US eyes Pakistan's nuclear arsenal

The battle lines are now drawn between ex-premier Benazir Bhutto and President General Pervez Musharraf, moving Pakistan towards chaos, rather than away from it as the two were supposed to do under Washington's grand plan. The United States sniffs an opportunity to exploit the situation and attempt to safeguard the country's nuclear arsenal from extremists. Islamabad, via King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, wants to tell Washington to back off. - Syed Saleem Shahzad (Nov 14, '07)

Pakistan, Bush and the bomb
The Bush administration's path to the crisis in President General Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan began on September 11, 2001, when the Pakistanis were told to either side with the US, or against it. Yet no mention was made of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. For an administration that based its war policy on nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, this was a fateful oversight. - Jonathan Schell (Nov 14, '07)

Working through Korean unification blues
In North and South Korea alike the yearning for reunification is mythically powerful, though the reality - when it comes - will be shattering, painful and prolonged for both societies after more than 60 years of separation across a social, economic and political chasm. A North-South confederation might help bridge the gap. - Andrei Lankov (Nov 14, '07)

THE BEAR'S LAIR
America's disappearing
middle class
One of the great US election issues of 2008 will be the relative impoverishment of a large voting bloc, the American middle class. Reversing the trend requires new thinking about tight money, tight immigration controls, and greater job stability that comes with a respectable degree of bargaining power. But such thinking is beyond the ambit of both Democrats and Republicans, and anathema to Wall Street. - Martin Hutchinson

Iran, Pakistan dump India
from pipeline deal
Iran and Pakistan have their pens poised to ink their part of the US$7.5 billion gas pipeline contract that is meant to see natural gas flow from Iran to India via Pakistan. The US wants India to find energy elsewhere, and New Delhi appears to be listening. - Siddharth Srivastava

Musharraf Must Go says Bhutto
November 14, 2007
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has let it be known that she now considers Musharraf a lost cause and will refuse to negotiate any further with him: More

Iran hands over Blueprints for Part of a Nuclear Device
November 14, 2007
Iran has finally handed over the proof that their nuclear enrichment activities were not entirely peaceful More

Why Are They So
Afraid of Ron Paul?
Neocons and sectarian leftists unite to smear the antiwar Republican by Justin Raimondo As I predicted last month, the only consistently antiwar candidate on the Republican side of the aisle is breaking through – but in a spectacular manner that I certainly did not foresee. Suddenly, Paul is everywhere, from the Sunday morning talk shows to the length and breadth of the blogosphere. His amazing $4.2 million-in-one-day fundraising feat has entered the annals of presidential politics as the long-promised fulfillment of Internet-based political fundraising. And the myth that it's all online and not translatable into real people is belied by his recent 5,000-strong Philadelphia rally and similar events in Iowa and elsewhere. Paul has become the equivalent of a rock star among the young, and his appeal goes way beyond the usual libertarian crowd: liberals and conservatives, all races and cultural types, from home-schooling Christians to San Francisco pagans and everything in between. On the Internet, and in the streets, the Ron Paul Revolution, as his followers have dubbed their movement, is taking off.

The conventional wisdom, prior to this breakthrough, was that the Paul campaign was political vaporware, existing exclusively online and not in the material world. Yet that meme is quickly falling by the wayside as his polling numbers are rocketing upwards, from New Hampshire to Nevada. The money windfall – a result that the official campaign had nothing to do with, and which was generated entirely by Paul's independent supporters acting entirely on their own initiative – has made an advertising blitz possible, with at least two television ads and several radio ads running in early primary states.

All this buzz, however, has generated a counter-buzz, a sinister stream of smears and jeers coming from both Right and Left. What's instructive is how similar these attacks are in their viciousness, and, in the case of the "serious" mainstream critics, their juvenility. Whether coming from the liberal and ostensibly antiwar Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly and Matt Yglesias of The Atlantic, or from some neocon hack over at the Weekly Standard, the "Ron-is-crazy" meme is being furiously pushed upstream against the raging current of the Paul phenomenon – so far, to little avail. He's a "fruitcake," sniffs Drum, and the beat is taken up by Yglesias, who chimes in with charges of "extremism." The Weekly Standard takes it a bit further, and, with its characteristic snark, dubs Ron the "don't tase me, bro!" candidate, complete with an illustration of Paul being hustled off the stage by uniformed thugs – which is what they'd like to do to all of their political opponents.

David Weigel was absolutely right when he predicted it months ago, although the trepidation in his tone was, I think, unwarranted. Yes, the smears are getting really ugly, but precisely because of that the Smear Bund is generating a pro-Paul backlash, particularly among those who consider themselves liberals of the old school. Glenn Greenwald, whose popular "Unclaimed Territory" blog was claimed by Salon a while back, has risen as Ron's champion on the Left: Paul's is "a campaign that defies and despises conventional and deeply entrenched Beltway assumptions about our political discourse and about what kind of country this is supposed to be," he writes. Greenwald "gets it," in a way that shows his own awareness of the change liberalism is undergoing, as it faces the all-out assault of the neocons and the War Party on every front.

A tireless critic of the surveillance state and an informed, fierce opponent of the neoconservatives in the foreign policy realm, Greenwald has watched the rise of Ron Paul in the context of Hillary's apparent inevitability. Indeed, his spirited defense of Paul is rooted in his contempt for the pro-war and distinctly neoconservative foreign policy stance at the core of her oily evasions. The contrast with Paul's forthright and principled opposition not only to the Iraq war, but also to the underlying premise and assumptions that govern our foreign policy of global interventionism, can't be evaded by intelligent liberals, of which Greenwald is one. This is also what seems to be generating Andrew Sullivan's enthusiasm, among the more intelligent (albeit flighty) of the conservative intellectuals who write about public policy on the Internet. Coming from different directions, and moving toward libertarianism, Sullivan and Greenwald are representative of the many thousands of thoughtful and politically active Americans, on both the Right and the Left, who, brought together under a single antiwar, pro-civil liberties banner, see Ron Paul as a kind of symbol – a hope that real change is possible.

Greenwald clearly sees the Paul campaign as a kind of turning point for American liberals:

"Moreover, circumstances often dictate political priorities. Individuals who historically may not have been attracted to 'limited-government' rhetoric and all of the specifics it traditionally entails may find that ideal necessary now after six years of endless expansions of intrusive federal government power."

Faced with a "choice" between liberal hawks and outright neocons, the anti-interventionist Greenwald has nowhere to turn. Confronted with a Clinton restoration armed with the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, and a well-earned reputation for vindictiveness, it's no wonder the civil libertarian Greenwald is hardly jumping for joy.

As always, the war question is key to understanding how a new generation of liberals is coming to a libertarian understanding of the interplay of foreign and domestic politics. As Greenwald puts it:

"By itself, the ability of Paul's campaign to compel a desperately needed debate over the devastation which America's imperial rule wreaks on every level – economic, moral, security, liberty – makes his success worth applauding."

Two generations of liberals have come to the freedom movement on account of the war issue. Check out my little essay on John T. Flynn, whose critique of U.S. foreign policy in the run-up to World War II and the wholesale violation of civil liberties by FDR's wartime administration got him kicked out as a columnist for The New Republic and given a place of honor at the Chicago Tribune, the Midwestern redoubt of "isolationist" (i.e., antiwar) sentiment. Flynn, a leader of the antiwar America First Committee, became a leading figure in the postwar conservative-libertarian movement.

