August 04, 2010| News | Ali Gharib

News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations:

The Washington Post: Glenn Kessler reports that the chief sanctions enforcer at the U.S. Treasury is tightening up loopholes by specifically designating people and companies who are known to front internationally for Iranian state financial interests. Twenty-one businesses and at least four individuals from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Qods Force were named. Two of the named military men were singled out for support of Hezbollah (considered a terrorist organization by the U.S.) and two for “financial and material support” to the Taliban.

House of Representatives: Liberal Mid East hawk Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and über-hawk Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) announced that they are forming a Working Group on Iran Sanctions Implementation. “We will continue to pressure and isolate Iran until it terminates its illicit nuclear weapons activities. A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable,” the members of Congress said in a statement. The Working Group will “meet on a regular basis with Administration officials, foreign ambassadors, and outside experts to oversee and verify enforcement of Iran sanctions implementation,” as well as hold a hearing on the subject in the fall. Both Beramn and Ros-Lehtinen are favorites of the right-wing Israel lobby, for whom “crippling sanctions” have long been a top priority.

Reuters: U.S. State Department Special Adviser for Non-proliferation and Arms Control Robert Einhorn was in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday encouraging the Japanese government to ramp-up its sanctions effort. Japan, which buys Iranian oil, announced that it adopted a sanctions program similar to that of the UN, and said further measures might be on the way. Einhorn, noting that Japanese access to Iranian oil would not be in play, urged them to follow the model of the European Union, which recently enacted a tough unilateral sanctions package.

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August 04, 2010| Culture, Latvia | Matt Barganier

Wednesday’s fun photo, courtesy of my wife (click to enlarge):

Bart Simpson and Che Guevara, universal icons of commerce

(Photo by Oana Cimpean, 2010)

Now, I don’t think the nesting dolls vendor in Riga, Latvia, intended to make any political statement with this display (nor, really, do I), but such an arrangement in, say, an L.A. storefront would send America’s armchair semioticians into convulsions. Stalin, Saddam, Osama… the president of the United States?!? Blasphemy! (To the members of the president’s own party, anyway. And I’m sure this table included Dubya a few years ago.) And to sell tchotchkes with the likenesses of mass murderers [no, no, of course he doesn't mean Obama and Berlusconi - Ed.]… unthinkable!

It might do Americans some good to recognize that our sensitivities, hangups, and sacred cows are not everyone else’s, and, conversely, that which we shrug off or laugh at may be deeply offensive to others. It’s a big, weird world out there (and in here).

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August 03, 2010| Iran, Nukes | Scott Horton

On April 1, 2010 I participated in a panel discussion at the University of California at Riverside titled “Obama’s challenge: Iran, Nuclear Weapons & the Mideast” with Reese Erlich, Larry Greenfield and Christopher Records – here is some of my part. Thanks to Mansoor Sabbagh for the video. Reese Erlich’s part here.

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August 01, 2010| News | Eric Garris

Antiwar.com editorial director Justin Raimondo appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano (Fox Business Network). The video has been posted, here is the segment with Antiwar.com editorial director Justin Raimondo. Below that is posted the earlier segments with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange.

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August 01, 2010| Week in Review | Angela Keaton

Antiwar.com’s Week in Review | July 30, 2010

MEDIA ALERT! Justin Raimondo will be on Fox Business Channel Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano this weekend to discuss WikiLeaks! Air dates and times:

  • Saturday 7/31 10 a.m. ET
  • Saturday 7/31 8 p.m. ET
  • Sunday 8/1 7 p.m. ET
  • Sunday 8/1 11 p.m. ET

Massive National Security Leak Exposes Afghan War Secrets

On Sunday, WikiLeaks released some 90,000 plus documents exposing many previously secret details of the Afghan War. “The number of official stories which have turned out to be complete lies is absolutely staggering,” said Jason Ditz. Quoted at the New York Times blog “At War,” Justin Raimondo said, “What’s particularly bad, from the perspective of the Obama administration officials charged with selling this war to the American people, is the dramatic portrayal of the sheer chaos enveloping our military effort. … Oh, and by the way, the Taliban is apparently armed with portable heat-seeking missiles — a fact the administration has been covering up.”

