Month: December 2007

Ron Paul is the only non-Armageddon presidential candidate among the Republicans.  He is the only person who staunchly opposes a massive first strike against Iran because of  its alleged nuclear program.  He has long been ridiculed for his aversion to preemptive genocide in the Middle East.

The National Intelligence Estimate yesterday reported that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.  This blows to pieces the Bush-Neoconservative case for war.

Bush knew this for at least the last 5 or 6 months, but he continued rattling his missiles and warning of World War III if Iran did not kowtow to U.S. demands.   Cheney has been even more bloodthirsty, as usual. 

Top Bush supporters like Norman Podhoretz are wailing that the intelligence agencies are cheating them out of another U.S. government-orchestrated slaughter of Muslims.  Not exactly “Presidential Medal” Podhoretz’s words, but that’s the soul of the complaint.

In the Fall of 2002, Ron Paul stood almost alone denouncing the “phantom weapons” claims the Bush team was invoking to attack Iraq.   Once again, he has been proven right.

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/aw20071204raymcgovern.mp3]

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses the CIA’s new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, his belief that Adm. Fallon probably convinced Adm. McConnell to release it after Cheney kept it from being put out for the last year, ElBaradei’s reports that he’d found no “indication” that Iran, the value of the Charles Goyette show, the president’s lowered threshold for war, Sen. Webb’s bill reminding Bush that he has no authority to start a war and administration claims that Iran is behind the killing of U.S. troops in Iraq.

MP3 here. (16:19)

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years – from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush. He is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

The great Robert Higgs, author of many books and classic articles on political economy, and longtime opponent of the U.S. government’s policy of imperial war, will be speaking at the Independent Institute in Oakland, CA, this Thursday, December 6. The reception is at 6:30 and the talk begins at 7. There will be Q and A and a book signing.

In light of his recent book, Neither Liberty Nor Safety, the Higgs presentation will be called “Why Are Politicians Always Trying to Scare Us?” Antiwar.com readers would also be interested in his book, Resurgence of the Warfare State.

Every day, politicians, the media, and interest groups warn of imminent “crises” and “emergencies” which they claim only government can solve by wielding massive new powers. Too often, such purported crises — particularly in the realm of foreign policy — are later proven to have been exaggerated, erroneous or even fabricated. However, such knowledge usually comes well after the new harms created by the government’s “crisis” programs have taken their toll. Higgs has long stood up against the fearmongering warfare state, and has done so with the highest level of scholarship and dedication to principle.

If you’re in the Bay Area, you won’t want to miss it!

So Sudan’s president pardoned the teacher convicted of doing, well, nothing. She spent about a week in jail. Meanwhile…

Jonah Goldberg, whose still unreleased masterpiece Liberal Fascism now has its least moronic working subtitle yet, has posted what is already being hailed as the “Best. Update. Ever.” Oh my, how will Ron Paul’s acolytes ever respond to Evelyn Waugh’s defense of (wait for it, wait for it) fascism?

National Review‘s Kathryn Jean Lopez explains Thomas Smith’s false reporting from Lebanon:

That’s why I wrote, in my first editor’s note on the subject, that we “should have provided readers with more context and caveats” – the context that Smith was operating in an uncertain environment where he couldn’t always be sure of what he was witnessing, and the caveats that he filled in the gaps by talking to sources within the Cedar Revolution movement and the Lebanese national-security apparatus, whose claims obviously should have been been treated with the same degree of skepticism as those of anyone with an agenda to advance.

As one of our sources put it: “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.”

One question: will we be allowed to quote this back to the neocons the next time they cite their buddies in Beirut regarding Syrian perfidy, or will they call us racists?