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Posted April 16, 2003
Regarding "The Real War," Justin Raimondo's reply to Hasan Sonmez's letter and his reply to Ashraf M.'s letter (both posted April 9):
In a response to a letter, Justin Raimondo asked, "where is our Bin Laden?" I would ask: how about the Christian-Zionists American nutballs who have been for years preaching hate against Muslims well before 9-11, and ever pushing for an all out war in the middle east in order to bring the ultimate end and destruction of every one else but them in Armageddon? How about the many columnists and writers in the US who have called for "invading their countries, killing them all, destroying their holy cities, starving them, and converting them to Christianity"?
Labels such as nuts, fanatics, ferocious killers, terrorists, militants, uncivilized, and many more have been used to label any people or groups in order to justify and sell this war and many wars. And what should we call invading another country that did nothing to us? Or does it make any difference how innocent people are killed? How about the Oklahoma City bomber? or gunning down innocent people in Luby's cafeteria or McDonald's? Were not those ferocious acts of murder done by Americans for no reason?
By the way, Muslims nutballs do not have monopoly on suicide bombing. One should read about the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.
And how about South Africa after the collapse of the apartheid regime? People did not start killing each other. So chill out, dude.
More than two thousand years ago in Plato gave us a very accurate profile of a suicide bomber. Intelligence, wealth or social position was not really a factor. The major driver for such activity was the characteristic the Greeks called thymos a word that translates as spiritedness in English. It was a characteristic Plato thought necessary in the guardian class of the city.
The great American philosopher Alan Bloom used to teach his students that this spiritedness was often manifested as anger against that which is perceived to be unjust. Since the perception of injustice is just as likely to come from a rich individual as a poor one the suicide bomber cannot be said to be constrained or driven by economic conditions. Since the perception of injustice is not gender specific suicide bombers can be men or women. The reason that the Middle East has more suicide bombers than the West is because the perception of injustice is much greater. When young men and women perceive that their society is being oppressed unjustly they will lash out against that injustice. This is especially true when we have organisations whose primary function is to indoctrinate the young to see the world in such a way. Plato would suggest that as long as there is an occupation of the West Bank there will be suicide bombers. He would also suggest that the US occupying forces in Iraq would encounter suicide attackers who are driven by their anger towards the unjust infidels and who would give up their life for their cause.
Obviously this subject matter is very complex and would take thousands of words to do it justice. If you are interested the concept of spiritedness is introduced at 375b of the Republic. My preference is for the Alan Bloom translation and its interpretative essay.
~ Vangel Vesovski, Toronto, Canada
In general I think that Justin Raimondo does terrific work. But like other readers I regret his statement:
"Although Ms. Naamas came to the US as a child, she apparently has not lost that Middle Eastern ferocity that is so frightening, and alien, to the American mind."
The main problem is that Justin implies that Ms Naamas got her alleged ferocity simply by virtue of being from the Middle East. This proposition is not born out by fact, and sounds in fact slightly racist. As Hasan Sonmez pointed out, most Middle Easterners are (surprise!) not ferocious.
It's also a mistake to suggest that ferocity is alien to American minds. Justin really goes off the rails with this:
"If Americans are so ferocious, then how come we didn't have suicide bombers in the American civil war? What I'm speak of here is a special brand of ferocity tied to ethnic and religious conflict of the sort that we haven't yet experienced in this country."
What about the thousands of lynchings of African-Americans post-Civil War? Now, it's possible that Raimondo doesn't consider that to be an example of "ferocity tied to ethnic and religious conflict." After all, many of the photographs of these lynchings show the perpetrators gathered at the feet of the victims, looking not ferocious, but relaxed and cheerful.
It is true that suicide bombings are alien to the American mind at the moment, but as the most powerful nation on the planet we have other ways to express ferocity. The US-maintained sanctions were responsible for the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, without requiring anyone in the US to break into a sweat.
The basic problem is making a false contrast between the "bad" people over there, and the "good" people here. That keeps wars going. I am not sure that Mr. Raimondo intended that, but I also wish he would reconsider his statement.
You do have an excellent web site – thanks to all of you.
~ Bruce Dodds, Newton, Massachusetts
Although I kind of know what ferocity means, I reached to my Longman dictionary and looked it up – ferocity: the state of being ferocious. Ferocious is an adjective meaning cruel, and violent. I also grabbed heavy weight The American Heritage dictionary which adds an interesting description to people of the Middle East – ferocious: extremely savage. But why? Because Justin Raimondo says that Ms. Naamas " apparently has not lost that Middle Eastern ferocity that is so frightening, and alien, to the American mind."
