We are witnessing a fascinating period in American history — not the resurgence, as proclaimed, but the decline of an entire culture of dissident leftists. The last year has revealed all their old shibboleths for what they were: lies and half-truths. Examine, for example, some of the positions voiced at recent demonstrations — and decide whether there was any morality or consistency to them other than anti-Americanism?

"No blood for oil" implies that the United States is attacking Iraq to ensure a low price for petroleum — a plot purportedly to allow SUV-driving soccer moms to buzz around at the world's expense. But such a platitude is full of logistical inconsistencies rarely discussed. The argument instead can be made that a fascistic Iraq currently pumps far less than its natural capacity or its national interests would otherwise demand — perhaps as much as a million-barrel shortfall. And such an artificially created dearth helps the price-gouging Russians and the Gulf States by reducing world supplies at the expense of billions well outside the borders of the United States.

A consensual government in Iraq would not distort the market, but would restore its output to be in line with what the people of Iraq would desire. If anything, other oil producers prefer the present contrived and induced shortages. And liberation would allow oil revenue to be shared by the people, not diverted to the palaces, anthrax labs, or Swiss bank accounts of a tribal elite. So a more apt protest slogan should be "No fascism for rigged oil prices" or "Oil for the people who really own it."

The dream of 1960s radicals was supposedly that someday the United States might use its vast cultural influence and military power to be on the "right side of history." That meant — instead of Pavlovian opposition to idealistic socialists and occasional Communists in preference for odious figures like Pinochet, Somoza, or Franco — we would try to topple just those regimes and implant democracies in their place. Few then lectured that the Nicaraguans should be left to handle their own dictators or that we had no right to tell the Spanish what to do with Franco. Instead, support for revolutionary movements was voiced and action demanded.

Well, with the end of the Cold War, those days of hope have at last arrived. Noriega, Milosevic, and Mullah Omar not only were fascistic and bloodthirsty, but they are also all gone thanks to the United States military. Rather than seeing protestors chanting to ignore Saddam Hussein, I would have expected that the refrain would be "Solidarity with the brave Iraqi people in their brave struggles against a fascist mass murderer."

The mantras of the 1960s and 1970s were "coalition governments" and "free elections." The United States was supposed to predicate its support on representation of all spectra of views under democratic auspices, i.e., anything other that what had emerged for a time in Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Brazil, Greece, or Argentina. Such right-wing autocracies were corrupt, authoritarian, and murderous. In other words, like the present Palestinian Authority, they brooked no opposition, lynched or shot dissidents with or without show trials, and embezzled foreign aid. Yet today a democratic Israel — with a vociferous press, an antiwar movement, a plentitude of parties, regular elections, and a civilian-controlled military — is as demonized as Mr. Arafat is praised by Western intellectuals. Do we see protest signs that say "Support the democratic peoples of Israel in their struggle against sexist, homophobic, and fundamentalist reactionaries"?

If I could summarize the antiwar movement's traditional view of the military, it ran something like this: Anyone who came of age during the draft and combat abroad had a constitutional duty not to serve the imperialist war aims of the United States, especially in Vietnam. The military were slandered as innately fascistic and its officers not to be trusted — veterans who were said to have the blood of innocent civilians on their hands. Only the brake of civilians — intellectual and principled — could save us from a dangerous militarism. Or so it went on the campuses.

Now, however, those in their mid and late 50s in government who did not go to Vietnam are slurred as "chicken hawks" in the manner that those same accusers once tarred veterans as "baby killers." That the top brass is wary of going into Iraq is suddenly proof that such military experts, not their civilian overseers, should be heeded as wise and reasonable. Are there petitions, then, that suggest that serving in the ground war in Vietnam between 1965 and 1972 was an act of patriotism, coupled with proclamations that military minds are in general more responsible to gauge the morality of war? If so, the protesters in D.C. should have placards proclaiming, "Listen to our brave generals and rally behind our Vietnam vets." And since dissidents also apparently think that in this war it is safer to be in the fleet than in the path of terrorist bombers, their placards should read: "Chicken-hawks: Leave your sanctuary in the Pentagon and safe high-rises of New York and get into harm's way on a submarine."

After the murderous aftermath of 1975 in Southeast Asia — boat people, summary executions, the piled skulls of the killing fields, reeducation camps, over a million refugees in the United States — the antiwar Left claimed that its efforts were aimed only at stopping the United States from fighting in Asia and that it had been led astray by the phony rhetoric of the Viet Cong. Thus the myth arose that radical dissidents were more pacifist than anti-American. Suspicions that many favored the eventual Communist victory as part of a general hatred of things America were discounted as absurd, if not libelous. But their stance against the present war with fascists has finally caught up to them, and revealed a large number for what they really are: deductive anti-Americanists. There are various conventional explanations for this week's election results; but unmentioned has been the Democrats' failure to condemn loudly and publicly the ravings of the lunatic Left.

The post-9/11 animus from a Norman Mailer (the Twin Towers were like ugly buck teeth), Noam Chomsky (America planned to kill "millions" in Afghanistan), or Michael Moore (there were few Bush voters at the World Trade Center) — followed by gleeful predictions by others of U.S. failure against the Taliban — is now come to logical fruition over the toppling of the odious Saddam Hussein. And what one has to conclude from the present venom is that anti-Americanism is neither logical nor empirical. Indeed, it is a fundamentalist secular religion, not a reasoned stance, one entirely inconsistent and unpredictable in its choice of friends and foes — except for one constant: Whatever America does, it hates.

We are learning that resistance never really entailed opposition to fascism at all, much less the need for intervention to support democracy, but was simply a strange desire to vent displeasure with our own culture. That so many of these ideological teenagers mad at their opulent and indulgent parents are affluent suburbanites suggests the deleterious effects of leisure and wealth; that so many enjoy the appurtenances of nice cars, houses, and travel denotes abject hypocrisy; that so many mindlessly repeat cant and fad reflects the power of belonging to a clique that promises status by being more "sophisticated" and "subtle" than ordinary Americans; that so many demand utopian perfection reminds us that their god Reason is an unforgiving totem; that so many are shrill and angry suggests that they seek global causes to assuage personal unhappiness and anger at a system that has not met their own high demands upon it.

So we have at last arrived at Cloudcuckooland: A hierarchal United States military is more tolerant of liberals in its ranks than liberal universities are of their critics on campus. Republicans support dangerous interventions abroad to remove dictators and free oppressed peoples, as leftist dissidents agitate for hands-off mass murderers and medieval theocrats. A democratic Israel is slandered as imperialistic and fascistic while an authoritarian Palestinian regime is given a pass for theft, murder, and torture. And liberals, women, and homosexuals are saved in Afghanistan thanks to the work of Air Force pilots and special forces, as reactionary fundamentalists and thugs seek to hold onto their autocracy in part by finding solace with anti-American leftists. Who would have ever thought that democratic Iraqis would seek our military's help, while agents of Saddam Hussein would line up to find solidarity with those now marching?

Face it: Slobodan Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Yasser Arafat, and Saddam Hussein — not the ghosts of the thousands of their innocent dead — all prefer Ramsey Clark to George Bush. We are seeing nothing less than quite literally the end of an era — witnessed by the intellectual suicide of an entire generation, who in their last gasps are proving they have been not very moral people all along.

...there's obviously enough room here, since you're continuing to post....

it's more like no one has bothered to read it.

are way of base:

Lets let Ramsey Clark speak for himself:

The press was addressed by Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the USA and Co-Chairman of the ICDSM. Mr. Clark had spent the better part of three days meeting with President Slobodan Milosevic, imprisoned in The Hague.

Posted below is a surprisingly accurate 'Reuters' dispatch covering the press conference. I say 'surprisingly accurate' because three days ago 'Reuters' declared, as if repeating an accepted fact, that Milosevic: "...remains in solitary confinement at his own request." ('Reuters,' 31 July 2001)

Contradicting this lie, Attorney Clark most strongly protested the fact that the Tribunal has kept Mr. Milosevic in solitary confinement going into the second month, thus violating even the 'Tribunal's' own rules and procedures. Milosevic wants very much to be with the other 'prisoners' but 'Tribunal' officials have refused. In addition, said Clark, Milosevic is especially outraged about the insulting and inhumane conditions under which his wife, Mira Markovic, is forced to meet with him.

Reporters became somewhat hostile at this point, demanding to know why the 'Tribunal' would possibly want to cause problems for the President and his wife. Clark answered that, obviously, this was intended to break Milosevic. "I have seen this in many countries," said Clark. "The authorities try to disorient and weaken a political prisoner, especially in the first stages of an arrest."