The second generation of liberals-come-to-libertarianism came in during the Vietnam War era: it was opposition to that war, and to what seemed to be an emerging police state, that birthed the infant libertarian movement. Recruiting, in turn, from Left and Right was a self-conscious strategy that the movement's intellectual leader at the time, Murray N. Rothbard, pursued in hopes of building an independent third force that was neither "Right" nor "Left," but solidly pro-liberty. This effort was embodied in the journal Left & Right, which was devoted to introducing such Old Right anti-interventionists and anti-statists as Garet Garrett to the antiwar New Leftists in search of a comprehensive, coherent analysis of the tumult around them.

These second-generation cadre formed the Libertarian Party and, more importantly, made possible the growth of libertarianism as an intellectual movement, culminating in the boom of the mid-Seventies to mid-Eighties. Paul ran as the party's candidate in 1988, but by then the LP's political momentum had peaked prematurely, on account of a debilitating split at the party's 1983 national convention, when half the activists walked out.

The challenges of the Bush era, when not only our foreign policy of perpetual war but also what Lew Rockwell calls "red-state fascism" is rearing its increasingly ugly head, is inspiring a third generation of liberals to make the transition to a recognizably libertarian stance. On the Right, a similar reaction to Bushism is causing a growing number of conservatives, such as Bob Barr, to join the libertarian ranks, while many others, such as Tucker Carlson, are clearly sympathetic.

The wave of support and publicity for Paul has the neocons enraged, and they are busy trying to discredit him with a campaign of unsurpassed villainy. What they have done is actually kind of funny, if you take your humor black: they've simply transferred their usual blather on the foreign policy front to the domestic battlefield. Instead of claiming that Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler and we're facing another Munich, they're saying Ron Paul is Hitler and we're facing another Kristallnacht.

This lunatic ploy, which manages to be at once sinister and ridiculous, is what we might call the Paul-is-a-closet-Nazi meme. It was launched at the ultra-neocon Hot Air – what a perfect name for a site associated with Michelle Malkin! – and migrated, like AIDS on the tip of a used condom, into the liberal precincts of The New Republic's blog via one Jamie Kirchick, an aspiring leader in the League of Junior Neocons. (The same libel was echoed, with elaboration, on the Web site Jewcy.com, which I've written for [and was pleased to do so], in a diatribe written by some "libertarian socialist" guy who surprisingly works for the respectable Jewish Telegraphic Agency. His story of being snubbed by the Paul campaign on account of his being Jewish is debunked here, and by his own editor.)

The Hot Air "scoop" was that some obscure racist who hardly anyone has heard of gave $500 to the Paul campaign. And that is it. That is Paul's great "sin." Hillary Clinton is getting millions from the military-industrial-imperial complex; the foreign lobbyists and the special interests buy and sell our leaders like cattle at a county fair – but what really matters is that Ron Paul received a contribution from someone whose opinions the candidate doesn't endorse and cannot be responsible for. Of course, anyone could be motivated – or persuaded – to contribute to a political campaign for all kinds of reasons. Who's to say who did the persuading, or actually put up the money? "Dirty tricks" and politics are practically synonymous. However, even taking the source of the contribution at face value, going after Paul over $500 from some unknown wacko with dubious motives is really a stretch. It is, I think, very off-putting to liberals of Greenwald's sort, who are beginning to understand why this strained yet energetic effort is being made to discredit an honest, principled, and decent man.

To stanch the incipient pro-Paul rebellions at both ends of the political spectrum, the anti-Paul brigades have called out two disparate, albeit strangely congruent, figures to start slinging some real dirt in Paul's direction. Despite the ideological divide that separates Glenn Beck, who recently did a segment on his show accusing Paul of being a "terrorist" along the lines of Timothy McVeigh, and David Neiwert, a self-proclaimed "professional journalist" and resident left-blogosphere "expert" in right-wingology, both have come out with very similar assaults on the Paul campaign. Neiwert, whose recent series of blog posts attacking Ron Paul takes the same line as Paul's neoconservative critics, gives the Paul-is-Hitler meme a "leftist" patina. Both explicitly invoke the name of McVeigh, a violent and dangerous extremist, as emblematic of the Paul campaign. That Beck hauled out the ineffably repulsive David Horowitz to pull off his drive-by smearing indicates just how broad this anti-Paul "popular front" is, stretching all the way from the ex-communists of the 1960s turned warmongering neoconservatives to the present-day lefties of Neiwert's ilk. The Right and Left faces of the Smear Bunds are singing slightly different tunes, but in unison. To Beck, who never mentions that the Paul fundraiser he rails about was based on a movie, and not Guy Fawkes the historical personage, Paul is a supporter of terrorism. To Neiwert, on the other hand, who has run a long list of legislation introduced by Paul that – gasp! Horror of horrors! – demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that Paul opposes a lot of federal programs and doesn't believe government is the be-all and end-all solution to our problems, he's worse than a mere terrorist: he's an authentic conservative! The Republican Establishment must be thrilled.






While the neocons' methods are outrageous and not at all persuasive – after all, how subtle or convincing could Horowitz possibly manage to be? – Neiwert adds his own peculiar spin, which makes even Horowitz's witch-hunting methods seem reasonable by comparison. Neiwert goes way beyond guilt-by-association, as he admits:

"[T]his isn't 'guilt by association' – first, the argument isn't that Paul is a racist per se, but that he is an extremist who shares a belief system held not just by racists but other anti-government zealots as well. Paul is identified with their causes not simply because he speaks to them, but because he elucidates ideas and positions – especially regarding the IRS, the UN, the gold standard, and education – identical to theirs. This is why he has their rabid support. There is an underlying reason, after all, that Paul attracts backers like David Duke and the Stormfront gang: he talks like them."

Neiwert is right: this isn't guilt-by-association, it's worse. It's mass smearing on a scale never before attempted. Neiwert presumes to act as a gatekeeper to authoritatively delegitimize any and all ideas held to be "extremist" or "radical Rightist." If you question the value of public education, you're an "extremist." Hate the IRS? Watch out, or you'll fall prey to "radical Rightists." He writes his books, articles, and blogposts – and bases his entire literary reputation – on the supposed existence of a radical Right threat, which he and his fellow "experts" have "studied," albeit with none of the cold-eyed objectivity of the scientist but rather with a clear agenda in mind: extreme political correctness of the leftist variety.

Neiwert's is a literary tradition that stretches back to the sociological gobbledygook churned out by Theodore Adorno and his followers, who "diagnosed" all opposition to the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as clear evidence of an "authoritarian personality": if you opposed the New Deal (and the war) this was evidence, in Adorno's view, of incipient "fascist" tendencies. John Roy Carlson, Harry Overstreet, the tag team of Arnold Foster and Benjamin Epstein, and a bibliography a mile long are testaments to the growth of this mini-industry, which has existed in this country since the 1930s and experienced an upsurge in the postwar period. The neocons brought out their own rather over-intellectualized version of this smear literature in the early 1960s, in response to the rising Goldwater phenomenon: The Radical Right, edited by Daniel Bell and Seymour Martin Lipset. Their argument was this: anyone who opposed the postwar liberal welfare state was not only a dangerous extremist, but also no doubt suffered from "status anxiety," i.e., they were crazy. This same Smear Bund brought out a "psychological analysis" by a group of psychiatrists that diagnosed Barry Goldwater as being mentally unstable as well as an "extremist." A more spurious and disgusting libel was never invented – at least, not until the Smear Bund put Paul in their sights.

