Antiwar.com Blog

The US congress has certainly come a long way since the days of John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams. Amy Goodman and Jackson Thoreau have both reported that congressman Sam Johnson (R-Texas) has called on president Bush to nuke Syria. Thoreau quotes Johnson as having said (at a church gathering, of all places – are these our old pals the Fundies?);

“Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ’em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”

Thoreau says the church crowd “roared with applause”. Now, I’m sure the administration is not seriously thinking about dropping the bomb on Syria, and that Johnson can’t possibly be the homicidal maniac he sounds like here. But this is still extremely inappropriate language for any US Representative to be using at this particular moment. What are the Syrians supposed to think?
And shame on this allegedly Christian (I’m assuming it’s some branch of Christianity) crowd for cheering Johnson. Do you suppose Christ would have cheered?

I also happened to catch this on the telly. The only thing James Wolcott left out of his otherwise spot-on post is that CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer is an alumnus of the Likudist Jerusalem Post and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Gary Leupp, writing in Counterpunch;

Before Bush’s Tribunal of Freedom and Godliness, Syria stands guilty until proven innocent. The sentence on its regime was pronounced even before this Year Four, as was the sentence on Iran. The plan is to execute both before Year Five. “This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous,” declared Bush in Europe. “Having said that, all options are on the table.” Indeed all the cards are on the table, they are all ridiculous, because they’re all in the same suit, all marked: “Attack!”

(emphasis mine)

William Rivers Pitt has a flawed, but compelling analysis of American Empire (posted at truthout.org), which he sees as having taken place in three stages;

There have been three stages of American empire since the creation of this nation. Each has fed the other, and each has been established and fortified by war. More importantly, each has been fortified by the vast profits derived by the few in the making of war. The first two stages did not collapse, so much as they were absorbed by the next iteration, carrying over all circumstances and attendant difficulties. We exist today within the third stage of empire, one that is sick at the core.

I would have to disagree with Pitt on his view of Fundies, or ‘Movement Conservatives’, as he calls them. Since when have these whack jobs wanted to roll back the New Deal? They talk a good game about limiting government and so forth, but the Fundie is the biggest socialist of all. And which entitlement programs have been “gutted”? Did Reagan gut any entitlement programs?

Is Paul Wolfowitz getting kicked upstairs?

From Aghanistan to Iraq to the World Bank — the list of neocon conquests is impressive. What’s next — the Vatican? Or perhaps they aim a bit higher ….

The Lebanese now seem determined to oust their occupiers. Nothing surprising about that. The desire to be free of foreign rule should be easily grasped by all. As Old Right icon Robert Taft said of American postwar interventionism,

It is based on the theory that we know better what is good for the world than the world itself. It assumes that we are always right and that anyone who disagrees with us is wrong. It reminds me of the idealism of the bureaucrats in Washington who want to regulate the lives of every American along the lines that the bureaucrats think best for them. …

Other people simply do not like to be dominated and we would be in the same position of suppressing rebellions by force in which the British found themselves during the nineteenth century.

Of course, Taft, a true conservative, did not mean that those rebels were all “good” and the imperialists all “evil,” just that imperialism – even with good intentions – breeds resentment and will inevitably backfire on its practitioners. Unlike the Christopher Hitchenses and David Horowitzes of the ’60s, a Taft conservative would find nothing cute and cuddly about Ho Chi Minh; he would simply understand the universal impulses Ho exploited. In the same way, the contemporary antiwar Right has no illusions about the Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. You won’t see them lionized on this site. We don’t look at these bombers and snipers – whether Sunni, Shi’ite, Ba’athist, or other – and see a bunch of Thomas Jeffersons or Gandhis. We recognize that many, if not most, of these folks hold pretty illiberal political and social views. But we also recognize that they are responding in an entirely predictable manner to the invasion and occupation of their homeland.

That’s why it’s so amusing to watch the neocons, who insist on denying any legitimate motives to the Iraqi resistance, legitimize and even celebrate Lebanese resistance leader Walid Jumblatt. Now we all know the neocons can be a little mercurial themselves (e.g., damning centralization for Europe while demanding it for us, ditching democracy at the first sight of a Palestinian, etc.), but this guy is too much. Jumblatt is a cunning little socialist fruitcake who, sensing an opportunity, has quickly transformed from a reliable supporter of the Syrian regime to its harshest critic.

Given that he accuses the Syrians of killing his father almost 30 years ago, his sudden turn is a rather extreme rehash of Al Gore taking money from the tobacco lobby after his sister died of lung cancer, then using her memory to bash Big Tobacco. I seem to recall Gore’s maneuver causing a stir over at Reason, but not so Jumblatt’s. No, they find Jumblatt’s performance thoroughly convincing. Here’s tireless liberventionist Charles Paul Freund:

Democracy “is now coming to our region,” Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told Lebanese who were gathering Sunday for today’s dramatic protests. “There is no going back.”

Well, democracy may well be coming and the Syrians going, but I sure hope no Americans have to die for a Lebanon ruled by Jumblatt’s ilk. And I have a feeling that some may lament the “horrible” Syrian occupation once it’s gone. After all, Lebanon:

– has, especially by local standards, a relatively free press. Reporters Without Borders ranks it #56 out of 139 countries on its press freedom index, higher than any other Arab country – even higher than Israel (#92). (And Reporters Without Borders wasn’t sucking up to Syria, either, which came in at a floor-scraping 126th.)

– boasts a reasonably open and liberal culture. You won’t be seeing any fashion shows like this in liberated Baghdad anytime soon.

– may leave something to be desired in terms of economic freedom, according to the Heritage Institute, but then any economic ranking system that puts the UK and Sweden near the top leaves something to be desired itself. Anyway, North Korea it ain’t.

There’s a lesson in all this somewhere about the blowback from even the most benign occupation, but I’ll leave that to the Syrians to figure out. If the Lebanese want independence, then more power to them. But Western observers should avoid the facile narratives issuing from interested parties.