I think the question regarding international politics and war on Iraq or Israel is merely circunstantial. Or perhaps not. Perhaps we should say that since left, traditionally, lean towards a certain laicisism, while right is usually strongly religious and conservative, in the left predominates a sense of individual moral responsibility (not in the economy, though, where state is an all-father). As such, I think leftists tend to dislike the imposition from outside of a certain moral view, and that's what makes them against the ingerence of some countries on others with the express objective of changing the way that country is ruled. In general, this makes them less militaristic and more pro-peace (think hippies, John Lennon).
All in all, I think the original definitions were all very mudied by the occasional and circunstantial allegiances that occurred through the years. If I'm not mistaken, the whole left / right separation comes from the French Revolution, when the representatives of the people sat on the left of the president and the representants of the noble sat on the right. Technically, then, left and right should refer only to the ideas of these two groups at these points in time. But things evolve, and the terms sticked, and many different axes were joined.
As you can see if you read
on Wikipedia, the religious axis has been inconsistently associated with both left and wing views through the ages. What we have today is a pair of terms that are basically meaningless, since they've had contradictory meanings in the past. That's why the folks at Political Compass have made two axes, trying to distinguish, for example, between Old Left (primarily concerned with the economy and war of classes) and New Left (primarily concerned with cultural enlightenment, equal opportunities for all and generally an intelectual and proggressive view of society).
This will also make it possible for someone to say that leftists are generally libertarian and another disagree, because Stalin was authoritarian. So were Hitler and Mussolini, and so is Bush, and all of them are rightists.
So, this really has no direct correlation with the Left / Right axis.
In my personal view, the problem is that the dreaded communism system, which many view as the epythome of left and authoritarianism, can only succeed in small groups of people where all perfectly conscious of their part and role for the common welfare and equally committed to it, because it does involve a huge lot of sacrifice and abnegation, in accepting to have the same benefits and duties of all your neighbours even though you might be better than them.
At least, this is how I view it, but I'm totally uneducated in these subjects. Just a personal view.
Alex
Poll
Topic: Political Affiliation