Neiwert is a fool who once attacked both Lew Rockwell and myself for not having the "correct" interpretation of what fascism is and how it develops. According to him, my own interpretation of what American fascism might come to look like shows "no understanding" of the reality, which resembles, in his mind, the "patriot" militia groups that burgeoned during the Clinton years. That many of these same people support Paul's opposition to the IRS and inveigh against the "New World Order" (i.e., American imperialism) is, for Neiwert, proof positive that it isn't the Bush administration's militarism and authoritarianism that poses a fascist danger – oh, no, certainly not! In his book, it's Ron Paul who heralds the rise of fascism.

You can't make this stuff up.

Yet they are making it up, and they will continue to make it up: anything to divert attention away from the vital issues of war and peace, over which a world – and a way of life – hangs in the balance.

The appearance of an antiwar candidate in the Republican primary, one who is furthermore making substantial gains and a fair amount of noise, stands as a testament to the failure of any of the Democrats to take advantage of what is, after all, the antiwar majority in this country. Even as our soldiers are fighting and dying in Iraq, and the administration paves the way – with Hillary Clinton's help – for a war with Iran, the American people overwhelmingly reject our foreign policy of relentless aggression and serial "regime change." The majority is effectively disenfranchised. That's why the Paul campaign has captured the imagination of young people and all those looking for an alternative to the increasingly intolerable status quo. The neocons and the Neiwerts, separately or together, can't do much about it, as they'll soon learn to their sorrow: their obviously dishonest and ill-motivated attacks will drive honest liberals and conservatives into Paul's camp, not away from it.

Why are they so afraid of Ron Paul? In the face of both Fox News and the hard Left hurling anathemas at him, that's what honest liberals and conservatives are beginning to ask – and I don't think the Smear Bund is going to like their answer.

Dems Put War Costs at $3.5 Trillion Through 2017
by Jim Lobe U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost U.S. taxpayers as much as $3.5 trillion through 2017 if both direct and indirect, or "hidden," costs are taken into account, according to a new report released Tuesday by Democrats in Congress.

The 27-page report, entitled "War at Any Price?" [.pdf], concluded that the total economic costs incurred to date – including "hidden" expenses, such as higher oil prices, interest on borrowing, and the long-term care of injured soldiers – are already about twice the $800 billion dollars the Bush administration has asked Congress to appropriate through 2008.

"We cannot afford this war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "We are funding this war with borrowed money, Americans are paying more at the gas pump, and it will take years for our military to recover from the damage of the president's failed war strategy."

"And if President Bush gets his way, and we do not significantly draw down our troops [in Iraq], the total costs of this war will reach astronomical heights," he added, noting the conclusions of the report, which was released by the Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC).

The report, which assumes that Washington will reduce its troop presence in Iraq from the current 180,000 to about 90,000 by 2013 and then maintain some 75,000 troops there through 2017, comes amid a new struggle between congressional Democrats and a few Republicans over next year's financing of the war, which despite a recent reduction in violence, remains deeply unpopular with the electorate here, according to recent polls.

It also comes amid growing evidence in recent public opinion polls that the plight of the U.S. economy is becoming a much more important issue in the minds of many people who will likely vote in next year's presidential election.

On the Iraq front, Democrats have offered to immediately approve $50 billion out of a pending $200 billion administration request to finance both wars through 2008. Under the plan, the administration could use the $50 billion for funding operations through early next year, at which time Congress would take up the remaining $150 billion.

But the $50 billion in interim spending is conditioned on Bush's agreement to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq immediately, with the goal of withdrawing all U.S. combat troops – about half the troops deployed there now – by the end of next year.

Bush has firmly resisted such a timetable in the past, but Democrats hope that a sufficient number of Republican lawmakers will support such a plan that it will overcome procedural hurdles that in the past have prevented bills requiring withdrawal of U.S. troops from reaching the president's desk. But, if this bill garners enough Republican backing, then Bush will be forced to decide whether to veto or sign it.

During an off-the-record meeting last week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reportedly told her fellow Democrats that if Bush vetoes the bill, then no additional money for the war in Iraq will be approved this year, requiring the Pentagon to divert money from other accounts to maintain operations there. Reid reiterated that position Tuesday.

Even as Congress takes up continued war funding, however, concerns about the economy and the growing possibility of a recession are grabbing the public limelight.

While the Democratic report does not explicitly link war costs to mounting anxiety over the economy, it stresses that the economic costs of the war are being borne by the taxpayer, above all.

"The backbreaking costs of this war to American families, the federal budget, and the entire economy are beyond measure in many ways," said New York Sen. Charles Schumer during the report's Capitol Hill release.

"The total economic cost of the war in Iraq to a family of four is $16,500 from 2002 to 2008," the report asserts in its main conclusions. "When the war in Afghanistan is included, the burden to the American family is $20,900."

"The potential future impact on the family of four skyrockets to $36,900 for Iraq and $46,400 for Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002 to 2017," it states.

The report's total estimate for war costs from 2002 through 2017 is about $1 trillion more than that of a similar report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) late last month.

While both reports made the same assumptions about troop levels over that period, the CBO estimates were based mostly on the direct costs of the maintaining U.S. operations in both countries, caring for wounded troops, and the costs of borrowing the money needed to fund those costs.

The Democratic report, on the other hand, considers a much wider range of "hidden costs," including higher energy prices resulting from the war's disruption in the supply of oil ($270 billion); the loss or productive investment by U.S. companies due to increased government borrowing to fund the war ($870 billion); and other indirect costs.

Critics of the report said such estimates were highly speculative.

The report stressed that a faster and more sweeping drawdown of troops in Iraq, in particular, would result in major savings. A rapid reduction to 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by 2010 and a complete withdrawal after that date would knock the total price for both Iraq and Afghanistan down to $2.6 trillion by 2017.

On the other hand, a status-quo scenario in which the current 180,000 troops in Iraq are simply reduced to 155,000 by 2009 and then remain constant will increase the total costs for both wars through 2017 to $4.5 trillion, according to the report.

Some of the report's work is based on the methodology used by Nobel Economics Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes, who early last year gained headlines when they estimated the total cost of the Iraq war alone as some $2 trillion, depending on how long it lasted.

In September, the American Friends Services Committee, a peace group, released a report based on the Stiglitz-Bilmes findings that concluded that the war was costing $720 million a day, the equivalent of providing health care for nearly half a million U.S. children or buying the equipment to provide 1.27 million U.S. homes with renewable energy.

(Inter Press Service)

Outrage in a Time of Apathy
by Aaron Glantz Unlike most U.S. journalists who went to Iraq to cover a war, Dahr Jamail went to try to stop it.

In his new book, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, Jamail writes of volunteering as a rescue ranger at Denali National Park in Alaska while news of the invasion and occupation of Iraq played on the radio.

He had to get out of Anchorage, and in November 2003, Jamail got on a plane to Amman, Jordan, and then, a few days later, shared a taxi across Iraq's western desert to Baghdad.

"My going to Iraq was an act of desperation," he wrote. "I was tormented by the fact that the government of my country illegally invaded and then occupied a country that it had bombed in 1991."

