An Israeli Refuser visits the US Congress

Brad Brooks-Rubin writes about visiting the U.S. Congress with Israeli refuser Yonatan Shapira on Andrew Schamess’s blog Semitism.net.

The American press has clearly found this a compelling story, which probably explains why the American public is so well-informed on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is entirely in sync with the reaction Rubin and Shapira encounter in Congress:

Inevitably, what follows after Yonatan tells his story is a long litany of excuses, of rationalizations, of head-scratching. About why even though they are in a position to demonstrate their own courage, to refuse to give into the dominant beliefs and currents of their milieu, as Yonatan and the others have done, they do not. Time after time, we hear “I am with you personally, but…” But the Jewish community. But our constituents. But the media. Translating these statements into militaryspeak – “I’m just following orders.”
Yes, civilians too can suffer from the same syndrome as soldiers seeking immunity from war crimes.

At first, I’ll admit I was excited just to be able to get in the door. And perhaps over-enthusiastic about the power of the refusers to start shaking the foundations of the mainstream’s understanding of and activity around the situation. But with time, with more meetings, and with optimism about the chances for peace growing by the minute, I find myself increasingly pessimistic.

Herbert Spencer Was Right

I note that Antiwar.com has been under attack, lately, from the more whacked-out wing of the ostensibly "conservative" movement, and under that general rubric I have to include the ravings of one Tom Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who recently smeared one of our employees, Jeremy Sapienza. Palmer goes through his usual litany of lies about me, claiming that I want to see American soldiers killed – of course, the whole point of getting them out of Iraq immediately (which Palmer opposes) is so that they won’t be killed, but never mind … He then latches onto a statement made by Jeremy on another website:

"In the words of Mr. Raimondo’s colleague, senior editor at antiwar.com, Mr. Jeremy Sapienza: ‘I will stand up proudly for it. I have cheered on men attacking US troops. I will continue to cheer any defeat US troops meet.’ Perhaps I have misunderstood the meaning of those remarks. Perhaps Mr. Sapienza only meant that he would stand up and cheer when jihadis attack U.S. troops *and* simultaneously his favorite football team scores a touchdown."

The only proper answer to Palmer – who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time trying, without success, to smear both me and Antiwar.com as "anti-American"– is not printable, so this quote from Herbert Spencer’s famous essay on "Patriotism" will have to suffice:

"Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be "our interests," we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – "When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves."

Is Herbert Spencer an "anti-Amerian" subversive? I’m waiting to hear from this fountainhead of pomposity that the author of Social Statics, The Man Versus the State, and other classics of laissez-faire liberalism is the nineteenth-century version of Ward Churchill.

Palmer tells us he is traveling to Iraq very soon, and bloviates on about his own bravery and supposed virtue, informing us that he is going there in order attend a conference on "constitutionalism" – presumably a conclave convened by the U.S. government, paid for by the U.S. taxpayers. So who is paying for Palmer’s trip? Cato? The U.S. Treasury? Or some combination of both? Is Cato sucking at the teat of the U.S. taxpayers? And even if they aren’t, and the whole shameful affair is privately funded, what is one of their top employees doing acting as an "advisor" to the U.S. government on how best to administer a newly-conquered colony? Is this what "libertarianism" (Beltway edition) has come to? There is just one word for this kind of craven opportunism: disgusting.

What’s even more disturbing, however, is that the Cato Institute, which has up until this point been very good on the Iraq war – i.e. implacably opposed — is now showing signs of going wobbly. A recent debate held at Cato featured speakers from the Objectivist Center (followers of Ayn Rand), Ron Bailey of Reason magazine, and conservative Bush acolyte Deroy Murdock for the pro-war side, and Charles Pena and Christopher Preble of Cato, as well as Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute and Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation representing the antiwar side. The Cato boys, Higgs, and Hornberger made short work of Murdock and the Randians, and the event was a great success. But a recent article in Cato’s Policy Report describing this event oddly fails to mention either Higgs or Hornberger – they are simply dropped out of the proceedings, as if they never appeared. Furthermore, the event is reported in an "even-handed" way, helpfully informing us that "the hawks had arguments of their own," and approvingly citing the pretentious Nick Gillespie’s exhortation that "urged libertarians to debate divisive issues like the Iraq war openly. Libertarians, he argued, should cherish debate and dissent rather than demand conformity to dogma."

