Author: Brandon

LewRockwell.com is running an article by John Laughland, from the UK Spectator, regarding the disastrous attempt to prosecute Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague. Milosevic is defending himself, and doing a splendid job. Now that Milosevic’s defence is about to begin, the judges are trying to force Milosevic to accept a lawyer, which Laughland interprets as an attempt to weaken his position:
“the intention here is to weaken his defence by requiring him to be represented by a lawyer who knows the issues far less well than he does.”

The article’s key phrase:
“The realisation is now dawning that lies were peddled to justify the Kosovo war just as earnestly as they were to justify the attack on Iraq.”

No kidding. Antiwar.com has been saying that for how many years now?

Last month, British PM Tony Blair may have considered stepping down. Why? Just because he lied about WMD evidence, just because he contradicted his own MI6 intelligence service, just because he launched a murderous attack on a defenceless third world nation, killing or injuring tens of thousands of people? Just because his attack was for cynical, political and ideological reasons? Oh come on Tony, it’s no big deal. You may be responsible, in part, for all of these atrocities and more, but you don’t come close to the disastrous Winston Spencer Churchill in the warmonger department. Even though Churchill was responsible for escalating or instigating both world wars, he never resigned. In fact, the fat old nutball just became more popular! Up until the war ended, of course. Then the ignorant British public threw this great man out of office. Nevertheless, he’s become ever more popular with each passing year. Now, he’s considered the Man of the Twentieth Century (I agree, but not for any admirable reason). I say Tony should give the propaganda-and-lies campaign another shot before he gives in. If an epic mass-murderer like Churchill, phallic cigar stuck in his mouth, saliva running down his chin and all, can convince people he’s a hero, Tony should be able to as well. On the other hand, Churchill never had to deal with the Internet, or more specifically, this website. I am optimistic, however, that Tony Blair may, if the human race lasts long enough, be declared, in true Churchillian fashion, the Man of the Twenty-First Century.

The sensationally ignorant Charles Krauthammer has a new pro-Israel column in the Washington Post today. Krauthammer claims that the Palestinian intifada is over, due to two factors: The brilliantly effective Israeli strategy in attacking Hamas leaders with precision rockets, and the swell new barrier or wall or whatever it is. Krauthammer calls it a “separation fence”, a neat little turn of phrase.
The notion that Israel might be responsible for provoking the terrorism in the first place is completely off Krauthammer’s radar. To him, Arafat is unilaterally responsible, and Israel is only defending itself from his evil.
Amnesty International has continually issued reports critical of Israel for such things as destruction and confiscation of property, use of Palestinian children as human shields, murdering and arresting innocent people etc.
Ran HaCohen has written columns critical of Israel for their brutal tactics regarding the Hamas organization, and for building the peachy “separation fence”.
No matter, for Krauthammer, all that counts is Israel’s relentless drive for lebensraum.

Philip Dru: Administrator will be interviewing frequent contributors to Antiwar.com Jacob G. Hornberger and Elaine Cassel today from 4 – 6PM EST. The radio interviews will be streamed on the web. There’s a high-bandwidth link and a low-bandwidth link.

Christopher Hitchens apparently ran out of booze and got mad, launching a vicious 4298 word attack on Michael Moore, and his new flick Fahrenheit 9/11 – and a defence of the Iraq war. Hitchens believes that, if not for the good ol’ USA, Hussein would have systematically massacred every Iraqi, even to the last child. Hitchens’s world – and the neocons’ – is one where the entire non-democratic world is populated by hideous, unstoppable totalitarians, endlessly evil, endlessly resourceful. The powerless masses of these nations being unable to stop them, only Uncle Sam can. The world is more complex in the average comic book. Stare very closely into Hitchens’s eyes and you’ll see a tiny American flag blowing in the vapors of his mind – perhaps that’s also what he sees.

Hitchens accuses Moore of making an anti-war propaganda flick, not an “even-handed” one. What a shock! That was Moore’s purpose from the start, and it’s a valid one. As Roger Ebert pointed out recently:

“Most documentaries, especially the best ones, have an opinion and argue for it. Even those that pretend to be objective reflect the filmmaker’s point of view. Moviegoers should observe the bias, take it into account and decide if the film supports it or not.”

With that in mind, here’s Hitchens:

“At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective.”

Translation: At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to agree with Christopher Hitchens. Why should Moore make an effort to take the War Party’s side? He thinks it’s disastrously wrong, and he’s not trying to report on history, he’s making a documentary. Hitchens has some advice for the flick’s potential audience:

“By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.
However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point.”

I shall fact check the dreary ol “Hitch” rant. Hitchens criticizes Moore for pointing out that Bush spent a good deal of his time until 9/11 on vacation, and asks “Isn’t he [Bush] supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?”

