No Sympathy for Terrorists, but Warnings About Overreaction: The New York Times’ overview and critique of leftist opposition. Curiously enough, this is in the Arts section of the Times.

One difference between dissent during the Vietnam War era and now,

however is that nobody feels any sympathy for the forces decreed by the

American government to be the country’s enemies. The arguments are not

that Mr. bin Laden’s organization, or the Taliban, are progressive or

revolutionary forces, but that war fever, as some critics have

characterized the American response so far, will only lead to no good.

But has war fever really taken over? As the week ended, there was no

full-scale invasion or massive bombing of Afghanistan; the White House

has been talking of a carefully calibrated response. It seemed as though

the recommendations of some supposed critics of American policy were

indistinguishable from the actual policies being carried out. The Bush

administration’s announcement that it would send $320 million in food and

medicine to Afghanistan, for example, seemed consistent with the belief

of Katha Pollitt, a columnist for The Nation, that the United States should

take the money it would spend on bombs “to help the wretched Afghan

people and support those among them who favor democracy.”

Historians are already grappling with the place the attacks will have in history, in the long view. Discussions of 9-11 are expected to dominate today’s first Gotham History Festival, “a free series of more than 100 panels, papers, films

and exhibitions in the Graduate Center of the City University of New York” which was planned long before the attacks. New York Times [name: “FMHreader”, password: “FMHreader”]