It’s funny, but your "Can China keep up the pace?" can apply word by word to the US.
The question in NOT whether can China keep up the pace, the REAL question for the 21 century is can the US keep up the pace of spending, spending money it doesn’t have?
The "middle class" in US is disappearing, being squeezed left and right. The ONLY reason the US is still in power is because the rest of the world is willing to buy oil for dollars. Once they wise up and change that little fact, the US will be in big big doo-doo.
Don’t worry about China, worry about the US.
Sascha Matuszak replies:
I am worried about the US. I love the country very much and it’s depressing to watch it go down the tubes. If only people could realize that history has us locked into a course that we do not need to follow – every empire resorts to unilateral, heedless force just before its demise.
Wouldn’t it be nice for the US to have a little Cultural Revolution of its own (less crazy, hopefully than China’s) and enlighten the world with a new prototype for "empire" instead of alienating the world with old style greed?
As for China, this country is also worrisome because a lot of the current developments mirror the West’s (i.e. US) road to First World Status. Another example of history being "pirated" with little regard for the end result.
Thank You
I am doing a report on the war against terrorism, so I’ve been to many antiwar sites for my paper. So far this is the best I’ve ever seen. The site is not "in your face!" propaganda, and its content is clean. I wish this was the only antiwar site, then more respect for people who believe in better ways would be given. Thank you.
~ Mark Minor
Executive Director Alexia Gilmore replies:
We were all really pleased to read your email – glad our site has helped you, and thanks for the very kind accolades! Especially thanks for voicing your thoughts about the site being fair and open (I’m interpreting here); we think this is essential to getting the antiwar message out in the ultimately most effective way.
Do you accept cash contributions or money orders? My wife and I are always fighting about the war and she really got pissed off when I donated to Lew Rockwell. I’m trying to find a way to donate she can’t find out about.
Eric Garris replies:
You may certainly make a money order or cash donation, although cash can be a bit risky via the mail. You can send either to:
Antiwar.com
1017 El Camino Real #306
Redwood City, CA 94063.
While as a Marxist I’m no great fan of Libertarians, I however do respect what you are doing and have done to oppose the actions of the U.S. imperialist war machine in Iraq, Yugoslavia, etc.
I’ve always argued that one of the best ways to oppose US imperialist war mongering is to support the antiwar forces in the US
Thus please accept my humble contribution of US$50 in support of your antiwar efforts.
Keep up the good work.
~ Charles F. Moreira, MALAYSIA
ANTIWAR OR ANTI-Israel? Do you have a agenda that you don’t tell about? I would like to know why you don’t write about the misery in Congo and only ISRAEL, ISRAEL, ISRAEL
Ran HaCohen replies:
I am sure that if my columns had served the pro-Israel propaganda, you wouldn’t have complained.
By the way, what have you done against the misery in Congo?
Richard Perle Supports Terrorism
To us Iranians who are waiting to liberate our country from your masters, terrorist mullahs, you are a sick terrorist collaborator and a sorry excuse for a human being. You should be charged by the international criminal court of justice for your blatant collaboration with the terrorist regime in Iran. And I, as an Iranian promise you when your terrorist friends in Iran are toppled, I will make it my life mission to do everything possible to make sure you are prosecuted along with your terrorist friends for crimes against Iranian people.
I am sure you know, and if you don’t you can search in history books, what happened to those reporters or writers that collaborated with Hitler and Nazis.
Their fate should be a lesson to you and other brain dead writers like you. You are nothing but a cheap puppet in the hands of terrorist mullahs in Iran and I am sure when they have no more use for you, they will throw you to the garbage can, where you belong.
I am appalled that Antiwar.com allows you to misuse its site by writing garbage articles.
Justin Raimondo replies:
That sounds like a threat to me. But it wasn’t for nothing that the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, which you support, was put on the US government’s official list of terrorist organizations.
I think you owe the Iranian people an apology. Please read the following article and tell me who you are supporting: "British politicians against expulsion of Iran’s Mujahedeen from Iraq."
Justin Raimondo replies:
I have gotten about a dozen of the same zombie-like letters, all reiterating the same garbage: if you don’t support the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, then you must support the mullahs.
No way, Jose – it doesn’t work that way. And you and your comrades don’t do your cause any good by writing letters that sound so alike in their robotic sameness. Ease up on the Kool-Aid.
Enola Gay, Just War, and Mass Murder
I found several flaws in the arguments in this article.
