Antiwar.com Blog

Ralph Peters takes a whack at redrawing the Middle East.

The Boy Emperor explains.

The U.S. has recently raised the possibility of a long-planned embargo of North Korea, but the Chinese and the Russians are against it, and probably won’t vote for it in the UN Security Council. However, I have it from a very good on-the-scene source that the U.S. isn’t waiting for the UN to act. U.S. Navy ships are already blockading shipping coming into North Korea, and they aren’t letting anything out, either.

If true, this is a very dangerous course to take: the North Koreans, a cranky lot in any case, are not likely to take kindly to it. An incident is inevitable, one that could escalate rather quickly into a full-scale conflict on the Korean peninsula.

Every once in a while the formerly libertarian Cato Institute lets loose with an analysis of the shape of libertarianism in the form of a voter profile: they did this some years back, you’ll recall,with a study (based on a Pew Center survey) that showed a considerable portion of the voters belonging to loose designation known as “enterprisers” — Americans who don’t want to regulate what people do with their bodies, or put in their bodies, and don’t cotton to government regulation of business, either. Now they’re back again, with a profile of “The Libertarian Voter” — but, in this era of war and “weapons of mass destruction” on every streetcorner, there is one curious omission, and I quote:

“We’re omitting foreign policy issues from this analysis because they are not easily categorized in a yes-no, less government-more government dichotomies.”

This is nonsense. Aside from the question of how does a “libertarian” fund an effort to “liberate” Iraq — and, indeed, the entire Middle East — the whole issue of an ostensible libertarian endorsing mass murder by the state would seem to run head on into the issue of the non-aggression axiom, which — unlike, say, school vouchers — is essential to libertarianism properly understood.

Of course, the folks over at Cato haven’t understood libertarianism for quite some time now — as we pointed out here, here, and here, for starters — and so this latest outrage is hardly surprising. It ought to give pause, though, that what many point to as the premier libertarian thinktank is not committed in principle to a noninterventionist foreign policy. The next time our libertarian readers consider where their donations are going to go, they might factor this into their decision. It’s interesting that the authors of this Cato study, David Boaz and David Kirby, aver that endorsing gay marriage “or civil unions” is a defining characteristic of the libertarian voter, while opposition to a foreign policy of unremitting aggression is not. Over in Cato-land, it’s all so very subjective ….

By the way, for a real libertarian analysis of “War, Peace, and the State,” by Murray N. Rothbard — the founder [.pdf] of the Cato Institute — go here.

It’s hilarious — that’s the word for The War of the Words: The 101s Fighting Keyboarders, a satiric take-down of the “war-bloggers,” who earned a place in military history by leading a heroic assault on the third-rate, broken down army of Saddam Hussein from the safety of their homes. Part One here, Part Two here. And it looks like we can look forward to three more beyond these …

One caveat, though: the film depicts columnist Bob Novak as a war-blogger who supported the invasion of Iraq. Not true: Novak, along with Pat Buchanan and a few other conservative pundits (including myself), opposed the Iraq war, and spoke out against it before the shooting started (unlike, say, John Kerry). The three of us were smeared for our efforts by the evil David Frum in National Review. But the folks over at DailyKos.com — who, it seems, are largely responsible for this filmic effort — don’t seem to realize that due to their partisan blinders.  Maybe they will correct this glaring error in the sequences to come — but I wouldn’t count on it. Oh well: it’s still pretty funny, and Glenn Reynolds deserves everything he gets.

Oh, and check out this early take-down of the Keyboarders written by Tim Cavanaugh before he was ruined by getting a gig over at Reason magazine and being forced to incorporate references to The Simpsons into every post. You’ll laugh ’til you cry ….

Some of the nation’s best antiwar cartoonists will be appearing this weekend at the Small Press Expo – America’s premier cartooning and comic arts festival -  in Bethesda, Maryland this Friday and Saturday.  

Many of the cartoonists appeared at a book event last night for  Attitude 3 – a collection of the work of “the New Subversive Online Cartoonists.”  The book was edited and features questions and commentary throughout by Ted Rall. Torture is a frequent target of their pens. This is refreshing, considering how much of the mainstream media have thumbtwisted themselves away from the subject.

August Pollack showed a great cartoon he penned with a country singer talking about his new song denouncing those “Saddam-fellating liberals.”

One of the cartoonists on the panel, Stephanie McMillan, has a new book – Minimum Security -  with her own columns.  She has the greatest author photo ever – showing her bent over a police car surrounded by cops with her hands handcuffed behind her back.

In the Q&A, I chucked in a question about the cartoonists’ perception of whether editors had been more cowardly or fearful of controversy since 9/11.

Rall replied, “Editors have become incredible cowards – and they never had a lot of balls to begin with.”  Rall was one of the cartoonists most often reprinted in the New York Times in 1997 and 1999.  But they have ceased using his work.

Rall related how he was almost hired in the 1990s as a cartoonist for a newspaper in Asbury, New Jersey.  He sensed the interview had gone very well – and then came one last question.  The editor pointed out the window to the large parking lot and asked: “Am I ever going to look at that window and see someone protesting some cartoon that you drew?”
 So much for that job.

Mikhaela Reid, a red-haired former Teamster/Harvard grad, commented,”The cartoons that stay in the newspapers are those that generate the least angry mail… Editors respond to a few cranky letters as if the business is going under.”

Cartoonists are doing some of the finest political commentary in the nation these days.  It is unfortunate that so few respectable columnists have as much gumption.

Other details on the cartoonists’ presentation last night are on my blog – where comments/ condemnations are welcome.