Antiwar.com Blog

Thomas R. Pochari, editor of World Affairs Monthly interviews Antiwar.com founder and managing director, Eric Garris, about the web, the universe and everything.

Real Audio file here.

I appreciate LewRockwell.com and Antiwar.com posting my article on “Every Day is 1956: The Hungarian Revolution Today.”

Hungarians have taken to the streets this past week to denounce a lying government.  The Socialist Prime Minister confessed grossly deceiving voters in election last April, and many Hungarians got mad as hell.

There is a debate going on at my blog site over whether Hungarian protestors are standing up for freedom – or are merely a reflection of the dark side of Hungary’s past.

Add your comments or insights on this controversy at my blog here.

Thirteen years ago today, the New York Times revealed how easy it would have been for the Feds to have stopped Ramzi Yousef’s bombing of the World Trade Center before it started:

Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast
Thursday October 28, 1993
By Ralph Blumenthal
Page A1

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be use, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York City’s tallest towers. The explosion left six people dead, more than 1,000 injured and damages in excess of half a billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in Manattan Federal Court in that attack.

Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian army officer, was used by the Government to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists now charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack and a foiled plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels and other New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case, but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the trade center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I.”

Supervisor ‘Messed It Up’

After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I.. supervisor who, he said, “came and messed it up.”

“He requested to meet me in the hotel,” Mr. Salem says of the supervisor. “He requested to make me testify and if he didn’t push for that, we’ll be going building the bomb with a phony powder and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn’t do that.”

More.

For the full story, see 1,000 Years for Revenge by Peter Lance.

Update: See also James Bovard.

Comments welcome at Stress.

That’s the phrase my old high school history teacher used to described the two political parties in America, and the evidence for her case just keeps piling up.

Take for instance, this blog entry, by investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss, who noticed that the Republican incumbent in Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district, Donald “Capital Hillside Strangler” Sherwood, is sending out mailers citing the article, “The Lie Factory” which Dreyfuss co-wrote with Jason Vest for Mother Jones in 2004. This article remains one of the best reports on the neocon “cabal” in Douglas Feith’s office which lied the American people into war in Iraq.

Now why would the Republican be highlighting such malfeasance?

Because the Democrat, Chris Carney, worked for Feith in the “Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group” making up tall tales about Iraq’s relationship with Osama bin Laden.

Ha!

Now Richard Perle is holding fundraisers on his behalf.

I suppose Jane Harman plans to appoint this guy to the House Intelligence Committee if he and the Democrats win in November.

Interestingly, Dreyfuss and Vest never mentioned Chris Carney in “The Lie Factory,” but his role has been mentioned elsewhere, such as this New Yorker article by Jeffery Goldberg.

From the New York Sun:

“Voters in Pennsylvania’s rural, conservative 10th Congressional District received an unlikely mailing earlier this month accusing a former Navy lieutenant of helping start the Iraq war.Quoting a 2004 article, “Lie Factory,” that appeared in Mother Jones magazine and relied on interviews with a former Pentagon analyst turned White House foe, Karen Kwiatkowski, the mailing highlights Christopher Carney’s role in a small intelligence analysis shop inside the Pentagon before the Iraq war. The top of the mailing warns voters, “Chris Carney failed our nation once.” “Don’t give Chris Carney a chance to FAIL us again,” the next page says.

The mailing may seem par for the course in an election season in which Republican incumbents are vulnerable to attacks on their support for an unpopular war. But its return address is the Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania. The mailing’s target is Mr. Carney, who some see as one of the national Democratic Party’s brightest hopes to wrest control of the House of Representatives in 2006.

The political dissonance was amplified on October 19 when President Bush stumped for Mr. Carney’s rival and the Republican incumbent, Donald Sherwood.Two days earlier, Mr. Carney was in New York for a fund-raiser hosted by one of the president’s original foreign policy advisers in 2000, Richard Perle. …

Mr. Carney stands by his intelligence work. Yesterday, nearly two weeks before Election Day, he said: ‘Some of the party disagrees with me on this, but I know what I saw. Nonetheless, the party respects that I was in a unique position to know this. They like the idea they have a Democrat strong on national defense joining their ranks, especially on the war on terror.'”

Since we seem to be stuck with this two party system, we should consider replacing the Republicans and Democrats with the War Party of Taxes, Tyranny and Death for the members of both and making a brand new one for those of us who care about liberty. We’d probably still lose, but at least we could have an honest debate.

Comments welcome at Stress.

The American Conservative Needs You!

The magazine is hiring for these positions:

Assistant Editor
Excellent literary and journalistic skills. Considerable agreement with the themes of the magazine and engagement in the world of ideas.

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Send resume and salary requirements to kara@amconmag.com.

Video here.

Poor old George Bush Jr. He’s got nothing left but straw men and circular logic to keep American soldiers in Iraq.

First he implies that his critics believe the “sophisticated propaganda” of the enemy terrorists that “our” presence is the cause of all Iraq’s problems – a case I’ve never heard made by anyone, American or otherwise.

Then he breaks out the trusty old sunk-cost routine:

“I’ve met too many wives and husbands who’ve lost their partner in life, too many children who’ll never see their mom or dad again. I owe it to them and to the families who still have loved ones in harm’s way, to ensure that their sacrifices are not in vain.”

Highfalutin emotional rhetoric aside, you don’t have to be David Henderson to see the mistake in the Great Decider’s reasoning. From the Skeptics Dictionary:

“When one makes a hopeless investment, one sometimes reasons: I can’t stop now, otherwise what I’ve invested so far will be lost. This is true, of course, but irrelevant to whether one should continue to invest in the project. Everything one has invested is lost regardless. If there is no hope for success in the future from the investment, then the fact that one has already lost a bundle should lead one to the conclusion that the rational thing to do is to withdraw from the project.

To continue to invest in a hopeless project is irrational. Such behavior may be a pathetic attempt to delay having to face the consequences of one’s poor judgment. The irrationality is a way to save face, to appear to be knowledgeable, when in fact one is acting like an idiot.”

Comments welcome at Stress.