Antiwar.com Blog

According to the Daily Show:

There will be a big antiwar march in Washington on Saturday. The march is sponsored by scores of organizations; ANSWER is the prime mover. I disagree with them on plenty of economic and social issues, but they are right on the war.   The main event starts around noon at Lafayette Square next to the White House.

The weather forecast is sunny.   Plus, there are several excellent breweries along the march route from the White House to the Capitol.   And there will be lots of entertaining signs and folks at the event.

There will reportedly be pro-war counterdemonstrators along the march route, so that should spice up the day nicely.

Libertarian activist Aaron Biterman is organizing Ron Paul supporters to march with RP and pro-freedom signs.  He emailed me: “Ron Paul supporters are going to gather AT 11:30am at the METRO CENTER Metro Stop (607 13th St. NW). …  Exit the subway at Metro Center on the UPPER LEVEL (red line) via the 13th and G exit (furthest west exit — closest to the white house).  I will be at the corner of 13th and G with a Ron Paul t-shirt and sign.”  His email is AULibertarians@aol.com.

This might be the last chance for awhile to march against Bush & Co.  One never knows what the Absolutists in the White House might do, especially if Bush attacks Iran and Americans finally wake up…

++ Comments welcome on this march etc.  at my blog here.

Here is a photo I took of a Centurion near the White House at an antiwar demo two years ago….  (( A full size version of the photo is available at my Flickr page )

Three weeks ago seven US soldiers in Iraq wrote an op-ed in the New York Times expressing grave doubts about the war.

On Monday, Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad, two of seven U.S. troops killed in the incident which was reported just as Gen. David Petraeus was about to report to Congress on progress in the “surge.”

One of the other five authors of the Times piece, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head while the article was being written. He was expected to survive after being flown to a military hospital in the US.

Thanks to Greg Mitchell at Editor and Publisher for alerting us to this.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced early Wednesday he had vetoed legislation that would have allowed Californians to vote on an advisory measure calling for President Bush to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

The measure had been passed by the State Senate and State Assembly, and would have allowed Calfornians the chance to vote the February on a non-binding resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. This would have more clearly tied the Presidential primary to the issue of Iraq.

Schwarzenegger, a typical politician who clearly believes that Californians should not be allowed to express their decisions at the ballot box, said that the measure “would only further divide voters and shift attention from other critical issues that must be addressed.”

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_09_11_tilghman.mp3]

Former Stars and Stripes reporter Andrew Tilghman discusses “al Qaeda in Iraq,” the different players’ motives for playing up their influence, the new redirection toward the Sunnis, and the Samara mosque bombings.

MP3 here. (36:06)

Andrew Tilghman was an Iraq correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper in 2005 and 2006.

Unlike some people at Antiwar.com, I am a fan of Reason magazine. Perhaps I am just nostalgic for my tenure at Reason, 32 years ago. I have forgiven their attempt to balance the pro-war and antiwar “libertarian” positions. At least the pro-war “libertarians” tried to justify their hawkishness with the intent of bringing liberty to people in other nations.

But even that justification seems to be a thing of the past.

Today’s article by Jonathan Rauch reads like something that could have appeared in any unprincipled newspaper. Rauch explains the difference between pacification and peacekeeping. He implies (incorrectly) that our pulling out of Vietnam is what led to the bloodbath in Cambodia.

Rauch offers no justification for staying in Iraq, other than to continue the “surge” because “it is working.” Rauch apparently does not believe that the surge will result in any sort of long-term success. In fact, he seems to think it’s hopeless: “My reading of the evidence is that Iraqi fundamentals are more conducive to war than peace, and that there is not much the United States can do to change that.”

Yet Rauch says the Democrats will pay a heavy political price if they stop supporting the surge: “If they managed to ram through a withdrawal or timetable on party lines this fall, when most Republicans think the surge is working, they would be flayed for a generation as the party that seized certain defeat from the jaws of possible victory. For years to come, Republicans would insist that Democratic pusillanimity emboldened jihadism, an ugly narrative that some are already rehearsing.” Luckily, says Rauch, it’s not possible for the Dems to stop the war, so they shouldn’t bother trying: “Fortunately, without Republican support, Democrats can’t pull the plug or impose a strict timetable this fall.”

Rauch concludes that our anger over the disastrous war “does not justify impatience. If Petraeus says he needs more time, he should get it. If he fails, a course correction won’t be long in coming. The 22nd Amendment has seen to that.”

One question for the editors of Reason: What has any of this to do with libertarianism?