Justin Raimondo

Debates can be fun, and feuds can be a blast if they’re done right. But I’m afraid my recent series of exchanges with National Review Online Editor Jonah Goldberg has degenerated into the kind of ugliness can only be properly answered with a left hook. Now I won’t play the innocent – that won’t work … Continue reading “Sex, Lies and the National Review”

The growing convergence between the ideological extremes of “right” and “left” has been noted, in this column and elsewhere; little noticed, however, has been a corollary development, the drawing in of the political center to a common position that dispenses with the traditional conception of polarized politics. While Pat Buchanan (on the “far” right) and … Continue reading “Clintonizing Intervention: ‘It’s for the Children’”

As Justin completes his upcoming book on Murray Rothbard, we present a Classic Raimondo piece from last year. October 18, 1999The web of lies woven by this Administration to cover up its crimes in the Balkans is so thick and crawling with vermin that it is virtually certain we won’t know the unvarnished truth for … Continue reading “Web of Lies: Will We Ever Know the Truth about the Chinese Embassy Bombing?”

This headline should set your alarm bells ringing: "Inquiry of Intelligence Failures Hits Obstacles." The effort to ferret out the truth from government officials is, predictably, like pulling teeth. But, in this case, the natural bureaucratic resistance to oversight is augmented by the reluctance of our legislators to probe too deeply. The much-vaunted congressional investigation … Continue reading “The Story of the Century”

It isn’t very often that we get to see the doctrine of global intervention expressed in its pristine pure form. Oh, there are a few examples: Joshua Muravchik’s book, Exporting Democracy, which hails the US military occupation of Germany and Japan as models for American foreign policy in the post-cold war era, is one, and … Continue reading “Invade Africa?–You First, Jonah!”

I am often asked what inspired me to help launch Antiwar.com, turn it into the focal point of anti-war activities on the Internet, and write literally hundreds of columns in a little over a year. I can only point to the picture hanging over my desk: a portrait of a man sitting at a typewriter … Continue reading “Murray M. Rothbard–An Enemy of the War Party”

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Saigon has been the occasion for a whole series of retrospectives, reassessments, and general all-around breast-beating, and everyone seems to be having a grand old time of it. The Left – or what passes for the Left in this post-Marxist era – is busy slapping itself on the … Continue reading “Vietnam War Revision on the Right”

War infects and weakens our republican form of government, spreads social and political diseases throughout the body politic – but is, as Randolph Bourne put it, “the health of the State.” The State, in wartime, is glorified and empowered: the militarization of society means that all resources are mobilized and placed at the disposal of … Continue reading “Tale of a ‘Seditionist’–The Lawrence Dennis Story”

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam war the airwaves are full of special programs, and the op-ed pages are packed to the gills with articles and symposia – all opining about the “lessons” of that conflict. Naturally, the New York Times takes this … Continue reading “Lessons of Vietnam–When Will They Ever Learn?”

From Miami to Mitrovica, from Ruby Ridge to Iraq, the US government propaganda machine is geared up to put the best “spin” on the violence at the core of its power. In the assault on Iraq, TV viewers in the West were entertained by the “Nintendo war” as American missiles launched from ships hundreds of … Continue reading “Propaganda Wars: from Miami to Mitrovica”