See other War, War, War Articles
Title: Let's All Say No to War
Source:
LewRockwell.com
URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/spielberg8.html
Published: Dec 16, 2008
Author: Dan Spielberg
Post Date: 2008-12-16 08:27:14 by bush_is_a_moonie
Keywords: None
Views: 177
Comments: 11
Day by day it becomes more obvious that the ascension of Barack Obama to the Presidency will bring no fundamental change to the nature of American foreign policy. His war-mongering against Iran and his promise to expand the ongoing war in Afghanistan, along with the appointments of left-neocon Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and life-long servants of the American Empire, Robert Gates and General James Jones, as Defense Secretary and National Security Advisor respectively, show us that Obama will continue the "bi-partisan" foreign policy that Washington has been imposing on us and much of the world for so long. As depressing as this situation may seem, those of us who are "peacemongers"(as the great libertarian F.A. "Baldy" Harper called us) can take solace in the fact that opposing wars is actually a large part of the American political and religious tradition. Nothing illustrates this better than the new book edited by Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now (Basic Books, 2008). It is an incredibly enlightening and enjoyable collection of speeches and essays from writers all across the political spectrum and covers every major war and foreign policy undertaking in U.S. history. The editors themselves are of different political ideologies, with Polner coming from a leftist perspective and Woods being an Austro-Libertarian. This book uncovers so many previously hidden literary gems, even veterans of the antiwar movement will find pieces here that they never knew existed. From the section on the War of 1812, a war that was essentially launched so that the US could grab Canada, we have "The Draft Is Unconstitutional" by Daniel Webster speaking as a Congressman from Massachusetts, in which he proclaims about his constituents that "(b)oth they and myself live under a constitution which teaches us that 'the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind'." What a great line to throw in the face of a warmongering, statist patriot who has bought into the myth that being a good American means doing as you are told! The section on the Mexican War has a speech against the war by none other than Dishonest Abe himself. Lincoln delivered it as a Congressman in the House of Representatives on January 12, 1848. The title itself is a perfect description of the pro-war, pro-imperialism position: "The Half Insane Mumblings of a Fever Dream." In this great speech, he challenges the President at the time, Polk, to point to the direct place on American soil where the first blood of the war had been shed! He said this because he had strong suspicions that the President would not be able to do so because the American troops who were attacked by Mexico were actually in disputed territory, not in the US proper. It turned out he was right. The Civil War section of the book starts off with "The War Method of Peace" by the anarchist and abolitionist Ezra Heywood, who was one of a minority of abolitionists who opposed the war on moral grounds, believing that mass murder was not justified to end slavery. He argued for allowing the South to secede and "erecting the North into a nationality on the basis of 'No union with slaveholders'." He also pointed out to Christians that they were not following Christ's example by waging war. The other highlights of this section are "War or Constitution," the famous speech delivered by Ohio Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham that led to him being arrested and deported from the Union, and "Gross, Shameless, Transparent Cheats" by the great anarchist writer Lysander Spooner. The following quotation from the Spooner essay is worth the price of the book alone: "Their pretenses that they have 'Saved the Country,' and 'Preserved our Glorious Union,' are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling people. This they call 'Saving the Country' ....All these cries of having 'abolished slavery', of having 'saved the country', of having 'preserved the union', of establishing 'a government of consent', and of 'maintaining the national honor', are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats – so transparent that they ought to deceive no one..." "The Pesky Anti-Imperialist" by Wendell Phillips Garrison, in the section on the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, will warm the cockles of any anti-imperialist's heart with it's playful, mischievous tone. Garrison points out that the imperialists keep announcing every few years that their opponents are dead and gone, but gosh darn it, they seem to keep coming back to life! From the World War I era we have the speech given by Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs that resulted in the despicable despot, President Woodrow Wilson, locking him in a government cage for years, despite the fact that Debs was in poor health. It was President Warren Harding, who Woods and Polner state is hated by most mainstream historians, in contrast to Wilson who is seen as a Saint, that eventually let Debs out of prison. The highlight of the World War II section of the book, in my view, is an essay published in the Saturday Evening Post of October 7, 1939, "I think I'll Sit This One Out," by Milton S. Mayer. Mayer makes a most eloquent case against American entry into the war when he states "(f)ascism is animalism.... It is not Hitler I must fight but Fascism.... War is at once the essence and the apotheosis, the beginning and the triumph, of Fascism, and when I go to war I join 'Hitler's' popular front against the man in men. I cannot fight animals their way without turning animal myself." The chapter on the Cold War should be required reading for all conservatives, as it contains a critique of the Cold War mentality by none other that Russell Kirk, one the founders of the modern conservative movement. Also in this section is the speech by Senator Robert Taft, who used to be a standard-bearer for the conservatives in the 1940s and early '50s, entitled "The President Has No Right to Involve the United Sates in a Foreign War." This speech was given during the Korean War on the Senate floor on March 29, 1951. It directly contradicts the modern conservative view that we need "energy in the executive" and that the president can basically do whatever he wants when it comes to foreign affairs. From the Vietnam War era we find great pieces such as "Let's Mind Our Own Business" by General David Shroup and "This Chamber Reeks of Blood," a speech given by Senator George McGovern on the Senate floor on September 1, 1970. Some highlights of the section covering the War on Terror and the Iraq War are the very brave speech given by Representative Barbara Lee on September 15, 2001 entitled "Against War with Afghanistan" and the heartbreaking piece by Andrew Bacevich, who lost his son in the Iraq War, "I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose; We Were Both Doing Our Duty." The final section of the book is entitled "Americans Confront War" and contains essays that deal with the issue of war generally. The section treats us to a wonderful collection of essays from writers of different political persuasions. Here we find works by President John Quincy Adams, leftist historian Howard Zinn, radical libertarian Lew Rockwell and Julia Ward Howe, a 19th-century peace activist and feminist. The book's Appendix is especially delightful to those of us who love movies as it is a list of important antiwar films compiled by libertarian writer and law professor Butler Shaffer. As Christmas Day celebrates the birth of the figure known throughout the centuries as the Prince of Peace, I can think of no more appropriate book to give as a Christmas gift, to yourself and to others, than We Who Dared to Say No To War. If you were ever looking for a book that contained all the best arguments against the major wars in American history, this is it.
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#1. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#0)
America must "lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good." With those words, Barack Obama put an end to the idea that the alleged overexuberant idealism and America- centric hubris of the past six years is about to give way to a new realism, a more limited and modest view of American interests, capabilities and responsibilities. Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will confirm suspicions about America's inherent hegemonism. But Obama believes the world yearns to follow us, if only we restore our worthiness to lead. Personally, I like it. All right, you're thinking, but at least he wants us to lead by example, not by meddling everywhere and trying to transform the world in America's image. When he said, "We have heard much over the last six years about how America's larger purpose in the world is to promote the spread of freedom," you probably expected him to distance himself from this allegedly discredited idealism. Instead, he said, "I agree." His critique is not that we've meddled too much but that we haven't meddled enough. There is more to building democracy than "deposing a dictator and setting up a ballot box." We must build societies with "a strong legislature, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free press, and an honest police force." We must build up "the capacity of the world's weakest states" and provide them "what they need to reduce poverty, build healthy and educated communities, develop markets, . . . generate wealth . . . fight terrorism . . . halt the proliferation of deadly weapons" and fight disease. Obama proposes to double annual expenditures on these efforts, to $50 billion, by 2012. It's not just international do-goodism. To Obama, everything and everyone everywhere is of strategic concern to the United States. "We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child, everywhere, is taught to build and not to destroy." The "security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people." Realists, call your doctors. Okay, you say, but at least Obama is proposing all this Peace Corps-like activity as a substitute for military power. Surely he intends to cut or at least cap a defense budget soaring over $500 billion a year. Surely he understands there is no military answer to terrorism. Actually, Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines. Why? To fight terrorism. He wants the American military to "stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar," and he believes that "the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face." He wants to ensure that we continue to have "the strongest, best-equipped military in the world." Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened." That's known as preemptive military action. It won't reassure those around the world who worry about letting an American president decide what a "vital interest" is and when it is "imminently threatened." Nor will they be comforted to hear that "when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others." Make every effort? Conspicuously absent from Obama's discussion of the use of force are four words: United Nations Security Council. Obama talks about "rogue nations," "hostile dictators," "muscular alliances" and maintaining "a strong nuclear deterrent." He talks about how we need to "seize" the "American moment." We must "begin the world anew." This is realism? This is a left-liberal foreign policy? Ask Noam Chomsky the next time you see him. Of course, it's just a speech. At the Democrats' debate on Thursday, when asked how he would respond to another terrorist attack on the United States, Obama at first did not say a word about military action. So maybe his speech only reflects what he and his advisers think Americans want to hear. But that is revealing, too. When it comes to America's role in the world, apparently they don't think there's much of an argument. Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, writes a monthly column for The Post. His latest book is "Dangerous Nation," a history of American foreign policy. He has been advising John McCain's presidential campaign on an informal and unpaid basis. We told the Os that he was a war pig. They supported him anyway. I hope it's their kids who wind up in Afghanistan fighting for the Saviour. That couldn't happen to a more deserving crowd.
There's no money in that.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Director, CIA 1973–1976 The purpose of the legal system is to protect the elites from the wrath of those they plunder.- Elliott Jackalope
That's a big part of it, but it makes those consumed with ethnic cleansing orgasmic and serves the overall depop agenda well. Using the middle/lower classes to do the dirty work for the elite.
"Wherever a Knave is not punished, an honest Man is laugh'd at." -- George Savile (1633-1695) this sounds like an excellent book
every child. everywhere. yeah, that's realistic. what a crock. seriously, who buys this obvious propaganda? (rhetorical question)
Exhibits A, B and C
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
that's why i qualified it with (rhetorical question). i can think of several more whos, btw.
I know
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
That name and the Atheist, warmongering Kagan Kikes make me wanna puke (and load my 458) JEW Robert Kagan tries to recycle the same old failed plots against Iran 209.85.173.132/search?q=c...&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us Robert Kagan cofounded the neoconservative letterhead group Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in 1997 with fellow neocon Wiliam Kristol, with whom he has also co-written articles and books. Kagan remains a director of the basically defunct, yet previously influential group, which has had no significant actions since 2005. Kagan is a monthly columnist on international affairs for the Washington Post, a contributing editor at the New Republic, and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on international relations and security issues. Kagan has impressive neocon credentials; his father Donald and brother Frederick are neocon historians who have written on the need for a stronger and more interventionist U.S. military. Robert Kagan was recently cited by presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as being one of several conservatives whom the senator calls up for guidance and advice on foreign policy; the group also included Kristol and George P. Shultz (Associated Press, March 9, 2007). Kagan writes frequently on post-Cold War strategy, transatlantic relations, U.S.-China relations, military strategy, defense budget, and U.S. diplomatic history. In a January 2007 column for the Washington Post, Kagan opined: "Those who call for an 'end to the war' don't want to talk about the fact that the war in Iraq and in the region will not end but will only grow more dangerous ... To the extent that people think about Iraq, many seem to believe it is a problem that can be made to go away. This is a delusion, but it is by no means only a Democratic delusion. Many conservatives and Republicans, including erstwhile supporters of the war, have thrown up their hands in anger at the Iraqi people or the Iraqi government" (Washington Post, January 28, 2007). Many of Kagan's fellow neocons, including Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, who both initially supported the Iraq War, have reversed course to become highly critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war. Kagan supports the idea of increasing troop levels in Iraq. "It is precisely the illusion that a political solution is possible in the midst of rampant violence that has gotten us where we are today. What's needed in Iraq are not more clever plans but more U.S. troops to provide the security to make any plan workable. Even those seeking a way out of Iraq as soon as possible should understand the need for an immediate surge in U.S. troop levels to provide the stability necessary so that eventual withdrawal will not produce chaos and an implosion of the Iraqi state" (New Republic, November 27, 2007). His brother Frederick led an American Enterprise Institute panel that concluded a vast troop surge is necessary; the January 2007 report was called "Choosing Victory: A Plan For Success in Iraq." Kagan's latest book is Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century (2006), the first volume in what is likely to be a two-part series. In it, Kagan argues that America is not the isolationist power that he says many conceive it to be. His previous book was Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (2003), in which he argues that "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less." Kagan claims that because Europe has benefited from 60 years of U.S. security guarantees, it has not been forced to spend as much on defense as the United States and is softer when it comes to issues like Iraq and other "rogue states." According to a BBC profile of him, "Kagan disputes that the United States' attitude was altered by the events of September 11. He says that the country 'only became more itself' in its intolerance for the enemy ... Critics accuse him of over-simplifying the argument, overlooking the influences of economic and cultural strength as well as