Once in Iraq, Jamail set about reporting the stories of regular Iraqi people. He spent months in Iraq's hospitals, morgues, and mosques. His journalism covers some of the most mundane, but important, aspects of the U.S. occupation – like gas lines, checkpoints, and bombed out telephone switching stations. His stories appeared in numerous outlets around the world, including IPS.

Most significantly, Dahr Jamail is perhaps the only U.S. journalist to document firsthand the human costs of both U.S. sieges of Fallujah, in April and November 2004.

In covering those sieges, Jamail reported numerous violations of the Geneva Conventions, from the use of cluster bombs and white phosphorus (which is similar to napalm) on densely populated civilian areas, to the blocking of relief supplies from reaching the city, to U.S. military raids into hospitals and shots fired at ambulances. So many Iraqi people were killed in the assault on Fallujah, he notes, that the municipal football stadium had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.

Visiting the site, he wrote: "I tried hard to imagine a soccer field back in the United States being turned into a graveyard – headstones above ground and buried, shrapnel-shredded bodies underneath, populating a dry field where children once laughed, ran, and kicked soccer balls – but my imagination failed me."

For Jamail, the sieges represent unpunished war crimes and his book is, in part, an effort to push the perpetrators a little bit closer to justice. The sieges also represent the climax of his book, which essentially ends when he leaves Iraq for the final time in February 2005.

"You don't need current events to know what is going on," he told IPS. "You need to know what set the conditions for all this."

Since February 2005, there have been numerous developments in Iraq, including an election, a new prime minister, and perhaps most importantly, a much trumpeted "troop surge" which the George W. Bush administration maintains is leading to "progress" in Iraq, especially in western Anbar Province, home to Fallujah.

Jamail sees these current developments through the prism of the U.S. military's previous efforts there.

"What I see in Anbar province is a macro version of what they did in Fallujah after the failed April siege," he said. "They got their asses kicked. They couldn't take the city so they fund, arm, and back the militias in the city and leave. So troop deaths go down, they get to pretend that they've turned over control to the Iraqis and things are getting better. The reality is now in Anbar they've gone back to funding and backing Sunni militias on a huge scale, and it's a ticking time bomb."

Beyond the Green Zone is the latest entry in a crowded field of books by U.S. journalists attempting to present the Iraqi side of the war. While the stories that Jamail tells still rarely make the nightly news or the front pages of U.S. newspapers, they have been related in a series of books, the most well-known being Night Draws Near by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Anthony Shadid.

A number of independent journalists, including this reporter, have also published books on the topic and several scathing documentary films have been released.

This combination of silence from the mainstream media and excellent reportage by the independent press has created a paradox. On one hand, most of the events that Jamail chronicles in Beyond the Green Zone have already been well-documented. On the other hand, most U.S. citizens remain oblivious to them.

"The media is not even beginning to show what's really going on in Iraq," Jamail told IPS, "and so most people here have no idea what's happening."

"People get that the war is not going well," he said, "but that doesn't show any of the gravity of the fact that today half the country of Iraq is either a refugee, in desperate need of emergency care, wounded, or dead. What would the reporting look like if that was the situation here? It would be off the charts: 'Just look at this catastrophe! People are suffering. Look what happened to this family's children!' But instead we have this type of reporting that just kind of touches on the fact that things are not going so well, but it doesn't really show how bad it really is."

Reading as a journalist who has spent significant time reporting from Iraq under U.S. occupation, two aspects of Beyond the Green Zone particularly hit home. The first are the book's photos, one of which appears before each chapter: from a cover image showing a young Iraqi boy standing nervously near a U.S. tank, to photos of dead bodies in a morgue, to anti-U.S. fighters holding a rocket launcher, Jamail's photographs ring truer than any other images this reporter has seen of the Iraq war.

Jamail jokes that his photos are "amateurish" because they lack the compositional complexity of more experienced war photographers. But the fact is that the truth of the Iraq war is not all that complex. The main truth of the war is death. Jamail's pictures provide that truth simply, showing how the occupation appears through the eyes of a normal person.

Jamail's section on his return home is also particularly insightful. After witnessing the second siege of Fallujah, Jamail returned to the United States in the winter of 2004.

"The differences thrust in my face on returning home to America were glaring," he wrote. "There were no checkpoints in the United States. People didn't have to stop their cars, have guns aimed at them and their children, get out to be searched, and have their vehicles searched. No military vehicles roamed the streets, carrying soldiers who aimed their weapons at powerless civilians who watched them pass. There was mail service and the phones worked on the first try. You could order take-out and have it delivered to your door. There were employees of the city who cleaned the streets, watered the trees and grass, and kept the parks clean."

This disconnect between the destruction in Iraq and peace on the home front is universal. You can hear it from nearly every journalist and soldier who has been to the war zone. Jamail goes a step further and links U.S. apathy about the war to its continuation.

"The front lines of American imperialism were frightening," he wrote. "In Iraq, there was no hiding the raw, ugly face of corporations profiting from the blood and suffering caused by the brutal occupation of Iraq. Yet, back in the United States – the country that launched the invasion and now supported the occupation – people were going about their daily lives, to my amazement. If news got too intense, people were able to simply turn it off and take a walk, or go to a movie, or call a friend."

Beyond the Green Zone is an effort to break through that apathy.

"As journalists, it's our moral obligation to talk about what's actually going on," he told IPS, "and if people see that and decide to turn off the TV that's their call, but I've got to do my job. I want to tell people 'Sorry, your government just invaded another country and totally eviscerated it. Deal with it.'"

(Inter Press Service)

Innocents and Foot Soldiers: The Stories of the 14 Saudis Just Released From Gitmo
by Andy Worthington Whether to impress the Supreme Court with its sense of justice prior to next month's showdown over detainees' rights, or, more likely, to placate the Saudi government following the death of a third Saudi detainee in Guantánamo in May, the Bush administration released another 14 Saudi detainees on Saturday. Whichever way you look at it, however, the administration loses. Of the 136 Saudi detainees originally held as the "worst of the worst," 107 have now been released (45 in the last four months alone). Removing from these figures the three men who died, this means that just 26 Saudi detainees remain in Guantánamo.

Drawing on the research I conducted for my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison – and additional information released by the Pentagon just two months ago – I can reveal exclusively that the stories of these men do nothing to bolster the administration's claims, first voiced nearly six years ago, that those detained in the "War on Terror" were so uniquely dangerous that it was worth breaking domestic and international law, shredding the Constitution, abandoning the Geneva Conventions, and introducing torture as official U.S. policy to hold them without charge or trial – potentially forever – in conditions that are worse than those endured by the most hardened convicts on the U.S. mainland.

The Missionaries

Of the 14 men, seven – five humanitarian aid workers and two missionaries – had no connection whatsoever with any kind of militancy. I found the story of the first of the missionaries, 24-year-old Khalid al-Bawardi, utterly convincing while conducting my research. After pompously lecturing his tribunal about the finer details of Sunni Islamic practice, he explained that he had traveled around Pakistan and Afghanistan hectoring his fellow Muslims for their failings (mainly to do with raised graves and good luck charms) and also providing food and clothing. He was handed over to U.S. forces by opportunistic border guards after crossing into Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan began.

The second, 26-year-old Sultan al-Uwaydah, did not take part in any of the tribunals or review boards in which, though deprived of legal representation and subject to secret evidence obtained through torture, coercion, or bribery, the detainees were at least allowed to present their stories. His explanation for being in Afghanistan – that he traveled to "teach the Koran to poor and disadvantaged Muslims," and that he duly taught the Koran to children in various locations before meeting with his uncle in Khost and escaping to Pakistan, where he was arrested – was severely at odds with the authorities' version.

