Antiwar.com Blog

In the Tuesday interview for PBS Newshour, host Jim Lehrer asked Bush why he has not asked more Americans.. to sacrifice something” for the war in Iraq.

The President replied: “I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.”

Bush did not specify whether he believes people who become afflicted with carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of channel surfing should be eligible for military disability pensions.

I have been amazed at the last few interviews Bush has given.  His doggerel seems to be surpassing all previous bounds, and yet…  many Americans continue to believe, and most of the Washington media continues to grovel.   

Comments & cavils on this topic welcome at my blog here.

Antiwar Radio: Chris Floyd

The guest on Antiwar Radio for January 17, 2007 is Chris Floyd, author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium, on the subject of the tension between the Cheney-neocon cabal and the traditional American Establishment.

Mp3 here.

Bush’s order for 20,000 more troops to be sent into the Iraq quagmire has resulted in some additional calls to end this evil war. But who can stop it? Can anyone stop it? Because there is only serious opposition from a few members of Congress, the war will continue to be funded. The public continues to post “support the troops” signs. Evangelical Christian “leaders” continue to make excuses for Bush and his war. The only ones who can stop this war now are the troops themselves. After all, it is the troops who are bringing death and destruction to Iraq, not Bush and the writers at National Review. If they stop, the war will stop. To begin with, all 20,000 bodies of fresh meat should refuse to go to Iraq. Next, every soldier home on leave should refuse to go back. Then–and this will be the most difficult–every soldier in Iraq should try to come home. All this may sound simplistic, but I see no other way of ending the war now, instead of in four more years. If the troops don’t stop it now, the war will eventually end, but how many more American soldiers will needlessly die before it does? And even then, after the U.S. government officially ends the war–what happens next? Will it end like Vietnam with a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces or will it end like Japan and Korea with the permanent deployment of U.S. troops? The billion-dollar embassy in Baghdad leads me to believe that it will be the latter.

Antiwar Radio: Gareth Porter

My guest on Antiwar Radio for January 16, 2007 is historian and analyst Gareth Porter from IPS News on why America’s policy toward Iran has not really changed despite the Bush administration’s recent seemingly more aggressive pronouncements and actions, their policy of backing the Iran parties in Iraq and Iran’s spurned attempts to make peace with the U.S.

Mp3 here.

Comments welcome at Stress.

A newly-released Pentagon-funded study entitled “Educing Information” examines the “concerns about recent U.S. interrogation activities, subsequent investigations, and the efficacy of contemporary tactics, techniques, and procedures.”

Surprise, surprise: the U.S. government has little or no idea what it is doing when it tries to beat the truth out of people. A Washington Post story on the study today noted that “no significant scientific research has been conducted in more than four decades about the effectiveness of many techniques the U.S. military and intelligence groups use regularly.”

But this does not mean torture is barren for purposes of state. Some of the key “evidence” linking Saddam and Al Qaeda was generated by torture. The fact that the “confession” later turned out to be false did nothing to resurrect the scores of thousands of people who have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invaded.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan history professor and an expert on the war on terrorism, observed, “Torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren’t really any, or aren’t very many, or aren’t enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget.”

The U.S. government has a pathetic batting average regarding alleged terrorists. The vast majority of the people the feds have accused of being terrorists or labeled as terrorist suspects have turned out to be not guilty as charged.

This has often proved embarrassing. And this may be where torture comes in. Cole asks, “How do you prove to yourself and others a big terror threat that requires a National Security State and turn toward a praetorian society? You torture people into alleging it. Global terrorism is being exaggerated and hyped by torture just as the witchcraft scare in Puritan American manufactured witches.” Cole explains that “Bush needs torture … to generate false information that exaggerates the threat to his regime, so as to justify repression. He needs the ritual of confession and naming others, to have it down on paper so he can show it to Congress behind closed doors.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency study did not examine this “benefit” of torture.

Comments & cavils on this topic are welcome at my blog here.

This article, “The Iraq Gamble: At the pundits’ table, the losing bet still takes the pot,” by Jebadiah Reed, in Radar, is a hoot — if you like your humor a darker shade of black.

Reed discusses the way-off-the-mark predictions and prognostications proffered by pro-war pundits –Tom Friedman, Peter Beinart, Fareed Zakaria, and Jeffrey Goldberg — and goes on to show that, far from hurting their respective careers, these paladins of the War Party have been more than amply rewarded for the utter wrongness of their views. Their works are celebrated, their lecture fees are up, and the complete cluelessness of their views on the war seems not to have made a dent in their celebrity.

On the other hand, those who, rightly, warned against going to war with Iraq — former Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, Antiwar.com columnist William S. Lind, Jonathan Schell, and Scott Ritter — are in the poorhouse, but have the satisfaction of knowing that they were right.

I can think of another antiwar columnist who is still in the poorhouse, and not exactly in demand when it comes to getting booked on the tv talking heads gabfest circuit, and yet, really, when was it ever different — and who expected anything different? Surely not me. I’m satisfied with the readers I have — more, I expect, than Peter Beinart — and the recognition from those who matter to me. Sure, it would be nice to command five-figure lecture fees, but I don’t lay awake at night obsessing about it. What matters is that those of us who saw what was coming had a forum to bear witness to the truth — and that there is still some chance that the country will listen. Beyond that, we have the right to ask for exactly nothing