military, and also a certain brutalism in his acceptance that 'American power, even deployed under a double standard, may be the best means of advancing progress'" (BBC News, April 17, 2003). Kagan was appointed by Elliott Abrams in 1985 to head the Office of Public Diplomacy, which was created to push for U.S. support for Nicaraguan Contras. After the Iran-Contra scandal broke, Abrams pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress. Kagan, however, failed to mention Abram's illicit activities or guilty plea in his 1996 book A Twilight Struggle, which was touted as the "definitive history" of the U.S. anti-Sandinista campaign. (Kagan does mention the convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter.) The book received financial backing from the Bradley Foundation and the Carthage Foundation, two key conservative funders (Burch, Research in Political Economy). He is coauthor, with William Kristol, of a 1997 Foreign Affairs article called "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," which argued that the United States should establish a "benevolent hegemony." Kagan edited, also with Kristol, Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy (Encounter Books, 2000). Kagan's writing has been published in numerous venues, including Foreign Affairs, Commentary (where Norman Podohoretz is the longtime editor-at-large), Foreign Policy, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Interest, Policy Review, and Weekly Standard (where Kristol is editor). In a 2002 article for Policy Review that became the basis for Of Paradise and Power, Kagan argued, "It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power—the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power—American and European perspectives are diverging. Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant's 'Perpetual Peace.' The United States, meanwhile, remains mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might" (Policy Review, June/July 2002). Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland, the U.S. representative to NATO. She served as Vice President Dick Cheney's deputy national security adviser from 2003 to 2005. rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1241.html A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest.
Don't expect Obama to change dynamics of US foreign policy. Article from: Cape Times (South Africa) Article date: October 10, 2008 -Snip And Obama is unlikely to change this. Bush's War in Iraq was very much in line with this long tradition; it was not foisted upon the Bush administration by neo-conservative hawks. The United States, argues Kagan, has always seen itself as a model for the world; it has always engaged with the world in terms of an ideological belief in "Manifest Destiny". This was evident in New York Governor William Henry Seward's call for America "to renovate the condition of mankind", and in William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan's view that the war against Spain at the end of the 19th century was fought "for liberty and human rights". It was incumbent on America, they declared, "to confer the blessings of liberty and civilisation upon all the rescued peoples". Similar sentiments were expressed by Woodrow Wilson during America's great moral crusade for democracy against "selfish and autocratic powers" during World War 1, a war seen by many as very much in line with the American Civil War. And again a moral fervour underpinned American actions during the struggle against Nazism and in the subsequent Cold War with the Soviet Union. To think that Obama will behave differently, maintains Kagan, is to ignore American history and to misunderstand fundamentally America's understanding of itself. -Snip
peacemonger bump
#2. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#0)
Obama the Interventionist
#3. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#0)
Let's All Say No to War
#4. To: Hayek Fan (#3)
(Edited)
There's no money in that.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." -- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
#5. To: Cynicom, historian1944 (#0)
We Who Dared to Say No To War. If you were ever looking for a book that contained all the best arguments against the major wars in American history, this is it.
#6. To: Jethro Tull (#2)
"We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child, everywhere, is taught to build and not to destroy." The "security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people."
#7. To: ferret_mike, a vast rightwing conspirator, Arator (#6)
every child. everywhere. yeah, that's realistic. what a crock. seriously, who buys this obvious propaganda? (rhetorical question)
#8. To: Rotara (#7)
#9. To: Christine (#8)
#10. To: Jethro Tull (#2)
#11. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#10)
I'd like to give Kagen and his pals a rectal "stimulus package" with a .38 special.
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