The U.S. alleged that Uwaydah was "arrested after crossing into Pakistan from Afghanistan with 30 other persons suspected of being Osama bin Laden bodyguards." Other allegations, from an unidentified "source," from "an al-Qaeda operative," and from "a senior al-Qaeda operative," purported to reinforce this notion that he was one of 30 bodyguards for bin Laden. One of these "sources," for example, stated that "he knew the detainee and that he was probably an Osama bin Laden bodyguard because the detainee was always with Osama bin Laden." Noticeably, however, it has been established that the bodyguard story was concocted by a fellow detainee, Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged "20th hijacker" on 9/11, during the four months that he was tortured in Guantánamo in late 2002. It's therefore difficult to lend much credence to all the other unsubstantiated accusations.

The Humanitarian Aid Workers

Of the five humanitarian aid workers, the most complete story was told by 28-year-old Mohammed al-Harbi, whose release was clearly long overdue. A successful grocer in Saudi Arabia, Harbi batted away an allegation that he was a mujahedeen fighter in Kandahar, insisting that he had never been to Afghanistan and explaining that he traveled to Pakistan in November 2001 to deliver nearly $12,000 to those in need of humanitarian aid. Harbi contended that he was only planning to stay for a few weeks at most, because his wife was pregnant at the time.

"The Pakistani police sold me for money to the Americans," he explained, even though "I had a return ticket home and it was clear I wasn't planning to stay or ever cross into Afghanistan." He added that, although the Saudi authorities intervened to help him while he was in custody in Pakistan, the ISI (the Pakistani intelligence services) deliberately hid his passport, presumably to protect the reward money they were receiving from the Americans, who were paying an average of $5,000 a head for al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects.

The story of the second aid worker, 28-year-old Sa'id al-Shihri, was unknown until the Pentagon released its new batch of documents in September. According to the government's own "evidence," Shihri decided to do charity work in Pakistan after hearing a speech by a sheik in his local mosque. Twelve days after 9/11, he flew to Pakistan and "traveled with an Afghan driver, another Saudi man who worked with the Red Crescent, and a member from the Saudi embassy in Pakistan" in a vehicle taking supplies to a refugee camp near the Afghan border between Spin Boldak and Quetta. Presumably wounded in a bombing raid (though this was not stated), he was taken to a Red Crescent hospital in Quetta, where he and four others stayed for a month and a half, "awaiting a plane to come and take them back to Saudi Arabia. However, when they were moved from the hospital they were put on a plane and taken to Kandahar," to the U.S. prison at the airport, where Shihri stayed for 10 days before being flown to Guantánamo. To counter this detailed and non-military explanation for Shihri's presence on the Afghan border, the authorities managed to come up with nothing more than a few wildly tangential allegations: that he "trained in urban warfare at the Libyan Camp north of Kabul," and, even more improbably, that, according to "an individual," he "instigated" another person to assassinate a writer, based on a fatwa issued by a radical sheik.

Al-Wafa: Terrorist Entity or Legitimate Charity?

The other three aid workers were, to varying degrees, involved with the Saudi charity al-Wafa, whose headquarters were in Kabul. Blacklisted two weeks after 9/11 and regarded as a front for al-Qaeda, dozens of detainees were tarred as terrorists because of their association with the charity, even though humanitarian aid was clearly the main focus of the organization.

Twenty-seven-year-old Zaid al-Husain al-Ghamdi, whose family did not even know he was in Guantánamo until earlier this year, because the U.S. authorities had described him as a Jordanian, traveled to Afghanistan in July 2001. Ghamdi was declared an "enemy combatant" after his tribunal in October 2004 on the basis of three particularly thin allegations: that he was a member of al-Wafa, that he "carried a weapon in Afghanistan," and that he was "present and wounded during military operations at Khost" in December 2001. These allegations were augmented in the years that followed, but nothing about these additional claims suggests that they were reliable. The authorities alleged that he "was identified" as the "occasional leader" of a group of fighters in the northern city of Taloqan, but they ignored another narrative that could be pieced together from other statements: that Ghamdi reported that he left home "to provide help for the refugees in Afghanistan," that he worked for al-Wafa as a laborer in Kabul, and that he traveled to Taloqan because, after approaching Taliban representatives in Kabul to find out "places needing assistance with orphans," he had been told that Taloqan was a suitable area. The additional information compiled by the authorities also provided an explanation of the circumstances of his capture, which contradicted the claim that he was "wounded during military operations." After fleeing to Khost, Ghamdi said that he "stopped in the first Taliban center he came to," which was subsequently bombed. Injured and "rendered unconscious," he awoke in a hospital in Miram Shah, in Pakistan, where he was arrested and transferred to U.S. custody.

The stories of the other two were unknown until this September, because they did not take part in any tribunals or review boards, and the Pentagon had not released any of the "evidence" against them. Al-Wafa litters the story of 23-year-old Jabir al-Qahtani, but none of the allegations come close to any evidence of militant activity. By the time of his last administrative review, in April 2006, all the authorities had managed to come up with were allegations that he traveled to Lahore in March 2001, "with his travel partly financed by the head of al-Wafa," that he worked in a warehouse in Lahore for six months, and that he then moved to a warehouse in Kabul. Captured by the Northern Alliance in November 2001, he was held for four months before being turned over to U.S. forces. With only one dubious allegation of militancy – that he "was identified as a fighter who preferred to spend most of his time lounging around [various] guest houses" – the authorities resorted to alleging that he "depicts [sic] many counter-interrogation techniques attributed to al-Qaeda training and consistent with al-Qaeda members," and that, in Guantánamo, he "was identified as the leader of a cell block, and has issued a fatwa on the United States."

A more shocking set of allegations was leveled against 35-year-old Abdullah al-Wafi al-Harbi. He told his interrogators that he traveled to Afghanistan via Iran, approximately three weeks after 9/11, and that, when he reached the border and told the guards that "he had come to Afghanistan to assist in humanitarian efforts," they "informed him about a group called al-Wafa and advised him to join the group if he wished to help the poor." After two weeks in Kabul – as the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan began – he said that "he was told by the Afghanis that they had to leave because there was a problem with Arabs" and that representatives of al-Wafa provided him "with directions on how to leave Afghanistan." He then traveled by taxi, with three other men, to Khost, where they stayed for a month before crossing into Pakistan, where he was arrested.

Ranged against this account was a bewildering array of unsubstantiated allegations: that he "was identified as an experienced fighter who allegedly fought against the Russians in Afghanistan and Bosnia [sic]," that a "source" – or various sources – claimed that he "was in Bosnia with a known al-Qaeda operative," that he attended the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan, that he was "well known by clerics and imams in Saudi Arabia as a recruiter and fundraiser for jihad," and that he, along with others from Mecca known as "the Mecca Group," "ate with Osama bin Laden while at Tora Bora." Another unidentified "individual" made the astonishing claim that Harbi told him that several of the 9/11 hijackers "stayed at his house during Haj, possibly in 1999." A "source" also said that Harbi "told him he had lied to interrogators" in Kandahar, claiming to work for al-Wafa "rather than admitting to fighting in the jihad," even though this was directly contradicted by the next allegation from another "source," who stated that he was "ranked high in al-Wafa."

