Monthly Archives: December 2005

Behold A “Real” Peace Movement!

As I’ve mentioned, there isn’t a respectable antiwar movement libertarians can get behind. That some antiwar libertarians endorse the A.N.S.W.E.R coalition is not to their credit. At its core, A.N.S.W.E.R comprises American haters from the “Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, Filipino, Haitian, and Latin American communities.” One of their objectives is to undermine everything Israeli. For example, they continue to propagate the Jenin massacre canard, which was even renounced by Kadoura Moussa, the Fatah director for the northern West Bank.
Mr. “the-Jews-are-monkeys-and-swine,” aka Sami Al-Arian, is not merely someone they defend, but a star among them. The hard-Left Rabbi, Michael Lerner, is always poised to remind Israelis, whenever their civilians are blown to smithereens by suicide bombers, to take the blame and turn the other cheek. Even he is too pro-Israel for A.N.S.W.E.R. So they banished him from one of their ragtag rallies.
And A.N.S.W.E.R opposes capitalism (that their agitators are mostly unemployed may have something to do with that).
So it is with great joy that I announce a genuine peace coalition: The Perdana Global Peace Forum, headed by Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad. This is the same Mahathir who once arrested his political rival, Anwar Ibrahim, for his support of “open markets and international investments“; the same Mahathir who has distinguished himsel for Jew baiting, to quote:

“The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

Clearly anti-Semitism and peace activism are not mutually exclusive pursuits. (By the way, a more Halaal-kind of anti-Semitism is called “I-am-only-criticizing-the-Jewish-State’s-‘criminal’-policies, relentlessly, day-and-night, with-no-balance, with-the-aim-of-bringing-about-the-destruction-of-that-‘despotic’-gulag, which-so-threatens-its-‘peaceful’-neighbors.)
At least two of the papers at the Perdana Peace conference were devoted to the threat Israel poses to Iran. Peace activism can be a little unintuitive—go against the grain, you know. But Mahathir and panelists—a Counterpunch scribe, Robert G. Mugabe,
Zimbabwe’s Genocidal Dictator For Life, the “Attorney of Record for the Chechen Republic, an Imam or two, the Chairman of the UK-based Planetary Movement, and some UN lackeys—mean well, no doubt. Mahathir especially does a lot to make vivid the horrors of war and the effects of explosives. His speech is replete with descriptions of guts spilling out and limbs hanging by a strand of muscle. And Israel is in the thick of it. Mahathir’s latest libel—also in his keynote speech—is that Israel uses depleted uranium bullets and missiles on the Palestinians. I gather the Perdana peaceniks won’t be condemning suicide bombers who smear Jews on pavements any time soon.

My Person of the Year: The Average Iraqi

Foreign Policy, Iraq, Media, War

“Person of the Year,” TIME stipulates, “is an annual issue that features a profile on the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that—for better or worse—has most influenced events in the preceding year.”
My Person of the Year flouts TIME’s criteria. He has not “influenced events in the preceding year”; he has been irreparably influenced by events beyond his control. He has not triumphed over adversity, for how can he? To do so, he’d have to be super powerful, like a Super Power. He’d have to be someone with a say; someone whose vote actually counts. He’d have to be wealthy; stupendously strong; immune to daisy cutters, cluster bombs, RPGs, and IEDs.
My Person of the Year is the Common Iraqi.
Yes, it is misguided to celebrate victims. But then I am not celebrating The Average Iraqi. I’m suggesting that he serve as a symbol for the ravages visited by the state. He has constituted collateral damage for two administrations. And he’ll continue to be a pawn in the grubby hands of whoever seizes power in that failed state.
The Average Iraqi’s vote is not a triumph over adversity; it’s a victory over reality, for it is folly to equate freedom with symbols, and rhetoric with reality. Casting a vote to give someone power does not make a man free; freedom is the knowledge that even if one doesn’t perform that ritual, nobody can exercise power over one’s life, liberty, and property.
The Average Iraqi is a tragic hero, not a Randian hero. His image should be seared in the minds of men with a conscience. He is the repository of state evil; first Saddam, and then a faraway president and his Revolutionary Assembly sealed his fate without his consent.

Preemptive Defense

America, Islam, Just War, War

The president is cocksure about the need to keep America’s borders open. He is as confident about unleashing his version of the STASI secret service on nationals and non-nationals alike within the United States. Vanquishing foreigners in faraway lands is yet another of his drunk-with-power “defensive” strategies. However, Bush ought to acquaint himself with the duty of a constitutional government: repel foreign invaders. It is incumbent on him to attempt to stop potential enemies of the U.S. before they enter this country. Unlike preemptive assault in the absence of a clear and present danger, preemptive defense is perfectly proper.
Thus Bush might have reinstated the pre-1965 national-origins restrictions in immigration policy. A culturally coherent immigration policy is the logical complement to rational profiling. Both are defensive rather than offensive.
Thomas Jefferson warned J. Lithgow in 1805 about the desirability of welcoming “the dissolute and demoralized handicraftsmen of the old cities of Europe.” Jefferson feared that immigrants under “the maxims of absolute monarchies”—and he was not talking about the monarchies of Buganda or Ethiopia—may not acclimatize to “the freest principles of the English constitution.” What would he say about arrivals from Wahhabi-worshiping wastelands whose customs not only preclude “natural right and natural reason,” but include killing their hosts?!
The state compels Americans to bear the consequences of a multicultural, egalitarian, immigration quota system, which divides visas between nations with an emphasis on mass importation of people from the Third World (more often than not of the Islamic faith). It brands as xenophobes patriotic Americans who reject open borders and indiscriminate immigration and demand that rational profiling be conducted at America’s ports of entry. Yet after refusing to restrict admission into the U.S., government proceeds to spy on these “worthies” once they’re in the country.

Warring, Torturing, Spying, Lying—Just Do It!

Media, Republicans

CNN Correspondent Jack Cafferty succinctly sums up the moral depravity of this administration. Readers (usually party Republicans, not true conservatives) who cannot get past partisan proclivities, despite my exhortations, should pay attention to Cafferty’s (“conservative”) quip about Harriet E. Miers. Altogether, Cafferty, who has also suggested sacking New York City’s transit workers should they strike, strikes me as a cross between John McLaughlin and Jon Stewart (A good combination, of course):

“Who cares about whether the Patriot Act gets renewed? Want to abuse our civil liberties? Just do it.

Who cares about the Geneva Conventions? Want to torture prisoners. Just do it.

Who cares about rules concerning the identity of CIA agents? Want to reveal the name of a covert operative? Just do it.

Who cares about whether the intelligence concerning WMDS is accurate? Want to invade Iraq? Just do it.

Who cares about qualifications to serve on the nation’s highest court? Want to nominate a personal friend with no qualifications? Just do it.

And the latest outrage, which I read about in “The New York Times” this morning: Who cares about needing a court order to eavesdrop on American citizens? Want to wiretap their phone conversations? Just do it. What a joke. A very cruel, very sad joke.”