Month: July 2007

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_24_07_scott_goyette_show_6raimondo.mp3]

Antiwar.com editorial director Justin Raimondo debunks the War Party’s claims that there is anything conservative about neoconservatism.

MP3 here.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000). He is also the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (with an Introduction by Patrick J. Buchanan), (Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).

He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_24_07_scott_goyette_show_5porter.mp3]

Investigative reporter and historian Gareth Porter debunks the War Party’s claims that Iran’s government is killing American soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, neocrazy media sycophant Michael R. Gordon’s lies on behalf of the Vice-President’s office and its stovepipe, the truth about Iran’s attempted grand bargain of 2003 [.pdf] and the threat of America and Iran’s friends in Iraq turning on U.S. troops in the event of war.

MP3 here.

Gareth Porter is a historian and journalist for InterPress Service. His latest book is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam

Matt, here’s what strikes me as the irony. Not only has the Iraq war become increasingly unpopular, but Ron Paul has repeatedly been credited by the MSM for having opposed the war back when we peaceniks were in the minority. If there were ever a time to worry that Ron Paul’s advocacy of peace would hinder “a wider acceptance of the libertarian principles that would promote the general welfare of the American people,” it was maybe four years ago, when most Americans were still favoring the war and we libertarians and other doves were outnumbered. And then it would have only been a short-term concern.
Indeed, the Paul campaign has succeeded like nothing else in recent times that comes to mind in showing people that peace and liberty go together as do statism and war. Ron Paul is getting the credit he deserves and making people wonder, “Why did this man know, back when most Americans didn’t, that this war would be such a disaster — could it have had something to do with his libertarianism?” And there’s Barnett saying, “No, no, no. Libertarianism doesn’t inform us on whether to support or oppose the war. We wouldn’t want to give people the impression that there’s some connection, in principle, between peace and liberty.” If anything is truly hurting the ability of libertarians to increase our ranks it is this muddy picture people have of us. After all, what use is a philosophy against big government if it offers no principled critique of the biggest government failure in the last decade, one that nearly everyone is now sour on?  Thank goodness Ron Paul has been so quick to connect our troubles in terms of civil liberty and economic prosperity back to the issue of war. He has done a lot to reverse the damage of the liberventionists, such that now they see it as necessary to respond to him.
Wars are generally popular at first, only to wane in their popularity as the tragedy continues and its advertised goals go unachieved. Not only is opposing war the only sensible thing for anti-statists to do, it is in the long-term the best strategy in showing people the value of our critique.

Rod Dreher, a former National Review champion of the war, explains that the colossal failure of the Iraq War has “shattered his illusions” about government.

Among his reflections:

I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military — neither in their honesty nor their competence.

I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone.

Keep reading…

Thanks to Lew Rockwell.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_24_07_scott_goyette_show_1prather.mp3]

Nuclear physicist Dr. Gordon Prather debunks the War Party’s claims about Iran’s nuclear program.

MP3 here.

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. — ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_24_07_scott_goyette_show_2cole.mp3]

Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan, debunks the War Party’s claim that the president of Iran has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”

MP3 here.

Juan R. I. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively about modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. His most recent book is Sacred Space and Holy War. His blog, Informed Comment, is a widely read source for Middle East news and commentary.