While Bradley Manning — the alleged leaker of the “Collateral Murder” video — remains in jail in Kuwait, the Pentagon has launched a manhunt to identify others responsible for the most recent leak. Sen. Lindsey Graham admonished WikiLeaks for “undermining the war effort,” and the FBI is working to assist the Defense Department with its criminal investigation.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Antiwar Radio’s Scott Horton on Wednesday that he has another 15,000 documents under review and still has plans to release the Garani video. Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg also made an appearance on the show to discuss how WikiLeaks has changed the face of both journalism and government transparency. He urged other leakers to follow suit, saying now is the time to come forward.

To hear more about this development, listen to Horton’s interviews with author James Bovard, Birgitta Jonsdottir of the Icelandic parliament, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, columnist Eric Margolis, Mike Gogulski of BradleyManning.org, and Jason Ditz.

NOTE: Transcripts are now available for Assange, Ellsberg, and Ditz.

To read more about the “Afghan War Diaries,” please see:

Leave it to the House to completely disregard this week’s embarrassing dump of the “Afghan War Diaries” and charge ahead with a $59 billion bill, more than $33 billion of which will be directly dedicated to continuing the war in Afghanistan.

Bringing to light “the grim realities of the war … in ways that nothing before ever could,” the leaked documents provided “excruciating detail, showing just how poorly the war has been going, how many civilians have been killed, and how aware of both of these facts the military has been, despite its official claims to the contrary,” said Ditz in the Herald News of Fall River, Mass.

“Yet when it came down to it, with all excuses gone, and with no ability to credibly claim the war is anything but an unmitigated disaster, the hawkish members of Congress did what they always do; voted for the war and condemned the leaks on general principle.”

In “Afghan War Leaks Expose Costly, Deceitful March of Folly,” Ray McGovern asked: “Would you say yes to an additional $33.5 billion for this fool’s errand?”

More A.U. Troops Headed to Somalia

The African Union has promised to commit another 4,000 troops in the ongoing, U.S.-backed war in Somalia. The war gained attention after the recent bombings in Uganda during the World Cup, leaving many to mistakenly conclude the attack was a result of Somalia having been ignored by the world.

But nothing could be further from the truth, argued Jason Ditz in an op-ed in the Providence Journal (R.I.). “The world has been trying to install a series of illegitimate governments there for years. … And this attack did not happen in a vacuum but rather came after repeated threats from the Somali militant faction al-Shabaab to ‘retaliate’ against Uganda for its many attacks on neighborhoods under al-Shabaab’s control.”

Of course, any attack on innocent civilians should be condemned, but it is worth recognizing that this did not stem from some religious dislike of soccer — as many would claim — but is instead a classic example of blowback from years of intervention.

Emergence of the Antiwar Republicans

“Nine Republican members of the House sided with Democrats in July to start bringing troops home from Afghanistan. Though one can still count on two hands the congressional Republicans who publicly oppose the war, this latest development is not insignificant,” said Kelley B. Vlahos. “Coupled with recent statements by GOP chief Michael Steele, Ann Coulter, and WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah criticizing the Afghanistan war policy, it’s clear something is happening.”

“In a recent interview with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who just broke ranks with the GOP to vote against war funding,” said Vlahos, “it becomes apparent that these emerging opponents are far from identifying with the antiwar protesters on the Left, nor are they non-interventionists in the mold of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul. For Chaffetz and others, withdrawing from Afghanistan has more to do with the way Obama is running the war, the unsustainable budgets, and nation-building rather than an existential critique on global meddling and the greater war on terror.”

But as noted in blogs at the Salt Lake City Tribune and the Salt Lake City Weekly, Chaffetz told Vlahos: “I’m about as hawkish as they come. I don’t believe 100,000 troops on the ground is going to make the situation better. The hesitancy from a lot of Republicans is they don’t want to be seen as cut and run, or soft on the defense issue. But I think it’s a very solid conservative viewpoint.”

The peaceniks, the conservative noninterventionists, and a new wave of Republicans may all be war-weary, said Vlahos, but will they be able to find common cause?

The Pakistani Police State

With the proposed introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Bill of 2010, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik is working to usher in a draconian surveillance society in the name of fighting “terrorism.” But how is the term being defined? “Broadly” would be an understatement. Establishing unapproved radio stations, damaging public property, and resisting the police would all be acts of terrorism, according to the bill. Furthermore, the power to wiretap any and all communication, seize control of all telecommunications, detain suspects without charge for 90 days, and hold secret trials would become everyday practice.