First of all, the author mentions that a soldier is a tool of their government, and should be required to give up their lives rather than risk harm to an enemy noncombatant. Aside from the fact that the majority of people in the world would find fault with this reasoning, there is a deeper logical flaw. First, if a soldier should be required to protect an enemy noncombatant, then logic would also dictate that any activity that protects third party noncombatants would also be justified. Remembering the atrocities that the Japanese committed in places like Burma, Philippines, China, and Singapore (among countless others), logic would seem to suggest that protecting these innocents should also be a high priority. As long as these citizens were being tortured, raped and murdered, then the US had an implied mandate to protect these people. As it takes very few soldiers to terrorize a very large civilian population, then it would seem to follow logically that causing an unconditional end to hostilities would be beneficial to all parties. As the author points out, the Japanese military became more desperate at the end of the war, and was more willing to commit acts that violated the accepted rules of war.
Secondly, the author seems to completely ignore the facets of Japanese society that differed from our Western culture. The Emperor was considered to be divine, and as a result, he was never wrong. The vast majority of people had never seen the Emperor or heard his voice. Given this, and the Japanese concept of honor being of greater importance than one’s life, it could be argued that only with a very dramatic display would the Japanese population even consider that the Emperor could be wrong. It is very likely that the citizenry would not have given up quickly, and that countless lives of both civilians and military would have been lost. The Japanese had begun training men women and children how to fight the invaders, in violation of the accepted rules of war. This would have been a bloody battle, and may not have ended without the death of the Emperor (which would have had a far more dramatic impact on the Japanese which is why he was left in power).
Finally, as the author chose to use an oversimplified analogy, I will do the same. If you were to play a game of Monopoly with someone, and they cheated at every turn, would you continue to follow the rules? I think not. Therefore, as soon as the Japanese began randomly raping and killing the “lesser Asians” in all the areas they controlled, as well as using the prisoners of war as slave labor and sword practice (not to mention medical experiments far in excess of what Mendele did), they effectively announced that they chose not to follow the rules of warfare. To allow that regime to have control over countless millions of people that they saw as subhuman for any longer than could be helped would be as much as a war crime as the author accuses the US government of.
To summarize, no one ever argues that the firebombing of civilian centers like Berlin and Hamburg were unjustified due to the atrocities committed against the Jews during W.W.II, even though ten of thousands of civilians were killed. Just because the suffering of those in Southeast Asia and China has not been as well documented does not make their suffering any less. As long as a civilian population is supporting a government that commits such atrocities, then they cannot be considered innocents. It is the duty of such citizens to reject tyranny and overthrow an unjust government. Morality sometimes requires us to act at risk of our life even if we don’t want to. Complacency in this area makes us as guilty as the government that rules over us.
The Enola Gay is a very important piece of aviation history not because of the destruction it caused, but because it ushered in the modern era of nuclear power with both its unimaginable benefits and unimaginable horror. The suffering of the Japanese who were the victims of its destruction should be remembered, but not in an aircraft hanger dedicated to significant aircraft. This setting does nothing but add to the importance of the price they paid. These people should be remembered in a museum more suited to displaying the artifacts and images that remind us why we never want to see another nuclear war.
Eric Garris replies:
Scott McPherson has answered his many critics:
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0402a.asp.
I very much “enjoy” your site and comments. “Enjoy” is relevant to the fact that there is truth out there and not to the content with which we sadly have to deal with. A quick comment on the number of soldier casualties:
An interview on NPR (yep of all stations) dealt explicitly a few days ago with this matter revealing the intentional hiding of truth by DOD /government agencies responsible for such data. The reporter was able to solicit an 8,884 (?) of wounded directly from an Army source. Of course, this does not take into account troops from other branches. The interview took place either Thursday or Wednesday evening.
Mike Ewens replies:
I know, but I am more comfortable posting "official numbers." However, if you look closer, I have links and quotes suggesting that there is underreporting: http://antiwar.com/casualties/#wounded.
The Reason review of Perle-Frum is weak. Jeffrey Record [pdf file] is extremely knowledgeable by comparison. Frum is a nobody. He has no achievements in the field and knows nothing. Perle is an ideologue, not an expert.
Jeffrey Record, whom I remember from my days in the Congressional staff, was instrumental in standing up to the Soviets and not giving away US security in "arms control agreements" that controlled US arms but not Soviet ones.