Today, the Middle East is mainly Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and may be Iran. We could disagree on which country belongs to the Middle East or not, but we should not disagree that a statement by a twenty something Iraqi woman is not The Middle East! Her statement is not even Iraq! Iraqis are not known throughout history to be ferocious. They are known to be troublemakers to their rulers. They are known to be undependable fighters as a nation-state. This fact was first mentioned by the fifth Caliph, Moawia, in the dawn of Islam when he advised his son not to depend on the Iraqi armies, and to rely instead on the Syrians. By the time of the Eighth Caliph Abdul Malik Bin Marwan, no governor could be found to accept the Iraqi province – all attempts failed to effectively rule Iraq or to satisfy the Iraqis. Then the legacy of the Iraqi suffering started when AlHajaj moved forward and promised to put an end to this troubled province. His methods – as all violence – worked in the short run.
About fourteen hundred years later another ruler came and used similar methods to Alhajaj's. His methods succeeded in controlling Iraq, but they broke their souls.
The Iraqis are not ferocious people, but some of their leaders through out history used "ferocity" to deal with their trouble-making nature. The statement made by Ms. Naamas that there should be "Thousands of executions" does not reflect her opinion as much as it reflects the future policy of the would-be government out of Iraqi opposition of which, apparently, she is – one way or another – one.
Though I've described the Iraqis as undependable fighters – in a historical context – there has been a time when Iraq was the center of the world, and the Iraqis spread knowledge and civilization all over the world. Remember that Iraq is the cradle of civilization. But Iraq became the peak of civilization during the Abbasids, and in particular for fifty years during the reign of Haroun Alrashid (which has nothing to do with the stories of Thousand Nights).
Still Iraqis are not known to be good fighters and not even good defenders of their country. Their role as world leader ended when the Mongols swept Iraq, destroyed Baghdad, and threw all Baghdad libraries' books into the Tigris river. The Iraqis did not seriously resist the Moguls. In fact they were so passive to the extent that a Mogul would ask Iraqis to wait for him until he sharpens his sword or replace it and would come back to find his captives waiting to be slaughtered.
It was the Egyptians who defeated the Mongols in Ein Jalot in Greater Syria (bilad Al Sham) and rid the world of their evils.
Iraq's current ruler understood these Iraqis' traits but failed to effectively respond to their nature. He followed the steps of Alhajaj, with one major difference: Alhajaj knew when to stop and had the Caliph watching him and sometimes threatening him to curb his excesses or else. Saddam is alleged to have said that Iraqis knew that their land was occupied by England after it withdrew. Saddam even warned them not to repeat their passivity during the Mongol invasion. Whatever resistance put forth by the Iraqis recently is not only surprising to the US and company, but to many others who are aware of their passivity!
The Iraqi people could never be described as ferocious. They do not even know how to defend themselves. Ferocity is only exercised by some of their leaders to ineptly control their will, but end up breaking their souls.
Syria and Egypt, were restless during the French and British occupation and did not quit fighting until the last soldier left. But that was the end of the story as neither felt the need to take revenge afterwards in any way!
After independence there was only attempts to reunite, hardly a ferocious act. But only a ferocious attack on one of these two countries in the magnitude of the Mongol invasion or the Crusade would provide the catalysis for such unity. Though no one in the Middle East wish for a US invasion of Syria, but if it must be, then let it be this catalyst. That's all to it!
Raimondo gives another example of the ferocity he is talking about, describing it as "these passions visited us once before, on 9/11." Of course he is referring To the fringe group of Bin Laden. I will not go into the argument of why this fringe group did what they did or who is behind them – their 9/11 aggression is not justifiable! Instead I'll admit that they are ferocious. In fact Kadafi, president of Libya, correctly described them as normal people who fought the USSR invasion of Afghanistan but came back as vicious dogs. Bin Laden and most of his followers went to Afghanistan before maturity. They matured on war philosophy. They developed a fixation on war. People with fixation on war as the ultimate solution to whatever are like a person with a fixation on socks who enters a clothing shop to buy lots of socks ignoring the fact that the rest of his body is naked (usually I say his/her, but not this time).
This phenomenon is documented to have been common among Vietnam veterans because most of them went to the war while under twenty. Maturity age may differ from generation to generation, but I like the age specified by the old man in the cafe in My Life To Live (Vivre sa Vie, directed by Godard).
