When President George Bush spoke of the "Axis of Evil," many of television's talking heads ridiculed him.
The pundits pointed out that Iran and Iraq hated each other and questioned what either of them had to do with the Asian Communist despot in North Korea. Evidence has been piling up that the President was right on the money.
North Korea has been saber-rattling for months to take the heat off Saddam Hussein. The Iranian rulers have opposed President Bush and sent an Iraqi military unit, controlled by Iran, into Iraq, not to topple Saddam but to help him. In Afghanistan an Iranian-controlled group has tried to engage in combat against the American forces.
They Hate America
Although they hate each other, the dictators of Iran and Iraq hate America more. They can cooperate against the main enemy.
Even more interesting is the support apparatus that has surfaced in the United States and other countries to organize demonstrations against a war with Iraq. The core group in the United States is the Workers World Party, a tiny Marxist-Leninist "Party" that also calls itself International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and the International Action Center. The offices and web sites of these groups are used to organize the demonstrations, hire the buses and get the permits for the demonstrations. Workers World leaders appear on the platform both as speakers and to make sure that only those chosen by them get the microphone.
Workers World gets its ideological guidance from North Korea. It is hard to imagine anyone taking seriously the egomaniacal paranoid dictator Kim Jong Il. But the Workers World leaders make pilgrimages to Pyongyang where they place flowers on the grave of the late dictator Kim Il Sung and pledge their support to his son.
Deirdre Griswold is the editor of their weekly newspaper, Workers World, and a pilgrim to Pyongyang. During a visit last year she participated in a ceremony where the Koreans explained "the veneration and worship for great President Kim Il Sung and respected Marshal Kim Jong Il."
She has been a leader of Workers World for decades. In 1972 she visited Cuba and reported to the Cuban comrades about her organization. She told them "Workers World is an independent Communist party that follows the ideals of Marx, Engels and Lenin. . . ."
She told them that the group had been formed in 1959 by a small cadre of people who had left the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party because of serious disagreements. The WW Communists supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Communist side in various international disputes. Griswold told the Cubans that among the groups that WW had "warm working relationships with" were the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, the Iranian Students Association, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Thirty years ago these groups were already part of the Axis of Evil. The two Palestinian terrorist groups received training and funds from the KGB, the Puerto Rican group received its support from Castro's Cuba and the Iranian group supported the terrorist groups in Iran that would later help Khomeini come to power.
What these groups had in common was the idea "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." That is why, in the 1970s, when the Palestinian terrorists were hijacking airplanes they had the participation of Communist terrorists from Latin America, Germany and other parts of the world.
Osama bin Laden also understands this principle. In his recent audiotape, he referred to Saddam Hussein and his cohorts in Iraq as "socialists" and "infidels"-both pejorative terms. But, he said that his supporters should take up arms in defense of Saddam and make suicide attacks on the Americans.
The Workers World Communists have a valuable front man that they parade out on important occasions: Ramsey Clark, former attorney general of the United States.
A few years ago, Clark and Deirdre Griswold participated in a "war crimes tribunal" against the United States. Both of them repeated the old KGB invented disinformation story that the United States had used germ warfare in the Korean War.
The North Korean Communists had revived the old lie as an excuse to refuse to allow the United States to inspect their sites of weapons of mass destruction. They had agreed to the inspection in a deal with President Clinton and former President Carter in exchange for millions of dollars, but refused to fulfill their agreement.
Ramsey Clark also participated with Workers World Party activists John Catalinotto and Sarah Flounders in the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic. While these people claim to be concerned with the lives of Muslims, they defend Milosevic, the war criminal, who actually ordered the murders of innocent Muslims.
Flounders is a major organizer of the anti-war demonstrations and has appeared on television as a "peace activist." Both she and Catalinotto are long time Workers World members. They were exposed together with Griswold in 1974 by the House Committee on Internal Security, which published their pictures and backgrounds in a report called "The Workers World Party and Its Front Organizations." The report was prepared by the committee minority staff at the request of Rep. John Ashbrook (R.-Ohio).
Moslem extremists, anti-American crackpots and the Communist remnants left behind after the collapse of the Soviet Union have all joined together to protect Saddam Hussein from his just punishment.