Gee, isn’t it funny but that fake "libertarians" like Gillespie – who stupidly claims that libertarianism isn’t a political philosophy but (God help us!) a "design for living" – find our government’s foreign policy of mass murder and permanent revolution "debatable," but abortion, gay marriage, cloning, and legalizing heroin so that we can put it in vending machines and sell it to schoolchildren – none of these things seem to be open to "debate and dissent" within the libertarian movement (or, at least, within those tiny precincts of it represented by Reason magazine.) Opposition to the Bush administration’s goal of global hegemony is "dogma" – but Nick Gillespie’s libertine monomania is not.

Reason has long been a sandbox for the overgrown adolescents who have taken it over, but what’s up with the Cato Institute? There are many good people at Cato, especially in their foreign policy division, and I don’t want to denigrate their work, but often it isn’t the scholars who make the policy, and in this case it seems that Cato is involved in some morally perilous activities. Is it really the function of a libertarian thinktank to advise the U.S. government in how best to put a liberal, free-market face on Iraq’s budding Shi’ite theocracy? There are a lot of donors to the Cato Institute who, I know, will question the wisdom of such a role, and I, for one, don’t blame them.

It’s worth reprinting the rest of Spencer’s remarks on "Patriotism," just to remind ourselves how a principled libertarian – as opposed to a two-bit whore like Palmer – views his relationship to the American state and its war machine:

"I foresee the exclamation which will be called forth. Such a principle, it will be said, would make an army impossible and a government powerless. It would never do to have each soldier use his judgment about the purpose for which a battle is waged. Military organization would be paralyzed and our country would be a prey to the first invader.

"Not so fast, is the reply. For one war an army would remain just as available as now – a war of national defence. In such a war every soldier would be conscious of the justice of his cause. He would not be engaged in dealing death among men about whose doings, good or ill, he knew nothing, but among men who were manifest transgressors against himself and his compatriots. Only aggressive war would be negatived, not defensive war.

"Of course it may be said, and said truly, that if there is no aggressive war there can be no defensive war. It is clear, however, that one nation may limit itself to defensive war when other nations do not. So that the principle remains operative.

"But those whose cry is – "Our country, right or wrong!" and who would add to our eighty-odd possessions others to be similarly obtained, will contemplate with disgust such a restriction upon military action. To them no folly seems greater than that of practising on Monday the principles they profess on Sunday."

This last defines the problem with phony Beltway "libertarians" like Palmer to a tee. The pontificating Palmer, who spends all his time defending the American state, and smearing anyone who opposes its war plans, isn’t even half the libertarian – or the human being – that Jeremy Sapienza is, and, what’s more, he knows it. So go to Iraq, Tommy boy, and suck up to the "libertarian" ayatollahs: I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear your views on "constitutionalism," gay marriage, and the evils of "homophobia."
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Persuasive Case the Draft Is Coming

I have been skeptical about the likelihood of a military draft in the near future, but I am starting to think it is inevitable.

In the Washington Monthly, Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris give a very persuasive case for the draft, given a commitment to an increasingly-interventionist foreign policy, which they possess. They explain clearly why the alternatives like “Stop-Loss” and “Military Transformation” will not adequately feed the military for a growing US empire.

Of course, Carter and Glastris are not content with the social engineering that can be accomplished by a conscription-fed army can accomplish globally:

A 21st-century draft like this would create a cascading series of benefits for society. It would instill a new ethic of service in that sector of society, the college-bound, most likely to reap the fruits of American prosperity. It would mobilize an army of young people for vital domestic missions, such as helping a growing population of seniors who want to avoid nursing homes but need help with simple daily tasks like grocery shopping. It would give more of America’s elite an experience of the military. Above all, it would provide the all-important surge capacity now missing from our force structure, insuring that the military would never again lack for manpower. And it would do all this without requiring any American to carry a gun who did not choose to do so.

We need to pay close attention to these arguments, but hope that US political and military leaders don’t.

Enemy Combatants, Neocons and Oilmen, and the Sorrows of Empire

Saturday on the Weekend Interview Show, civil rights attorney Elaine Cassel will return to discuss the legal status of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, Greg Palast will be back to discuss his Harper’s piece about the conflict between the oilmen and the neocons over how to treat Iraq’s resources, and former CIA analyst Chalmers Johnson will discuss his book, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic.

Listen Live 4-6pm est
Archives

Update: Show’s over. Elaine couldn’t make it, Greg explained the neocon-oilman wars, and Chalmers expressed his sorrow.
Archives at weekendinterviewshow.com

‘Discovering the Network’

The little libelers over at "Discover the network" – David Horowitz’s hilariously inept datatbase of subversion – are demanding that I publish my "anti-Al Qaeda bona fides" – at least that’s how one Jacob Laksin puts it. Obviously unacquainted with the American legal system, where one is innocent until proven guilty, Commissar Laksin wants links – and he wants them now! Those busy little researchers over at Frontpage have no time, you see: they’re so preoccupied with sliming their political opponents as "pro-Al Qaeda" – an appellation made by one Steven Plaut, another Frontpage gnome – that they just don’t have the energy to back up their accusations of treason.

