Antiwar.com Blog

Whoops! The IDF “accidentally” attacks an Israeli town with fake Katyusha rockets.

via xymphora

As you may have noticed on the main page, our fund drive is pretty darn sluggish. We’re less than halfway to where we should be by this point.

Which must be good news.

I mean, if Antiwar.com can’t scrape up a few bucks each from a fraction of its daily readers, it must mean that the past few months were all a bad dream. George W. Bush obviously wasn’t reelected. The current president doesn’t think he has a mandate to conquer the world. The neocons must be on the run. The threat to our civil liberties and basic human dignity has subsided. We withdrew from Iraq, where everything’s going A-OK. And there’s no way in hell we’re going to attack Iran. Right?

Nope. I just pinched myself and realized that this is no nightmare: this is Bush 2.0. Here’s what I wrote the weekend before the U.S. election:

The notion that Bush will ditch the imperial project, while comforting, does not jibe with what we know of human nature, particularly as it plays out in politics. Success is affirmation, and the only real measure of success politicians have is reelection. Even from a market perspective, the Great Bush Conversion to noninterventionism makes little sense: why switch to New Coke when the old stuff is selling so well?

We’re talking about a man who interpreted his purely technical (though nonetheless valid) win in 2000 – without even a plurality, much less a majority, of the popular vote – as a blank check to pursue policies far different from what he had promised. (Remember that “humble” foreign policy?) With Iraq growing less sexy every day, who believes he isn’t tempted by the hussy next door? Four years of Michael Ledeen purring “faster, please” in his ear must be having some effect.

Wishful thinking aside, Bush isn’t going to dump the neoconservatives or the fundamentalists. They’re the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Bush coalition: without both, the group is nothing. The neocons need the fundies for grassroots support, and the fundies need the neocons to provide a secular cover for holy war. And though everyone knows Bush is a fundie, it’s time to concede that he wasn’t hijacked by the neocons – he is one.

And it’s all coming true. For Pete’s sake, Bush’s inaugural address gave even full-time GOP shill Peggy Noonan the creeps! But don’t expect Peggy and the rest of the MSM to keep you informed as the neocons and the fundies march us toward another precipice – one that promises to bring about that Clash of Civilizations the warmongers have been dreaming about, and with it, the death blow to our Republic.

Look, I know these quarterly fundraisers are a nuisance. We would rather not bother with them ourselves. But until the Richard Mellon Scaifes and Rupert Murdochs experience a 180-degree change of heart, we’ll be forced to ask our readers for the money to go on. And if you read this site regularly, you can’t say we haven’t earned it. Our news collection alone is second to none. Again, if you’re a regular around here, I’m willing to venture that Antiwar.com’s news section saves you at least an hour per day – how long would it take you to comb through, oh, THE ENTIRE WORLD WIDE WEB???

Now, at current U.S. federal minimum-wage rates, an hour is worth $5.15. If time is money, then it’s fair to say that Antiwar.com saves you at least $36/week, $144/month, $1,800/year!

Of course, we would never ask for that much (on the other hand, we won’t reject it if you send it, either!). But if a meager 10% of our daily readers put themselves down for just $5 – one minimum-wage hour! – per month, we’d have more than enough to continue. Instead of dreading the quarterly fund drive, enduring our guilt trips, having to decide how much is appropriate to give, etc., why not just become a monthly contributor? That way, when the next drive comes around, you can just click past all the pleading with no guilt whatsoever – and you’ll be keeping the best source for antiwar news and views alive.

Become part of the heroic 10% today!

You’ll never believe who said this:

I am — just bite down hard and say it, man — with Senator Edward Kennedy on this. I want U.S. forces to leave Iraq ASAP. If the place then descends into chaos, I’m fine with it. What’s that you say? It would be awful hard on the Iraqis? Probably so. It would certainly be hard on those brave, civic-minded Iraqis — there are plenty of them — who would like to see constitutional government in their nation. However, there are people like that all over the world — there are scads of them in China, including some personal friends of mine. (To be a bit more precise, there are scads of them who are Chinese, though many now live in the West.) We can only do so much. God knows, we have done enough for Iraq, with blood and treasure. The rest is up to the Iraqis. If they make a pig’s ear of it, that’s a shame, but I can’t see why it’s our problem. There are lots of messed-up countries in the world. Iraq will be another one.

Answer here.

now let’s go home. I’m glad to see Derb is setting a good example for his fellow warbots: just because you’re morally crippled doesn’t mean you have to be stupid, too!

Of course, Derb seems to be taking some heat from his red-state fascist readers, so he may need to drop or at least re-rationalize his cut-n-run position. Maybe he could say the Arabs are turning our boys into homos…

In today’s Backtalk:

Carl Webb, a soldier protesting the Iraq Stop Loss Program, announces his new website: CarlWebb.net.

Monica Nouwens seeks Iraq veterans in southern California for her documentary: monicano@earthlink.net.

Tim Gillin continues the “peak oil theory” discussion: Why are Iraq hawks driving Priuses?

Michael Austin directs a reader to AWC’s quotes archive.

Phil Crincoli and Sam Koritz discuss the politics of retracted news reports.

Justin Raimondo and Nebojsa Malic reply to critics.

Paul Craig Roberts replies to William S. Lind’s relatively optimistic "The Dangers of Abstract Nationalism" and asks, "…What becomes of the American police state that the war on terror has put in place? … How do we get rid of it in the event the new nationalism deflates as Bill Lind suggests?" Abstract nationalism or fascism? Ian Bell reminds us of Mussolini’s definition of the latter: the merger of state and corporate power.

From Juan Cole:

Az-Zaman reports that the “Cadres and Chosen Party” of 180 members of the Sadr Movement is coming in third in the early election returns [in the south], after the mainstream Shiite United Iraqi Alliance and the Iraqiyah list of interim Prime Minister Allawi. So far the Cadres are guaranteed 8 seats in the 275-member parliament, according to its leader. Since about 20 Sadrists ran on the UIA, they could make up 6 or 7 percent of the members of parliament. Had their leader not sat out the election, the Sadrists could have done much better. They note that Muqtada al-Sadr did not forbid them to run. One of the prominent list members was a Mahdi Army guerrilla fighter in Sadr City only a few months ago.