Antiwar.com Blog

[UPDATE: Apparently, the Judt speech will go on, but on Oct. 16. But see this from the New York Sun.]

Historian Tony Judt, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and director of the Remarque Institute at NYU, writes,

I was due to speak this evening, in Manhattan, to a group called Network 20/20 comprising young business leaders, NGO, academics, etc, from the US and many countries. Topic: the Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. The meetings are always held at the Polish Consulate in Manhattan.

I just received a call from the President of Network 20/20. The talk was cancelled because the Polish Consulate had been threatened by the Anti-Defamation League. Serial phone calls from ADL President Abe Foxman warned them off hosting anything involving Tony Judt. If they persisted, he warned, he would smear the charge of Polish collaboration with anti-Israeli anti-Semites (= me) all over the front page of every daily paper in the city (an indirect quote). They caved and Network 20/20 were forced to cancel.

Whatever your views on the Middle East I hope you find this as serious and frightening as I do. This is, or used to be, the United States of America.

ABC News revealed this afternoon that Foley was engaging in “Internet sex” with a teenage boy while Foley was voting for the Bush administration’s Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriation in 2003.  

ABC reports:

This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., …

Maf54 [FOLEY]: I miss you
Teen:   ya me too
Maf54: we are still voting
Maf54: you miss me too

The exchange continues in which Foley and the teen both appear to describe having sexual orgasms.

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did you know you would have this effect on me
Teen:   lol I guessed
Teen:   ya go vote…I don’t want to keep you from doing our job
Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight
Teen:   :-*
Teen:  
***

Bush often talks about the idealism of his war on terror and the nobility of congressmen and others who support his warring by burning tax dollars as fast as the IRS can vacuum them out of American paychecks.

We now know what Foley was doing when he voted to support scores of billions of dollars of additional spending for Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what were other pro-war Republicans doing at the same time?

How many other congressmen were metaphorically doing what Foley was doing actually?  

Comments/condemnations welcome at my blog here

We’ve been pretty critical of the Cato Institute around here, frequently warning our antiwar peeps that money sent to Brink Lindsey and co. is wasted, at best. But now, in the interest of fairness, I must issue a consumer alert for pro-war Cato donors: you aren’t getting your money’s worth either. Example:

It is never the waging of wars that makes you safer, only the winning of them.

The U.S. was not safer in 1942–1945 than it had been in early 1941. We entered World War II because winning it would make America safer. In trying to win it, we suffered over a million casualties.

Part of the argument for toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime was that a beachhead for freedom and democracy in a Muslim Middle Eastern nation would, in the long term, weaken militant Islamism and promote peace. It was never suggested that the process of trying to create that beachhead would itself make anyone safer — no more than it was suggested that Americans would be safer during our participation in WW II.

Hence, it is fatuous to argue that a current rise in terrorist recruitment proves that toppling Saddam was a bad idea. Efforts to create a free and democratic Iraq are ongoing — the war is still in progress.

That is, what has actually happened since the war began doesn’t matter, because what war supporters said would happen could theoretically still happen – kind of; we may have to accept defeat in the scavenger hunt and cakewalk events – as long as we keep trying to make it happen. Plus watch Saving Private Ryan.

Surely you guys can do better than this.

* Anthology Film Archives in NYC announces the October premieres of two films on the late Edward Said:

“EDWARD SAID: THE LAST INTERVIEW is the record of a wide-ranging and engaging conversation with Said, conducted within a year of his death in 2003, while OUT OF PLACE is an intimate portrait completed in 2005. Completely present in the former, Said’s spirit echoes throughout the latter, in spite of his absence.”

Scroll down here for more info.

* Here’s a nonpartisan pledge to not vote for pro-war/occupation candidates. Signing it is easier and almost certainly more worthwhile than actually voting.

* Arthur Silber is back and in fine form, expounding on the urgency of resisting dictatorship now.

“All day long today the story we’ve been chasing has to do with major new charges about the handling of the Iraq war – evidence that the reality is far worse than we’ve been led to believe.”

Quoth Brian Williams – Tom Brokaw’s replacement as the “news anchor” on the NBC Nightly News – in his introduction to a story titled “Baghdad Under Curfew” from the night of Friday September 29th. (Watch it here.)

Just one question here Brian:

Who the hell is this “we”?

You are the one who has been doing the misleading. You are the one.

I know what you’re thinking too: “But my job is to repeat what the state says because they are the origin of all things. It never occurred to me that it was my job to find the truth myself and tell you about it.”

And perhaps you’re right. Perhaps your job is being a liar, or a tool of liars if you will – telling us what the military contractors that run NBC want you to in order to keep us afraid enough and dumb enough to keep our country at war and our government flowing our tax dollars into their bank accounts.

(love/hate welcome over at Stress)

The poll numbers are in, and it looks like the War Party has its work cut out:

“A majority of Americans want the United States to increase diplomatic efforts over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while 70 percent oppose the use of U.S. troops to thwart Iran, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

“Asked the best course of action for the United States in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, 45 percent said Washington should join with allies to increase diplomatic efforts and another 17 percent said the United States should step up diplomacy on its own.

“One in four respondents, 26 percent, said they supported the use of U.S. ground troops in Iran, while 70 percent opposed it. Nine percent favored air strikes on selected military targets in Iran.”

Hey, you guys, let’s get that propaganda machine churning! I can hear its gears whirring now: already we have talk that, contrary to our own CIA’s assessment, the Iranians will have nukes in a matter of months — and that Iranian agents are ready to strike at the U.S. at a moment’s notice. Now all we need is a few anthrax-laden letters, and lots more “intelligence” from a certain Middle Eastern exile group — helpfully channeled to the American public via the front page of America’s most venerable news source – and we’ll likely see those poll numbers reversed.