The old man told Anna Karina that only when she is 21 she'll know what she wants: maturity. It's no wonder that the armed forces of most countries and Bin Laden always recruit people under 21: they don't know what they want.
Those who retire from an armed conflict at a young age cannot usually cope with civil life afterwards. They either suffer psychologically or indulge in another conflict. In the case of Vietnam veterans, most of them failed to cope with their wives, children, and superiors at work. Many suppressed their traumatic feelings inside for years only to explode unexpectedly later in life. Bin Laden apparently managed to involve his comrades in another conflict, the 9/11.
No, people of the Middle East are not ferocious, nor they can afford to be one. Due to their strategic position in the Middle of the world, they are continuously subject to invaders. Almost every nation has invaded the Middle East in the last thousand years. It would be too much to hate all these invaders and be ferocious. Instead, Syria and Egypt defeated the crusaders and purged them out of greater Syria (Palestine, Lebanon and Current Syria) without massacring the crusaders in retaliation to the massacres committed when they arrived from Europe and seized Jerusalem and other cities. In fact The Syrians and the Egyptians treated the retreating crusaders with utmost civility except for few individuals who were executed for war crimes. Also Syria and Egypt stopped the advancing Mongols, defeated them and sent them back to where they came from, but did not wipe them out though they could have done so. The Mongols embraced Islam and became their brethren in religion.
Will the Middle East become ferocious this time in the face of the US and company invasion? Most likely not, although US and company are working hard on it, very hard indeed. But harder are the principles which shaped the Middle East throughout history. The Middle East is built on a solid foundation of almost utopian principles that respect humanity, do not believe in mass retribution, and most important it views itself as a morality leader from which the world learns.
I said almost utopian principles because the Middle East is not hospitable to invaders. But unlike the fringe group of Bin Laden, the Middle East will observe the rules of engagement while defending their land. Such rules of engagement are well documented to be the most humane in theory as well as in practice.
Another reason why people from the Middle East cannot afford to be ferocious is that the world became smaller. Although countries nowadays have more guarded and definite borders than ever before, migration movements have never been stronger. Middle Eastern people are one of the most mobile in the world, and they tend to adjust quicker than others to their new home.
Though many Iraqis and others from the Middle East living in the US might be bitter for what the US and company are doing to their original home, they view the US as their home as well – it's a fringe group in the new home destroying their old home in order to rebuild it! In this Internet and satellite age people of and from the Middle East are becoming increasingly aware that Americans themselves are victims to many things, which are beyond this discussion.
Justin Raimondo replies:
I might have known that my comments on the ferocity of Middle Eastern political culture would prove provocative. Political correctness dictates that we assume all cultures are, at base, essentially the same. But I challenge anyone to come up with an American equivalent of suicide bombers. I also challenge anyone to point to an American example of the kind of religious exclusivism on which the state of Israel was founded. The whole region is pulsating with religious frenzy of the sort that can only end in a volcanic eruption of violence.
Look, for example, at the recent shoot-out that ended in the death of those two Iraqi mullahs and a four-hour shoot-out. And this was a meeting that was supposed to bring about "reconciliation"! Fat chance!
Fanaticism is inherently dangerous, and violent: religious fanatics are the worst. This accounts for the ferocity – there's that word again! – of the religious wars now wracking the Middle East. Like the Hundred Years War that pitted Protestant against Catholic, what Norman Podhoretz and Elliot Cohen call "World War IV" will have an equally debilitating effect on civilization – unless we act to stop it now.
In arguing that democracy cannot be imported to the Middle East by force, and by pointing to the cultural obstacles that such a project faces, I am not saying that it cannot evolve in a more enlightened direction – only that war will exacerbate the problem rather than correct it. A "democracy" in Iraq would catapult the worst elements into power, and that is undoubtedly true throughout the region. Culture always precedes politics, and the former cannot be coerced or legislated out of existence. For this reason, the neoconservative project to export democracy at gunpoint is a fool's errand.
Regarding "Just Another Staged Baghdad Rally?" by Ivan Eland:
I don't know if it was actually staged by the Pentagon, but I was watching the BBC when they first went over there (it's near the hotel where their reporters stay), and at first there was almost no one there but a crowd of journalists. Even by the end of it, there wasn't a large crowd. The BBC stayed live at that scene for about an hour and a half, before the statue was actually pulled down.
It occurred to me at the time that they were just waiting for some actual Iraqi people to show up to get this photo opportunity going.
