Antiwar.com Blog

Michael Rubin, formerly of the Coalition Provisional Authority, writes a regular feature for National Review Online, a summary with links of the Iran-related news of the day. A hardcore neocon whose journalistic and other credentials have often been in conflict, today Rubin notes the following:

“Hardline, state-controlled press reprinting articles from U.S.-based Antiwar.com.”

If you follow the link you find a piece by Charley Reese (although the Iranians don’t give him a byline), a King Features columnist, which did indeed appear on Antiwar.com — as it did in several newspapers across the country, as well as online on several sites.

This is the neocon smear method, which they tried — with very limited success — on professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt when their Harvard University study of the Israel lobby came out. David Duke, they averred, had endorsed the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis — and what else do we need to know? A great way to divert attention from the real issue, which the neocons don’t want discussed: Look! Over here! No — over there! This way, they never have to discuss any actual issues, or make any real arguments — just the argument from intimidation.

The clear implication is that we are agents of a foreign power, and/or that we support the Iranian government: after all, why would they reprint something that we posted on Antiwar.com? If the Iranians say the sky is blue, is it really blue — or some other color?

In an effort to get to the bottom of this whole Whole Foods matter, I urge you to contact the company through this form and ask why they’re such a bunch of fascists. Be sure to include the fact that you heard they are fascists from Jonah Goldberg, whose forthcoming (?) book is titled Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods. Remind them that the “obsession with organic food and environmentalism” is German, i.e., Nazi, in origin.

Via David Weigel, I see that Jonah Goldberg’s hotly anticipated (and anticipated… and anticipated) tome Liberal Fascism has a new working subtitle. Instead of The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton, it’s now The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods. Now the Hegel part is clearly a case of a flyweight thinking he’s a, well, featherweight. But Jonah may be onto something with Whole Foods. Why, just yesterday I noticed how the local Whole Foods had invaded a Piggly Wiggly over in the ghetto. There was carnage in the produce section as the Granola Gestapo mowed down everyone who refused to buy organic. They were tearing through the meat department, turning the cleavers and meat-slicers on the butchers, screaming, “Live free range or die, you backward f*cks!” I could hear the wails of tortured confessions coming from those caught with Mad Dog 20/20 in the booze aisle…

But seriously, folks, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey really is a fascist. He’s always denying people their habeas corpus rights, waterboarding suspected resisters in foreign countries he illegally occupies, claiming that his office exists outside the bounds of the Constitution, threatening to nuke people who haven’t done anything to him, and much, much more. Somebody should impeach that asshole.

Johann Hari reports that the latest National Review cruise wasn’t all caviar, pasty skin, and Pacific sun. There were also tempests:

“It’s customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who’s ‘we’?” Dinesh D’Souza asks angrily. “The left won by demanding America’s humiliation.” On this ship, there are no Viet Cong, no three million dead. There is only liberal treachery. Yes, D’Souza says, in a swift shift to domestic politics, “of course” Republican politics is “about class. Republicans are the party of winners, Democrats are the party of losers.”

The panel nods, but it doesn’t want to stray from Iraq. Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan’s one-time nominee to the Supreme Court, mumbles from beneath low-hanging jowls: “The coverage of this war is unbelievable. Even Fox News is unbelievable. You’d think we’re the only ones dying. Enemy casualties aren’t covered. We’re doing an excellent job killing them.”

Then, with a judder, the panel runs momentarily aground. Rich Lowry, the preppy, handsome 38-year-old editor of National Review, announces, “The American public isn’t concluding we’re losing in Iraq for any irrational reason. They’re looking at the cold, hard facts.” The Vista Lounge is, as one, perplexed. Lowry continues, “I wish it was true that, because we’re a superpower, we can’t lose. But it’s not.”

The crowd ignores babyface. Other highlights:

• Bernard Lewis: “The [2006] election in the U.S. is being seen by [the bin Ladenists] as a victory on a par with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We should be prepared for whatever comes next.”
• When Norman Podhoretz screeches that there were so WMDs, Bill Buckley responds, “Aren’t you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?” One cruiser accuses Buckley of cowardice; more compassionate souls blame dementia.
• Midge Decter, Podhoretz’s wife and a Muslim-hater extraordinaire, bellows that Muslims are right to condemn “American decadence.” (So if “they” are right to “hate our freedom,” then what, exactly, are “they” wrong about? Oh, of course. The only topic that really matters.)
  

[Hari link via James Wolcott, who has more to say.]

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_06_25_margolis.mp3]

Veteran war reporter Eric Margolis discusses America’s relationship with Russia since the end of the Cold War and where we’re headed.

MP3 here. (44:46)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements.

You’d never know it from reading the pacifist, Islamofascist-appeasing media, but apparently Switzerland is not a free, peaceful, sovereign nation. Who are you gonna believe, Mitt Romney or Big Cheese/Chocolate/Clocks/Cutlery?

Jim Henley pauses Mitt’s slide show to examine the evidence.