Bosnia and the left.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Includes information on investigation of Unabomber and Insurgent Sociologist magazine - Editorial

The crisis in Bosnia is also a crisis for the American left. More than any issue in memory, Bosnia has posed a problem for us. Our traditions of pacifism, of noninterventionism, of anti-imperialism tell us that the United States should not get involved in the war in Bosnia. And yet there is genocide going on, and it is not very satisfying to recite dogma in the face of deportation, rape, torture, and summary execution.

The horrors of Bosnia have left many of us, myself included, troubled, torn, and uncharacteristically diffident. The left as a whole, if there is such a thing, has been quiet and confused, muffled and invisible.

But there are some among us who have taken a stand, and we're bringing you their voices in this issue. Mary Kaldor, a valiant British peace activist, has reported from Sarajevo for us as recently as April 1994; she now demands Western military intervention. Michael Klare, a lifelong leftwing military critic and frequent contributor to our pages, also calls for a U.S. military response. Both Kaldor and Klare take the American left to task for not responding to genocide.

I'm acutely aware that their voices would not have been in this issue of The Progressive were Erwin Knoll still the editor of this magazine. "So now we're for killing?" he'd ask, his voice rising along with his temper. And that would be that. Erwin would not permit a departure from pacifism, except for one intemperate dissent on Somalia that I penned, which was soon repudiated by events.

But I'm for open debate on the left, and when people we work with and respect tell us that we're making a terrible mistake, I think we owe them a hearing. Kaldor and Klare make their case; we make ours in the "Comment" section (which Ruth Conniff and I write, in case you're puzzled by editorial anonymity).

I was struck by a five-paragraph AP story that ran in The New York Times on July 21 entitled, UNABOMB INQUIRY TURNS TO SUBSCRIBER LIST. The item said that the FBI had subpoenaed the list of subscribers "to a far-left academic journal," Critical Sociology, and had subpoenaed its editor, Val Burris.

I don't take kindly to FBI subpoenas myself, so I called up Val Burris to see what was going on. "I'm not in any situation to talk about it," he said. Burris did, however, put me on to Paul Taylor's original story in the Los Angeles Times.

"Founded as the Insurgent Sociologist by anti-Establishment professors and students during the ferment of the Vietnam War, the...