Antiwar.com Blog

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…

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA – Early in the morning on October 16, word came through news bulletins and blogs from a stretch of highway north of the Sava river, in Croatia. A terrible car crash claimed the life of Macedonian music superstar Toshe Proeski, who had been popular in all of the former Yugoslavia for his golden voice, charity and kindness. TV networks all over the region, from Macedonia to Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, pre-empted their regular programming and played Toshe’s music videos with messages of condolences. Thousands gathered in town squares, first in Macedonia and then in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia as well, lighting candles and making impromptu memorials. For a moment, Yugoslavia existed once more – united in grief over a man whose voice had brought them together.

Proeski was 26.

“I don’t believe in god any more. How could he let this happen?” growled a man from Skopje on Tuesday night; “God takes the best from us,” said a fellow musician from Croatia. “He was a wonderful man, good and kind, who loved all. I am crushed,” said another Macedonian fan.

Accounts of the accident seem to underscore the cruelty of fate. Proeski was traveling from Skopje to Zagreb by car; having driven all night through Serbia and Bosnia, driver was tired. The thick fog that blanketed the Sava river valley in the early morning made for low visibility as they merged onto the highway leading to Zagreb. It was hard to notice a stopped trailer-truck until it was too late. The Volkswagen SUV ricocheted off the truck and slammed into the guardrail. Proeski had been asleep. He died instantly. The driver survived.

Born in Krusevo, Macedonia, Proeski made a name for himself by singing both traditional tunes and pop melodies. In a fragmented music scene, often influenced by ethnic chauvinism, Proeski was equally welcome in Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo or Skopje – something no other artist managed. In a region haunted by hatred and war, he offered hope. Somehow, with his songs, joy became more joyous and sorrow was easier to bear. His fans didn’t care that he wasn’t Croat, or Serb, or Muslim, or Albanian. He was Toshe.

It is said that as he took off from Skopje on Monday night, Proeski told someone that he was “going up.” He meant Zagreb. He went to heaven instead.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_10_15_greenwald.mp3]

Glenn Greenwald, former Constitutional lawyer, blogger and author of A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, discusses the merger between the U.S. national government and the telecommunications industry, revelations from the trial of former Qwest chief, the “Protect America Act,” the complicity of the Democrats and the media, the history of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the fact that the NSA has been breaking the law since long before the 9/11 attacks, the unprecedented level of secrecy and power in Washington D.C., some more about the sycophantic media, our Orwellian state of permanent war and some reasons for hope.

MP3 here. (40:29)

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book How Would a Patriot Act?, a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power, released in May 2006. His brand new book is A Tragic Legacy.