Jeffrey Record has no personal agenda, unlike P-F, warmongers who are dangerous enemies of all Americans.
When hearing many of the morning callers into C-SPAN I can easily recognize those who like our president who candidly admits he "does not read newspapers." However, I always assumed those that read ANTIWAR.COM were readers who kept abreast of current events. I was therefore quite surprised to read a letter from "Diamond in Vegas" in ‘Backtalk’ in which he condemned antiwar people as being cowards who never served a day in our military.’ Apparently "Diamond" is unaware that the one commonality shared by the small cabal of Bush’s advisors is few, if any, ever served in our forces. "Diamond" did not tell us of his military experiences, if any, but he does seem to express a love for war similar to Bush’s Chickenhawk advisors who love wars for others to fight. I believe the American people have now grown to accept and admire draft dodgers by knowing the truth of the ancient adage "Life is a survival of the fittest."
And the most truly fit are not dying in the distant sands of Iraq but waving the flags cheering us on to even more adventures over there.
WMD-gate: Bush Wants to Scapegoat CIA
Why speculate when you have proof at hand?: "No mystery to untangling WMD puzzler."
The CIA white paper is filled with lies and deceptions. It contains not one fact that supports its conclusion – and now even David Kay says what the Iraqis said is true: the trailers were for manufacturing hydrogen.
This is it: hard copy proof of administration lying: [CIA website] "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants."
Probably they even altered the data plate photograph so the data can’t be read. Whether or not they altered it the data is illegible – and they make no attempt to compensate for that (which makes it look very much like they didn’t want the data to be seen).
The trailer in Iraq does not resemble the one in the drawing shown by Powell at the UN. What does the CIA white paper do? Explain away the differences. The most embarrassing of these explanations is the one that is based on the Iraqis not knowing biological process aren’t sensitive to temperature and (worse) not knowing it gets hot in Iraq in the summer. How likely is either? It can be seen that apparently the intellect behind the drawing shown by Powell doesn’t know that biological processes are temperature-dependent. That tells you a lot.
Except for a few holdouts everyone in the world says the trailer was used for hydrogen manufacture. How did the CIA white paper remove that possibility? – By saying that hydrogen manufacture would be "inefficient." So the CIA white paper largely is based on the spurious claim that the actual use of the trailer was not the use – because it was inefficient.
That’s not CIA-quality work – somebody put them up to writing and issuing that white paper. Who?
Antiwar Conservative Shock Jock Feels the Heat
I first noticed that when all of the Afraqistani hullabaloo started that the Clear Channel stations in my area chimed right in, as if on cue, with all kinds of pro-war programming. I scratched my head about this for some time but then I read an article that described the linkages between Bush and his old partners from when he was part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. It turns out that one of the partners moved on to become the head of "Clear" Channel and that they still have close ties. Now I understand the source of their pro-war hyping and why Charles Goyette was demoted for speaking his mind.
North Korea
North Korea is mentioned twice in today’s news highlights. The first details charges by North Korea, almost certainly true, that the U.S. conducted more than 190 spy flights over North Korea in the month of January alone, clearly indicating that serious planning for war is going on in Washington.
The second details the "shot across the bow" of the public in preparing them for that war – the charges that North Korea is holding thousands of its own people in prison camps, complete with gas chambers and "prison guards (who) stamp on the necks of babies born to prisoners to kill them." (What? They don’t eat them afterwards?)
Just one problem – these charges come from "defectors." Hopefully readers of Antiwar.com have learned from recent events in Iraq that reports from defectors are almost guaranteed not only to be untrue, but wildly so.
Even if defectors are actually telling these stories (which itself cannot be guaranteed, for all we know this is pure black propaganda), and even if we knew they weren’t being paid by right-wing groups to say what they are saying, even then it would still not only be possible, but even probable that everything they had to say was a complete fabrication, told for whatever reasons of their own.
The US always needs to demonize its next victim. In the words of The Who – "Don’t get fooled again."
~ Eli Stephens, Left I on the News, http://lefti.blogspot.com
Iraqi Democracy: Not Quite the Cakewalk
A great article, but I am wondering where you got the casualty figures. It is much higher.
I was wondering why this news is not available or known generally. It is from UPI and is genuinely concerning as it paint a far different picture than generally acknowledged; or known to the US public.
By misdirecting attention to "only" 5xx deaths so far it misses the equally serious issue of more than 11,000 medical evacuations. (See "Medical evacuations from Iraq near 11,000," by Mark Benjamin, United Press International.)