Clark noted that despite these attempts to break Slobodan Milosevic, he remains strong, has an excellent spirit, is very sharp, and wants to argue his case to expose NATO's aggression aimed at breaking up and Yugoslavia, to defend the sovereignty of Yugoslavia and to defend the people of his country against US and European plans to take over and devastate the economy.

Said Clark: "Milosevic says, 'OK, I didn't choose to be here, but I am here. So apparently it is my destiny to use this prison as a platform to help our people.'"

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:Iv69z2HdE-cC:www.iacenter.org/hague_rc.htm+ramsey+clark+milosevic&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Today, as we prepared to post an article about the utter hypocrisy of The Hague "tribunal's" concern for Slobodan Milosevic's health, this "trial of the century" exploded and died.

Now the question is, will it linger in death?

The "tribunal" passed away during the testimony of Rade Markovic, former head of the Department of State Security of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior (the Serbian Secret Service). Markovic (pronounced MARK-oh-vich) was cross-examined today, 26 July, by Slobodan Milosevic.

Mind you, the prosecution called Mr. Markovic to testify. He was "their" witness. That is, for some reason they expected him to testify in their favor. And yet, he testified against them...

1) Mr. Markovic testified that the Milosevic government did *not* try to drive ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo during the NATO bombing. Quite the contrary:

"'I told (local officials) that presidential orders are that the flow of refugees must be stopped,' Markovic said during cross-examination by Milosevic..." (AP, 26 July 2002)

2) Mr. Markovic testified that Milosevic came down hard on anti-Albanian hate crime:

"'More than 200 criminal charges were filed against members of the police, and I think a similar figure stands for the army,' said Markovic..." (AP, Ibid)

Some news wire services reported the above points while trying to downplay their significance.

Earlier, Mr. Markovic had testified that starting in 1997 Mr. Milosevic did not exercise direct, daily control of security police. This testimony was misreported in the press. We shall clarify that when we publish the transcripts of Mr. Markovic's testimony, which will be soon.

But no wire service reported the most shocking revelation.

Prior to being brought to The Hague, Rade Markovic was held in a Belgrade jail for the past 17 months.

Today at The Hague, Mr. Markovic testified that he was tortured in that jail to force him to agree to give false testimony against Slobodan Milosevic.

He also testified that the current Belgrade security police, who work in closest cooperation with "tribunal" prosecutors, offered him and his family a change of identity and a comfortable new life in a foreign land if he would lie against Slobodan Milosevic.

Mr. Markovic said that, at one point, pro-NATO Serbian Interior Minister Mihailovic and his Secret Police chief, Goran Petrovic, showed up at the jail with a squad of secret police. Mr. Markovic said they removed him from the facility - itself a violation of Serbian law - and took him to a private dinner where they made him the offer of a new identity with a luxury life - and no more torture - in exchange for false testimony.

The torture and the bribes would explain why the Prosecution had reason to believe Mr. Markovic was "their" witness.

Stunned to see Markovic defy him, Prosecutor Jeffrey Nice (sic!) asked so-called judge Richard May to do something to stop it. And May did try, interrupting the cross-examination to argue that since "We are talking about Kosovo," the issue of Markovic being tortured to give false testimony (about Milosevic's role in Kosovo) was irrelevant.

As of this writing, not one English-language wire service has reported Markovic's shattering accusations or the amazing response of "judge" May.

Why not?

Could it be because there is no way for them to spin these charges in favor of the "tribunal" ...And thus the charges can't be mentioned.

Doesn't this support our own charge, that the Western media has been the agent of a massive anti-Yugoslav disinformation campaign? Is there any other way to explain their not mentioning that the head of Milosevic's secret service was called to testify against Milosevic and instead testified that he had been tortured to lie?

WHO IS CREDIBLE AND WHO IS NOT

What we find in the wire services is negative spin about Markovic, a blackout regarding his torture, and lies.

Dick Dicker from Human Rights Watch - which, from our direct observation at The Hague, virtually runs the "tribunal" - told Agence France Presse that Markovic's testimony "lacked credibility."

Ahh, is that so, Mr. Dicker?

