Posted April 11, 2003

Regarding Sam Koritz's reply to Kenneth D. Curry's letter posted April 9:

"I predict that evidence will be found indicating that the Hussein regime was close to a major breakthrough in w.m.d. technology and that only the timely intervention of the Allies saved the world from this danger."

I hope that you will make clear to all of your faithful readers that this was sarcasm. If that was implied somehow, I totally missed it. ...

Also, reading Justin Raimondo's replies sprinkled with "Islamist nutballs" and references to all of the brotherly love following the conquest and occupation of the Confederate States, I'm beginning to think that I have popped into a parallel universe.

Or were you all merely statist "sleepers" now ready to show your true colors? Is Antiwar.com dead? I'll stay tuned (for a while, anyway) to find out.

~ Carter Mitchell, Gurnee, Illinois

Sam Koritz replies:

I meant to imply that "evidence" will be planted or will be the result of misinterpretation.

Regarding Eric Garris's reply to Nick J.'s letter posted April 3:

The Texas Act (the act of Congress that admitted Texas to the United States) did indeed reserve the right of Texas to secede from the union at any time of its own choosing. In an attempt to end reconstruction in Texas, Texas sued the federal government stating that secession was a measure that Texas was legally entitled to make use of. The United States' Supreme Court heard the case in 1871 and decided that, regardless of the language contained in the Texas Act, Texas had no legal right to secede.

~ Travis H.

I See Your Point of View

I have spent excessive time reviewing your site, and understand your view of war. However, what I fail to find and fail to find from any antiwar activist group is how they would solve the terrorism problem that is very real.

If you have this position that is fine, but if you want to be taken seriously tell me how you would take away the fear. How would you take away the fear of getting on a plane? How would you take away the fear of working in a skyscraper?

Or, do you just believe we should deal with it. I know what your answer is because it's how all people without an answer, answer. You'll ask a question. You'll say, how do we take away the fear for other countries who live with it every day. You'll say, why don't we attack Syria, North Korea who are doing the same thing.

But what I'm sure you won't offer is an answer. What would you do to make my country, the USA, not live in fear? How would you eliminate terrorism with the least loss of life? If you were honest with yourself you'd probably recognize that taking down terrorist leaders will lead to less terrorism in the long term.

I'm sure this won't get printed because why would you? It's too hard of a question to answer, and you and your fellowship are not leaders. You're all afraid of the hard truth. Sometimes for the preservation of civilization, WAR IS NECESSARY.

~ Johnson Davis

Sam Koritz replies:

Antiwar.com was been warning about the dangers to Americans (and others) of military intervention overseas – including the terrorist threat – since before you-know-when. See for example "American Interventionism and The Terrorist Threat" by Jon Basil Utley, posted a few weeks before the al Qaeda attacks, which warned of the bin Laden threat to the US mainland.

Mr. Davis's letter illustrates the logic (if that's the right word) of hegemonism. Islamist fanatics who object to US troops in Muslim holy lands and US military intervention in the Mideast attacked the US. The government's response is to intervene further in the Mideast and station more troops there. When further attacks, terrorist or otherwise, occur this will be considered proof that an insufficient level of intervention has occurred and will lead to further intervention, ad nauseum. This is, to say the least, expensive. The fact that the US stock market fell today with Baghdad might suggest that more Americans realize this than are telling pollsters (and that few people really believed that Iraq had WMD).

This War

There's all this talk of the horror of war and what war has, of late, wrought in the midst of the U.S. aggression against Iraq.

War is a convenient abstraction that bears no responsibility; that is completely irresponsible.

Let's be frank and clear. We're talking about Americans and their savagery; not war.

We're talking about the horrible, ugly, bestial barbarity, and cold-blooded brutality of Americans attacking poor people of color in third world countries. We're talking about what Americans have, with their vast, highly elaborated, and hugely expensive arsenal, wrought upon others lacking the barest of necessities for life. We're talking about a cruel, callous, and indifferent people who have gone so far as to destroy the largest cultural centers in the world with complete and utter insouciance; people who without slightest qualms have exploded nuclear weapons over cities halfway around the globe; people who have never had to bear the brunt of even the smallest portion of the extreme violence they've willfully and with malice forced others to suffer over the years.

That's what we're talking about.

~ Alan Koontz

Devastated

I sat utterly devastated from the picture of 12-year-old Ali Ismaeel Abbas. I didn't know if I should cry or fly into a rage, neither of which would help of course. I feel like I've been kicked in the chest; I guess you can call me a bleeding-heart conservative, or maybe just call me 'human'. I decided the only thing to do was to put it in peoples' faces and see their reactions.

The people who were against the war were horrified and like me, devastated. The pro-war folks? "Shit happens in war," was the general response. They turned their heads dismissively and went on with their lives as though they never saw it. If Justin is right about the difference in the ferocity of hatred between the Middle East and The United States, I can only say that our apathy is just as evil.

~ Mac Beaulieu

It's Over?

It's over in Iraq and it seems a few things did not happen...

1. There weren't 500,000 Iraqi casualties.
2. There weren't "thousands" of US casualties.
3. There weren't "millions" of refugees fleeing Iraq to other countries.
4. It didn't take months to capture Baghdad.
5. There was no inferno from "100's" of burning oil wells.
6. No Iraqi missiles were fired at Israel, conventional or otherwise.

One or two things did happen:

1. Millions of smiling Iraqis are greeting American and UK soldiers and marines as liberators.
2. The Hussein regime did collapse like a house of cards once Baghdad was probed.

It's time to drag the naysayers kicking and screaming into the sunlight.

~ Jeffrey Powell

Managing Editor Eric Garris replies:

Predictions still likely to hold water:

1. The US will be emboldened by this victory and will invade many other nations over the next few years.
2. America will turn from creating wealth to build our country and turn to feeding the liberating the world at the expense of our capitalist system and Constitution.
3. The very freedoms and advantages we are "giving" the world will be lost to ourselves.

Krauthammer No Canadian!

I like your site, but please don't "blame Canada" for Charles Krauthammer!

As you can see from the following biography, he ain't ours:

"Krauthammer was born in New York City and raised in Montreal. He was educated at McGill University, majoring in political science and economics, Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. in 1975). He practiced medicine for three years as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital."

That said, we have to own up for Frum, Steyn and Conrad Black.

You have my apologies.

~ Blair S.

Congratulations!

You folks are doing an excellent job of providing a first-class source of otherwise-missed about what our government is doing worldwide.

Thanks for everything you're doing!

~ Harry Browne

Military Chic

Thank God there are some (I am sure many) decent American citizens who are appalled by this invasion of Iraq. Your President, along with our Prime Minister (who many Australians view as a Bush lapdog) should be held accountable for the death and destruction in Iraq. The media has been frighteningly biased and the fact that anyone who speaks out becomes a target makes a mockery of your proudly displayed 1st Amendment – just look at the Dixie Chicks. Why should they have to apologise for having an opinion? On Inside Edition today I witnessed Debra Norville beaming into the camera as she talked about a photo of a Marine carrying an injured Iraqi soldier. What about a picture of the Iraqi mother who had 11 members of her family (including 3 of her children) killed by US marines at a checkpoint? Norville wrapped up the program with a brief spiel on "Military Chic" – the next fashion fad. I was absolutely stunned and appalled. How could anyone trivialise this tragedy on prime time TV in such a banal way? Perhaps Norville might like to contact the above mentioned Iraqi mother and ask her what kind of "military chic" outfit she will be wearing to the 11 funerals she has to attend. ...

~ M. Askar, Australia