Many will be impaired for life. And this is only over a relatively short period since May. If US troops maintain this pace will another 11,000 be similarly affected in the next few months? That is a worrying scenario. As it is this represents a 10% attrition rate for serving soldiers over 8 months. Do the math and it becomes frightening.
Justin Raimondo is certainly doing all of us a public service in exposing Richard Perle once again, as a crook and public-policy disaster. It is noteworthy that Allan Ryskind, a senior editor of the respected Washington weekly Human Events, has now come forth with a book review for that publication which clearly exposes Perle’s latest tome (with David Frum) as a complete piece of irresponsible and reckless trash, unworthy of a senior advisor to the President of the United States. Given Human Events‘ long-standing influence with Beltway conservatives since 1944, one trusts that wonks in the Bush Administration will read the Ryskind review and the Raimondo articles for Antiwar.com, and conclude that this totally disreputable liability should be fired immediately. Perhaps Perle’s own Israeli handlers will conclude the same thing before they are similarly embarrassed beyond repair.
The presence of Richard Perle at a fundraising event linked to the Iranian terrorist group MEK should be the last straw. As a young college student in Chicago in the 1970s, I was visiting my parents regularly when they were stationed in Iran in those days. At that time, the English language Iranian daily Keyhan, was regularly linking these "Islamic-Marxists" to the deaths of numerous Americans in that country, including Colonel Jack Turner (USAF) from Dayton, Ohio. Perle, Daniel Pipes, and the rest of the Israeli assets advising the Office of Policy Review and the Pentagon should do a little additional research on this organization’s role in these assassinations and bombings of their own countrymen – or maybe they have and do not care, as seems to be the case with their obliviousness to the deaths of American kids and innocent Iraqis as a result of their mantra of "preemptive war."
In either event, this latest debacle involving Perle and others with connections to the American Enterprise Institute, the Office of Policy Review, Hollinger International, Halliburton Oil, Bechtel, and Israeli intelligence should prompt a bipartisan investigation by our Congress of the financial and political links of key players advising this (or any future) Presidential Administration. One suspects that in numerous cases, the results of such a close look will result in deserved disemployment, disgrace, and in some instances, the inside of a Federal pen.
~ Mark Dankof, Mark Dankof’s America, http://www.MarkDankof.com
It amuses me to read about libertarians bashing socialists, leftists and complaining of betrayal of themselves by the Rightist Cato, or complaining that the Right is betraying their principles. It reminds me of Spencer’s betrayal between his 1851 and his 1891 editions of Social Statics.
Paycheck classical liberals and libertarians, seems to me. Perplexed Philosophers if you ask me.
The first libertarians were the first socialists: they were for free social power as opposed to statist politician power and the associated cronyocracies.
Conservatism at its base is for select privilege at the expense of others. They are for their property rights including privileges, forget about others. Genuine libertarianism is to be found in a very special place and condition, the nexus overlap of both Equality and Liberty, a place where all liberties are rights, not licensed privileges to rend one s neighbors of their equal liberty. Not all kinds of Equality nor all kinds of Liberty: only a very special kind of Equal Liberty that would hold for everyone. (Remember your set field theory.) True libertarianism balances the property rights of the propertied with the opportunity rights of the property-less.
Modern libertarians should rediscover Benjamin Tucker’s translation of LeSigne’s description of two very different kinds of socialism, the individualist, freedom-loving libertarian vs the statist, political power–loving Marxian version. Tucker translated it about 1911, while LeSigne’s column was written about 1870 in France. (See the lower part of the page at "State Socialism and Anarchism: How far they agree, and wherein they differ.")
Early libertarian socialists were confused in their beliefs that anarchy was possible, but they were indeed libertarian, and the first ones, as the very word libertarian hales from the French 19th century word libertaire. Anarchy is impossible because people have no other choice but to choose between the predator-victim option or equally free trade relations with their neighbors. Either way, some rule and set of rulers always applies.
The pro-state socialists have left a relative vacuum in the Democratic Party by their exodus over to the Greens. Many Borsodi Jeffersonian Greens are being overwhelmed there and looking elsewhere. Many LPer veterans are fed up with Conservatives overwhelming the LP and Cato. We’re tired of shoveling sand against the tide just to get on the ballot. Some of us are looking to push the DP toward being more Jeffersonian again. …
~ Chris Toto
