Posted October 28, 2002

Secondary Causes

Regarding "Beyond Right: The Temptations of Empire" by Justin Raimondo:

How can you expect the antiwar left to stop injecting secondary causes into their agenda (i.e. Mumia Abu-Jamal, environmentalism, etc.) when you are always doing it (i.e. libertarian economic beliefs, your disdain for the poor and admiration for Joe McCarthy, etc.)? Don't expect others to drop their secondary issues when you are incapable of dropping yours.

~ BN

Justin Raimondo replies:

Oh please, give it a break, willya? If your perception of my libertarian beliefs is my "admiration" for Joe McCarthy -- hey, what about Alger Hiss? -- then one can only wonder whose columns you're reading. My "disdain for the poor"? Honey, I am the poor!

Nationalism

Regarding Carl Savich on "Dead Babies":

I fully realize that skepticism of Empire war actions are central to Antiwar.com but apologetics for the mad rampage of latter-day Serbian nationalism, particularly the asinine contention that the Racak massacre was a hoax, is not antiwar, or antiEmpire, it's antireality.

Far better to expose the mass victimization of Serbs in Krajina, and in the early phase of the Bosnian conflict, damage of NATO bombs, etc. than to pretend that the ethnic cleansing, repression and wars waged by Milosevic or one-time slimy allies like Arkan did not take place.

The problem in Yugoslavia is obviously mad nationalism -- Serb greatly but the others as well.

Knee-jerk antiAmericanism, i.e. mindlessly gainsaying every argument made for Empire intervention, can lead to wasting time on revisionist ravings against reality (no massacre at Racak, odd theories of 9/11) in place of good consistent exposure of the evil of all war parties -- American, Serbian, Albanian, Palestinian, Israeli, etc.

~ Matthew Hogan

Carl Savich replies:

The Finnish forensic report on the so-called Racak massacre and unbiased and neutral analyses of that report clearly show that no massacre occurred. Moreover, the OSCE had monitors in Racak at the time and there was a French news team that filmed the entire operation. The French team concluded the Racak Massacre was a US manufactured hoax. Much of this exposure of Racak was censored and manipulated in the US media.

The Finnish forensic report clearly showed that the "victims" of the Racak massacre were UCK/KLA terrorists (gunpowder residue was found on their hands). These terrorist troops had engaged the Yugoslav forces in a direct military battle and had lost. The UCK then gathered their war dead and placed them in a ravine to make it look like a World War II Holocaust-style massacre/execution of innocent Albanian civilians.

The "victims" were soldiers/troops of a terrorist army who were murdering Serbian and Albanian civilians in Kosovo, and killing Yugoslav police and security forces. At the Hague trial of Milosevic, he was able to show that about 200 to 300 Yugoslav police and security forces were murdered by Greater Albanian terrorists since the UCK invasion of Serbia from bases in Albania. Their goal was always Greater Albania, not "greater rights". The Yugoslav government thus had a legitimate and legal right to confront and to combat them.

I disagree that "mad nationalism" was the root cause of the Yugoslav disaster. The largest act of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans conflict was caused and planned by the US government. This was the mass ethnic cleansing of Krajina's approximately 200,000 "Croatian Serbs". In addition, over 230,000 Kosovo Serbs, Roma, Jews, and Turks were ethnically cleansed by the US/NATO following the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. The US/NATO sponsored the Croatian conflict, the Bosnia conflict, and the Kosovo conflict. This intervention was the root cause of the Yugoslav disaster.

Mr. Hogan needs to question a government and media that are committed to manipulating him.

Left-Wing Rhetoric

I'm writing to applaud your [Justin Raimondo's] recent column, "Beyond Right: The Temptations of Empire," in Mother Jones. This is exactly the message which needs to reach antiwar organizers on the Left.

I and my partner were involved in the early stages of the creation of the "Not In Our Name" campaign. In fact, some of the first meetings of this coalition-to-be were held in my tiny apartment on the Upper East Side. Shortly before the first national meeting (held in NYC on March 23, 2002), my partner and I discontinued our association with the organizers of Not In Our Name over the very disagreements which you raise in your recent article.

Among other things, we felt that in order to create a meaningful coalition, it would be necessary to drop all Left-wing rhetoric and reach out to the mainstream public (not just college campuses and famous liberals). We also suggested that an effective coalition would have to abandon the trappings of internationalism. Our opinions were not heard and it increasingly became obvious that the Not In Our Name project was a party building exercise (initiated by the Revolutionary Communist Party and their front group the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade) rather than a legitimate attempt to stop the war. (If you look at the early listings of supporters, you will see that a disproportionate number are associates of the above mentioned organizations.)

So it is nice to see these concerns raised in such a large Left-leaning magazine. Unfortunately, the antiwar movement is so heavily dominated by Old-Left communists (at least in its leadership), that it is unlikely that the needed changes will be made. In the end, I think that the only chance at forging a meaningful antiwar coalition rests on the deliberate "overthrow" of the current antiwar movement.

~ Scott T.