Literally, there were maybe a handful of Iraqi guys to start with, and after a few minutes, one or two of them started trying to climb on the statue. My impression was that the journalists poured out of their hotel and went there to wait for someone to come and topple that statue – whether or not anyone consciously "staged" the event.
Just read the article by Ivan Eland. Thanks. So weird because a friend had brought me into the room to watch the news clip. He kept saying over and over that something was wrong with the picture. Where were all the people? Why was such a scraggly group struggling around with such a crummy statue in the city of five or six million. Where were all the people with flowers and bread like when the Americans liberated Paris? He's really smart and logical, so I guess Bush isn't fooling everyone. He didn't fool you either. Let's hope there are lots of others too. Remember when the Soviets took pictures of the lines for Star Wars and printed them in the news as food lines in the US? We're back in the USSR.
I think it was very clear even from the video that it was just a "small" group of angry men there – I never believed it stretched farther than the immediate crowd. And you say it was staged? Give me a break. Cameras from several news organizations were there – were they in on it too with the military? Please.
And YES the Bush administration badly needs these photos because this is a propaganda war that WE are fighting and pictures are the only defense to the hundreds of Middle Eastern newscasts that only show pictures of bombs going off – rarely do they provide depth to the news and information. Those news organizations are using that footage to incite their viewers and the only way to fight that (since we can't go take over the world's news agencies) is to obtain and show pictures that show the OTHER SIDE of the news story the does exist.
Amazing that you government conspiracy freaks still find a way to place all blame on the government. Having worked in news long enough, I can tell you that we would stage the event (hype the event ) before the gov't would. Blame the true "conspirators" which is the media. The gov't doesn't have to do it because the media does it for them.
Your photo shows nothing to me and your accusations are still unfounded. Give me proof that an army general actually paid people to protest and pull Saddam down in the square, and then you've actually got some facts to work with. Better yet, find an actual executive branch employee doing that and I'll help your cause, because THAT would be news and that would be dishonest on the part of our government.
~ Jessica Farley, Communications Instructor, Delaware Technical and Community College
Something like five tanks could "guard" this event but they couldn't spare one or two to guard the museum! Thank you for the insight.
~ Ethel MacDonald, Missoula, Montana
Regarding Tammy U.'s letter posted April 13:
Tammy invites those who disagree that soldiers in Iraq "serve so that we may live" to email her. I did, and asked her to tell me why we are at war (since she didn't say so in her email, but only complained that you don't print such letters). I was disappointed that she was unable to serve up a coherent point backed by real evidence. She claims that her son is in military intelligence, and has told her that Iraq is a threat to us, and she believes him. For the rest of us, we are supposed to trust our leaders, because they have more information than us.
When I listed some previous duplicity on the part of leaders (the Gulf of Tonkin, the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the incubator-stealing stories for Gulf War I) as reason to distrust our leaders, she told me to "move to another country", told me that people like me were responsible for killing 3,500 people on September 11th, and signed off "later killer". ...
Regarding Rod Sexton's letter posted April 13:
The Russians gave us the Cold War? Interesting. The fact that Truman and Churchill were already discussing the possibility of threatening Russia into submission with atomic bombs at the very end of World War II of course never comes into play here. Spying? Makes me think of the time Nixon had his personal plane outfitted with spy equipment when he went to the USSR.
Can't pass up a good opportunity, you know. And well, what about the Cold War itself? Is it the satellite states and expansionism that draws your ire? Those were initially designed to prevent an occasion like the time Hitler took the USSR by surprise in the event that someone else were to try and suddenly attack Russia. But hey, you know, no one can claim the moral high ground as far as pulling the strings of helpless little countries goes. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iraq, Panama, Afghanistan – these things make anything come to mind? And as to that bit about praise by the "liberal" media – sir, the Russians were demonized for decades in the American media. Yes, Yeltsin was the West's media darling for awhile, mainly because he was supposed to bring the free market and capitalism to Russia. Too bad that what he did led to ruinous theft several orders of magnitude greater than what happened at Enron, eh?
Now, how about those French? So there's only three great Frenchmen, eh? Interesting. I'd like to yell "Lafayette!" until it gets through, but there's so much more, anywhere you look. Literature? You've got Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Maupassant, Flaubert, Stendhal, and a great many more. Science? Try Curie, Fourier, Cauchy, Hermite. (And where would we all be without Pasteurization, eh?) The arts? Paris was the artistic capital of the world for decades. You get the idea. And above all, they make good wine. So yeah, I love France. If I didn't love my country the United States even more, despite the fact that it has just started an unprovoked and unconstitutional war, I probably would move to France, but I do, so I won't.