“Violations of any of the new types of ‘terrorism,’ even the radio station clause, could be punished with death,” said Jason Ditz, and “the detention of a suspect could not be challenged in any court in Pakistan.”

For more on the situation in Pakistan, see “U.S. Must Grow Up on Pakistan” by Michael Scheuer.

Antiwar Radio

As news of WikiLeaks and the “Afghan War Diaries” broke, Angela Keaton roped in some incredible guests for Antiwar Radio. This week, Scott Horton spoke with:

In addition, Antiwar Radio covered the recent Washington Post exposé, the Web site Whistleblower.org, the relationship between Israel and Iran, and much, much more. Check out the podcasts:

  • Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater, discussed the too little, too late Washington Post exposé “Top Secret America.” The fatal flaw in the series, he said, was the omission of the most sensitive contracting operations, among them drone bombing campaigns, domestic spying, and targeted assassinations. Scahill revealed how private contractors do the dirty (and illegal) work of state terrorism while providing the U.S. government plausible deniability.
  • Shelley Walden of the Government Accountability Project discussed Whistleblower.org, a site dedicated to the representation and protection of whistleblowers. Walden examined the case of Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz and his resignation from the World Bank after Whistleblower.org posted information about his girlfriend and staffer, Shaha Riza.
  • Paul Rogers, global security consultant for Oxford Research Group, detailed what would happen if Israel attacked Iran, and he argued that the prospect “is extremely dangerous and would make matters very much worse, not better.”

If you are in Los Angeles tonight, tune into KPFK 90.7 from 5-6 p.m. PT to hear more coverage of WikiLeaks by Scott Horton!

A Roundup from the Antiwar Blog

Heads Up: August 9th Start of Fund Drive

Each quarter, we launch a Web-based fund drive in an effort to meet our operating budget and keep Antiwar.com online. On August 9th, we will begin the push to raise $70,000, and your support will be crucial. If you value the service we provide, please contact Development Director Angela Keaton (323-512-7095) to find out about the many ways you can help.

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July 31, 2010| News | Eric Garris

Maybe it is the US Army vs. the US Navy, but North Korea got a confusing message/non-message from the US government regarding their joint military exercises with South Korea.

On Thursday, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, the top U.S. military commander in South Korea, was quoted by Associated Press: “These defensive, combined training exercises are designed to send a clear message to North Korea that its aggressive behavior must stop.” (emphasis added)

Less than 48 hours later, the commander of the military exercises, Adm. Richard W. Hunt, told the same Associated Press that the focus of the exercises was training to combat terrorism, not sending a message to North Korea. (empasis added)

Can you say “doublespeak”?

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July 31, 2010| News | Ali Gharib

The debate over the Islamic Center being planned for Lower Manhattan is unfortunately heating up. Islamophobes from neoconservative corners of the web, right wing politicians and Fox News have continued to drive a debate that should have died long ago with the unequivocal support of the local New York City community board (neighborhood council), and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s assertion that no one would raise objections if it was a church or a synagogue, and that “Muslims have a right to do it, too.”

But I was shocked that an organization dedicated to combating bigotry – Abraham Foxman’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – chimed in to ask that the location of the Islamic center, which will house a mosque, be moved. Well, maybe not shocked, but surprised that the ADL – which claims that it fights “all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all” – would lay bare its myopic right-wing focus by publicly taking such a stand.

The ADL even admitted that much of the opposition to the Islamic center is based on bigotry and condemned those views! As Alex Pareene wryly quipped on Salon’s War Room blog: “Hah, I don’t think you guys know what “categorically reject” and “condemn” mean! For future reference: ‘condemn’ does not mean ‘join.’” If you can’t beat ‘em, I guess.

I have little to add, as Jim, cribbing Paul Krugman’s argument, already captured nicely the hypocrisy of an organization ostensibly aimed at curbing defamation lending a de facto endorsement of a defamatory view of Muslims – and the implications that this has for other minority groups, like, say, for instance, Jews (the ADL’s original mandate, when it was formed nearly 100 years ago, was exclusively for this demographic). But there are two points I wanted to make.

