Open Letter to the "Anti-War" Demonstrators

[Judy Panetta]

I've read this and 6 other articles this man has written. Please, a little
taste and good judgment would be appreciated.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
Behalf Of Jasper Fidget
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 12:24 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Open Letter to the "Anti-War" Demonstrators


http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/horowitzsnotepad/2001/hn09-27-01.htm

An Open Letter to the "Anti-War" Demonstrators: Think Twice Before You Bring
The War Home

by David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com | September 27, 2001

Editor's Note: The text below is being run as an advertisement in college
newspapers around the country. To see a graphic version of the ad, click
here.

I AM a former anti-war activist who helped to organize the first campus
demonstration against the war in Vietnam at the University of California,
Berkeley in 1962. I appeal to all those young people who participated in
"anti-war" demonstrations on 150 college campuses this week, to think again
and not to join an "anti-war" effort against America's coming battle with
international terrorism.

The hindsight of history has shown that our efforts in the 1960s to end the
war in Vietnam had two practical effects. The first was to prolong the war
itself. Every testimony by North Vietnamese generals in the postwar years
has affirmed that they knew they could not defeat the United States on the
battlefield, and that they counted on the division of our people at home to
win the war for them. The Vietcong forces we were fighting in South Vietnam
were destroyed in 1968. In other words, most of the war and most of the
casualties in the war occurred because the dictatorship of North Vietnam
counted on the fact Americans would give up the battle rather than pay the
price necessary to win it. This is what happened. The blood of hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese, and tens of thousands of Americans, is on the hands
of the anti-war activists who prolonged the struggle and gave victory to the
Communists.

The second effect of the war was to surrender South Vietnam to the forces of
Communism. This resulted in the imposition of a monstrous police state, the
murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent South Vietnamese, the
incarceration in "re-education camps" of hundreds of thousands more, and a
quarter of a century of abject poverty imposed by crackpot Marxist economic
plans, which continue to this day. This, too, is the responsibility of the
so-called anti-war movement of the 1960s.

I say "so-called anti-war movement," because while many Americans were
sincerely troubled by America's war effort, the organizers of this movement
were Marxists and radicals who supported a Communist victory and an American
defeat. Today the same people and their youthful followers are organizing
the campus demonstrations against America's effort to defend its citizens
against the forces of international terrorism and anti-American hatred,
responsible for the September attacks.

I know, better than most, the importance of protecting freedom of speech and
the right of citizens to dissent. But I also know better than most, that
there is a difference between honest dissent and malevolent hate, between
criticism of national policy, and sabotage of the nation's defenses. In the
1960s and 1970s, the tolerance of anti-American hatreds was so high, that
the line between dissent and treason was eventually erased. Along with
thousands of other New Leftists, I was one who crossed the line between
dissent and actual treason. (I have written an account of these matters in
my autobiography, Radical Son). I did so for what I thought were the noblest
of reasons: to advance the cause of "social justice" and "peace." I have
lived to see how wrong I was and how much damage we did - especially to
those whose cause we claimed to embrace, the peasants of Indo-China who
suffered grievously from our support for the Communist enemy. I came to see
how precious are the freedoms and opportunities afforded by America to the
poorest and most humble of its citizens, and how rare its virtues are in the
world at large.

If I have one regret from my radical years, it is that this country was too
tolerant towards the treason of its enemies within. If patriotic Americans
had been more vigilant in the defense of their country, if they had called
things by their right names, if they had confronted us with the seriousness
of our attacks, they might have caught the attention of those of us who were
well-meaning but utterly misguided. And they might have stopped us in our
tracks.

This appeal is for those of you who are out there today attacking your
country, full of your own self-righteousness, but who one day might also
live to regret what you have done.


David Horowitz is editor-in-chief of FrontPageMagazine.com and president of
the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.