Let us continue. "Socialists"? That's quickly become the newest third rail of discourse – just as cheap and easy as a Hitler comparison. But as to the United States of Europe thing (good moniker, by the way) – well, what do you expect? They're consolidating their power so that they can remain competitive and independent, just like any number of businesses would do if faced with a powerful competitor. What would you have them do instead? Continue their dependence?
And then there's the United Nations. It's kind of odd that you would have such hostility towards an organization that often has functioned as a rubber stamp for American interests (and when it doesn't, there's always the very-often-exercised American veto). So the Korean War is suddenly the fault of the UN? Interesting. The North Koreans were attacking South Korea, where many American troops were stationed. It was most certainly in America's interests to fight them off, and the UN gave its full support to that. Had they not have done so, you would be castigating them for hating America and fighting American interests. Desert Storm? The first Gulf War? So you're saying we were dragged into that against our will or something? Then why did we spend the previous decade intervening in that region, installing a tinpot dictator (Hussein), arming him with chemical weapons that he used against Iran, and generally messing about, if we were just innocent bystanders who were "forced" by the UN to fight there later? In fact, why'd we support so many tyrants and communists, exactly? What were we doing training Osama bin Laden? supporting the military government of El Salvador? supporting one tyrant in his rise to power in the Middle East and another in Cuba? Did that ungrateful world owe us thanks for all of that, too?
But let's get to the last bit. Should we be in the United Nations, or should we leave it? This is a perfectly legitimate question that is up for debate. However, in the issue at hand, it is irrelevant, because we didn't leave it and in fact Bush promised to go to the UN for a vote (which turned out to be a lie). That means that the UN Charter is a treaty entered into by our government, and that means that we are obligated to abide by it by our Constitution.
And lastly, at the time of September 11th, America had the sympathy of practically every country in the world. (Jacques Chirac was actually, I think, the first foreign leader to show up at ground zero to demonstrate his sympathy and support.) The world was behind us when we went into Afghanistan, and we actually had evidence against the guy we were going after. It was only later, as the chickenhawks' hubris and greed led them to manufacture the issue of Iraq out of thin air, present lies and forgeries as evidence to support their pet war, and alienate all of those initially very supportive countries, that we found ourselves in a state of diplomatic isolation.
So, the victim complex, alas, has no basis in reality.
To read Rod Sexton's letter is to see why many people have great problems with the USA. He says he is no history buff and it certainly shows. World history did not begin in 1776 – nor will it cease if USA was wiped of the map tomorrow.
I suggest Rod reads some books about world history. Copernicus proved many centuries ago that earth was not the centre of the universe. Ergo USA cannot be centre of universe. Hopefully Rod will be able to vent his frustration when he discovers this without shooting too many civilians. ...
Regarding Deward Hastings letter posted April 13:
Yes, America has gone fascist, as Deward Hastings pointed out, commenting on "Has America Gone Commie?" by Christopher Deliso. In fact, the US has been steadily sliding down that slippery, if not deadly slope of totalitarianism and the wiles of the Police State for more than half of the last century, through that economic, political and social system of the mother of all scapegoating systems, the War on Drug users. For an excellent yet profoundly disturbing analysis on how the War on Drugs has achieved this lofty enterprise of state-sanctioned tyranny, this book – Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State by Richard Lawrence Miller – reveals much!
Regarding "Phase Two Begins" by Justin Raimondo:
Thank you for mentioning in "Phase Two Begins" (as few journalists ever do) that dispensationalist Christians (or whatever else one calls them), constitute a heretical sect. I am sure you carefully selected the rather tame link to Christianity Today (just barely skeptical, and Baptist-authored) for its fast-paced but fairly detailed overview of this modern politico-religious movement. The link failed completely, however, to address the tragic heresies in question, which requires exposing their direct opposition to historical orthodox Christian teaching.
It seems that traditional Christians of many jurisdictions are not up to speed on this matter, leaving them unable to discern, much less object to, the falsehoods of this nineteenth-century nonsense. For starters, I suggest that interested readers examine the following online Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Christian comments: "Presbyterian Church USA: What Presbyterians Believe About the End of the World" "Petersnet.net: LaHaying The Rapture On Thick," and "Orthodox Church in America, Diocese of the South: What is 'The Rapture?'."