The first is to do a little thought experiment. The proposed Islamic center is slated to be built two Manhattan blocks from Ground Zero. Now, the Pentagon, which, you’ll remember, was also attacked by radical Muslims on 9/11, is a mere stone’s throw away from Arlington National Cemetery. Say, hypothetically, of course, that family members of the 125 people who perished in the Pentagon that day raised objections to Muslim soldiers from U.S. armed forces being buried at the historic cemetery on Robert E. Lee’s old Arlington plantation. Or it could be the families of the 59 people who were aboard American flight 77 when it hit the Defense Department headquarters. What if it brought those family members pain to see the Islamic symbol – a star and crescent moon – atop the gravestones of these soldiers?

Would Sarah Palin, Rick Lazio, Newt Gingrich and their new friend, Abe Foxman, be asking that these Muslim soldiers not be buried there, or perhaps that their headstones not bear the insignia of their faith because it causes pain that the attackers shared their faith (albeit a twisted and delusional version of it)?

Furthermore, what if the families of Christian, Jewish and atheist soldiers objected that their kids were killed by Muslims in Muslim lands (invaded by the U.S., of course) and were pained by the fact that the next grave over bears Islamic symbols? Would right-wing anti-Islam politicians and figures like Foxman be asking that Muslims be barred from burial in Arlington? Now, after all, we’re talking a matter of feet, not even a stone’s throw, let alone two city blocks.

Oh, and about those city blocks: I fell in love with New York about seven years ago, spending spells of time there and visiting frequently. Last summer, I moved to Manhattan. I’m still exploring the city and would not yet consider myself a New Yorker. But even I understand that building something in New York two blocks away from a particular site is not building on top of said site. Tourists always comment that everything in Manhattan is right on top of everything else. For people living there, I’ve found, two blocks away is two blocks away. Consider, for example, that two blocks north of Columbia University (in Morningside Heights) is Harlem, as is two blocks East.

Conservative blogger Charles Johnson picks up on this distinction, including a nifty map (scroll down to updates) and noting that the center would “[have] no view of the area; there are two very big buildings in between the proposed community center and Ground Zero.”

In his “NYC” column in the New York Times last week, Clyde Haberman also took issue with the language used by opponents of the Islamic center to describe its location:

The center is routinely referred to by some opponents as the “mosque at ground zero.” [...] There’s that “at.” For a two-letter word, it packs quite a wallop. It has been tossed around in a manner both cavalier and disingenuous, with an intention by some to inflame passions. Nobody, regardless of political leanings, would tolerate a mosque at ground zero. “Near” is not the same, as anyone who paid attention back in the fourth grade should know.

(The line about prepositions is valid, but I’m not quite sure why “nobody would tolerate a mosque at ground zero.” What if a Muslim developer bought the lot? I’ll just assume that Haberman sees Ground Zero as some sort of national symbol and therefore unfit for any sort of religious site.)

Joshua Holland, at Alternet, takes up the same issue with stronger language (less of a grammar lesson) and points to the absurdity of a New York-based organization like the ADL being unable to grasp this New York fact of life:

Only brain-dead out-of-towners could possibly confuse a building two whole blocks away from Ground Zero as one constructed on the 9/11 site. People who have been to New York understand just how small Manhattan is.

Holland, a native New Yorker raised just north of the former World Trade Towers, notes that he, too, lost friends on 9/11, and that what pains him is “the casual, socially acceptable and utterly despicable racism against Muslims that those attacks unleashed in the United States.”

But these assaults on Islam as a faith are exactly what the ADL is now in the business of peddling. When you condemn bigots, then join them, then they write glowing endorsements of your position (as Jim has Gingrich doing), what does that make you?

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July 30, 2010| Afghanistan, Civil liberties, Covert Action, Media, News, US Military | Angela Keaton

Update: A video of the full show has been posted here. The first segment is Julian Assange, with Justin Raimondo (and his opponent) in the second segment. We will be posting the stand-alone segments in the next day or so.

Antiwar.com’s Editorial Director Justin Raimondo will be appearing this weekend on Fox Business Channel’s Freedom Watch, hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano. The show airs Saturday, July 31 at 10am and 8pm and again on Sunday, August 1 at 7pm and 11pm. All times Eastern. Please note this is Fox Business Channel, not Fox News.

A preview of the show can be seen below.

