US “Democracy” in Iraq:
Within the past month, I have seen more and more stories that mention Iraqis being arrested for making anti-US or pro-Saddam statements. Most of these news items have been buried in other stories or appear as captions on news photos.
Today’s UK Mirror has an article about US troops arresting and gagging an Iraqi man for “making anti-coalition statements.”
Occupation Officials, angered and disappointed by their own hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council, let it be known that they are looking to dump the council.
Within hours of the release of this story, it was announced that US guards shot and killed the leader of the local Baghdad US-appointed Council, Muhammed Kaabi. American and Iraqi witnesses had differing versions of the shooting.
More stories are appearing about the US looking to dump the Council, but very few details have emerged so far about the shooting.
Within the past week, there has been a bunch of articles about the Pentagon’s announcement that they were trying to fill local draft boards.
Within the past 24 hours, the announcement has been pulled from the “Defend America” site run by the DOD. You can still view the Google cache of the page.
The removal follows strong denials from the White House regarding the selective service revival plans.
Long-time liberventionist Jack Wheeler identifies the connections between Murray Rothbard’s anti-interventionism and the new anti-interventionist right, which he calls “The Anti-American Right” in this article on Newsmax.
I often hear the argument that it is perfectly acceptable to build a wall to keep out your enemies. I have no problem with building a fence or wall on your property.
This story is a perfect example of why this is not that kind of fence. Israel has handed out confiscation notices to Palestinian homeowners in the northern Jordan Valley — the government needs their property to build a portion of the fence.
But the supporters of Israel’s expansionism dismiss the pleas of Palestinians that this is a land-grab. Far too often, property rights are ignored in Mideast policy debates. I would love to hear some of the liberventionists try to defend these actions.