Constitutional Party

I was glad to see Alex Nagel's letter about Constitutional Party here on Backtalk [October 22]. I was also thinking and talking about this for some time now. The US Constitution, the one that made America the envy of the world, the one to which all these people in power publicly swear their loyalty and which they suppose to protect and defend, is in imminent danger. I am a Conservative Republican, a charter member of the Republican Presidential Task Force, founding member of the Ronald Reagan Republican Center. But I will be first to admit, that my party lost its Americanism and is guilty of the tremendous abuses of the Constitution and there is no crime more serious than that, since its the only crime one can commit where the victims are both past and future generations. Both parties for years tried to convince us that there cannot be a third successful party here. I believe that was true in the past, because while playing their political games, the Ds and Rs were forced to address constitutional issues as a weapon against each other. It is no longer the case today. Today the US Constitution, neglected and abandoned by both parties, is the only our hope. If we don't protect it, who will? A Constitutional Party would be a proper and effective tool to accomplish such a protection. And to end the fallacy of the political corruption by eradicating the political careerism with a "One Man -- One Term" principle. Or have we not seen enough and actually will have to wait until thousands of our young will die in the dungeons of Baghdad?

~ Alex Chaihorsky, Reno, Nevada

Evangelical Christians

I just finished reading Morgan Strong's article ["Armageddon"] on your web site about the inordinate amount of influence evangelical Christians have with President Bush. While I basically agree with his premise, I think the author paints evangelical Christians with much too broad of a brush. I personally am happy to be one of more than a few evangelicals who question Bush's preemptive strike policy toward Iraq and the erosion of individual liberties in America post Sept. 11, not to mention his handling or lack of handling of the economy. Lumping all evangelicals with Falwell and Robertson is almost akin to labeling all Muslims as terrorists, at least in my opinion.

~ Harold C.

Fundamentalists

Recently there has been a spate of articles, on Antiwar.com and elsewhere, concerning the support and encouragement that conservative Christian fundamentalists have been giving the Israelis. I remember when, not too long ago, these same conservative Christians were condemning Jews because "the Jews killed Jesus." I remember this well as this was one of the deciding issues that turned me away from Christianity. (The hypocrisy of preaching love and tolerance while condemning a whole race of people for what no more than a handful could have been involved in 2000 years ago) Perhaps it is the neo-conservative influence that precipitated the turn around.

This revelation, that there are conservative Christian groups pushing Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and American aggression against Iraq, and the rest of the Arab world, to fulfill their delusion of Armageddon, is perhaps just the tip of a larger movement lurking behind the scenes. Over the past several months I have received numerous emails circulated amongst conservative Christians. Apparently, someone thinks I am one of them. Shrouded in words of love of god and country, and the expression of outrage over the events of 2001 September 11 is a message I find quite disturbing. It is a message that all that dare speak out against war or the civil rights violations that the Bush administration is intent on pursuing have heard – "If you don't like it, you are welcome to leave". These emails that I have been receiving take this idea many steps further. Basically they say all true Americans all share and cherish the same values, conservative evangelical Christian values that is, and that everyone else should leave, forcibly if necessary. We are told that Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Catholics, Anglicans, Atheists, and everyone else that doesn't hold evangelical Christian beliefs, Latin Americans, Orientals, Arabs, European nationals, Canadians, everyone that can speak a language other that English, homosexuals, environmentalists, liberals, democrats, intellectuals, the poor and homeless... (the list goes on and on) are not welcome within the borders of the United States. It is as if "...Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" has been replaced by "Get the hell out!" They offer a freedom to be like them and nothing else. To me, their idea of freedom is bondage, their idea of love is hate (shades of Orwell's newspeak).

Also included in these emails is the often repeated call to arms to protect the aforementioned American 'values' and way of life, to conquer the world, to turn it into their image. Funny how I have been an American citizen for all of my life and somehow have never acquired their values or way of life.

The authors of these emails are always anonymous and always there is a statement about the author being just some average Joe. Not surprisingly, to me anyhow, these emails use the same arguments, even some of the same phrases as are regularly used by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Bill Bennett. This, of course, leads me to believe that these emails are not the homegrown, grassroots messages that they pretend to be. What scares me most about the message contained within these emails is that so many Americans actually agree with them including my own mother, brother, and sister.

~ E. Harvey, Colorado

The Hawaiian Nation

I do get tired of the remark that the US has never aggressively invaded another country and taken it over. How do you think Hawaii became part of the US? The US invaded Hawaii, a friendly neutral nation recognized throughout the world with treaties and conventions (including the US), through military action and covert operations, suppressed the people and enforced themselves on us, keeping our nation and its citizens hostage with illegal occupation.

This distortion of facts and cover-ups is much like what the US has been doing throughout the world and in Iraq. The public, for the most part are ignorant of the truth and believe the biased, revised history of facts. It's no wonder the American public is confused and fearful. The US sales and marketing scheme is part of their little corporate chess game. No matter how they try to conceal the truth, there will always be those that know it and it will resurface. I know my descendants will always know the truth about Hawaii and I will never let them forget it no matter how much the US tries to cover it up. We have never extinguished our rights as Hawaiian citizens and never will. The Hawaiian nation still lives and the US can't erase it and make it go away. The rest of the world is beginning to realize the extent of the lies the US has told and our cause will one day be recognized. It will always be a black mark against the US.

~ TE