Month: September 2005

Strange, but for some reason, today the Washington Post decided to run the Larry Franklin plea deal story on page B-1 – the Metro section.
According to the great libertarian journalist Jim Bovard, in today’s Maryland edition,

It is below the fold, next to an article about a geezer from New Orleans who was re-united with his 11 year old dog named Sassy, and also next to and below an article about the frustrated maestro of the former now-defunct Arlington, Va. symphony.

What’s the matter? The Post has been doing a pretty good job with this story up until now.

After spending almost three months in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from jail today.

She was released after she had a telephone conversation with the Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, sources said. In that conversation, Libby reaffirmed that he had released Miller from a promise of confidentiality more than a year ago, sources said.

Of course, readers of Antiwar.com read almost two years ago that Libby was the source of the Plame leak.

Between this and Larry Franklin’s plea bargain in the AIPAC case, this has been quite a news day for the war party. Of course there were a few other Iraq-related stories today.

So all the left-liberals who thought that the nomination of Bolton to the UN would mean the death of that organization — that it would unleash the U.S. to dominate the world — should consider Bolton’s latest move: opposing a bill to withhold funds to the UN.

Hmmm. When will left-liberals learn that the United Nations is a fig leaf and puppet for U.S. imperialism, and that, while conservative politicians sometimes attack the UN’s superficial check on U.S. militarism, most of them are perfectly fine using the organization as an instrument of, and excuse for, U.S. global hegemony?

The UN is a threat not just to American sovereignty, but world peace, and has been since it was conceived by the U.S. working with the Soviet Union. When the UN tells the U.S. it can’t bomb, it does so anyway. When it sanctions U.S. aggression, the empire proceeds with the façade of international diplomacy. What a sham the whole thing is. Bolton is right at home with the UN.

Writes Andrew Sullivan:

This blog broke the story of more Geneva Convention violations recently: the posting of mutilated and dead Iraqis photographed by U.S. soldiers on a website also devoted to porn. Now, there’s an investigation. No other blog, to my knowledge, followed up.

Well, I guess you can’t call it a follow-up, since this blog addressed the corpse porn matter a month before Sullivan (and gave credit to Helena Cobban for breaking it), but hey, we don’t want any props. We would, however, like to know how the sanctimonious Sullivan, who calls antiwar protesters “fascists,” thought his little pet invasion would turn out any other way. In fact, it seems to us that Sullivan’s show of outrage over nowthatsfuckedup.com might be just the teensiest bit motivated by a desire to hide the evidence of what his war of liberation has wrought. After all, Andrew, wouldn’t those “hajis” be just as dead and dismembered if their photos weren’t posted on that site? What are you afraid of? That what’s left of pro-war America might see those photos and come to its moral senses?

UPDATE: I see that Andrew Sullivan is still prattling on about the porn site. He wants the soldiers involved prosecuted for Geneva Conventions violations – for disseminating the photos, of course. Bad for the war effort, you know.

I hope someday to take a deep drag of the magical air Sullivan and his brethren enjoy atop Mt. Olympus, to send the mortals off to do my bidding then strike the stupid brutes down when they fail me. And never miss a wink.

Joshua Frank writes:

In a recent article in these pages, I criticized Cindy Sheehan for going soft on Hillary Clinton’s warmongering. Well, I was wrong. Sheehan hasn’t gone soft on Clinton; she’s attacked the New York senator for her hollow position on the Iraq conflict.

At a rally outside Hillary Clinton’s office in New York, Cindy Sheehan declared to the crowd on hand that Clinton must either speak out against the war or risk losing her job. In fact, New York antiwar advocates are hoping Sheehan will run against Clinton in the Democratic primaries in 2006. Others out West are hoping Sheehan will take on Dianne Feinstein in California.

In a recent interview with the Village Voice Sheehan contended that she was “so frustrated” by top Democrats like Hillary Clinton “who should be leaders on this [war] issue, but are not,” arguing that it is “time for them to step up and be the opposition party. This war is not going to end unless the Democrats are on board with us.”

It sure would be nice if more antiwar activists were to follow Cindy’s lead on this one. If the majority of protesters took their protests to the front steps of each elected pro-war Democrat as well as Republican, we might have a big-time movement on our hands. I’ll admit it; Sheehan is savvier than I gave her credit for. She knows that the antiwar movement should stick to the war, not lesser-evil politics. Too bad Sheehan wasn’t making headlines during the 2004 elections; if she had been, the antiwar movement might have not been so soft on the pro-war Kerry campaign.

We certainly have a long way to go before antiwar activists start taking on the Democrats for embracing everything Bush has propagated.

Some have speculated, including respected journalist Wayne Madsen, that the Democrats didn’t attend last weekend’s rallies because the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC had urged them not to. Madsen reported that Congressman Barney Frank was pressured by AIPAC to intervene and scare Democrats out of attending the rallies. I certainly agree that AIPAC doesn’t want elected officials to attend antiwar festivities, but to think that AIPAC alone is responsible for the Democrats’ absence is foolish. The Democrats have been pro-war and pro-occupation since the Iraq war’s inception. Is this solely because of AIPAC’s influence?

No, the Democrat’s inability to challenge Bush goes a lot deeper than their ties to Israel. The Democrats haven’t been able to go after Bush on any major issue, from PATRIOT Act to CAFTA to John Roberts. The Iraq war is just one more failure in a laundry list of Democratic disappointments.

Perhaps next we’ll see Cindy Sheehan take on the plight of the Palestinians and speak out against Israel’s influence over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. If she does so, we might really be getting somewhere. In the meantime, however, let’s just be happy that Sheehan recognizes the Democrats are Bush’s war enablers. At least it’s a start.

The “why the heck is Nancy Pelosi voting for the war” rally was great: thanks to United for Peace and Justice (Bay Area chapter) for making it possible. It was gratifying to see some of my readers there: they came up and introduced themselves, and I’m glad I could be of some assistance in building the rally. The star of the occasion, by the way, was Stephen Zunes, who gave a bang-up speech, detailing Pelosi’s two-faced campaign to present herself to her district as opposed to the war, and yet when it comes to her votes and general behavior on the floor of congress, it’s Nancy the War Goddess all the way. He cited her speeches, and pointed out how she has consistently echoed the Bush administration’s line on Iraq, even down to accusing pre-war Baghdad of harboring Al Qaeda — a charge usually reserved for the more perfervid neocons, but almost never from any Democrats. She is, Zunes, trenchantly pointed out, to the right of people like James Baker and other veterans of the Bush I administration who opposed this war and are now calling for withdrawal.

There were quite a few people there, for a mid-day Monday demonstration — at least 150 — and the media was out in force. Madame Minority Leader, who has always gotten a free ride from the San Francisco Democrats and the local media, is — I predict — in some trouble. There was just no reason for her to oppose Lynn Woolsey’s “exit strategy” resolution, which would have called on the President to set a time certain for getting our troops home, yet she quashed it without even considering the overwhelming support for withdrawal in her own district. Such arrogance is begging to be punished….

By the way, on the subject of the Jewish Community Relations Council email sent out to its members and supporters about the anti-Pelosi rally being an “anti-Israel” action — check out my blog item on the subject — nary a word was said about Israel, either by me or by any of the other speakers. I called the JCRC earlier, before the rally started, and complained: one Dganit Herzig claimed responsibility for the offending email, and, although she stuck by her guns, promised that if she turned out to be wrong about the rally, she would write to me and apologize.

I’m waitng, Dganit …..