Antiwar.com Blog

I am honored to be returning as a speaker to the second annual Future of Freedom Foundation conference on foreign policy and civil liberties, which takes place June 6 through June 8 at the Hyatt Regency Reston in Reston, Virginia, and, as last year, features a fantastic array of speakers.

Last year’s conference was tied for my favorite libertarian event of all time. This year’s gathering promises to be just as good, if not better. Libertarians, conservatives, and liberals alike will address empire, surveillance, torture, constitutional civil liberties, and all the other preeminent issues relating to U.S. war policy. The content will be timely but also timeless, as these issues cut right to the heart of what type of society we live in. I can hardly wait to hear another three days’ worth of stimulating talks on the history, economics, law, philosophy, and politics of American foreign policy and its implications for freedom, prosperity, and international peace.

At a time like this, when the very basis of civilization is at stake, it is crucial that we get together, listen to each other, and help to build a big-tent movement dedicated to restoring the fundamental precepts of our constitutional structure and reversing America’s century-old and accelerating course toward despotism and global hegemony. The stakes are unspeakably high.

When so much of American political life is caught up in meaningless distractions and petty diversions — just witness the presidential campaign for an infinite barrage of examples — and a disastrous imperial consensus continues to dominate both parties and much of the mainstream media, we need nothing more than patriotic and moral leadership focused on the true issues of the day and the current policies’ dire consequences for Americans and foreigners alike. Just as much, we need authoritative and mindful voices to show there is another way.

It is beyond encouraging, then, that FFF has once again managed to put together such a prestigious lineup of journalists, economists, historians, and attorneys on the front lines of the struggle for liberty and against the depredations of the war on terror and imperial executive.

Returning this year will be James Bovard, Karen Kwiatkowski, Joseph Margulies, Justin Raimondo, Sheldon Richman, Lew Rockwell, Robert Higgs, Joanne Mariner, Bart Frazier, Jacob Hornberger, Ron Paul, and Laurence Vance. Marguiles and Mariner are two of the greatest voices and legal minds on civil liberties, and their experience in attempting to restore humanity and the rule of law to the federal government’s anti-terrorist detention policies will surely make for excellent and emotionally stirring talks, as was the case last year. As for the rest, I’m sure most readers recognize their names from their important writings, and perhaps from their outstanding talks last year. They continue to be among my great heroes of the libertarian movement, but I will not go into the very long process here of explaining the details. Suffice it to say if you were to look at my bookcase of favorites, you would see titles by Bovard, Richman, Raimondo, Rockwell, Higgs, Vance, and Paul, and I always make sure to read their articles, along with Kwiatkowski’s, Hornberger’s, and Frazier’s, whenever I see them.

Joining us this year for the first time, from the left, will be the brilliant civil liberties expert Glenn Greenwald, the wonderful anti-imperialist writer Stephen Kinzer, and the indispensable and iconoclastic journalist Alexander Cockburn. The venerable professors Andrew Bacevich and Jonathan Turley, and constitutional expert Bruce Fein, will surely bring the crucial conservative perspective of prudence and moral clarity to the questions of America’s decadent and neo-Wilsonian empire. To round out the panel, the sagacious economist and libertarian writer David Henderson will provide some much-needed economic sense to the questions of war and peace, at this time when so many Americans still don’t see the connection between militarism and wealth destruction. I have found the work of all of these people’s invaluable in my research and efforts to keep up with the news.

I expect my talk will be decent, too, and yet it’s difficult to pitch my credentials when put beside such an overwhelming list of heroes and intellects.

This is not a conference you want to miss. The intellectual sophistication (including that of the attendees!), the friendly atmosphere, the whiff of revolution in the air — this will be an amazing opportunity to share ideas, reflect honestly and thoughtfully on the great national crisis before us, and contemplate the future restoration of liberty and peace to the United States. It will be an incredible time of serious discourse, ecumenical solidarity, and great food. The Hyatt was a beautiful location last year, and I am delighted we will be returning there this year.

If you want to know what’s ailing our fading republic and also want an unforgettable experience of hopefulness and elucidation, you should certainly plan to be there.

Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo spoke to the Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations in Maine April 21.

Yesterday, Maine Public Radio broadcast the one-hour talk in its entirety.

