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Posted September 9, 2002
It's been a pleasure to read the prescient "classic Raimondo" pieces that you've published during Justin's vacation. The excellent and fiery 1998 piece of his from the Mises Institute's Free Market newsletter, however, now, that one also made me wonder ... once again.
Raimondo inveighed eloquently, four years ago, against economic sanctions, and how they bespeak totalitarian cruelty and an "exterminationist policy." He pointed out the absurdity of how they encourage nationalist "autarky" of production, one of the dark nemeses that Mises himself dissected.
Yet I wish I knew which Raimondo to believe today. Is it the one, in 1998, who rightly put such restrictions of trade on a par with the monstrous evil of conscription? Or the one, in 2000, who didn't use his having the ear of a presidential candidate, and a podium at a televised political party convention, to ask that they not support nationalistic calls for similar "autarkic" restrictions on trade?
Four years back, he was condemning what "our" State imposes on the trade of those in other States. Two years back, he was not weighing in against calls for making other impositions on those trading in "our" own State. (Not as this witness could hear or read, anyway.) I don't see any real difference between these cases. Though, yes, the resulting deaths are far more obvious in Iraq than they are over here.
Still, which of these Justins is operative today? "Our" Empire moves toward another ground war in Asia, and, unlike earlier American regimes he noted, it's prepared to prohibit a great deal of peaceful trade for the war's unbounded duration. I'd like to clearly know which side he is on.
Perhaps
he'll enlighten us after he gets back from his vacation this week. With
my having become addicted to his informed invective, I'm glad he's back,
even if he doesn't clear this up. Yet it would help.
~ Steve Reed, Los Angeles
Justin Raimondo replies:
No, I SHOULDN'T have gotten up at the Reform Party convention and berated them for not accepting libertarian dogma on an issue that could not be explained in the less than five minutes I had to speak. As it is, they had to use the hook on me after I went over my time: can YOU explain and justify the libertarian theory of free trade, refuting all protectionist arguments, in less than five minutes? I doubt it, dude.
But the issue goes far deeper than that. War is the THE central issue for libertarians: it is more important than free trade, more important than drug legalization (sorry, guys!), more important than ANYTHING. Because if we have a global empire abroad, we aren't going to have anything even close to a limited government at home. Perpetual war means the END OF liberty in America -- period.
So, rather than face the End, it is necessary to make alliances with groups that may not agree with all of our ideology. That means a working coalition with leftists, of the Alex Cockburn sort, as well as paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan.
This doesn't mean we have to keep our positions a secret: I criticized Buchanan often over some of his economic positions, specifically his protectionist stance, in my column. But the Reform Party convention in Long Beach, 2000, was not the place to repeat myself: it was, instead, the place to emphasize the issue on which we agree with Buchanan and his people 100 percent -- and the issue which has come to the fore today.
I am proud of my role in building the Buchanan for President campaign, not only in 2000, but also in 1992 and 1996. And I hail the re-establishment of the Old Right as an alternative to the neocon-dominated "conservative" movement of today, which is heralded in the forthcoming debut of Buchanan's new magazine, The American Conservative.
Slaughtering Iraqis Not the American Way
The United States is the real symbol of freedom, justice and democracy in the World. This country simply does not attack another nation without provocation. The very idea that Americans would kill 100,000 Iraquis with the limited and sole objective of eliminating their leader, is a plan totally inconsistant with the principals for which this great nation stands.
We all realize that Hussien is a potential threat to both Israel and the West if he obtains nuclear weapons. However, that threat is going to appear minimized when our troops have to start slaughtering thousands of innocent people in Bagdad to get to their leader. We are going to become what we are setting out to overcome- a terrorist militia.
Lets get our allies in the United Nations together, get the inspectors back in force, and end this senseless idea of killing thousands of people to solve what is a political and diplomatic problem. Common sense must prevail: no country kills thousands of people to get rid of a leader, and certainly not the United States of America.
~ Col. Thomas W. McGuire Jr., USAF Ret, Montgomery, AL
Evidence Against Ashcroft...Anyone?
I read Antiwar.com daily, along with many other libertarian/anarchist sites, and I am troubled by all the "reporting" that has followed Jonathan Turley's 14 August LA Times article on the John Ashcroft gulags for "enemy combatants" that are US citizens.
I have no love for Ashcroft. I truly believe that he is a menace to liberty in this country and none would applaud louder than I if he were removed from office and sent packing back to Missouri. However, in my attempts to find where these comments by Ashcroft or his henchmen were made, all I can find are a variety of incestuous stories all pointing back to Jonathan Turley's original story.
In every other despicable thing John Ashcroft has done, I have been able to find this documentation readily, most often on Ashcroft's own Department of "Justice"'s website. However, I have found no evidence of this particular incident that does not have its roots in Turley's original LA Times article.
I have a lot of respect for Jonathan Turley, but I have lot more respect for myself. I can't go to bat politically for something or someone just on one person's say so, however much I admire and respect him. What is happening to Hamdi and Padilla is disgusting, but it's at least well-documented. While I find Turley's story plausible given what I've witnessed from Ashcroft thus far, all the noise generated thus far is just echoes of Turley's original article. If this is truly happening, then someone PLEASE give me more evidence of it. If it's not, then we're wasting our energies chasing phantoms that could be better spent addressing the many outrages already in plain sight.
~ Randy Kaelber
The only way the USA can gain the popular support of the UK (and possibly Europe) for its adventure in Iraq is for the people to be shown "a smoking gun".
Can we expect
a spectacular terrorist attack on a UK or European target?
If this were to happen would be wise to look at potential perpetrators
other than Iraq?
I hope our security services are on guard.
~ Barry, UK
Washington D.C.: Tel Aviv West
To Justin:
Just a note. Caught your piece, "Let's
Vote On It." I am a Vietnam vet with a nephew in an army mortar
platoon about to deploy to the Middle East. It's his second trip. He's
firmly convinced that Iraq is only the first stop, and explains that people
in the military clearly understand that the Israelis are calling the shots.
My nephew and his grunt friends have a grim joke – Washington, D.C.,
is Tel Aviv West.
You made a reference (with the obligatory expression of disdain) in the
article about Henry Ford's old Dearborn Independent. Curious, I
found some of the articles and was particularly struck by warnings about
the media. The bottom line is that my beloved United States is about to
shred its unique moral high ground at the orders of a foreign government
that is not our country's friend. Everyone in the world except the American
public knows this. Guess the Japs at Pearl Harbor weren't such bad guys
after all.
Anyway, I'm going to send an anonymous contribution.
Keep up the good work.
~ ACS, Sherman, TX