The meatier print world includes a Conservative Reformed (Presbyterian Church in America) critique in Gary DeMar's End Times Fiction: A Biblical Consideration of the Left Behind Theology (2001). For Roman Catholics, there are Paul Thigpen's The Rapture Trap, A Catholic Response to "End Times" Fever (2001), as well as Carl Olson's Will Catholics be Left Behind: A Critique of the Rapture and Today's Prophecy Preachers (2003). Last, but not least, Orthodox Christian T.L. Frazier's A Second Look at the Second Coming; Sorting Through the Speculations (1999) includes a thoughtful chapter on the sad state of affairs sometimes referred to as Christian Zionism.
~ Thomas J. Wiswell, Jacksonville, Florida
I loved your article. It was very insightful, and I loved the frequent links to help support your case. Great job! Heck, I'll donate some money right now!
I think Hussein sealed his fate when he decided to sell Iraqi oil in terms of Euros instead of dollars and encouraged other Oil Exporting countries to do the same. I also think it is more than just a coincidence that the other country on the Neocon's hitlist, Iran, does not sell there oil in terms of dollars. If oil was ever priced in terms of another currency, say Euros, it would threaten the status of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, and destroy the ability of the Washington Politicians to finance their big spending programs by printing dollars. There is no doubt the Israel Lobby played a large role in the war against Iraq, however I think dollar imperialism also played a major role in this war. The true proxy war for Israel will be the future war with Syria.
Justin, great article. I am, by the way, a deeply committed antiwar activist who has spent most of the past 2 months picketing overpasses, schools and churches, mostly alone or with a handful of others when lucky.
However I think there is a logical flaw in your essay.
You say the Israelis benefit from the US invasion of Iraq, and that's plausible enough, superficially. And its easy to see, the Israel lobby in the US blatantly influencing our elections and our legislative process for goals that are adverse to the interests of the United States.
In the short run Israel perhaps does benefit but those are not short-term kinds of folks. Most of the intellectual leadership of Israel are long-term oriented. And, any idiot can see that it's more practical to work towards a rule of law than the kinds of naked forced applied by Bush.
Your mistake is to see "purpose" in the Bush administration actions when actually, the most that can be done is understand the causes and mechanisms that resulted in Bush gaining control of the White House (and no less significant, the Killing and Murdering faction of the Republican party gaining control of both houses of congress. )
There were coalitions of many thousands of mostly bad men, just as Michael Moore describes, men who used their positions of control of companies and their directorships of institutional funds, to coerce the outcome of the election, each, for their own corrupt ends. Corrupt in their private decisions to impose their will on the American people without accountability, without disclosure, illegitimately.
The resultant vector of all those corrupt intentions and goals, is the Republican party and that, in itself, has no grand purpose of the kinds you imagine. It is a juggernaut beyond human control, for the most part and today in 2003 it is coercing the 2004 elections even as we speak.
I am what you call a heretical dispensationalists, who is against this war, and I also enjoy your columns. There are prominent people who pretend to speak for all dispensationalists, and I believe this is why you lump us all together. A very strong case can be made that this war will make Israel less secure. However, the reason I oppose this war and all wars is that I believe that most politicians are liars and cannot be trusted. In addition, the economy always suffers due to war.
Just wanted you to know that even though you call me a heretic, I agree with you, and I know other dispensationalists who do too. Thanks for your columns.
I read Antiwar.com regularly. Good stuff. And I am content to let people oppose unjust war for reasons of their own choosing in virtually all cases, I think. ...
For you to put Michael Moore up there was too much. Yeah he opposes the U.S. going into Iraq to disarm it. But he supports, implicitly, sending the Federal BATF into my home to disarm me and my family. After all me and mine are such a threat he had to make a "documentary" to attack my culture of gun-owning individualists.
He completely missed it. Charlton Heston supported the Gun Control Act of 1968. The revolution at NRA was. The NRA was founded in 1871 by disgruntled Yankee Colonels and Generals to suck subsidies off of state and federal governments to run shooting competitions. The were unhappy that the "rebs" had shot their pants off in the late unpleasantness. Thus they were seeking to empower the resources of the centralized state, and pick up a few baubles for themselves. The NRA has had a hand in most, if not all, of the federal gun control legislation that has been enacted. Either they took a walk and didn't fight it, or they helped craft it.
