Antiwar.com Blog

National Review‘s Kathryn Jean Lopez explains Thomas Smith’s false reporting from Lebanon:

That’s why I wrote, in my first editor’s note on the subject, that we “should have provided readers with more context and caveats” – the context that Smith was operating in an uncertain environment where he couldn’t always be sure of what he was witnessing, and the caveats that he filled in the gaps by talking to sources within the Cedar Revolution movement and the Lebanese national-security apparatus, whose claims obviously should have been been treated with the same degree of skepticism as those of anyone with an agenda to advance.

As one of our sources put it: “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.”

One question: will we be allowed to quote this back to the neocons the next time they cite their buddies in Beirut regarding Syrian perfidy, or will they call us racists?

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer cites our very own David R. Henderson in a discussion of the War on Drugs.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/scott/07_11_29_powell.mp3]

Jim Powell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II, explains that it was American intervention, not a lack thereof, that created the circumstances which led to the Second World War and the unbroken chain of U.S. intervention overseas from Woodrow Wilson’s breaking of the stalemate of 1917.

MP3 here. (39:20)

Jim Powell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is an expert in the history of liberty. He has lectured in England, Germany, Japan, Argentina and Brazil as well as at Harvard, Stanford and other universities across the United States. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Audacity/American Heritage and other publications.

He is the author of several books, including The Triumph of Liberty, A 2,000 Year History Told Through The Lives Of Freedom’s Greatest Champions (Free Press, 2000), FDR’s Folly, How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (2003), Wilson’s War, How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led To Hitler, Lenin, Stalin And World War II (2005) and Bully Boy, The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt’s Legacy (2006).

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw2007-11-28barbaraslavin.mp3]

Senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today Barbara Slavin, author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, discusses the likelihood of war with Iran, their exclusion from the Annapolis conference, and how the U.S. has helped the “neoconservative” hardliners in Iran by spurning every peace offer of the Iranian moderates.

MP3 here. (18:20)

Barbara Slavin is the senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today since 1996, with the responsibility for analyzing foreign news and U.S. foreign policy. Sha has covered such key issues as the U.S.-led war on terrorism, policy toward “rogue” states, the reform movement in Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sha has also accompanied two Secretaries of State on their official travels and reported from Libya, Israel, Egypt, North Korea, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/scott/07_11_28_giraldi.mp3]

Former CIA officer and Antiwar.com contributor Philip Giraldi discusses the new Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act and the danger to innocent people posed by “Commissions” like the one to be created by the act, the fluid definition of “terrorist,” in the eyes of the State, super-majority complicity in the House of Representatives, the inevitable role of the neocon crazies, why it is a bad idea for Americans to tolerate violations of rights by politicians on “their” side, the reality of al Qaeda and the smartest way to fight them, the “Sunni Awakening” in Iraq, the “farce” in Annapolis, the presidential candidates, his conservative view of Iran and the likelihood of war.

MP3 here. (36:50)

Philip Giraldi is a former DIA and CIA officer, partner at Cannistraro Associates, Francis Walsingham Fellow for the American Conservative Defense Alliance, contributing editor at the American Conservative magazine, blogger at the Huffington Post and columnist at Antiwar.com.

Two recent articles in USA Today illustrate the hidden costs of the war.

The first is about an Army study that found mental issues in 25,000 troops that came back from Iraq, including “post-traumatic stress disorder and depression to substance abuse and family conflict.” 7,000 soldiers admitted to having a drinking problem.

The second is about police officers who come home from Iraq with symptoms of PTSD “that law enforcement and mental health authorities fear could put their judgment and public safety at risk.”

Americans who served in the military and those who have the misfortune of being in their family or otherwise dealing with them will be suffering from the effects of this evil war for years to come. When will this madness end? Will it have to drag out as long as Vietnam did?