Antiwar.com Blog

How Jim Henley has the patience to still do this is beyond me. I’m not going to waste my time on the WMDers anymore, because they’re not arguing in good faith. For instance, in the comments beneath Jim’s post, some guy writes:

Of course, anti-war folk — if not Jim — were sometimes saying that one should not invade Iraq because Saddam might use WMDs, that, er, ahem, did not exist.

I’d sooner try to convert Osama bin Laden to Buddhism than “debate” this hack. Let’s see: Antiwar people didn’t think the war was justified to begin with, because “WMD” or not, Iraq posed no threat to the U.S.; they sniffed something mighty piscine in the WMD claims the administration made; they wondered aloud how anyone who believed said claims could be so gung-ho about hurling American teenagers at Baghdad. Oh, the contradictions!

Another comment, by Jon Henke, is even more demonstrative of bad faith, if read closely (emphasis mine):

For the record, I did cite numerous potentially exculpatory explanations like ”the documents could be (1) fraudulent, (2) in reference to legal chemical/biological programs (i.e., medical research, agricultural development, etc), (3) produced to deceive the bureaucracy and Saddam about the extent of operations.”

I must ask Mr. Henke whether he noted such exculpatory possibilities prior to the invasion, or if he, like the rest of his brethren, screamed “DUAL USE! DUAL USE!” about every aluminum tube and batch of vaccine in Mesopotamia. If, in a moment of charitable weakness, you think the WMDers are/were merely misguided, remember “dual use,” the catchall lie behind this whole rotten enterprise. The war party denied the falsifiability of its WMD thesis by declaring all technology above the level of the wheel suspect. They consciously rigged Iraq’s wheel of fortune to always land on “Attack.” And for that, they deserve no presumption of honesty or, for that matter, innocence.

I’ve been watching Ben Wattenberg’s PBS program, “Thinktank,” for quite a while now. That’s not because the party-lining neocon is especially interesting, nor is it due to his guest line-up, which is usually so wonkish — or so neoconnish — that the effect is either soporific or irritating. No, the reason I catch at least the tail end of it is because it comes on right before “The McLaughlin Group,” which I don’t want to miss a nano-second of. Over the years, however, I’ve grown rather fond of ol’ Ben Wattenberg, with his old-style Scoop Jackson Social Democratic-style warmongering and his genuine bafflement that anyone could dispute the neoconservative party line. I’ve found myself yelling at the tv: “Hey, Ben, c’mon — you don’t really believe that, do you?” Never did I ever expect he would one day yell back.

He did it on his “Wattenblog“:

“Justin Raimondo is dead wrong 

“Lyndon Johnson used to say he was a free man, an American, a Texan and a Democrat — in that order. I believe Joe Lieberman has the same hierarchy of values, with the state changed.“Fifty or a hundred years from now the USA will be known in larger measure because we promoted and purveyed the values of liberty, democracy and human rights. Justin: You have a problem with that? The jihadist islamo-fascists want to destroy America through fear — fear of plagues (small pox, anthrax etc.) and through massive conversion to a religion some of whose adherents condone terrorism. Wake up and smell the coffee!

posted by Ben Wattenberg at 8:46 AM“

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a problem with that — because, to begin with, in the next fifty to one-hundred years, the U.S. will be remembered for going bankrupt with astonishing rapidity, not, as Wattenberg insists, for spreading “liberty,” “democracy” and “human rights.” Those values will have been largely lost where it counts — on the home front –precisely because we launched a crusade to export them at gunpoint. In Iraq, the American implant will have long ago withered on the vine.

As for fear of anthrax and other plagues, I would suggest Ben consult the FBI on the former: they all but accused and indicted a “person of interest“ in the case, and then dropped the ball, ruining a person’s life and bungling the investigation in the process. On the general subject of fear, and its political uses, I would further suggest he take it up with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both of whom, in concert with other administration officials, conjured visions of mushroom clouds blossoming over American cities if we didn’t go to war in Iraq.

Does Wattenberg really believe Osama bin Laden aims at converting the majority of Americans to his version of Sunni Islam? And how, exactly, does he intend to accomplish this — by repealing history, abolishing the Judeo-Christian tradition, and launching a cultural revolution in America? Good luck with that one ….

Piling the absurd atop the improbable, Wattenberg invokes LBJ in his defense of Senator Lieberman — not a very auspicious invocation. The old fraudster was effectively forced from office on account of his prosecuting — and escalating — an enormously unpopular war, just as Lieberman is endangered by a similar upsurge in antiwar sentiment over Iraq. If Wattenberg insists on invoking the spirit of LBJ in defending Lieberman, then perhaps we can take this as a premonition of the Connecticut Senator’s political fate.

Inspired, perhaps, by the recent prominence of North Korea in the news, over in the Land of the Neocons David Horowitz is doing his Kim il-Sung imitation. His “Center for the Study of Popular Culture” has been renamed: it is now the “David Horowitz Freedom Center.” The Glorious Leader imparts his name to everything. Of course, since the prime beneficiary of the CSPC/”David Horowitz Freedom Center” is David Horowitz, this makes sense. In any case, the heroic Stephen Kinsella of LewRockwell.com was kind enough to search out my take-down of Horowitz’s whiny memoir, Radical Son, which was originally published in the June 1997 issue of Chronicles magazine. I have to say, it’s quite funny: no wonder Horowitz and his minions have spent so much time and energy trying to smear me. So have a laugh, and go read [.pdf file].

Over at FrontPageMag, Andrew Walden reveals why Hawaii got nuked – or more precisely, wasn’t threatened at all – earlier this week:

A Tokyo-based newspaper reports in its Friday AM edition that North Korea’s failed Taepodong-2 missile was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii. (Here’s the story in Japanese.) The target should have been no surprise: the islands’ far-Left leadership has rendered Hawaii uniquely vulnerable to attack. …

In Hawaii, the two fronts of the War on America meet. In 2004, Hawaiian Democrats pledged one-third of their delegates to support Dennis Kucinich for president. Hawaii was the only state to give Kucinich significant support. Kucinich and many other leftist Democrats have opposed the development of missile defense technologies capable of knocking down incoming missiles. The University of Hawaii-Manoa was recently the scene of anti-American protests against military research on campus. [Emphasis mine.]

There you have it: if not for the Kucinich death-grip on Hawaiian politics (and don’t forget gay-marriage!), the land of leis would already have the same working missile defense system as Nebraska.

Via.

Iraqi journalist Alaa Hassan, who reported for the international news agency IPS (Inter Press Service) and whose work often appeared on Antiwar.com, was shot and killed in Baghdad.

Hassan was killed on June 28 by armed men as he drove to work. It appears he was not targeted, but was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, part of the senseless violence engulfing Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Hassan was one of IPS’s contributors based in Iraq. With colleague Aaron Glantz, he covered the increasing violence and sectarian divisions swallowing up Basra in the south of Iraq; the untold stories of Haditha, raided by the U.S. Army last year; and the local reactions over the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Originally from Babylon, in central Iraq, Hassan was living in Baghdad, where he leaves behind a new wife who is pregnant with their first child.

Alaa Hassan’s death brings the total of reporters and media staff killed in Iraq since the beginning of the U.S.-led war to 131, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

“The death of another Iraqi journalist fills us with sorrow and anger,” said IFJ general secretary Aidan White in a statement Wednesday.

The IFJ called on the Iraqi government to “act quickly to bring the killers to justice.”

(Inter Press Service)

David Beito reports on the latest in cutting-edge libertarian thought at the Volokh Conspiracy. While checking VC, I found a link to this priceless collection of original war poetry. (See especially this and this.)