Back to Moore. The guy is a creep. I've come to the point where I won't have anything to do with most of the so-called "antiwar" left. These big government lefties are merely arguing with the Neocons about what kind of violence and aggression to commit and upon whom they are willing to commit it.
CounterPunch may be an exception. ...
In his use of the term "heretical sect of dispensationalist Christians" Raimondo finally nails the fact – unlike most of those who oppose this lust for war and assume all of us in the so called Christian Right are naturally on board with Dubya. I'm stating that a doctrinal correct Christian cannot support this war – some do. But not for the same reasons as the dispensationalist bunch.
The "heretical sect" is just that – and sadly, so very typical of Americans who cannot grasp any concept that is more than a few days or few years old. This "heresy" is relatively new to Christianity (no more than a couple hundred years old) and has nothing to do with the historical verities of the faith – neither reformation nor Catholic. It is more typical of those St. Paul warned us about – who go off chasing every wind of doctrine. Or doctrine of wind!
A careful reading of scripture suggests that it requires rather a lot of acrobatics and out of context quotations to suggest that we are somehow required by our faith to support the nation of Israel. Particularly with arms.
The saddest part of all this is the obvious – is the God of Christianity (and True God in this writer's opinion) so small that He cannot maintain the tiny state of Israel – if that truly is His will? Perhaps He is that small in the eyes of some. We lost the Cold War when we trivialized God and took on the ways of our enemies, doubting God's ability to see us through – now we trivialize Him again by suggesting that George Bush is His new prophet.
It is fortunate that we are saved by Grace. Once again the Christian community has failed in the "works" department.
Regarding "King George Returns" by Justin Raimondo:
What I want to know is – is there anything any of us ordinary Americans can do to stop this ridiculous "preemptive", "war is peace" mentality? I am feeling powerless, even though I live in the great land of the "free". Protests do nothing, really. Elections seem to go to those with the most money, biggest name, or with connections to those on the supreme court. I used to be so proud of this country and now I don't even recognize it. Can anybody help me with this?
In point of fact, the US empire did replace the British empire – this process ran from World War I through the inter-war years and was finalized with World War II, and was more than a mere replacement in any event since it was of much greater scale and – more importantly – of very different form.
Rather than direct rule, it was indirect via such 'improvements' as the conscious formation of comprador classes in the ruled nations; rather than of necessity maintaining colonial administrators from the center as did the Brits, we relied upon the elites of the various nations and when required assisted with the coercion needed to 'keep the masses in their proper place'.
We instituted a substantially more efficient and global regime of neocolonialism. This regime has been in process of failing for decades, is not disconnected from long run and global economic crisis, hence the turning, the regressing, to something more recognizable as empire; something more appropriately termed barbarism. 'Merely' a shifting from the more covert to the overt, a change of form indicative of and contributing not to arisal but sharper decline. 'Merely' a forced unmasking The neocons intuit part of this but drunk on ideology fully fail to grasp the consequences. Theirs are thoughts not thought through. Neither the US nor any other centralized government can conquer and plan the world without finishing off exactly the capital system that it must seek to perpetuate.
Regarding "Iraqi Pandora" by Justin Raimondo:
The following statement in the story "New Tests See No Chemical Weapons" (MSNBC) caught my attention: "Samples from the sites investigated Monday were being sent to the United States for more definitive tests."
I don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut or anything, but what is there to prevent someone in the Bush administration from ordering that the samples be doctored in order to ensure a favorable result?
Food for thought.
US/Saddam Deal?
It has become apparent that some sort of deal between the US and Saddam Hussein was arranged to provide Saddam and his family and closest supporters the chance to flee Baghdad in exchange for the end of resistance in the city.
Remember, about 10 days ago there was a report of the US military calling for a halt in the advance on Baghdad, while at the same time Condoleeza Rice, who took Tony Lakes job at the NSC, was in Moscow on unnamed business.
Shortly thereafter, the top leadership in Baghdad disappeared, the armed resistance in Baghdad began to crumble and shortly fell apart completely. Militarily, the western press was full of stories about the problems the US was facing and how much more resistance was being met than expected. Um Qussar, Basra, etc., were all continuing to resist in spite of being defended by militia and irregular forces.
The fight for Baghdad was going to be slow, bloody and extremely destabilizing in the Arab world. Both Saddam, to save his ass, and the US, desired an immediate end to the Baghdad problem and what we see now is the result.
This scenario is being widely reported in the Arab world and it makes to much sense to be written off.