Instead of backing up the contention that Antiwar.com is "pro-Al Qaeda," Comrade Laksin disdains our mention of Michael Scheuer:

"Ah, yes. Michael Scheuer, it may be remembered, is the CIA’s disgraced point man on al-Qaeda, who spent his three years as the head of "operations against al Qaeda" spinning elaborate conspiracy theories about Israeli agents and the pernicious machinations of ‘wealthy Jewish-American organizations,’ all the while demonizing Israel as a ‘theocracy-in-all-but-name.’

Conspicuously more charitable was Scheuer’s treatment of Osama Bin Laden, whom he adulated as a "practical warrior," not to mention ‘the most respected, loved, romantic, charismatic, and perhaps able figure in the last 150 years of Islamic history.’ All that hard work and still we failed to prevent 9-11. Imagine. (A revealing account of Scheuer’s three years on the job can be found in the current issue of Commentary.)"

Scheuer is "disgraced" because … well, he got a bad review in Commentary. What else do we need to know? According to Commentary, Scheuer is "Buchananite" not to mention a "Chomskyite" – as if this process of labeling an opponent, rather than confronting his arguments, is at all effective (it isn’t). In any case, we are supposed to pretend, you see, that Israel’s amen corner in the U.S. is poor, and powerless. And we aren’t supposed to ask why a nation that isn’t a theocracy wants to be known as "the Jewish state". That would be in such bad taste.

Laksin wants proof – links! – that we are sufficiently opposed to Al Qaeda before he and his own little Legion of Thought Police will give us a clean bill of health. Very well, try on this little essay, entitled "Kill ‘Em – and Get Out." It is sub-titled, you’ll note, "An Action Program." While Horowitz, Laksin, and the neocons were fulminating against nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction" in … Iraq, we – like Scheuer – were pointing to the inexplicable policy of letting Osama bin Laden & Co. get clean away.

Laksin mocks the effort to get bin Laden – "all that hard work" he snarks – and advises me to "consider choosing your friends more wisely." This is particularly gross coming from someone who works for the same organization as Steven Plaut, who defends a group of Israelis who were arrested in this country and held for months because they were caught celebrating and high-fiving the destruction of the World Trade Center a few hours after 9/11. Here is Plaut, who wrongly avers that only four Israelis were arrested (there were five):

"The Israelis announced they have filed a law suit against the Department of Justice in the United States District Court in New York, alleging that law enforcement officers and officials of the Bureau of Prisons unlawfully incarcerated them for an extended period of time and violated their civil rights during their more than two month imprisonment in the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in 2001. The four plaintiffs claim that they were held incommunicado without access to attorneys or family, subjected to rough interrogations, physically assaulted, deprived of sleep and subjected to racists[sic] taunting by guards. The law suit seeks millions of dollars in compensation.

"The Israelis say they were working for a New Jersey moving company when their truck was stopped by police near the George Washington Bridge. When it was discovered that they possessed foreign drivers licenses, the nervous officers placed them under arrest as suspects in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. They were then handed over to federal agents for weeks of interrogation.

"… Eventually, the US Department of Justice came out of the closet and put an end to all the fruitcake anti-Semitic conspiracy nonsense. But the fact that the four were eventually cleared of all suspicions and released did not put the libels to rest, and stories about the Israelis are still regularly appearing on the internet."

There’s just one problem with this fanciful scenario: it isn’t true. The U.S. Department of Justice didn’t come out of any "closet" and no one was "cleared" of anything: the Israelis were simply shipped back to their own country. And they weren’t found with "foreign drivers licenses" – they had multiple passports, and one of them had $4,700 hidden in his sock. As The Forward put it:

"… In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI’s counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel."

"According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front."

Israeli spies, defended by Plaut in the pages of Frontpage – is this what passes for "patriotic" conservatism these days? Not only that, but Plaut is touting their lawsuit against the U.S. government, and even demanding "compensation" for alleged "abuse" at the hands of American law enforcement. That takes a lot of nerve, especially since one of their fellow employees said his Israeli co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. “I was in tears,” the man said. “These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, ‘Now America knows what we go through.’”

Compensation? Heck no! These guys should be extradited back to America, and given a good dose of truth serum. For the whole story, check out The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection.

How’s that for "discovering the network," eh, Jacob?