Listen here.

I don’t know for sure that those two were with Hezbollah – or maybe Hamas – but you can’t be too careful in an area perfect for launching kayak attacks on the DC bridges. Unless of course the kayakers drowned before getting that far (as often happens in the Potomac above Washington).

Seems like half the people that throng near this vantage point speak foreign languages. I recognized an Iranian there recently – he was doubly suspicious, since he’s also on an Home Owners Association board. Bound to be some people passing through this area who are already listed on the Terrorist Watch List. Almost none of the cars in the nearby parking lot had yellow “Support Our Troops” stickers.

Where is Homeland Security Czar Mike Chertoff when you need him???

The above photo works better in the full size version here.

I should have read Daniel Ellsberg’s excellent memoirs – SECRETS: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers – long ago. But better late than never.

Here is the lead of a piece I did on the book for the new issue of Freedom Daily :

Daniel Ellsberg is the kind of American who should receive a Medal of Freedom. Except that the Medals of Freedom are distributed by presidents who routinely give them to “useful idiots” and apologists for their wars and power grabs. It should be renamed the Medal for Enabling or Applauding Official Crimes in the Name of Freedom.

Ellsberg knowingly risked spending a life in prison to bring the truth about the Vietnam War to Americans. He had hoped truth would set Americans free from the spell of official lies. But the experience in Iraq indicates that Americans have learned little if anything from the Vietnam-era deceits.

(The Future of Freedom Foundation puts the full text of Freedom Daily articles online a few months after the print/email version appears).

Paul Wolfowitz’s admission that he and others were "clueless on counterinsurgency" at the Hudson Institute’s symposium on Douglas Feith’s "War and Decision" last week was certainly the lede as Eli Lake reported it in the New York Sun reported last week, but overlooked were the remarks on the same panel by Dan Senor who demolished – albeit very politely – just about everything Feith and Wolfowitz had to say.

I’m never been a fan of Senor – he has been a spokesman for Freedom’s Watch – and he was, of course, spokesman and a top adviser to Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) chief L. Paul ("Jerry") Bremer to whom he obviously retains some sense of loyalty. But his responses to the most basic point made by Feith in his book and Wolfowitz during the symposium – that things went bad when the U.S. declared an "occupation" instead of turning over the government to and empowering an Iraqi authority dominated by "externals" like Ahmed Chalabi and other members of the so-called "London Group" – were clear and irrefutable (at least by Feith and Wolfowitz) and also served to point up once again how completely ignorant the administration’s leading hawks were both about Iraqi society and the likely impact on it of the U.S. invasion.

The symposium, which Hudson has made available in both transcript and video forms on its website, was important, if only because it marked the first time that I know of that Wolfowitz, who was Feith’s nominal superior at the Pentagon, has spoken publicly at length about the Iraq War since he left the administration in 2005 to take over the World Bank (from which he was forced to step down last June). His contribution to the panel, which also included former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman, consisted mostly of quoting passages from Feith’s book and agreeing with them.

In particular, he quoted Feith’s central argument: "The chief mistake [by the U.S. government] was maintaining an occupation government in Iraq for over a year, even though the dangers of occupation had been recognized throughout the Bush administration and even though the president’s policy had called for the early creation of an Iraqi interim authority. The central task of liberation was to bring about political transition in Iraq, but this was impeded beginning months before Saddam’s overthrow by the self-induced anxieties at State and CIA [always the bad guys for the neocons – ed’s note] about the presumed lack of legitimacy of the Iraqi opposition." According to Feith and Wolfowitz (and Richard Perle, for that matter), it was this decision that at least fueled – if it didn’t create – the insurgency.

But to Senor, the decision to declare and sustain a legal occupation was "irrelevant" given the basic fact that the "occupation" was a fact of life for the vast majority of Iraqis.

"To them, occupation was the fact that virtually every interaction they had with any official providing them a government service, whether it was the dispensing of basic essential services like electricity and water and gasoline, or providing basic security in those early months, was conducted by American men and women in uniform and our coalition forces. That is the fact. To them, that was occupation. For most Iraqis, occupation existed in their daily lives when they walked out their front door and there was a Humvee sitting around the corner and they had to drive through checkpoints that were manned by American military. Anywhere they need to go, those checkpoints were clogging up Baghdad. That to them is occupation.