Saddam got his start being backed by the CIA in the 1960s for his anti-communist stance in the Baath Party, as did Bin Laden in Afghanistan. That Saddam would turn out to be a coward and flee his country should be no surprise.
Rally
A couple of weeks ago I sent you a letter regarding the only two arguments that the public is hearing about the war. I think that the public desperately needs to hear your arguments before the situation in the middle east escalates. Antiwar.com did a clever thing by creating a website at which Americans can access vital information about the war. However, the average American tunes into the news about 15 minutes at a time to get their news from a bunch of cheerleaders in disguise as journalists.
Many Americans also get their news when commuting to and from work via talk radio, where they are being fed a bunch of feel-good propaganda. The radio hosts and T.V. journalists on FOX find it incredibly easy to tear apart the arguments of the left-wing idiots who hate America. Thus, it is not surprising that the majority of Americans reject the arguments of the Left, rightfully so. Being that most Americans do not research political topics on the Internet, we have to find a way to get our arguments out in the public view. We must make Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and your humble correspondent Bill O'Reilly deal with OUR arguments. You ever thought of holding a rally composing of libertarians and conservatives? I know things like that cost money but it would give us some needed publicity. More publicity would come at a cost, though. Watch out, here comes Bill Bennett and his AVOT (Americans for Victory Over Thebillofrights) saying that we are undermining the war against terror!
~ Michael S., San Bernardino, California
Regarding Sam Koritz's reply to Curt R.'s letter posted April 12:
...Let's do a review of history, we got involved in World War II with Japan because they did attack Pearl Harbor, that was outright a declaration of war.
Germany had intelligence showing that our ships may, or may not have been carrying supplies. They informed us that no more ships would have clear passage, but we did have options: (1) Allow German soldiers to board and search luxury liners, or (2) transfer passenger using go-between ships. We declined both offers and continued with our sailing, they in turn sunk our ships bringing us into World War II. WE viewed that has a declaration of war, but later plans when Hitler's villa was captured showed he had not intended for us, the United States, to fight him yet, his plans were to secure Europe, then fight us, on our shores. THE GOVERNMENT DOES LIE about a lot of wars. We would have had to fight World War II, but never should have fought Vietnam, that was warmongers abusing troops. ...
WMD
We are at war in Iraq because Congress authorized it back in October, and the President decided that the conditions set by Congress were met. (Formally declaring war seems to have gone out of style since World War II – perhaps it is the first attribute of the nation-state system that is withering away.)
Congress authorized the President to use force to enforce the U.N. Security Council's resolution 1441 because they believed the administration's case that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that America and American interests were in danger, both directly and indirectly.
Whether Congress should have believed the administration will be revealed over the coming weeks and months. In any case, it was a political masterstroke that the administration maneuvered Congress into voting on the authorization just before November: The prospect of an election concentrates a politician's mind wonderfully. (Pesky things, elections; one wonders how the votes would have been cast in January, without the politicians' fears of the voters' fears – or their valid concerns, depending on your viewpoint.)
We did not go to war for the specific purpose of liberating the Iraqi people from a dictator. Liberation from dictatorship is generally a collateral benefit of American victory – because only dictatorships are foolish enough to get our attention by hurting or threatening us or our friends. Lots of countries around the world have dictators who oppress their people terribly (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, half of Africa, etc.), and we haven't sent US troops in to change their regimes. It's sad to see those people suffering, but American parents let their sons and daughters join the armed services to defend this country's interests, not to be used as enforcers for somebody else's ideas of the way things ought to be: We are not the world's human rights cop. A sober truth is that a dictator can do anything he wants to his own people, but that is not enough reason for America to invade. (Example: North Korea. Kim Jong Il could have kept on starving his people till hell froze over, and all we'd have done would have been to talk about it and send over more food aid. But then he started building nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and now he's got our attention – recall the rattlesnake flag of the American Revolution: Don't Tread On Me. Let's hope someone can convince him that nukes and missiles are not conducive to his longevity.)
We also did not go to war to seize control of Iraq's oil. We don't need their oil: Their production hasn't been much the past few years, and the world has gotten along just fine. Japan went to war for oil in 1941, but seizing some country's oil won't fly with the US Congress as a justification for war: There are too many other sources. Still the protesters cry "No blood for oil!" The same cry was raised back in 1990-91: As I recall, we drove Saddam's army out, restored the Kuwaiti government, and resumed paying the market price for Kuwaiti oil. The same will happen with Iraq and its oil (new government, though).
~ Fred Weber