Antiwar.com Blog

If someone makes a practical argument for torture, are you under any intellectual obligation to respond with a practical argument against? There are plenty of those, but as Lindsay Beyerstein puts it:

It’s sort of like writing rape-prevention posts about how you shouldn’t rape people, because it’s not going to be as much fun as you think, and you might drive your victim into the arms of radical feminists, etc. It seems either obscene or otiose to explain to would-be rapists why rape is a poor means to their ends.

There [is] something morally distasteful about being patient or reasonable with rapists. Same with torturers. I suppose that if I thought I could convince people not to rape with good arguments, I would try. Maybe the mistake is assuming that torturers are motivated by rationality any more than rapists.

The debate over who benefits from our invasion of Iraq entered a new phase with the publication of a research paper by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, written by two prominent foreign policy scholars from the “realist” camp, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “Israel and U.S. Foreign Policy.” The paper not only examined the pervasive power of the Israel lobby in the U.S., but identified “the Lobby” — as they call it — as the decisive (if not the only) factor that set us on the road to war:

“Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”

The Lobby struck back at Mearsheimer and Walt, smearing these two distinguished scholars as “anti-Semites,” but now we see, as the chorus crying for war with Iran hikes up the volume, that the same forces are gathering to support a U.S. strike against Tehran. Furthermore, one cannot  help but note that, although the U.S. is clearly not benefitting from an occupation that is draining American resources and destroying our credibility worldwide, Israel clearly is gaining — by establishing a military outpost in Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq. Seymour Hersh did the initial reporting on this development, and now the BBC has the pictures — a stunning video showing Israeli  “ex”-military personnel training Kurdish pershmerga and setting up a base in Kurdistan. The idea is to establish an outpost from which Israeli planes can strike at Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities, and also create a presence on the ground that can strike, at will, across the Kurdish-Iranian border.

The war in Iraq, in this context, has to be seen as a necessary preparatory step before the real target — Iran — could be attacked. And now that they are getting ready to do it, we can see more clearly that Israel, and not the U.S., was and is the main beneficiary of American military operations in the region.

NOTE: The original version of this post had the wrong link for the BBC video, which has since been corrected.

Good Lord, Hugo Chavez calls Bush the devil in his speech at the UN, and CNN’s chattering doofuses are near tears. “He lifts himself up to the level of President Bush when he can talk about him in an insulting manner,” according to one “analyst.” (A TV “analyst” is someone who’s not good-looking enough to be an anchor.) Lifts himself up to the level of President Bush? What level is that?

Now they’re telling us that Chavez wants nukes. More about his horrible slights to our Dear Leader. (Say, what could Chavez possibly have against Dubya?) Shock and disgust that not everyone in the world loves the American government. How Chavez barbecues babies with Ahmadinejad and bin Laden. Actually, they haven’t gotten to that last bit yet – it’ll be in Carol Lin‘s eye-popping special report later.

There have been many indications that an attack on Iran is, if not imminent, then a near certain eventuality. There was Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the development of an attack plan. And then there’s this, and this. But the clincher has got to be this.  

Uh oh …

There’s a new documentary coming out about Sibel Edmonds, the famously gagged FBI whistle-blower who found out too much about the criminals who occupy the highest levels of power in this country and others.

It’s called Kill the Messenger. Watch the trailer here.

Make sure to follow the links to Lukery’s new Sibel blog, it’s already full of tons of information, as well as his wotisitgood4.blogspot.com, of course.

Mickey Kaus:

Andrew Sullivan has decided to give out a Nancy Grace Award. Criteria (suggested by Sullivan’s readers) include “a nauseating level of absolutist self-righteousness,” an “unflappable self-assurance that [the nominee’s] outrage represents the true moral high ground on any issue” despite a propensity to “flip flop” – and a habit of “excessive personal attacks.” [Emphasis added]… You mean like righteously bullying anyone who fails to support a war in Iraq, then turning around and righteously attacking the people who are prosecuting it? … Can you think of any nominees? I’m stumped.

Me, on why merely ignoring Sullivan is not an option.