge on a book called Hostile Intent: U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964-1974, by Kristian Gustafson. The revisionist gist of the book is that the Nixon administration should have taken an even more aggressive stance on Chile and, according to Marc Becker of the Department of History at Truman State University,

'In his (Gustafson's) mind, Allende was a dangerous communist who needed to be removed...he never considers the advances his government made in social policy. Even as the vicious and repressive nature of the Pinochet government became apparent, the Nixon administration continued to favor a fascist military dictatorship rather than an elected, democratic, leftist government. Gustafson dismisses opponents of this policy...as conspiracy theorists (pp. 91, 203)...Gustafson does his readers a disservice by presenting his argument as growing out of a neutral position, especially since his conservative and pro-imperialist perspective is blatant throughout the book.'

It scarcely matters that the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Chile was not carried out directly by the US military; the CIA had a clear hand in both the destabilisation of the Chilean economy and society as well as in the channelling of funds to the political and military opposition to Allende inside Chile.

After Allende's 1970 election victory, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Richard Helms, and John Mitchell met on September 15, 1970. Helms came from that meeting quoting the line by Nixon that what was called for was action that would include a military coup and a broad-based destabilization effort that would 'make the economy scream.' Following on from this the CIA helped finance truckers' strikes in 1972 and 1973, probably through the International Transport Workers Federation, and may have had a hand in funding, training, and arming the Patria y Libertad, a Chilean quasi-fascist political party. CIA money also subsidized a strike of middle-class shopkeepers and a taxi strike in the summer of 1973 - those seen to be already hostile to the Allende government. The economic boycott did not however include aid to the Chilean military. On the contrary, military aid to Chile, which had always been substantial, more than doubled in the 1970-1974 period when compared to the previous four years.

One might also point to Situation Report No. 2, from the Navy Section of the United States Military Group in Chile and written by U.S. Naval Attache Patrick J. Ryan, in which he describes his close relationship with the officers engaged in overthrowing the government, hails September 11, 1973, as 'our. D-Day,' and assuredly claims that 'Chile's coup de etat [sic] was close to perfect.'

While this is enough to have a fairly clear understanding of the situation existing in Chile in the early 1970s, almost all of what happened during the 1973 coup and subsequently under the regime of Augusto Pinochet continues to remain under the seal of United States national security.

Rather than focusing on the thousands tortured and assassinated by a genuinely fascist regime, Mr Ezra chooses to focus on a Wikipedia entry that is, considering the thesaurus-like quantity of evidence available to support the motion, completely accurate if not something of an understatement.

When did a prerequisite of being 'decent' become the denial and downplaying of the crimes of the powerful?