I emailed back and learned that Del got this straight from Max and has his permission to pass it along:
Dear Editor:
Your paper's coverage of the so-called "anti-Iraq protest movement" seriously failed to identify both the groups involved in leading the demonstration on March 17th, but also failed to identify its leaders whose names either appeared in the WP or on their press releases and websites.
Brian Becker, identified as "national coordinator for the Answer Coalition" is not identified as a longtime member and leader of the Stalinist "Workers World Party", perhaps the top communist party in the US today. The same goes for other ANSWER spokespersons (over time) including Richard Becker, Steve Hackwell, Leslie Feinberg, Monica Moorehead, Sara Flounders, John Catalinotto, etc. Many of these individuals were identified as members of the WWP as far back at April 1974 in the report "The Workers World Party and Its Front Organizations", House Internal Security Committee (HISC) and in an earlier hearing, "Revolutionary Activities Directed Toward the Administration of Penal or Correctional Systems, Part 1", March/May, 1973. Thus WP writer Brigid Schulte's writing in "Veterans, Others Denounce Marchers", March 18th, got the chant "Workers World traitors must hang!" wrong. It was not "a reference to the Communist newspaper", i.e. "Workers World." It was a reference to the WWP as the sponsoring organization of the demonstration, along with a mixed Communist/Maoist coalition known as United for Peace & Justice, led by an old Communist Party USA-connect activist, Leslie Cagan, and Revolutionary Communist Party leader, the aging Carl Davidson.
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is the main "peace" front for the WWP, which also formed and controlled its predecessor, International Action Center (IAC), the All Peoples Congress, and the Peoples Anti-War Mobilization. Newer fronts include the Peoples Video Fund, Troops Out Now, Party for Liberation and Socialism, and the various International Tribunals on Panama, Iraq, Haiti, etc.
Ramsay Clark was chosen as the front man either in late 1980 or early 1990, and this, in itself, would make a fascinating story to follow through on, though his support for various communist front groups goes back as far as the 1970's.
Significant information about the WWP and UPJ can be found at www.frontpagemagazine.com and its "DiscoveryTheNetwork" database, among other on-line sources.
Also, Schulte's attempt to characterize "The veterans for peace, including active duty men and women, and guys fresh from Iraq in desert camo ..." as still having " the thousand-yard stare, and a battlefield hauntedness" was nothing more than pure hype, and garbage. While some may have seen heavy combat, it was of limited time of contact and of a limited in-country time of duration. The "stare" should belong to my father-in-law who fought his way across the Pacific in WW2 to a place called Iwo Jima, or to the soldiers at the Chosin Reservoir, or to the Battle of Hue, Khe San, An Loc, etc.
This is not to take away from those Iraq veterans protestors who served honorably, but my son fought there and he doesn't have any "stare", only a healty respect for life and his fellow soldiers. Neither did the scores of Vietnam veterans I met with and talked to during the Protect the Wall rally. If anyone should have had the "thousand-yard stare," it was the guys I met from the Big Red One Division, the 3rd Marine Division, and the 82nd and 173rd Airborne Divisions, among other. Mike Benge, a former Marine and ex-civilian POW in Vietnam (5 years) and R J Del Vecchio, who was telling us about funny stories about how his wound was treated, didn't "stare"; they laughed, they shook hands and shared hugs of respect with fellow vets, and gave my daughter more history lessons on Vietnam in a few hours than you would find in many schools. They were the true "Band of Brothers."
Sincerely,
Max Friedman
(MF was a MACV-accredited correspondent in So. Vietnam, Fall 1970)