The Taliban Foot Soldiers

Of the seven men who fought with the Taliban, three of the stories appear fairly straightforward, although two of the men – 26-year-old Turki al-Asiri and 19-year-old Nayif al-Nukhaylan – did not take part in any tribunals or review boards. Asiri was accused of answering a fatwa urging support for the Taliban, of training at al-Farouq (the main camp for Arabs, associated with Osama bin Laden), and of fleeing, via Tora Bora, from Jalalabad to Pakistan, where he was arrested. Nukhaylan, who was also accused of attending al-Farouq, apparently received additional training at a Moroccan camp in Jalalabad, where he was wounded in a U.S. air strike and spent some time in a coma in an Afghan hospital. The third man, 25-year-old Fahd al-Sharif, who had been a policeman in Mecca, apparently remained seduced by the jihadist fantasies that had been used to recruit him. He told his review board that he traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 "for the purpose of jihad with the Taliban government" and that he hoped to become a martyr, but added that he went only to fight the Northern Alliance, "to help thousands of millions of Afghan Muslims to return their hopes, their countries, and their lives."

The stories of two other willing recruits are notable only because of the additional allegations that mounted against them. Twenty-nine-year-old Hani al-Khalif, who had served as a soldier in the Saudi army during the Gulf War, explained that he "had been taught the doctrine of jihad in the mosque he attended," and "specifically that it was a Muslim's duty to wage jihad against anyone who killed Muslims." He added that he wanted to fight in Chechnya, which was "a greater jihad," because "the fight was not against other Muslims as in Afghanistan," but he was unable to arrange travel to Chechnya. He settled on Afghanistan instead, where he trained at al-Farouq and then fought on the front lines against the Northern Alliance until he was ordered to surrender to Gen. Dostum, one of the Alliance leaders. Despite the coherence of this narrative arc, however, it was also alleged that "a senior al-Qaeda operative" identified him as the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in Karachi, Pakistan.

The story of 29-year-old Faha Sultan (described on his release as Fahd al-Osaimi al-Otaibi) was unknown until just two months ago. After responding to a fatwa, he traveled to Afghanistan in January 2001 and was identified by two detainees as having worked in a distribution center. Less reliable was an allegation that he was "identified as a friend of a senior al-Qaeda leader and had a good relationship with another individual who was a close associate of the senior al-Qaeda leader." Although U.S. authorities claimed that he had "acted as if in a catatonic state during interviews," on one occasion being overheard "telling another detainee that he had fooled the interrogator into thinking that he was 'messed up,'" they also said that as long ago as July 2002, "a foreign delegation" – presumably Saudi intelligence – identified him as being "of low law enforcement and low intelligence value."

Hunger Strikes in Guantánamo

The stories of the last two Taliban recruits are particularly depressing, not because of their military recruitment, which followed a well-established pattern, but because of what happened to them in Guantánamo. Yousef al-Shehri was just 16 years old when he was captured by Northern Alliance soldiers, in a group of around 120 fighters, after the surrender of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz in November 2001. Although dozens of juveniles have been held at Guantánamo, the U.S. (one of only two nations that has refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) has, with few exceptions, pointedly refused to recognize that all juveniles – even "child soldiers" – should be treated differently from adults. Shehri was not one of the exceptions: he was held throughout his detention as an adult, and treated as a dangerous terrorist rather than a child. His suffering became particularly pronounced when he took part in a prison-wide hunger strike, which involved at least 200 detainees, in the summer of 2005. In July 2005 and again in January 2006, his weight, which had been 141 pounds when he arrived at Guantánamo in February 2002, dropped to just 97 pounds. His lawyers, who visited him in October 2005, said that he was "emaciated and had lost a disturbing amount of weight," adding that he was "visibly weak and frail" and "had difficulty speaking because of lesions in his throat that were a result of the involuntary force-feeding" to which he had been subjected.

Murtadha Makram, who was 25 years old when he was captured, was an even more committed hunger striker. A Taliban recruit who spent 16 months in Afghanistan, Makram "was identified as having fought at Tora Bora" and was seized after crossing into Pakistan. Makram was force-fed at least once a week from October 2005 onwards, and daily from Dec. 17, 2005, to Jan. 27, 2006, when his weight, which had been 142 pounds when he arrived in Guantánamo, fell to just 87 pounds. After resuming his hunger strike later in the year, he was then force-fed on a daily basis from Nov. 16, 2006, until at least Dec. 10, when the records end. In March 2007, when detailed notes about the ongoing hunger strikes – compiled by the imprisoned al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj – were declassified, Haj explained that Makram "has tried to kill himself many times. He last tried to do this on May 18, 2006. Now he is on a hunger strike to try to kill himself. He has been without food for three months and is being force-fed." Though no one in the administration has admitted it, it's plausible that Makram was released in this latest batch of detainees because of fears that his desire to kill himself was close to becoming another PR-damaging reality.

In conclusion, though many readers may have no sympathy for the suffering of Taliban recruits (whether on hunger strike or not), the unpalatable truth is that force-feeding competent prisoners against their will is widely considered illegal, and it is only being done because otherwise Guantánamo would be filled with emaciated corpses. The reason for these men's despair – which is such that many have sought to end their lives, even though Islam prohibits suicide – is, quite simply, the intolerable burden of indefinite detention without charge or trial, which is unique to Guantánamo and the administration's secret prisons.

The cases of the innocent men described above are clearly a moral outrage and a colossal miscarriage of justice. Even in the cases of the Taliban foot soldiers – who, lest we forget, traveled to Afghanistan before 9/11 to take part in an inter-Muslim civil war – it has yet to be demonstrated that the administration's flight from domestic and international law has been justified. After depriving these men of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, refusing to allow them to challenge the basis of their detention, and interrogating them for nearly six years, the administration's decision to release them, though clearly affected by diplomacy, also suggests that, in the end, they had no inside knowledge of al-Qaeda or the 9/11 attacks.

Glenn Greenwald
Monday November 12, 2007 14:31 EST
Ron Paul distortions and smears
(updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI)

I'm not trying to be Ron Paul's advocate but, still, outright distortions and smears are distortions and smears. In an otherwise informative and legitimate (and widely-cited) post today about Paul's record in Congress, Dave Neiwert claims:

Even though he claims to be a "libertarian", he opposes people's freedom to burn or destroy their own copies of the design of the U.S. flag.

He then links to two bills which Paul introduced in Congress which would, in essence, amend the Constitution in order to allow prohibitions on flag burning. But Neiwert's claim here is, in one respect, completely misleading and, in another respect, outright false (in both cases, I assume the error is unintentional). Unlike Hillary Clinton -- the Democratic Party front-runner who, "along with Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican, introduced a bill that would make flag burning illegal" -- Ron Paul was and is vehemently against any and all laws to criminalize flag burning, including the constitutional amendment he introduced. He introduced that amendment solely to make a point -- one he makes frequently -- that the legislation being offered to criminalize flag burning was plainly unconstitutional, and that the only legitimate way to ban flag burning was to amend the First Amendment.

Indeed, he only introduced those flag-burning amendments in order to dare his colleagues who wanted to pass a law banning flag burning to do it that way -- i.e., the constitutional way. When introducing his amendments, he delivered an eloquent and impassioned speech on the floor of the House explaining why he considered anti-flag-burning measures to be "very unnecessary and very dangerous." And he urged his colleagues to vote against them, including the ones he introduced:

As for my viewpoint, I see the amendment as very unnecessary and very dangerous. I want to make a few points along those lines. It has been inferred too often by those who promote this amendment that those who oppose it are less patriotic, and I think that is unfair. . . .

