Beyond Left and RightrnThe New Face of the Antiwar Movementrnby Justin RaimondornNovember 9, 1989, marked the end of the old polihcs andrnthe old alignments; on that day, as the Berlin Wall fell, sorndid the political categories and alliances of half a century. Thernend of the Cold War meant a lot more than the end of communismrnas a viable ideology. It meant more than the implosionrnof the Soviet Empire: Here in the United States, it also meantrnthe end of anticommunism as a viable ideology and the implosionrnof the old conservative coalition that governed America inrnthe 80’s. It meant the breakup of the right, as well as the left—rnsince both had, in large part, defined themselves in relation tornsomething that no longer existed.rnOf course, this process did not happen immediately; it is stillrnworking itself out. But today the great realignment has progressedrnfar enough so that we can begin to see the broad outlinesrnof a new political landscape. I often refer to the War Party,rna phrase that is shorthand for that complex of social, political,rnand economic forces that constitute a permanent and powerfulrnlobby on behalf of imperialism and militarism. In my very firstrncolumn ioT Antiwar.com, I described it as “the war propagandarnapparatus maintained by the interventionist lobby. Well-fundedrnand well-connected, the War Party is such a varied and complexrnphenomenon that a detailed description of its activities,rnand its vast system of interlocking directorates and special interests,rnboth foreign and domestic, would fill the pages of a goodsizedrnbook.” I solved the problem of how to present this materialrnin the form of a daily column by focusing on specificrnJustin Raimondo writes from San Francisco. This is an editedrnversion of his speech to the Second Annual Antiwar.comrnconference.rnindividuals, the biggest and most vocal supporters of the Kosovornwar, from Madeleine Albright to Vanessa Redgrave to JeanernKirkpatrick. These three Harpies of the Apocalypse prettyrnmuch represented the ideological contours of the War Partyrnduring the Kosovo conflict: Clinton Democrats, hard leftists,rnand neoconservatives.rnThe hard leftists, former peaceniks like Todd Gitlin, natural-rn]}• rallied ’round the flag when Clinton declared that this was arnwar against “racism” and for “diversit}.” The Clintonians, forrntheir part, were happy to divert attention from the fact that theirrnleader had turned the White House into the heterosexualrnequivalent of a gay bathhouse. But the neoconservatives—thatrnmerry little band of ex-lefties who left the Democratic Party inrnthe 1970’s and 80’s over its lack of enthusiasm for the ColdrnWar—were the most bloodthirsty of the whole sorry lot. BillrnKristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, openly called forrn”crushing Serb skulls” in a famous editorial a full year beforernthe bombs began to fall on Belgrade. Opportunists like JohnrnMcCain sought to climb on the “kill the Serbs” bandwagon outrnof their instinct for the main chance, but the hardcore ideologuesrnof the War Part}’ were the neocons. While the Clintoniansrnserved up bromides about “humanitarianism” and “diversity'”rnto justify the war, theirs was at most a halfhearted effort: Afterrnall, if you are bombing television stations and raining death onrna civilian population, it becomes increasingly hard to pass yourselfrnoff as Mother Teresa.rnOnly the neocons had a clear ideological agenda, and Kristol’srnremark about “crushing Serb skulls” pretfy much expressesrnwhat it means in practice. In theory, however, it is much morernhigh-sounding, and I must admire Kristol and his coauthorrn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn