Antiwar.com Blog

Regarding our main news story today, Panel: US Support for Israel Key to 9/11 , here is the relevant page in the 9/11 report [pdf].

Notable lower page news you might have missed today:

*We reported earlier this week that Canadian authorities had approved al-Jazeera for broadcast, but the conditions are apparently prohibitive. Will David Frum finally go home now?

*You thought MREs were bad before…

*Emboldened by the Butler whitewash, Tony Blair reveals his new Five-Year Plan. I hope he wins so we can watch American “conservatives” learn to hate him again as he trades licks with President Kerry.

*Speaking of music, turns out Annie Jacobsen’s band of terrorists was, uh, just a band. Still worried? Well, Clinton W. Taylor double-checked those sketchy Ay-rabs for National Review and came to the same conclusion. Then he called for a preemptive strike on Tehran. (Just kidding – that’s Michael Ledeen‘s shtick.)

It was closer than anyone could have expected, but Madison failed to do “something no other city has had the guts to do…form an official sister city relationship with a Palestinian city.” A city council member was reduced to tears by “how ‘cruel’ and ‘hateful’ some of the statements aimed at supporters of the proposal have been.” Even if the proposal had passed, the mayor planned to veto it.

The mayor felt that “adopting the sister city resolution would be in essence a criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government. He said he did not believe that Madison should take a position on Middle East policy.” As a candidate, before the Iraq invasion, he had “passed a test pf courage and conscience” by “participating in the reading of the pledge to resist a wrong-minded war” at a gala “Not In Our Name” event attended by 2000 people.

Performing at the antiwar gala was Ben Sidran. “This is what history feels like,” the jazz great said. Now Sidran puts tribal loyalty first. Now apparently a smear campaign is what history feels like.

For far too many in the antiwar camp, it’s as if Iraq and Palestine/Israel are on different planets. Far too many who have found intolerable Bush’s exploitation of “terrorism” to invade and occupy Iraq don’t seem to mind Sharon’s exploitation of “terrorism” to wreak destruction in the West Bank and Gaza. From both a moral and pragmatic point of view, toleration of Israel’s aggression undercuts opposition to America’s. Unless the Palestinians are treated with justice and dignity, there will always be “terrorism” for the U.S. war party to exploit.

In the case of antiwar, antiBush stalwart John Nichols, columnist for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times, the disconnect can be quantified. Of the 200 columns he’s written for TCT since January 1, 2003, 87 contain the word “Iraq” while only two contain “Israel.” One of the two was a fleeting reference and neither was this year. He’s had nothing to say about Madison/Rafah and, in over a year and a half, he’s said nothing about Israel’s “network of cages.”

Nichols’ astonishing record is a reflection of the fact that there is no liberal politician of any stature in this country who has the knowledge and decency to speak out on the Palestine issue. The easier path is to just avoid offending the Jewish sensibility, never mind that when it comes to Israel, by and large American Jews are in the grip of neurosis.

Toronto Blue Jays star one-bagger Carlos Delgado has been protesting the Iraq war by leaving the field during the playing of God Bless America. Delgado intends the gesture as a protest against policy with which he disagrees:

“But I think it’s the stupidest war ever. Who are you fighting against? You’re just getting ambushed now. We have more people dead now after the war than during the war,” he said. “I don’t support what they do. It’s just stupid.”

Delgado has come under fierce criticism from fans and pundits for this harmless and symbolic gesture. One fan said, before a game in New York:

“I think it’s totally disrespectful,” he said shortly before gametime. “It’s a slap directly in my face, as a New Yorker and an American.”

It is not. Delgado has already identified the reason he is protesting. It has nothing to do with slapping a fan in the face. Offended parties are afflicted with the disease of self-identification with the state, L’Etat C’est Moi in other words. The state is an organization which is separate from the people it rules, and which commits terrible crimes in their name. Awfully convenient then, for the criminals in charge, that many people think they are the state. What a bewildering sight it must surely be, for the blind servants of the state, uncritical and trusting of their politicians, to see someone like Delgado actually walking a different path. Delgado’s critics are afraid that he is right, and wrapped in that fear, are lashing out at him, ridiculing his courage. God bless him.

And just introduce our newest blogrollee from the land of Peter Singer, AC/DC, and Elle McPherson, Tim Gillin, who is, uh, not quite like any of the aforementioned.

From Reuters:

After launching two wars, President George Bush said he wanted to be a “peace president” and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defence. …

“The enemy declared war on us,” Mr Bush told a re-election rally in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday. “Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president … The next four years will be peaceful years,” said Mr Bush, who used the words “peace” or “peaceful” 20 times.

From Feb. 8:

I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.

Did somebody say “flip-flop”?

“For a while we were marching to war. Now we’re marching to peace. … America is a safer place. Four more years and America will be safer and the world will be more peaceful,” he said. But a few hours later, in St Charles, Missouri, Mr Bush warned “the world will drift towards tragedy” if America shows “weakness”.

Marching to peace. Jesus.