Palast, back on track

It's a source of great disappointment to me that Greg Palast seems to have abandoned investigative journalism in favour of writing comment pieces (not really his forte, it must be said). But today's commentary on George Galloway and the responses of the Left to the situation in Iraq is a real return to form. The US anti-war movement has its own particular characteristics - in some ways more encouraging, in some ways less, than the movements in Europe. It's well organised, for one thing, and unlike the British movement, has not disintegrated after more than 2 years of occupation - in fact, it seems to have gained much strength in the last few months.
But it has its weaknesses too. Much of the US movement seems to have been entranced by "Gorgeous" George Galloway since his May appearance before the Senate. His new book (called "Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington" - yes, really) is being promoted on a nationwide US tour. On Znet (usually pretty radical and pretty sensible), regular contributor Dave Zirin (rarely very radical or sensible) gave the book a gushing review.
Galloway's a dangerous creature - most dangerous because he is so rarely wrong in what he says, though so frequently wrong in what he does. Palast is quick to point this out - probably an advantage of having spent a few years in Britain. He also refuses to be drawn by arguments that the Left should support the Iraqi insurgency. This has been advocated even in journals usually regarded as serious and sophisticated. New Left Review editor Susan Watkins, for example, called Iraq "Vichy on the Tigris" a year ago.
Again, Palast will have none of it, and rightly so. Supporting suicide bombers is not a progressive move. Many on the Left reject pacifism, which in itself is fair enough, but apart from anything else, as the Palestinians have showed in a gruesome manner, it's tactical idiocy. Furthermore, even for non-pacifists, targeting innocent civilians seems to me to be morally indefensible, whatever the justifications (this standard is certainly applied by war-critics to the invading and occupying armies; universality dicatates we must also apply it to ourselves).
Palast has identified much of what's wrong with much of the anti-war movement at the moment - not least in pointing out that being "anti-Bush" is pretty weak, pretty meaningless, and pretty directionless to say the very least. "If they're against Bush, we're with them" should be taken to be on the same level as Bush's own "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists" doctrine.
Good on 'im.