I responded to a post by Justin Logan in which he says, “…the problems with antiwar.com are many,” by asking such as? He answers in the comment thread here, and my reply is below the jump on this post, because Justin’s blog apparently does not allow HTML in its comments and I need linkage.
I read Preble’s statement the same way Justin Raimondo does:
“If Iraqis wish to retain their sovereignty and independence, they must ensure that al-Qaeda and other anti-American terrorist groups do not establish a safe haven in their country. Accordingly, the withdrawal of U.S. forces must be coupled with a clear and unequivocal message to the new government of Iraq: do not threaten us or allow foreign terrorists in your country to threaten us. If you do, we will be back.”
Your reduction of that statement to “the U.S. will attack any threats to the U.S. that emerge in a post-war Iraq” is either disengenuous or ill-informed. Raimondo is saying that last time they attacked Iraq all it took was….”some Chalabi-esque character com[ing] up with “intelligence” that links Iraq to “weapons of mass destruction.” Déjà vu? Isn’t that how it was? What’s nuts about that? If you think that’s nuts, you’ll really get sandbagged by the pending Iran attack, for which some Chalabi-esque characters are already creeping out of their rat-holes to give witness for whatever the rationale for that invasion turns out to be.
Why would anyone who knows how the Iraq invasion happened this time not see Preble’s threat as putting the Iraqis in a hopeless position of trying to prove there are no terrorists in Iraq? We saw how proving that there were no WMDs turned out. All the next Bush would need is a new Chalabi to fulfill the threat so handily articulated for them by CATO.
As for the Yuschenko thing, there was evidence of typical meddling by the US gov in funding the Orange people, which you apparently would dismiss in favor of “a fruitful debate about how (or, I would submit, whether at all) U.S. taxpayer funds should be used in foreign elections and the perils and undesirability of NATO expansion.” That the US government’s use of funds coercively extorted from Americans to meddle in other countries might be a “subject for debate” for a libertarian is in itself astonishing and your assertion that antiwar.com’s “taking sides” stifled that debate is false – first because the “taking of sides” was all in your head and second because the debate over whether tax-payer funds should be used to meddle in foreign countries seems to be doing quite well no matter how loudly CATO dodges, panders, and equivocates on that question. Anytime you want to debate the merits of using taxpayer funds to empower the US’s meddling in other countries, I’m sure antiwar.com will gladly defend the NO position from libertarian principle.
Your characterization of the opinions expressed on AWC on the Ukraine elections (jihad, vicious) is telling, and this – “there was no “war” involved in Ukraine to be ‘anti’ “ – is a naive confession of misunderstanding the way the road to war is invariably prepared far in advance with propaganda.
Both the Y’s were loathsome politicians who merited no support from libertarians, even if libertarians were in favor of meddling in foreign affairs. As Ron Paul put it, “I do not think we should be supporting either of the candidates. While I am certainly no supporter of Viktor Yushchenko, I am not a supporter of his opponent, Viktor Yanukovich, either. Simply, it is none of our business who the Ukrainian people select to be their president.” I know the FReep types, Bush cultists and neocons lined up behind Yuschenko, so there must be something extra-loathsome about him, but I don’t care enough at this point to find out what it is. What did surprise me was that anyone who tried to question how credulous a person would have to be to believe the Twilight-zone poison story were accused of “Supporting Yanukovich.” This came even from nominal libertarians, who one would think would take into account the well-known professed anti-interventionist libertarian opinions of the people to whom they were trying to tack this lame accusation. Honesty in debate is clearly of no value to them.
Your description of one of these politicians as “the good guy in what seemed to me to be a pretty clear cut dichotomy” speaks volumes. Libertarians with an understanding of the nature of the state cringe at such simplistic statist analysis. I’d like to hear you tell Rothbard all about who the “good guy” was in the Ukrainian election.
As for BHHRG, once again I am astonished that a libertarian would advance a shabby argument like this: “….the trickery about the “Helsinki” human rights organization that isn’t…” What is that supposed to mean? What do you know about BHHRG? Daniel McAdams has this to say about “shorthand” foreign policy analysts:
So, it is easy to attack using shorthand and limited information. It is a lot more difficult — and not very well-paid — to take the effort to seek the truth in these faraway places rather than to just consider them playgrounds for our own amusement. Most Beltway types would never sign up for such unglamorous duty.
Finally, what is most telling about critics of organizations like the British Helsinki Group is the hypocrisy at the core of their attack. Anyone familiar with the intent of the 1977 Helsinki Accords understands that autonomous civic organizations were to be created to monitor the adherence of signatory countries to the agreement. The whole point of the NGO sector, and particularly where the Helsinki Accords are concerned, is to have organizations completely outside the control of the state to monitor the state. But, we certainly cannot have that, can we? So what do we get? The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as the official Helsinki body — an organization with many cut-out NGOs and member organizations, including ones like the International Helsinki Federation, who share the fact that they are all entirely funded by member states. These plush and well-funded organizations are then expected to criticize the very governments who pay their salaries. So when an organization comes on the scene that rejects this corrupt arrangement and refuses all government money, whose members do not receive the enormous OSCE salaries but are in fact, as I was, volunteers, they are attacked as being hopelessly biased. While government funded NGOs are touted as the paragons of impartiality.
If a libertarian has a critique of a private organization’s credibility up against the voices of bought and paid-for government funded NGO’s they’d better get their argument together before voicing it. Let’s see your evidence that BHHRG is a “”Helsinki” human rights organization that isn’t.” When you lay out your case, perhaps you’d be so kind as to include specific examples where BHHRG was wrong on the facts. Perhaps you could consult with this guy who cites them. [url=][/url]