(Anti)War Stories 

 

“The constant whetting of the knife is tedious, if it is not proposed to cut anything with it.” -- George Santayana.

 

April 29, 2007

 

(We have selected the following links from the Web for their factual content and/or educational value, with particular emphasis on items that can be used to support the Antiwar League Platform. The articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the Antiwar League. Comments are by Doug Fuda.)

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*** Dan Wakefield on Kurt Vonnegut: "Deeply disturbed and disillusioned by the war in Iraq, Vonnegut told me two years ago that the reason he stopped writing was that 'I believe my writing always had hope, and there was pride in my country. I don't feel that any more.' So it goes."

*** What Would Jack Bauer Do? by Michael Brendan Dougherty. See comments on the Blog.


*** Regime Change Is the Reason, Disarmament the Excuse. An excellent interview with Scott Ritter by Scott Horton. See comments on the Antiwar League Blog.


*** Ulster on the Euphrates: The Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq by Chris Floyd. "With the Anglo-American coalition so deeply embedded in dirty war - infiltrating terrorist groups, 'stimulating' them into action, protecting 'crown jewel' double-agents no matter what the cost, 'riding with the bad boys,' greenlighting the 'Salvador Option' - it is simply impossible to determine the genuine origin of almost any particular terrorist outrage or death squad atrocity in Iraq. All of these operations take place in the shadow world, where terrorists are sometimes government operatives and vice versa, and where security agencies and terrorist groups interpenetrate in murky thickets of collusion and duplicity." Point Four of the Antiwar League Platform reads as follows: "The 'national security state,' and the secrecy which pervades and protects it, must be abolished. Close the CIA, shutdown covert and paramilitary operations, and open the books on the hidden crimes of the empire."


*** A Splintered Antiwar Movement by John Walsh. Antiwar Leaguer Walsh offers some pointed criticisms of the recent UFPJ demonstration in D.C. "Let's hope that the hard working and committed people working in UFPJ turn from this path and do more to bring the splintered movement together. Because if the antiwar movement is divided, we are subject to being conquered ­ just as surely as the Sunni and the Shia." Justin Raimondo issues a clarification and chimes in with some barbs of his own directed at the "official" antiwar movement: "These people are stuck in a time warp. Do they really believe demonstrations, no matter how massive, are going to stop this rotten war?" I will be happy to link to a response from UFPJ on this page if one is forthcoming.  


*** Stopping the Torture Business in Our Hometowns: An Interview With Christina Cowger of North Carolina Stop Torture Now by Ron Jacobs.  


*** A political bombshell from Zbigniew Brzezinski by Barry Grey. Also see: Why is the US press silent on Brzezinski’s warnings of war against Iran?


*** The Invisible Enemy in Iraq by Steve Silberman. "By creating the most heroic and efficient means of saving lives in the history of warfare, the Pentagon had accidentally invented a machine for accelerating bacterial evolution and was airlifting the pathogens halfway around the world."


*** The Napoleon Graves by Michael Tarm. "During Napoleon’s 15-year reign, a million French soldiers had died under his command—nearly half of them during the disastrous Russian campaign alone." See also: Bone Apart: Little Remains of Napoleon's Defeated Army by Patrick Cockburn.


*** Britain has been deploying teens to Iraq from UPI. "Teenagers, especially 16- and 17-year-olds have become a major source of recruits for the Army."


*** Going for Broke by Andrew Bacevich. "A foreign policy worthy of the name will reflect the concerns and aspirations of ordinary Americans. It’s that last prospect that Frederick Kagan and James Baker most fear."


*** Our Mercenaries in Iraq by Jeremy Scahill. "Further privatizing the country's war machine — or inventing new back doors for military expansion with fancy names like the Civilian Reserve Corps — will represent a devastating blow to the future of American democracy."


*** I Wish Smug Were the Worst of It by Antiwar Leaguer Steve Hand. On Hannity and Coulter: "For four long years of blood, bone and death they have been dodging the problems of the failure of this war to meet Just War criteria. Not concerned about such things. Caesar is a god and has spoken. They only see Red, White and Blue and their fat paychecks, and avert their eyes whenever blood and bone are served up in horrifying heaps."


*** Bush to skeptics: What's your Iraq plan? by  DEB RIECHMANN. President Bush says that "To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible" and he is absolutely right! The peace movement must propose a way out of this ongoing crisis of war and empire in order to have credibility with antiwar Americans. See the next article also.


