London Trades Antiwar Leftist for Antiwar Rightist

London voters just voted out Ken Livingstone, the iconoclast left-wing antiwar mayor and replaced him with the iconoclast right-wing antiwar Boris Johnson.

Livingstone was a strong opponent of the Iraq War, and has spoken the connection between an imperialist foreign policy and terrorism at home. He has been a figurehead for the UK antiwar movement and the keynote speaker at several antiwar protests.

I don’t like Boris Johnson’s statements about Muslims, and I know I will get criticism from some of our readers for saying something nice about him, but here goes:

Johnson is not a neocon. In fact, he comes from the same sort of paleo-conservative roots as Pat Buchanan. He is opposed to British imperial dreams, and is in direct conflict with much of the UK Conservative Party.

In the last few years, he has been a strong opponent of the Iraq War, the rush to war with Iran, and Blair’s crackdown on civil liberties. Here are a few examples that we have run on Antiwar.com:

We must not let Bush wage war against Iran

I’ll go to jail to print the truth about Bush and al-Jazeera

Blair’s crackdown on freedom is an inspiration to tyrants

The war in Iraq was based on a lie – and policing Basra is an illusion

I remember the quiet day we lost the war in Iraq

Union Shuts West Coast Ports in Antiwar Protest

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union brought all ports on the US west coast in a one-day protest against the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Union said some 10,000 workers joined the antiwar protest, spurred in part by its belief that big shipping companies are profiting from the war.

“Longshore workers are standing down on the job and standing up for America,” said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath. “We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq.”

The San Francisco office of the ILWU sent over these photos of their rally in San Francisco (click on each for a larger version).

Scalia: ‘Torture Is Not Punishment’

In an interview on last Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl asked if the term “cruel and unusual punishment” applies to someone “being brutalized by a law enforcement person,” Scalia replied:

“To the contrary, has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.”

The exchange continued:

“Well, I think if you are in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody…,” Stahl says.

“And you say he’s punishing you?” Scalia asks.

“Sure,” Stahl replies.

“What’s he punishing you for? You punish somebody…,” Scalia says.

“Well because he assumes you, one, either committed a crime…or that you know something that he wants to know,” Stahl says.

“It’s the latter. And when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you…you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for? He’s trying to extract…,” Scalia says.

“Because he thinks you are a terrorist and he’s going to beat the you-know-what out of you…,” Stahl replies.

“Anyway, that’s my view,” Scalia says. “And it happens to be correct.”

ICasualties Is Returning

After an absence of a couple of weeks, ICasualties.org is coming back online.

ICasualties.org is the best source for details on US casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They have compiled an extensive database of this information, which is sortable by state, city, time periods, rank, service, etc. They help to feed this information to Antiwar.com and much of the alternative and mainstream media.

ICasualties was recently the victim of a malicious cyber-attack which disabled their server and sent visitors to random sites. The perpetrators have not been identified. Our administrator, Michael Ewens, contacted their Webmaster, Michael White to offer advice on how to battle the attack. They expect to be getting more of their old content back up over the next several days.

It is important to resume linking to ICasualties.org to restore their previous high rankings on Google and other search engines. They do an important job and it is important to support them.

To Raimondo and Barr: Legalize It!

Justin is completely right to criticize Bob Barr for failing to adhere to libertarian, non-interventionist foreign policy principles concerning Latin America. But for the sake of clarification for our readers, I must take issue with something Justin said regarding the war on drugs. Justin writes,

“I’m even mildly enthusiastic about his opposition to legalizing ‘hard’ drugs, such as methamphetamine (this will doubtless prove his undoing over at Reason magazine).”

He often has a valid criticism of some libertarians who seemingly care much more about the drug issue than the war issue. It is indeed true that foreign policy sometimes doesn’t get the attention it deserves, compared to many domestic questions. I think Justin’s comments were made as an “in your face” challenge to them, not really as a declaration of support for the war on drugs.

I must make it clear that libertarianism as a philosophy is opposed to the war on drugs, including laws against methamphetamine and other “hard drugs.” This is not a lifestyle question, but a question of government power, liberty, property rights and humanity. Libertarians believe it is wrong to put people in prison for using or selling drugs. People have a right to do what they wish to their own bodies, even if their decisions are sometimes immoral and self-destructive. The war on drugs, including “hard drugs,” has caused a massive expansion of domestic police state power. Just because it’s not as bad as what happens during foreign war doesn’t means it’s not important. Being less destructive than all-out war should be considered a rather low standard for libertarians.

Furthermore, Barr isn’t even as bad on this issue, at least on the federal level, as Justin somewhat implies. Barr believes the federal government should butt out of domestic drug policy. Barr’s critics on the drug war are more concerned about his apparent willingness to use military force and foreign aid to protect America from drugs. This is a drug policy deviation as well as a foreign policy deviation, and Justin should be especially sensitive to the latter. This is also a lesson for libertarians that compromising too much on one issue can lead to problems on others, which is one reason war is the health of the state.