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July 29, 2010| Media | Matt Barganier

And to keep the theme going, I urge you to read these posts on D.C. insider, universal expert, and Keynesian killbot Matthew Yglesias by Charles Davis and IOZ. We need more of this – more undermining of the  we’re-all-friends-here centrist atmosphere that contributed to so many of the disasters we look upon today. Now, there’s no use trying to collect scalps, because as the case of Dave Weigel, the Lane Kiffin of Washington punditry, demonstrates, once they’re in the establishment, they’re in to stay. But it can’t hurt to knock these best and brightest down a few notches in the estimation of their readers (and themselves – note that the first response to IOZ’s post is by a wounded Yglesias). I’m not saying that anyone should grab an establishment journo’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window, take a snapshot of the bleeding mess, and send it out in a Christmas card to let the establishment know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear, but we should certainly rebut their BS at every turn. And don’t be polite about it.

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July 29, 2010| Media | Matt Barganier

In news that should stun those of you who just awoke from a seven-decade coma, Dave Weigel, recently fired by the Washington Post, has just been hired by Slate.com… a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. Slate Group chairman Jacob Weisberg, who rose to journalistic prominence compiling minor gaffes by George W. Bush, was apparently miffed by the Post‘s decision to can Weigel. You didn’t realize that those ads in which Coca-Cola executives plot against Coke Zero were actually media satires, did you?

On a related note, I think I’ve just stumbled upon the single best argument for decentralization, devolution, “states’ rights,” or whatever the hell you want to call the transfer of powers from Washington, D.C., to lower political units, and it’s not to be found in the Constitution or any musty old book of political theory. Simply put, such a transfer would scatter the fraternity of political “journalists,” think-tankers, and the like to the four winds, or at least to Augusta, Tallahassee, Sacramento, and Olympia.

Note: My self-authored rebuttal to my last post will work just fine for this one too, #teamweigel. And if you still haven’t read Arthur Silber’s two-parter on the Journolist fracas, then do it now.

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July 28, 2010| Iran | Scott Horton

Gareth Porter and Philip Giraldi both have new articles out on the case of mysterious Iranian defector(?) Shahram Amiri.

Porter’s new one is here, in RawStory.

Giraldi’s is here, in The American Conservative magazine.

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July 28, 2010| News | Jeremy Sapienza

I’ve exposed perhaps too much of what makes me weepy in these pages; here’s more. It turns out PFC Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old intel analyst who risked his life to expose the banally recorded daily atrocities committed in service to the imperial project, is simply a good guy. He’s not a fame-seeker, unlike the slimy self-promoting pig who outed him, or on the side of The Terrorists. He simply wanted to do what he thought was right. I’m convinced of this now — as I read endless reams of coverage, I keep coming back to the human dimension of Bradley. He’s 22.

“Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed,” Manning wrote of the cables. “It’s open diplomacy. Worldwide anarchy in CSV format.”

He’s also a bit of an excited badass. Is that wrong?

You can read a better and longer analysis of the virtues of Bradley Manning in recent and forthcoming pieces by the tireless Arthur Silber. But if you don’t have time to read it through, you can get to the distilled essence of it here: a courageous, rash, intelligent, disillusioned, young man has risked his life to expose what he, and most of us who read this website, consider the world’s worst evils. If that doesn’t make him a hero deserving of your help, or at least your vocal sympathies, what would? As we continue sifting through this data — and there is MUCH more to come — how important will this man have been to the cause of peace, looking back from the future? Scott Horton summed it up in a recent interview with Mike Gogulski, the creator of the website championing Bradley’s legal defense:

“This ought to be the Dan Ellsberg moment — the part where people finally decide that they’re over it and they no longer support this, and they want and end to it sooner, not later.”

Open your wallet for Bradley. I’m sending him $100. You can also change your various profile photos to this “Google Bradley Manning” image — I have just changed mine. The London Times might be wringing its hands over the alleged outing of Afghan “informants” (likely mostly bribed tribal elders) as the “human cost” of the leaks — never mind the wars themselves, I guess — but Bradley tried to strike a blow for all humans.

Of course, we aren’t sure if Bradley leaked these particular documents, but it seems likely he did in light of his admissions and his access to US military records. If it later turns out he did not, his case will still be important for future whistleblowers. If there’s anyone who hates when their authority is challenged, it’s the authorities, and the brave people who defy them need all the help they can get.

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