No, he isn’t. He’s a nincompoop, and this website has already gone into laborious detail about who the war planners are.
Hitchens may also be misrepresenting what may be an equivocal moment captured on video, of Bush just after he’s learned of the second plane crashing into the WTC. Hitchens writes:

“Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11.” That’s not what Ebert thought. He wrote:

“The look on his face as he reads the book, knowing what he knows, is disquieting.” Continue reading “Hitchens Rant”

Led by the United States, global “defense” spending has risen 18 percent since 2001, presumably justified by an increase in global terrorism. According to a U.S. congressional study, terrorism has risen 35 percent since 2001. The increase in spending has coincided with an increase in terrorism. With every dollar, the U.S., which accounts for 47 per cent of the spending, manufactures new terrorists, which will, in turn, lead to demands for increased defense spending.

The Iraq war and occupation certainly led to the hideous Madrid train bombing. The astute U.S. reaction was to increase its military presence in Iraq. U.S. troop levels in Iraq, originally scheduled to decrease to 105,000 by this summer, are now going to be at 145,000, with several Army units having their tours extended 90 days. The Pentagon has pulled 3,600 troops out of South Korea to help in Iraq. Since U.S. troops in enemy territory provoked North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, removing the provocative troops would be a positive and necessary step toward a negotiated disarmament between the North and South – but sending the troops to the Iraqi quagmire is not what libertarians had in mind.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the current morass was predicted in many quarters. In a policy study for the Cato Institute two days after the attacks, Charles V. Peña wrote,

But how exactly will increased defense spending on tanks, airplanes, and ships remedy the situation?

The answer is that it won’t. To be sure, military action is the appropriate response to the heinous terrorist acts committed on American soil. But a larger military would not have prevented that devastating tragedy. And it won’t prevent future terrorist actions. Why?
Because terrorists are not traditional adversaries deterred by traditional military force. If that was the case, then terrorism should not exist in Israel. The Israeli military is bigger and better equipped than any of the Palestinian terrorist groups, yet terrorism persists. So the answer is not that simple. Terrorism – by its nature – is not traditional warfare. Terrorists pick and choose the times and places of their attacks, and they are not on military battlefields. Terrorists do not wear uniforms to distinguish themselves from their adversary. In other words, terrorists are the antithesis of the kind of enemy that armed services are designed and trained to fight.

Like trying to swat a fly with a machine-gun, fighting terrorism with massive military force is inappropriate and destructive, leading to the creation of more fanatics willing to sacrifice anything for their cause. As Justin Raimondo put it on September 28, 2001,

The interventionist response to the massacre of September 11 is to launch a massacre of our own, albeit on a much larger scale. Theirs is an agenda of military conquest, to go in and stay in – to spread “democracy” throughout the Middle East, to impose it by force of arms – and, coincidentally, make the world safe for Israel. On the other hand, the anti-interventionist response is quite different: it is roughly congruent with Powell’s arguments, as expressed to date, that we need to go in, kill ’em, and leave – without playing into Osama bin Laden’s hands. For the radical Islamists would like nothing better than a full-scale invasion of the Middle East, as recommended by [Bill] Kristol – all the better to spread his jihad far and wide.

And in a column on September 14, 2001, Raimondo on how to stop terrorism:

There is one and only one way to stop this sort of terrorism, and that is to keep out of the affairs of other nations. We should be neither pro-Israel, nor anti-Israel; neither pro-Albanian, nor anti-Albanian; neither pro-Taiwan, nor anti-Taiwan. Our foreign policy should consist of the following principle, one handed down to us by the Founders: entangling alliances with none, free trade with all. It is a foreign policy that puts America first – not Israel, not Kosovo, not Taiwan, not “human rights,” nor “democracy,” but America’s interests, narrowly conceived. Failing that, we reap the whirlwind.

The results of increased defense spending were predicted long ago by libertarians here and at Cato, Old Right conservatives such as Pat Buchanan and Old Left liberals such as Alexander Cockburn. President Bush didn’t listen to these people; instead he opened his ears to superhawk Paul Wolfowitz, the Office of Special Plans and other war-crazy neocons.

What has increased defense spending (i.e., war, occupation, regime change, etc.) given us? Not surprisingly, more terrorism.

Understanding the enemy, while not condoning his actions or agreeing with his views, is the first step toward achieving peace. Nations like Britain and the U.S. don’t really have to do anything to fight terrorism; they only have to stop doing things that provoke terrorist responses. Stop the flow of money to Israel, end the occupation of Iraq, pull troops from foreign soil, close foreign bases, trade freely with every country in the world. The moral crusade to end terrorism can only begin with a realistic assessment of its cause. The U.S. must put down the machine gun and try a flyswatter for a change.