It has also been said that if one does not support this amendment to the flag that they are disloyal to the military, and that cannot possibly be true. I have served 5 years in the military, and I do not feel less respectful of the military because I have a different interpretation on how we should handle the flag. But nevertheless, I think what we are doing here is very serious business because it deals with more than just the flag.

First off, I think what we are trying to achieve through an amendment to the Constitution is to impose values on people -- that is, teach people patriotism with our definition of what patriotism is. But we cannot force values on people; we cannot say there will be a law that a person will do such and such because it is disrespectful if they do not, and therefore, we are going to make sure that people have these values that we want to teach.

Values in a free society are accepted voluntarily, not through coercion, and certainly not by law, because the law implies that there are guns, and that means the federal government and others will have to enforce these laws.

Rep. Paul did exactly the same thing with the invasion of Iraq, which he opposed. He argued (accurately) that the only constitutional method for Congress to authorize the President to invade another country was to declare war on that country. The Constitution does not allow the Congress to "authorize" military force without a war declaration. Rep. Paul thus introduced a Declaration of War in the House on the ground that such a Declaration was constitutionally required to invade Iraq -- and he then proceeded to vote against the AUMF (because, unlike Hillary Clinton, he actually opposed the invasion). Thus, saying that Paul wants to outlaw flag burning (as Neiwert's post does) -- or that he supported the war in Iraq -- is just false. * * * * *

This raises a broader point. It has become fashionable among certain commentators to hurl insults at Ron Paul such as "huge weirdo," "fruitcake," and the like. Interestingly, the same thing was done to another anti-war medical doctor/politician, Howard Dean, back in 2003, as Charles Krauthammer infamously pronounced with regard to Dean that "it's time to check on thorazine supplies." Krauthammer subsequently said that "t looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again."

For a long time now, I've heard a lot of people ask: "where are the principled conservatives?" -- meaning those on the Right who are willing to oppose the constitutional transgressions and abuses of the Bush administration without regard to party loyalty. A "principled conservative" isn't someone who agrees with liberals on most issues; that would make them a "principled liberal." A "principled conservative" is someone who aggressively objects to the radicalism of the neocons and the Bush/Cheney assault on our constitution and embraces a conservative political ideology. That's what Ron Paul is, and it's hardly a surprise that he holds many views anathema to most liberals. That hardly makes him a "fruitcake."

Hillary Clinton supported the invasion of a sovereign country that had not attacked us and could not attack us -- as did some of the commentators now aggressively questioning Ron Paul's mental health or, at least, his "seriousness." She supported the occupation of that country for years -- until it became politically unpalatable. That war has killed hundreds of thousands of people at least and wreaked untold havoc on our country. Are those who supported that war extremist, or big weirdos, or fruitcakes?

Or how about her recent support for Joe Lieberman's Iran warmongering amendment, or her desire to criminalize flag burning, or her vow to strongly consider an attack on Iran if they obtain nuclear weapons? Is all of that sane, normal, and serious?

And I read every day that corporations and their lobbyists are the bane of our country, responsible for most of its ills. What does it say about her that her campaign is fueled in large part by support from exactly those factions? Are she and all of her supporters nonetheless squarely within the realm of the sane and normal? And none of this is to say anything of the Giulianis and Podhoretzs and Romneys and Krauthammers and Kristols with ideas so extreme and dangerous, yet still deemed "serious."

That isn't to say that nobody can ever be deemed extremist or even crazy. But I've heard Ron Paul speak many times now. There are a lot of views he espouses that I don't share. But he is a medical doctor and it shows; whatever else is true about him, he advocates his policies in a rational, substantive, and coherent way -- at least as thoughtful and critical as any other political figure on the national scene, if not more so. As the anti-Paul [i]New York Sun noted today, Paul has been downright prescient for a long time in warning about the severe devaluation of the dollar.

And -- as the above-cited efforts to compel Congress to actually adhere to the Constitution demonstrate -- few people have been as vigorous in defense of Constitutional principles as those principles have been mangled and trampled upon by this administration while most of our establishment stood by meekly. That's just true.

Paul's efforts in that regard may be "odd" in the sense that virtually nobody else seemed to care all that much about systematic unconstitutional actions, but that hardly makes him a "weirdo." Sometimes -- as the debate over the Iraq War should have demonstrated once and for all -- the actual "fruitcake" positions are the ones that are held by the people who are welcome in our most respectable institutions and magazines, both conservative and liberal.

* * * * * *

This whole concept of singling out and labelling as "weirdos" and "fruitcakes" political figures because they espouse views that are held only by a small number of people is nothing more than an attempt to discredit someone without having to do the work to engage their arguments. It's actually a tactic right out of the seventh grade cafeteria. It's just a slothful mechanism for enforcing norms.

Under the right circumstances, enforcement of norms might have some utility. Where things are going relatively well, and the country has a healthy political dialogue, perhaps there isn't much of a need to expand the scope of ideas that we consider "normal." Having all the people whose views fit comfortably in the mainstream stigmatize as "fruitcakes" all those whose views are outside of the mainstream might, under those happy circumstances, bear little cost.

But our country isn't doing all that well right now. Our political dialogue isn't really vibrant or healthy. It seems rather self-evident that it is preferable to enlarge the scope of ideas that we consider and to expand the debates that we engage. The "norms" that have prevailed over the last six years have led the country quite astray and are in need of fundamental re-examination, at the very least. That a political figure (or pundit) clings loyally to prevailing norms isn't exactly evidence of their worth, let alone their mental health. The contrary proposition might actually be more plausible.

There is something disorienting about watching the same people who cheered much of this on, or who will enthusiastically support for President a candidate who enabled and cheered much of it on, trying to constrict debate by labeling as "weirdos" and "fruitcakes" those who have most aggressively opposed it all. As the debates of 2002 should have proved rather conclusively, the arguments that are deemed to be the province of the weirdos and losers may actually be the ideas that are right. They at least deserve an honest airing, especially in a presidential campaign with as much at stake as this one.

* * * * * *

For anyone with any questions about what this post means and, more importantly, what it does not mean, please see here (Update II).

UPDATE: Bruce Fein is an example of a conservative who -- by virtue of his outspoken opposition to Bush lawbreaking -- has generated substantial respect among Bush critics, including many liberals. Yet Fein hasn't changed his views at all. He is, for instance, emphatically pro-life, and rather recently urged that "President George W. Bush should pack the United States Supreme Court with philosophical clones of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and defeated nominee Judge Robert H. Bork." Fein is still a hard-core conservative, but a principled one. At least in that regard, I would compare Fein to Paul.

On another note, I wrote in my prior post concerning Paul that I found the efforts (by Neiwert and others) to smear him by linking him to some of his extremist and hate-mongering supporters to be unfair (for reasons I explained here). Neiwert responded and compiled what he thinks is the best evidence to justify this linkage here.

For reasons I'll detail at another time, I found virtually all of that to be unpersuasive, relying almost entirely on lame guilt-by-association arguments that could sink most if not all candidates (the only arguably disturbing evidence in this regard is this 1996 Houston Chronicle article, which Neiwert didn't mention, and the pro-Paul response is here). Everyone can review the evidence -- all of which is quite old and very little of which relies on any of Paul's own statements -- and make up their own minds.

