Antiwar.com Blog

Sibel Edmonds to lead protest over government secrecy Thursday morning

Today was to be the oral hearing on Sibel’s lawsuit fighting the State Secrets Privilege imposed over her case. The court has made the extraordinary decision to close the hearing to the public and to Sibel as well. Please come help show our outrage about the excessive secrecy imposed on her case! Sibel is organizing an impromptu protest in front of the courthouse.

Where: E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, Court of Appeals Courtroom, 333 Constitution Avenue, N.W., 5th Floor, Washington D.C.

When: Thursday, April 21, 9:00 a.m.-noon

Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 after repeatedly reporting serious security breaches and misconduct. Edmonds challenged her retaliatory dismissal by filing a lawsuit in federal court, but her case was dismissed last July after Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege,” and retroactively classified briefings to Congress related to her case.

The government has argued that every aspect of Edmonds’ case involves state secrets — including where she was born and what languages she speaks — and therefore cannot go forward. Edmonds is appealing to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reinstate her case. Several 9/11 family member advocacy groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief in her support. Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU National Office, will argue on behalf of Edmonds. Oral arguments will be heard on April 21.

Beth Daley
Director of Communication
Project On Government Oversight
666 11th Street, NW, #500, Washington, DC 20010
Phone 202-347-1122 Fax 202-347-1116

Sibel Edmonds’ Website

Don’t tell Campus Watch, Victor Davis Hanson, or other self-proclaimed defenders of Western civilization, but the classical Athenian historian Thucydides obviously hated all that is right and good. On the consequences of the Peloponnesian Wars:

Practically the whole of the Hellenic world was convulsed, with rival parties in every state – democratic leaders trying to bring in the Athenians, and oligarchs trying to bring in the Spartans…. To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defense. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect…. As a result…there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The plain way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.

Jeez, what a weak-kneed Spartafascist fag. Sounds like he wasn’t antiwar, just on the other side.

This morning, as I sat down to the computer, I did what I do every morning: went straight to David Horowitz’s Frontpage website. I need a good laugh first thing. This particular morning, however, I noticed something rather odd. Something seemed to be missing. At first, I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but as the fog of sleep slowly dissipated with an infusion of live-saving caffeine, I realized what it was: the newly-installed “blog,” called “Moonbat Central” (out of a general lack of any sense of irony) by Horowitz and his employees, was … GONE!

My heart sank. Omigod, I thought: am I to be spared nothing?!

After all, when I think of all the … good times we had: the stupid smears, the juvenile name-calling, the kooky rants posted by the inimitable Steven Plaut, crackpot ultra-Likudnik and defender of the terrorist followers of Meir Kahane… well, I was in shock. Who will soon forget the time he made up a phony “quote” purportedly from Middle East scholar Juan Cole, and then refused to acknowledge that he did it out of sheer malice — or even that he did it at all? Then there was the well-meaning but essentially clueless Richard Poe, Jacob “Smarty Pants” Laksin, and that cute little stud-muffin Myles Kantor (oh, those Cubanos!) — where oh where are they now?, I wondered. What’s become of them and their testy little tirades? When I think of all the fun I had with “Moonbat Central” the tears gather at the corners of my eyes and shyly trickle down — you know, it’s the little things in life that give us the most pleasure, and this example of the neocon-ized “conservative” movement’s utter nuttiness gave me many hours of hedonistic abandon. And to think that it’s all gone — GONE! — without even an acknowledgement from The Horowitz.

Oh, the sheer awfulness of it all!

The smears, the conjuration of senseless fears, the demagoguery, the intricate weaving of nonexistent conspiracies — all of it wiped out, with not a trace left behind.

Go ahead: go there and look. There’s a friggin’ real estate ad where my heart’s desire used to be. Go there — and weep!

P.S. Thanks to Google, we can still go visit classic posts of the past, and the old links still work: but the erasure of “Moonbat Central” from the front page of Frontpage — what can it mean? Is it temporary, or are we permanently consigned to this Moonbat-less Hell?

UPDATE: There is a God! The erasure of “Moonbat Central” was due, I guess, to a technical error, or maybe an overly strenuous pillow fight over in Horowitz-land. In any case, the Moonbats are back in the bellfry — and all’s right with the world!

How often does a former foreign minister and current parliamentarian of a country join an international commission proposing to carve up its territory?
Goran Svilanovic, formerly the Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) under the DOS regime and currently a MP for the Democratic Party (though he’s somehow “not a member,” the party says) of Serbian President Boris Tadic, is also a member of the “International Commission on the Balkans.” The Commission, an ad-hoc body composed of former and current European and Balkans politicians, has just issued a report advocating the independence of KLA-occupied Kosovo.
If this be not treason, what is?