*** Iraq escalation heightens political crisis in Washington by Barry Grey. "Despite all of this, congressional critics of Bush’s war policy find themselves in a dilemma, because their differences with the White House’s incendiary and reckless policy are tactical, not principled... The Democratic leadership is conducting a balancing act, trying to appear to reflect the mass antiwar sentiment of the population, while rejecting any action to actually end the slaughter."


*** When the Devil Creates a Devil by Becky Akers. "The usual suspects are bragging that their jihad against him has saved civilization, but it’s shamefaced bragging of the kind you hear when a 10th-grader beats up a kindergartner."


*** How to Create Africa's Afghanistan by Mick Hume. "The point is that the ‘war on terror’ is not really about what happens in Somalia or Afghanistan. It is about America and the West seeking to resolve their own problems on the international stage, thrashing around in the desert of Afghanistan, the towns of Iraq or the swamps of Somalia in search of a moral mission, a victory."


*** The President's Intentions Towards Iran Need Much More Attention by Glenn Greenwald. "More importantly, a war with Iran can happen in many ways other than by some grand announcement by the President that he wants to start a war, followed by a debate in Congress as to whether such a war should be authorized. That is the least likely way for such a confrontation to occur."


*** Twilight of the Republic? by Andrew J. Bacevich. Also see The Cult of National Security by the same author. See blog comments.


*** Back to Lebanon by Justin Raimondo and Israel and the US Threaten Iran and Syria by Chris Marsden. These two articles, taken together, one from the libertarian right and one from the socialist left, should constitute a warning to the whole antiwar movement. Do not be so distracted with the Iraq War that we fail to see the next war coming. We need much more than a plan to withdraw from Iraq. We need a plan to de-militarize US foreign policy, beginning with the end of US interventionism in the Middle East. Nothing less can offer hope to break the cycle of violence and prevent a wider war, possibly involving nuclear weapons.  

 

*** Prisoners’ Dilemma by Gerald J. Russello


*** Abusive Interrogations by Stephen Soldz.

 
*** The U.S. Has a History of Using Torture by Alfred W. McCoy.


*** A Young Marine Speaks Out by Philip Martin. American troops, caught in a desperate situation and under the command of a cabal of war criminals and torturers who reside out of harms way in DC, are turning against the war.

*** Bill Kauffman: American Anarchist by Laurence M. Vance.


*** The Anti-War Songs Our Great-Grandparents Sang by David Rosinger.


*** "Bush left reality behind. Now we are all trapped." by William Pfaff.


*** Robert Gates’ Islamofascism Connection by Michael Gaddy.


*** "The Horrors of Extraordinary Rendition" by Maher Arar.


*** "On the Offense" by Andrew Bacevich. "To proponents of this view—whether those inside government like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz or well-connected outsiders like Richard Perle or William Kristol—9/11 came as a godsend of sorts. With shock, fear, and anger came breathtaking new possibilities. Old constraints fell away. All that was needed was a suitable launching pad."


***  "... Or You Get Stuck in Iraq" by Bill C. Davis. Blog Comments


***  "The Disneyfication of war allows us to ignore its real savagery" by George Monbiot. Mr. Monbiot has focused his lens on a bizarre manifestation of militarism: animals as "war heroes." But in doing so he has performed a vital service in revealing the deep corrosive effects of imperial decadence on human culture.


***  "The Book of Rahm: Emanuel's War Plan for Democrats" by John Walsh. John's followup (see below) on the Dems' plans to shore up the War Party's standing leaves no room for doubt. "That risk is offset by the machinations of Emanuel and others to guarantee that there is no genuine opposition party or movement. And that lack of a real opposition is a problem we must solve."


***  "Soldiers of Conscience" by Staughton Lynd.  "The nations which framed the Charter, the judges of the Tribunal, and in particular, the representatives of the United States, considered that henceforth the crimes defined at Nuremberg should apply to all nations, including those that conducted the trials. Among these crimes was the 'crime against peace' of aggressive war."  
The prohibition against these crimes is not only a matter of international law, but a matter binding on the government and people of the United States by the deliberate historical intentions of American representatives at Nuremberg.


