Antiwar.com Blog

Glenn Reynolds actually has a worthwhile insight! (Sandwiched between two slabs of baloney, of course.) On the childlike chickenhawkery of Andrew “Second Thoughts” Sullivan:

When Andrew was a champion of the war on terror, writing about martial spirit and fifth columns composed of the “decadent left,” did he believe that nothing like Abu Ghraib would happen, when such things (and much worse) happen in prisons across America (and everywhere else) on a daily basis? If so, he was writing out of an appalling ignorance.

Not that Glenn sees such inevitable horrors as any reason to avoid wars of choice, you understand…

Oakland, CA: TheatreFIRST is producing a rare revival of playwright Robert Holman’s abstract portrait of the lingering effects of war, Making Noise Quietly. In three one-act plays, Holman gives playgoers a glimpse at war’s more rarely acknowledged consequences and victims—often less spectacular than those one sees on the news, yet equally tragic.

Each of the three plays is essentially a dialogue in which two characters who have been deeply affected by a war (WWII in the first play, The Falklands War in the other two) in their past share their experiences and attempt to cope with the awful destruction it has wrought in their consciousness. None of the plays take place on a battlefield or feature soldiers in combat, yet war remains the driving force and major character in all of them. Whether it’s a mother who is finding out she’s lost her son for reasons she can’t fathom, or an unaccustomed father who can’t control his anger after experiencing the horrible adrenaline of killing, all seven characters in the play present a different version of the anguish war causes—far behind the front lines, and long after the peace treaties are signed.

Though Making Noise Quietly was first produced in Britain in 1986, its invocation of the oft-disputed, short but tragic Falklands War (backdrop for two of the three short plays) seems particularly timely in 2005 America. As co-director Clive Chafer so eloquently states in his Director’s Notes for the play’s program: "At this time, it is good to remember that there is no such thing as a limited war, a war whose victory is predictable and whose course can be controlled; a war that can be fought and won and quickly left behind—certainly not for those who are brought down by it: the fighters, and the many touched by its tendrils, which reach out over time and space, and leave their mark, like a tattoo, indelibly."

If you’re in the SF Bay Area:

Making Noise Quietly plays at Mills College campus in Oakland, CA through June 5th.

Details and ticket information available at the TheatreFIRST Web site or by calling (510) 436-5085.

The Rumsfeldian streamlining of the military continues. It will now be much, much easier to identify and destroy targets. Yay!

If you ever wanted to hear a bunch of US Senators get told off, here’s your chance.

George Galloway: Your case for war was a pack of lies.

MP3 courtesy of Crooks and Liars (they have a Realplayer video version if you prefer)

Are the documents implicating Galloway forgeries? 

Galloway vs. The US Senate: Transcript of Statement 

Glenn Reynolds writes:

I want to add that I don’t think there’s anything immoral about flushing a Koran (or a Bible) down the toilet, assuming you’ve got a toilet that’s up to that rather daunting task, and I think it’s amusing to hear people who usually worry about excessive concern for religious beliefs suddenly taking a different position. Nor do I think that doing so counts as torture, and I think that it debases the meaning of “torture” to claim otherwise. If this had happened, it might have been — indeed, would have been — impolitic or unwise. But not evil.And anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be willing to apply the same kind of criticism to things like Piss Christ, or to explain why offending the sensibilities of one kind of religious believer is “art” while doing the same in another context is “torture.” If, that is, they want to be taken at all seriously.

We’ve been hearing a lot of this, often from self-described “libertarians” who pander to the Limbaugh crowd (e.g., Reynolds and Neal Boortz), ever since Abu Ghraib came to light: Why, that’s no worse than what a lot of these liberal perverts do in their own bedrooms! What’s the big deal?

They apparently missed that part in Libertarianism 101 about the critical distinction between activities one finds distasteful and activities one is forced to participate in. Since I always like to help lost sheep, I offer the following handy pocket-sized guide to consent and coercion.

Taking a photograph of one’s own justly acquired religious item in bodily fluids: Highly offensive to many, but no coercion involved. OK from a purely libertarian standpoint.
Holding, say, a born-again Baptist against her will and forcing her to watch you excrete bodily fluids on the Bible: Offensiveness to anyone but the non-consenting party is morally irrelevant – after all, rapists don’t find anything icky about rape. Not OK by any decent standard.

Eating pork: OK.
Dousing an Orthodox Jew or Muslim with pig blood: Not OK.

Humiliating oneself as part of a fraternity initiation: OK.
Building nude pyramids at gunpoint: Not OK.

Smoking cigarettes: OK.
Tying a suspect to a chair and putting out cigarettes on his flesh: Not OK.

Physical intimacy with a willing adult of the same sex: OK.
Sodomizing a 17-year-old, then shooting him 11 times: Not OK.

All clear, Glenn?

While debate rages in the blogosphere about the flushability of Korans, the warbots dream of sending a much smaller document to the goldfish graveyard. More links and must-read commentary here.