UPDATE II: Interesting, and otherwise passed on without comment (h/t selise):



UPDATE III: For a sense of how consistently Paul applies his principles regarding the proper role of the federal government, consider his emphatic opposition to a Congressional Gold Medal to be awarded to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, on the ground that "appropriating $30,000 of taxpayer money is neither constitutional nor, in the spirit of Ronald Reagan's notion of the proper, limited role for the federal government" (on the other hand, his recent vote in favor of the Congressional resolution to condemn MoveOn.org, which he'd presumably justify on the ground that it is non-binding, certainly seems in tension with his underlying view of federal power).

There is certainly ample ground to dispute Paul's view of the proper, constitutional role of the federal versus the state government in various matters. That is probably a worthwhile debate to have. But the claim that Paul's federalism is just an unprincipled ruse to promote some sort of neo-Nazi or racist agenda is plainly belied by such acts, and is exactly the type of dishonest smear designed to discredit his views without bothering to do the work to engage and refute them.

UPDATE IV: The aforementioned Bruce Fein is legal counsel to the Ron Paul campaign. Liberal pro-choice feminist Naomi Wolf recently sang Paul's praises, hailing him as "the outsider Republican presidential candidate who has long upheld these [constitutional] values and who was an early voice warning of the grave danger to all of us of these abuses."

Have Bruce Fein and Naomi Wolf been concealing a neo-Nazi agenda which they are finally able to express through the Ron Paul campaign, or are they simply impressed by the obvious convictions and intense (though rare) passion he brings to issues which they seem to think are of vital importance -- restoration of our constitutional framework and the rule of law, along with principled opposition to America's imperialistic and militarized role in the world?

UPDATE V: There are many hysterical reactions to this post around, attributing to me all sorts of things I didn't say. But this comment at Orcinus -- explaining part of the appeal of some of Ron Paul's positions while disagreeing with much of what I wrote -- is quite insightful, though I don't concur with all of it.

UPDATE VI: On all of these topics, HTML Mencken adds some important insights.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/200...paul/index.html

Pentagon Keeping Iraq Strategy From Democrat Lawmakers

Sen. Reid Threatens Iraq War Fund Cutoff

US Catholic Bishops Calls for Iraq Withdrawal

POLITICS | DECEMBER 2007

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush
The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. Joseph E. Stiglitz sees a generation-long struggle to recoup.

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ba...security_li.htm

November 14, 2007

Homeland Security Links 9/11 Truthers to Taliban

By Barbara Peterson

Do you remember when Bush Jr. said, “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”? Well, he meant it. Homeland Security’s sub-committee on terrorism risk assessment convened a hearing on 11-06-2007 to discuss “using the Web as a weapon – the Internet as a tool for violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.” In a video of this meeting, which was last aired by C-Span on 11-12-2007, members of the sub-committee clearly pointed to Internet sites that question the legitimacy of the official 9/11 story as tools for recruiting terrorists.

During the course of the hearing, Mark Weitzman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center displayed a Power Point Presentation illustrating what his organization considers terrorist recruitment sites. Here is his testimony:

To illustrate the trends described above, we have put together a short PowerPoint demonstration. Without going into deep detail in these written remarks, I would like to offer some brief descriptions of the material that will be shown. The presentation begins with a look at how 9/11 is viewed in some eyes online, including those who applauded it as well as some conspiracies sites. The presence of the conspiracy site is significant, since so much of what passes as fact online is actually based on some form of conspiracy...

Next is a series of sites of media portals which show some of the varied methods that the Islamists use to get their message out, including some based on United States servers. These are followed by some looks at charts and other manuals on how to use violence, along with a novel interpretation of jihad that calls for an “electronic jihad.”

One of these “media portals” displayed in the Power Point presentation is Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. This site is sandwiched between a Taliban training manual, and several Taliban recruitment sites showing how to make bombs, take captives, and blow buildings up.

Representative Jane Harmon posed the following question to Bruce Hoffman regarding the connection between 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” and terrorists: “So this movement develops them into violent killers?” Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University security studies professor, and Chairman of the Rand Corporation in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, stated that “falsehoods and conspiracy theorists have become so ubiquitous and believed that you almost have some sort of parallel truth, and it has become a very effective tool for recruiting people.” The “people” he is referring to are potential terrorists. Mark Weitzman stated: “These people are constructing their own version of reality, full of conspiracy theories, full of doctored videos, that will recruit or inflame the emotions.”

By portraying sites such as Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth as terrorist recruitment organizations, the Department of Homeland Security has taken a dangerous step towards punishing anyone who questions the government. If you go to the A&E Website, you will see that it is a group of “ 212 architectural and engineering professionals and 518 other supporters including A/E students who have joined...in demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation of the collapse of the WTC buildings.” Their mission statement is, “To research and to disseminate the truth of the 9/11 “collapses” of all 3 WTC high-rise buildings to every architect and engineer.” I cannot find any indication that this site promotes terrorism, much less recruits terrorists for the Taliban, yet the Department of Homeland Security has taken the stance that the site is “intended to recruit or inflame the emotions” (Weitzman, M.), and lumps it in with sites disseminating the Taliban Training Manual, and advocating suicide bombings.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute - The Search for International Terrorist Entities went on to blame the Internet for Bush Jr.’s failed “war on terror,” and Representative Charles Dent stated that one possible way to help fight purported Internet terrorism would be to “turn the Internet into a less reliable source of information” by putting up phony Websites to collect information on terrorists as well as disseminate false information. Parry Aftab, Executive Director of Wiredsafety.org, also suggested that the government should collect IP addresses of suspected terrorist Websites to aid in the fight against terror on the Internet. Websites such as Architects for 9/11 Truth for instance?

If all Websites that disagree with the official government explanation of the collapse of the WTC towers is placed on a list of suspected terrorist Websites, what is next? Like Bush Jr. stated: “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”



Copyright 2007, Barbara H. Peterson

TomP: Edwards: Don't Offshore Our Jobs; Rebuild the Middle Class Today, the Economic Policy Institute issued a report concuding that between 25 to 30 million jobs will be offshored over the next decade. Presidential candidate John Edwards has something to say about that.

+ BMD Watch: Tauscher will block Euro-bases
Washington (UPI) Nov 13, 2007 - The seesaw battle between the Democratic 110th Congress and the Bush administration over whether to build an anti-ballistic missile interceptor base in Poland looks like staggering on for years to come. A key Democrat overseeing key elements of ballistic missile defense planning on Capitol Hill has come out strong against the plan. ... more


+ Gloves come off as Iran moderates battle Ahmadinejad
Tehran (AFP) Nov 15, 2007 - Iran's moderates are intensifying criticism of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, landing their first blows in a bitter political fight ahead of elections next year. The moderate heavyweights Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani have been unusually explicit in their criticism of Ahmadinejad's economic policies and his analysis of the threat posed by the United States. Ahmad ... more


+ Iran has right to peaceful nuclear energy use: China
Kabul (AFP) Nov 14, 2007 - China believes Iran has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy but supports nuclear non-proliferation efforts, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said here Wednesday. Beijing also hoped for a "positive outcome" from dialogue between Iran, Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency on talks over the Iranian nuclear issue, Yang said. The foreign minister arrived in Kabul ... more


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