***  "After Pat's Birthday" by Kevin Tillman. Bring all the troops home now!

 

***  "Beware Empires in Decline" by Michael T. Klare.


***  "Election 2006: The Fix is Already In" by Antiwar Leaguer John Walsh.  John's latest expose of the War Party Democrats has inspired others to amplify on the point. See "Cindy Sheehan's Lesser-Evilism" by Joshua Frank.


***  "Say No to Sanctions Against North Korea" from Antiwar Leaguer Rich Aucoin. Calling for a "return to the Founding Principle of non-interventionism." 


***  "Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill" by Chris Floyd. If we are to resist this new and deeply evil tyranny, "antiwar" must mean all out opposition to the War Party's "Terror War," in all its manifestations.


***  "The Fatherland Protection Racket" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo. "State and local police and fire departments are also being slowly nationalized thanks to DHS pork, for with federal money comes federal controls. Conservatives used to fear the federalization of law enforcement, Professor Bennett points out, but now they champion it." We must fight the "war on terror" system on our home turf and defend local institutions against totalitarian reorganization by the feds.

 

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(Anti)War Stories from 2005:


 

 

  • "Torture's Dirty Secret: It Works" by Naomi Klein. "Yet despite this body of knowledge, torture continues to be debated in the United States as if it were merely a morally questionable way to extract information, not an instrument of state terror...As an interrogation tool, torture is a bust. But when it comes to social control, nothing works quite like torture."
     

  • "Iraq Falls Apart" by Justin Raimondo. Raimondo at his best, quoting Yeats, Pope Benedict XVI and Murray Rothbard! A cautiously optimistic call for a Strategic Realignment. We need an Antiwar League to "corner and defeat the War Party on its home turf, the United States."
     

  • "Proof Bush Fixed the Facts" by Ray McGovern and the "Secret Downing Street Memo." George Bush and his advisors must be investigated and tried for "crimes against peace."
     

  • "Why Media Shouldn't Take Sides in the 'War on Terror'" by Phillip Knightley. "Instead the failure to define terrorist is being used as a cloak to legitimise American military aggression because it portrays the challenge as such a loosely defined threat that it will never disappear." Exposes some of the Orwellian aspects of the War on Terror.
     

  • "Let's Look Right and Left Too!" by Murray Polner. A superb article written in 2001!
     

  • "US War Crimes and the Legal Case for Military Resistance"  by Paul Rockwell.
     

  • "Nuclear Proliferation" by Dr. Helen Caldicott and Scott Harris. "I believe in the wisdom and intelligence of the American people. I believe they will do the right thing.... I know it can be done. I know, I've spoken to millions of Americans, I know how they think and feel. They desperately want to do the right thing." An Antiwar League can tap into the wisdom and intelligence of the American people by advocating a hopeful, realistic plan for disarmament of the Federal government and radical decentralization of power.
     

  • "Who's the Real WMD Threat?" by Heather Wokusch.
     

  • Long live the Second Vermont Republic! Read "The Manifesto" by Thomas H. Naylor and the "Speech Given by David White." "American foreign policy, which is based on the doctrine of full spectrum dominance, is immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, and in violation of the United Nations Charter." Vermonters advocate the ultimate antiwar/antistate weapon -- secession!
     

  • "Just Say No ... to Empire" by Karen Kwiatkowski. "Americans need to 'just say no' to empire – the sooner the better. When we do, we might just find that it is a house, or perhaps, empire of cards." Very powerful article by the Lt. Colonel. The Soviet Communist Empire was brought down, relatively peacefully, by people who just said no. We can do the same here.
     

  • "Three Strikes for Empire" by Ivan Eland. Three strikes and you're out! Only the War Party supports empire. It's time to speak plainly to the American people about what must be done. We have to dismantle the empire. As someone famous said: "one Evil Empire down, one to go." The Antiwar League can develop a practical plan that unites people of different political persuasions.
     

  • "If You Build It, They Will Kill" by Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse. The US government must not use tax dollars to promote the development of new means of warfare and killing in alliance with giant corporations. We must shutdown the military/industrial/scientific complex forever. This is obvious to millions of Americans. If we say it, it will happen. This is the job of the Antiwar League.  

  • AP-Ipsos Poll: "Two-thirds of respondents say no nation should have nuclear weapons, including the United States." In contrast to the sociopathic War Party, Americans are a sensible and humane people. The Antiwar League should advocate that nuclear weapons be scrapped.
     

 

 

 
 
© Antiwar League 2006