"…And the idea that we could be tinkering with position papers and memos about how we define occupation and that would somehow change the perception of Iraqis’ sense of occupation day to day, I think, is somewhat disconnected from reality."

Moreover, the assumption by Feith and Wolfowitz that transferring power to the "externals" favored by the Pentagon civilians would have prevented or "tamped down" – rather than intensified – the resistance, particularly within the Sunni population, was simply unfounded, according to Senor. “Indeed, …[i]f you simply look at some of the actions they did take take when …we handed authority [for] de-Ba’athification over to the Iraqi Governing Council, they took [its] implementation …in a far more extreme direction than anybody envisioned." Indeed, Senor said, transferring authority to that group would have created "a sovereign government …dominated by Shiite Islamists."

Aside from the omnipresence of American soldiers, the basic problem faced by the U.S. in Iraq from the outset was the perceived disenfranchisement of the Sunni population, Senor stressed. "You have a community that represented some 20 percent of the population that for the entire modern life of Iraq, at least its modern-state life, had been in control of the country …in very possible way. …And the notion that we were going to go into Iraq, in a society that had deep and visceral inter-communal tensions and dislocate or disenfranchise or at least take this community and have their influence represent their proportionate representation in the population. And for that not to be the problem is something [that] at best we may not have seen coming…"

Feith and Wolfowitz admit that also they did not see it coming (although they tend to see the "Sunni" problem as an all-controlling "Ba’athist" conspiracy), but then they insist that no agency in the U.S. government foresaw it. In his presentation, Wolfowitz quoted approvingly again from Feith’s book:

"What was not anticipated by any office, as far as I know, was the Iraqi regime’s ability to conduct a sustained campaign against coalition forces after it was overthrown. When the CIA in August, 2002, analyzed how Saddam might attack, surprise, or otherwise foil us in a war, its analysis dealt only with actions Saddam might take while still in power. I never saw a CIA assessment of the Ba’athist after their ouster would be able to organize, recruit for, finance, supply, command, and control an insurgency, let alone an alliance with foreign Jihadists."

Wolfowitz noted that he, too, had never seen any such study.

Yet, we now know that two such studies did exist, although they were undertaken on the initiative of the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Paul Pillar, of the National Intelligence Council and officially commissioned by the State Department’s Policy Planning Office. And they were theoretically available to all relevant policymakers, including Wolfowitz and Feith, well before the invasion. They were declassified by the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, 2006.

Here’s how Pillar summarized their findings in a Foreign Affairs article just before their declassification:

"Before the war, on its own initiative, the intelligence community considered the principal challenges that any post-invasion authority in Iraq would be likely to face. It presented a picture of a political culture that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult, and turbulent transition. It projected that a Marshall Plan-type effort would be required to restore the Iraqi economy, despite Iraq’s abundant oil resources. It forecast that in a deeply divided Iraqi society, with Sunnis resentful over the loss of their dominant position and Shiites seeking power commensurate with their majority status, there was a significant chance that the groups would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power prevented it. And it anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks – including by guerrilla warfare – unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam.

"…[W]ar and occupation would boost political Islam and increase sympathy for terrorists’ objectives – and Iraq would become a magnet for extremists from elsewhere in the Middle East.[Emphasis added]

Of course, the fact that these studies originated with the CIA and the State Department no doubt reduced their credibility for hawks like Wolfowitz and Feith who were so determined to go to war that they never bothered to check out what the National Intelligence Council or the State Department’s Policy Planning Office (which Wolfowitz at one time headed!) was producing. They much preferred the reassuring predictions they were getting from the exiles in the London Group, the same ones who, at least Senor now recognizes, either led them down the garden path or who, like Wolfowitz himself, had no clue about the Iraq to which the Pentagon was about to return them.

In any event, the Hudson transcript (or video) is certainly worth reviewing for the ease with which Senor takes apart virtually every point made by Wolfowitz and Feith and the apparent inability of Wolfowitz or Feith to rebut him. While Senor never suggests that he thinks the original decision to invade Iraq was a mistake, it’s pretty clear that he thought the decision was not very well thought out by its principal advocates at the Pentagon.

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.