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Posted November 26, 2001
Writing About Writing
A massive imperialist offensive against people yearning to breathe free everywhere is in the making and it seems the most important thing you can do is deride US media columnists? I already take it for granted that establishment media pundits are clueless windbags, it doesn't need to be brought up analyzed every third or fourth column. I guess you think you are helping to counter their influence on the American people with your alternative views or something? I reckon if an ordinary person with a pro-war bent makes it to your site they will find plenty of content to sway their viewpoint besides your anti-pundit pieces. Some of your geopolitical analysis pieces for example.
Writing about what's going on in the world is more important than writing about what other people are writing about what's going on in the world.
Cheers, and please keep up the good work
Justin Raimondo replies:
Writing about what other people are writing about the world is part of what is going on in the world, my friend. Of what does "geopolitical" analysis consist of, other than the internal politics of the US? The views of, say, Max Boot, are reflected in the highest councils of the administration. An abstract "geopolitical analysis" without any reference to the arguments of the War Party is going to be largely irrelevant.
Cruelty
[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column of November 19, "Death and the Wall Street Journal":]
I sympathize with Justin Raimondo's alarm over Max Boot's desire to see more Americans' blood shed, but I have to take issue with the assertion that cruelty in war is not in the American character, at least compared to other countries in the space of our short history. I don't believe you can characterize a nation based on the behavior of it's warriors – "armchair" or otherwise.
It must be cruelty to firebomb Dresden and Tokyo, to sneak into a Vietnamese village at night and cut the throats of children and little old ladies in order to "send a message" or to surprise peaceful Indians and massacre them, or wipe out a couple hundred thousand Filipinos for US interests, a couple million Korean civilians, or whoever is next in the "war on terror." I think the average citizen of any country is outraged by actions of this sort, except when manipulated by their own government or powers that be. The USA was well on the way to empire a century or more before FDR, and conscientious Americans have tried to oppose the leaders of imperialism throughout its history.
Holocaust
Are you people (those who run Antiwar.com) Holocaust deniers? One could easily suspect that from you being linked in the ... revisionist section of the Institute for Historical Review's website.
Eric Garris replies:
Absolutely not. We have denounced the Institute for Historical Review on a number of occasions, and it upsets us that they continue to link to us.
Why?
On October 26th, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the USA-PATRIOT Act. This act, a direct response of the United States Congress to the horrors of September 11th, empowers the executive branch to override a variety of constitutional protections.
The
American people still
have not been provided
a shred of evidence of
the administration's assertion
that terrorists contrary
to government interests
orchestrated the acts
of September 11th. We
have no idea who is spreading
anthrax via letter in
the United States Postal
system. We have been told
to trust the Bush administration,
on faith.
Why?
Why
indeed? – when we
know that the new president,
shortly after inauguration,
ordered
the FBI to cease its investigations
into the bin Laden crime
family [and] ...that he
made his first million
two decades ago through
a bin Laden crime family-funded
oil company, ... that
the Central
Intelligence Agency
worked with bin Laden
for
years, ... [and] that
a French newspaper asserted
that a CIA operative met
with Osama bin Laden in
Dubai, last summer.
Mr. President, you owe
the American people answers.
Mind-Controlling Media
Thank you for your wonderful articles. I am glad to know that some Americans know the truth about what is going on in the world. I like your website very much and I admire your courage as well. It is going to get very hard to hear the truth about the situation. I am also afraid that we will be kept in the dark or given distorted reality by our ... mind-controlling media.
Bombing Civilians
On the Wednesday, November 21, issue of Antiwar.com, I found a column by Caleb Tinbergen in the October 29 LA Times ["The Rarely Told Story of World War II"], commenting on Howard Rosenberg's October 19 column. Tinbergen says that it's a regrettable fact that World War II bombing of German civilians defeated Germany.
After the war the US Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) conducted a Strategic Bombing Survey, to determine the effectiveness of the bombing. It turned out that while the bombing killed a lot of German civilians, the effect on German war production was quite slight. For example, one concentrated air bombing campaign was conducted against German airframe production, with the goal of greatly reducing production of German warplanes. Instead, Germany responded by paying more attention to the production of airframes. Airframe production actually went up after the bombing.
~ John W. Farley