Antiwar.com Blog

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_18_danner.mp3]

Mark Danner, writer for the New York Review of Books and author of The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War’s Buried History, discusses George Bush’s faith in himself as revealed by the recently disclosed transcript of his meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Aznar in February, 2002, and how it keeps getting innocent people killed, the narratives of “enhanced interrogations” and “weapons inspections” that make torture and aggressive war acceptable and “legal,” Bush’s belief, in spite of all evidence, that everything he does is right no matter what, the relevance of his former life as a cheerleader to his mindset today, the infighting between the neocons in the DoD and the State Department and the CIA, the administration’s accusations that racism against Arabs was somehow responsible for European opposition to the war, Bush’s refusal of the option of exile for Saddam, the decision to install the Iranian-backed SCIRI/Da’wa Party types in power and the recent decision to stab them in the back and “redirect” toward the Ba’athists again, the question of whether the Bush/Cheney regime always meant to break Iraq apart and the danger of war with Iran.

MP3 here. (49:40)

Mark Danner, longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, and professor at Berkeley and at Bard, writes about foreign affairs and American politics, including Latin America, Haiti, the Balkans and the Middle East. He speaks and debates widely about America’s role in the world.

Chris Deliso, longtime Antiwar.com columnist and proprietor of Balkanalysis.com has written a new book called The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West.

Check out his speech, “New Information and Key Trends Regarding Islamic Extremist Groups in the Balkans,” given on October 5, 2007 in Athens, Greece, at the University of Indianapolis international campus.

You didn’t think U.S. support for the Mujahideen ended with Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan… did you?

Hell no. Bill Clinton brought them to Europe.

According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of the third-quarter finance reports, Ron Paul once again leads in donations from those who list the military as their employer. He is followed by Barack Obama, and then by John McCain.

Paul also led among military contributions in the second-quarter reports.

The Houston Chronicle analysis says the average size of Paul’s contributions from military sources is $500, much higher than his average overall donation. More than a third of Paul’s military-related contributions came from Army affiliates; a third came from the Air Force; and a fourth from Navy donors. The rest came from affiliates of the Marines and other branches.

One of the contributors to Paul’s campaign was Lindell Anderson, 72, a retired Army chaplain from Fort Worth, who donated $100 to the Texas lawmaker. “As a Christian, I think he speaks to a theme that the United States shouldn’t be the policeman of the world,” said Anderson.

Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report, speculated that Paul might be an attractive candidate for military personnel who oppose the war, “but don’t want to cross the line and vote for a Democrat.”

Texas A&M political science professor George C. Edwards III attributed support for Obama among the military to the factors that he attracts support from many black voters, and blacks are a bigger proportion of the military than their overall share of the national population.

Analysts said the ability of Paul and Obama to rake in as much money from military employees as they did suggests there is a certain degree of dissatisfaction with the Iraq campaign among veterans and those in uniform.
At the Texas headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Austin, state adjutant Roy Grona said military personnel do not vote as a bloc. “There’s probably a lot of veterans that aren’t happy with the war in Iraq,” he said.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_17_mgoodman.mp3]

Melissa Goodman an attorney in the ACLU’s National Security Program, discusses the U.S. military’s expanded role in spying on Americans, how the FBI and DoD have used hundreds of thousands of National Security Letters (NSL’s) to circumvent the law to that end, how NSL recipients have been gagged from speaking out, the Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear a torture case on the grounds that it would expose state secrets, how the FISA court’s location inside the Dept. of Justice building symbolizes their relationship and how the government’s claims of “State Secrets Privilege” has been used to cover-up their lies since it’s first use over 50 years ago.

MP3 here. (32:47)

Melissa Goodman is a Staff Attorney on the ACLU’s national security project and litigates cases concerning surveillance, excessive government secrecy, torture and detention, and the freedoms of speech and association. Most recently, she has been counsel in the ACLU’s lawsuits challenging warrantless NSA surveillance, the Patriot Act, the government’s practice of ideological exclusion, and the CIA’s abduction and detention of Khaled El-Masri, a victim of the CIA’s practice of “extraordinary rendition.” Goodman is a graduate of New York University College of Arts and Science, and New York University Law School.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_16_mayfield.mp3]

Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield discusses his persecution at the hands of the FBI, their holding him as a “material witness” in order to deny him basic due process, the false accusations linking him to the March 2004 train bombing in Madrid, Spain, how the FBI refused to budge on their crazy conspiracy theory until the Spanish authorities proved his innocence beyond doubt, the government’s use of “sneak and peek” warrants against him and his family, the chilling effect on the attorney-client privilege from new Justice Department “guidelines” and the prosecution of Lynn Stewart and how his lawsuits against the government have led a federal district court judge to strike two provisions from the PATRIOT Act.

MP3 here. (24:56)

Brandon Mayfield is an attorney in Portland, Oregon, not a terrorist.

The good folks at the Future of Freedom Foundation kindly forwarded some of the lively responses they received  after sending out my op-ed, “Are Presidents Entitled to Kill Foreigners?”

I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure all these editors decided not to publish the article.

Here’s a response from Bob Weir,  the executive editor of the News Connection (Texas):

Were we right to kill “foreigners” in other wars? Were the Germans, Italians and Japanese not foreigners? Adhering to your definition, the only wars we’d be able to engage in would be civil wars. By the way, do you have anything good to say about the United States? Your support of Iran, a dictatorship that has been proven to be responsible for the deaths of countless American soldiers, tells me all I need to know about your hatred of your own country.

I will never understand people like you who live the American lifestyle with all its bounty, while taking every opportunity to trash it.  If you have so much affection for Iran and its ayatollah-style government, why do you stay here? Could it be because you have freedom here? Could it be because if you lived in that tyrannical state and opened your mouth against the government you’d be stoned to death in the public square? You’re like the spoiled brat who has all the comforts of life, yet hates the parents who provide it for him. Sadly, your parents must have done a lousy job of
raising you because you bear all the signs of a child that was never taught to appreciate his good fortune.    ****

The Guthrie Center Newspapers sent an indignant one line response to the piece:

It’s not Bush — it’ President Bush, just like President Clinton, President
Bush, President Reagan, President Carter, etc.

Well, maybe that’s why Mr. Editor didn’t like the piece.  (That particular email did not include a name). *****

The Addison Eagle News and Reporter in Middlebury, Vermont, replied:

What a stupid, naive premise here. Presidents don’t kill foreigners (unless
they are secret agents although I never heard of one stalking a foreigner
and shooting them.)

The real question you should really care about as an American citizen
is: Should foreigners be entitled to kill Americans? Thankfully we have a
President who doesn’t think so, after 9/11.*****

If George W.  is ever indicted for war crimes, he should certainly try to stack the jury with editors from this paper.

Bill Johnston, the editor of the Collinsville News, also successfully resisted the article’s allure:

Didn’t have to read very far in your “op-ed” to know that you obviously
don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about….

“Seems to be the attitude” . . . what a comment. You don’t have a clue what
the attitude of President Bush and his advisors is or ever will be.
Needless to say, your ridiculous effort at some sort of anti-Bush rhetoric
will never see the light of print in this publication and I am hopeful in
very few other newspapers around this country….

By the way, if you’ve got evidence of President Bush breaking the law, file
the proper motion in court….

My hunch is that Bill Johnston has not spent a lot of time reading about the State Secrets doctrine and how the Bush administration continually invokes it to sway judges to throw out court cases involving brazen and proven government wrongdoing…