That is why communism, a way of life built on cruelty, attracted vast numbers of people on the Left and why, from the 1960s, it was unopposed by most others on the Left. Even most people calling themselves liberal, not leftist, hated anti-communism much more than they hated communism. When President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire," liberals were outraged -- just as they were when President George W. Bush called the regimes of North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq an "axis of evil."

 Ask leftists what they believe humanity must fight against, and they will likely respond global warming or some other ecological disaster (and perhaps American use of armed force as well).

 In fact, the Left throughout the world generally has contempt for people who speak of good and evil. They are called Manichaeans, moral simpletons who see the world in black and white, never in shades of grey.

 As the leading German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, recently wrote: "Mr. Bush's recent speeches have made no retreat from the good vs. evil view of the world that the Europeans hate."

 Patrice de Beer, an editor of the leading French newspaper, Le Monde, wrote that in the European Union: "The notion of the world divided between Good and Evil is perceived with dread."

 Entirely typical of the Left's view of good and evil is this series of questions posed on the leftist website Counterpunch by Gary Leupp, professor of history and of comparative religion at Tufts University: "Questions for discussion. Was Attila good or evil to invade Gaul? Saddam good or evil to invade Kuwait? Hitler good or evil to invade Poland? Bush good or evil to invade Iraq? Are 'good' and 'evil' really adequate categories to evaluate contemporary and historical events?"

 Western Europeans and their American counterparts loathe the language of good and evil and correctly attribute it to religious -- i.e., Judeo-Christian -- values. Among those values is fighting evil and "burning evil out from your midst." And to do that, you have to first hate it. Because if you don't hate evil, you won't fight it, and good will lose.