The “alliance” between radical Islam and the left is generally not formal (though anyone imagining that there are no such alliances is naïve), but it can be easily identified in the profiles of individuals in the base, like Michael Moore or Ward Churchill, for that matter. Both regard the Islamic terrorists fighting America in Iraq as the resistance to an illegitimate occupation, and both believe the terrorists deserve to prevail. Organizations that share this view and are represented in this database include CounterPunch.org, Alex Cockburn’s webzine, the National Lawyers Guild, and leading “peace” organizations like International ANSWER and Code Pink. And this is just the tip of an ugly iceberg.

Michael Moore has certainly been celebrated and supported by leading figures of the Hollywood left and, of course, by leaders of the Democratic Party. They may not share his more radical views, but they are certainly willing to stand politically closer to him than they are to President Bush and the conservatives who are leading the war against the terrorists. Thus the inclusion of various Democrats in this base along with Michael Moore and Islamic radicals is appropriate, even if their connections are not the caricatures suggested by critics. The Ayatollah Khomeini, whose revolution launched the Islamic jihad, to cite another example, was supported at the time by broad sections of the American left, including many who opposed the wars against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Welcome to DiscoverTheNetwork. This site is a "Guide to the Political Left." It identifies the individuals and organizations that make up the left and also the institutions that fund and sustain it; it maps the paths through which the left exerts its influence on the larger body politic; it defines the left's (often hidden) programmatic agendas and it provides an understanding of its history and ideas.

At this point in time, no critic from the left has bothered to look at any of the actual individual profiles on the DiscoverTheNetwork site. None has argued that a single profile is inaccurate or makes invidious or unreasonable connections between the individual in question and other individuals or organizations or ideas. If the profiles of Bill Moyers, Cornel West and Barbra Streisand are fair and accurate, then what is the problem?