The position of the newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI on the Iraq war could not be clearer:

“Is the war that has been announced against Iraq a just war? ‘All I can do is invite you to read the Catechism,’ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger replied with a mischievous grin, ‘and the conclusion seems obvious to me…’ For the guardian of Catholic orthodoxy, the obvious conclusion is that the military intervention that is taking shape ‘has no moral justification’ (September 20, interview on the Italian national news program). The Catechism, Ratzinger explained, does not embrace a pacifist position a priori; indeed, it admits the possibility of a ‘just war’ for reasons of defense. But it sets a number of very strict and reasonable conditions: there must be a proper proportion between the evil to be rooted out and the means employed. In short, if in order to defend a value (in this case, national security) greater damage is caused (civilian victims, destabilization of the Middle East, with its accompanying risks of increased terrorism), then recourse to force is no longer justified. In light of these criteria, Ratzinger refuses to grant the moral status of just war to the military operation against Saddam Hussein. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith added another consideration: ‘Decisions like this should be made by the community of nations, by the UN, and not by an individual power.'”

I like the part about the “mischievous grin.”

Long live Benedict XVI, champion of peace.

The ascension of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI is good news for the peace camp: he will carry on the legacy of John Paul II, whose stance against the invasion of Iraq enraged the War Party — and inspired millions with the hope that God had not abandoned the world to the Devil. The new Pope, as head of the Congregation of the Faith, openly disdained the Bush Doctrine when it was invoked by the U.S. government as a rationale for war: "The “concept of a ‘preventive war,’" he noted, "does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church." You bet it doesn’t, and if I were the White House I would be expecting much more along these lines. Even as the War Party was reveling in its purported triumph, the Cardinal averred that “it was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction,” declaring: “It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world."

The Holy Father got that right. Even in the choice of his name, the portents are good. Pope Benedict XV was pope during World War I. He remained neutral and “in 1917 delivered the Plea for Peace, which demanded a cessation of hostilities, a reduction of armaments, a guaranteed freedom of the seas, and international arbitration.”

Naturally, the smears began even before the papal conclave was over. The London Times, in a shameful piece headlined "Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth," informs its readers:

"The wartime past of a leading German contender to succeed John Paul II may return to haunt him as cardinals begin voting in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to choose a new leader for 1 billion Catholics.

“Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whose strong defence of Catholic orthodoxy has earned him a variety of sobriquets — including ‘the enforcer,’ ‘the panzer cardinal’ and ‘God’s rottweiler’ — is expected to poll around 40 votes in the first ballot as conservatives rally behind him. … Unknown to many members of the church, however, Ratzinger’s past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth movement and wartime service with a German army anti- aircraft unit."

Pope Benedict – another Kurt Waldheim. Uh, well, not quite. The author of this slime waits until the 9th paragraph, when we are finally told that he didn’t have much choice in the matter:

"He joined the Hitler Youth aged 14, shortly after membership was made compulsory in 1941. He quickly won a dispensation on account of his training at a seminary. ‘Ratzinger was only briefly a member of the Hitler Youth and not an enthusiastic one,’ concluded John Allen, his biographer. Two years later Ratzinger was enrolled in an anti-aircraft unit that protected a BMW factory making aircraft engines. The workforce included slaves from Dachau concentration camp."

In other words, the Holy Father, like millions throughout Europe, was enslaved by the Nazis. But he’s a German, and therefore automatically suspect, at least in certain circles. The smears are already coming from all the usual suspects – for example, Andrew Sullivan hates him for the same reason he hated John Paul II – because he won’t endorse the Sullivanian cult of War and Sodomy. Tough. Let Sullivan and his fellow whiners wail and rend their hair – this Pope means trouble for the War Party. And to that I can only add: Amen!

UPDATE: We’re going to hear days and maybe even weeks of vicious attacks and whining from the liberal-left about how Benedict XVI isn’t a feminist, a gay liberationist, a liberation theologist, etc. ad nauseum. But here’s some sanity from the Daily Kos.

UPDATE II: The canard that the first German Pope in a thousand years served voluntarily in the German army during World War II is refuted here: the truth is that, after being conscripted, he deserted — at great risk to his life.

It’s amazing to see the depths to which people will sink to slime anything or anyone that is perceived as holy, or having to do with religion. While this doesn’t do much to convince me of the existence of God, it sure is a helluva argument for the reality of Satan.