Antiwar.com Blog

Antiwar Radio: James Bovard

James Bovard, author of The Farm Fiasco, The Fair Trade Fraud, Shakedown: How the Government Screws You from A to Z, Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years, Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil, The Bush Betrayal and Attention Deficit Democracy, discusses the war, torture, unlimited executive power, lies, complacency, ignorance, the impending war against Iran.

MP3 here.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy (St. Martin’s/Palgrave, 2006), and eight other books. He has written for the New York Times, War Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. He is a contributing editor for the American Conservative and a frequent contributor to Freedom Daily.

The War Street Journal called Bovard “the roving inspector general of the modern state,” and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a “one-man truth squad.” His 1994 book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty received the Free Press Association’s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism and Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner Award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association.

His writings have been been publicly denounced by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.

Comments welcome at Stress.

The reaction to the Hagel-for-President boom, on both the left and the neocon right, continues to confirm my jaundiced view of both: “Outside of the foreign policy realm,” avers Matt Yglesias, “there’s not much to like here from a liberal point of view.”

That’s pretty neat how Yglesias manages to shrug off the single most important issue in American politics today, and the number one concern of American voters. Not all lefty-liberals take such a sectarian stance, however. Here‘s a refreshingly rational view of Hagel’s possible White House bid from Robert Scheer, who opts for Hagel over the pro-war Hillary, because “Yes, the war is that important.”

Let’s be clear: the war isn’t just the most important issue, it is the only issue as long as it continues. The foreign policy of this nation represents the main danger not only to peace in the world, but to liberty here on the home front. The danger is so great that it constitutes an emergency, requiring all opponents of war and domestic repression, on the left and the right, to unite against the threat posed by the War Party.

The left has so far failed to come through with a viable antiwar candidate — and wouldn’t it be ironic to see a winning antiwar presidential candidate emerge from the GOP? It’s just the kind of joke history would play on the neocons — and I know I won’t be the only one laughing.

It isn’t just the neocon bloggers and Dick Cheney who are gritting their teeth over the rise of Senator Chuck Hagel as the new paladin of the antiwar movement: Cenk Uygur, over at the Huffpuff — otherwise known as the bulletin board of the DNC — chimes in with a post entitled “Who is John Hagel?”

Oh yeah, well I got a question for him: Who the %%^&*( is Cenk Uygur?

Cenky’s problemo? It looks as though Hagel is … not a Democrat! And — yikes! — he even votes like a — gasp! — Republican! Oh, heavens-to-mergatroyd!!! What’s a Huff-puffer to do? 

He denounces Hagel because the Senator voted for the Military Commissions Act — yet doesn’t mention that the good Senator voted against re-authorizing the PATRIOT Act. He complains that Hagel voted for the Bush/GOP position more than any other Senator, but how many votes on the war has the Senate entertained this year? Not a lot. Regarding Hagel’s attacks on the President’s war policy, he admits:

These are much stronger words than Hillary Clinton or practically any Democratic frontrunner has used against the administration. In the GQ interview he does everything but accuse of the administration of out right lying and warmongering. This is a Chuck Hagel who is honest and brave. This is a Chuck Hagel I love.

Well, then, what’s the problem? Cenky is a reformed Republican, apparently — you know, like a reformed smoker. That type is always a little … cranky. Some people, in any case, are just soooo hard to please. We at Antiwar.com agree with Robert Scheer, no wingnut, who wrote:

If it ever narrows down to a choice between him and some Democratic hack who hasn’t the guts to fundamentally challenge the president on Iraq, then the conservative Republican from Nebraska will have my vote.

Yes, the war is that important, and the fact that Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, the leading Democratic candidate, still can’t or won’t take a clear stand on the occupation is insulting to the vast majority of voters who have.

To which one can only add: you got that right, brother!

Long-time opponent of the war in Iraq, Senator Robert Byrd, recently remarked about Bush’s troop surge plan:

“At the outset of this war, the Bush administration believed, apparently, that democracy could be exported through the barrel of a gun. That belief was wrong them; it is wrong today. Twenty thousand more troops won’t make it right.”

This video (hat tip: Lew Rockwell) is revealing in a number of different ways. First of all, it shows up Hillary Clinton for what she truly is: an opportunist who is only tenuously acquainted with the truth. She now claims that if she had known then what she knows now, she would never have voted for the war: but in this video, in which she meets with members of Code Pink, the antiwar women’s group, she downplays the “weapons of mass destruction” rationale for war, and emphasizes, instead, the brutality of Saddam’s dictatorship.

Secondly, I would note the unctuousness of Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin, who shamelessly kisses up to Hillary in her introduction, and even declares that she “knows you secretly agree with us” about the war. The fun begins when Hillary sternly disabuses Ms. Benjamin of this illusion, lecturing her about the absolute evil represented by Saddam’s Iraq, and reminding her of the Clintonian war against the Serbs, which, as all good liberals know, was a righteous war. Poor Medea — talk about having the rug pulledout from under you!

The best part is when one of the Code Pink women approaches Hillary, at the end, and tries to hand her a “pink slip” — some pink underpants of a decidedly delicate character. This is when Hillary bares her fangs, and lashes out: “I am the Senator from New York,” she intones, wagging her finger at the woman like a schoolmarm, “and if you think I’m going to endanger the security of my constituents you are very much mistaken!”

Wow! How telling that, when cornered, Hillary resorts to the Bushian “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” argument — and so readily, almost instinctively.

Now that the war is unpopular, however, Hillary is trying to distance herself from her previous incarnation as a hawk. It won’t work — thanks to Youtube! 

 

Antiwar Radio: Richard Cummings

Why did America invade Iraq?

Oil? Israel? …

Jets, bombs and taxed dollars.

So says Richard Cummings as he explains the story behind his Playboy.com article “Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels“: the direct role in policy-making played by Lockheed Martin and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex and the amount of money they loot from the U.S. Treasury.

Also discussed: whether the National Review is a CIA front.

MP3 here.

Richard Cummings taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of The Immortalists, The Pied Piper – Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell. He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.

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