If Rade Markovic so lacks credibility, why did your "tribunal" call him as a prosecution witness? Indeed, why did they call him as the last prosecution witness before the summer break?

Didn't your side call him because they thought he was theirs? Now, why would they think such a thing, Mr. Dicker?

Rade Markovic was never Slobodan Milosevic's political opponent.

So why was your "tribunal" so confident? Why was Mr. Nice so surprised?

Why would the "court" expect Rade Markovic to cooperate? Perhaps they were thinking that he'd had certain experiences in jail and therefore knew what was in store for him if he defied them. Perhaps the flunkies in Belgrade exaggerated the extent of their success persuading Markovic to cooperate. Flunkies will do that to impress the home office.

Is that why your associates trusted him to cooperate? And is that why you and they were stunned when he didn't, so now you must sputter about Markovic not being credible - and him your own witness!

Speaking of credibility, why wasn't Rade Markovic's stunning charge broadcast on TV in the West?

Why doesn't the media report that Rade Markovic named the two US/West European agents - Mihailovic and Petrovic - who oversaw his torture?

Why doesn't the media broadcast the news - the scoop! - that instead of ordering an immediate investigation and putting Mr. Markovic under protection, instead of taking these minimal steps in accord with most basic justice, instead "judge" May told Markovic to stop wasting time with irrelevancies?

Doesn't "judge" May's reaction testify eloquently to the credibility of what Rade Markovic said?

And as for your own credibility, Mr. Dicker, why don't you demand an investigation of this charge of torture in this "trial of the century"? Aren't you Human *Rights* Watch? And if you don't demand an investigation because you *know* he's lying, why don't you share with the rest of us how it is that you know?

In the same dispatch as Dicker's "non-credible" remark, Agence France Presse reported that:

"Markovic has been temporarily released from prison in Serbia in order to testify at the trial." (AFP, 16 July 2002)

This is called lying by half-truth. AFP left out the fact that Mr. Markovic is now being held in Scheveningen, where the Nazis tortured leading members of the Dutch Resistance during World War Two.

So tonight Rade Markovic is at the mercy of those whom he defied.

As we shall document in a forthcoming article about the unbelievable "suicide" of Slavko Dokmanovic, Serbian leaders have died under suspicious circumstances while incarcerated at The Hague. In giving this testimony, Rade Markovic has risked torture and death.

And what did he gain? A nice job with Milosevic? Good treatment for his family in a Belgrade now controlled by NATO and the Western secret services? Rade Markovic had nothing whatsoever to gain in making these charges and he had everything to lose.

His action today went beyond mere credibility. It was magnificent.

GANGSTERISM

But what of the New World Order?

On 28 June 2001, Slobodan Milosevic was kidnapped from Belgrade.

The Yugoslav Constitutional Court had forbidden his extradition: it would violate the Yugoslav constitution. Nevertheless the "tribunal" and its Belgrade stooges kidnapped him. National constitutions don't count under the New Order. (1)

Mr. Milosevic has been abused in the former Nazi jail at Scheveningen. At times he has had lights on him, 24 hours a day. He has been denied the basic right to meet advisers of his choice.

One of the authors of this article, Nico Varkevisser, was denied permission to see President Milosevic just this month, despite being the Dutch coordinator for Mr. Milosevic's defense.

Chris Black, head of Milosevic's legal defense group, was banned from visiting Mr. Milosevic by the "tribunal", one of whose officials suggested at a press conference last year that the criterion for deciding whether a lawyer could see Mr. Milosevic was whether the "tribunal" believed he or she would have a "good effect" on the prisoner.

President Milosevic is forbidden access to the Internet or a library. His research tool is a pay telephone near his cell.

For five months we have seen an endless parade of blatantly disreputable "witnesses." Some are officials of NATO governments or organizations associated with NATO. It was NATO that bombed Yugoslavia including Kosovo. And NATO spokesperson, Jamie Shea, once boasted that NATO runs the "tribunal." (2)

Other "witnesses" have been Kosovo Liberation Army terrorists, or members of their front groups. That's whom the Milosevic government was fighting on the ground while NATO bombed from the air...

And now we have this case, the abuse of Rade Markovic.

Really, is there a greater disgrace, morally or professionally, than to be part of this "tribunal" or to defend it in the media or through some phony human rights group that fawns and scurries to serve the gangster bullies?

Slobodan Milosevic and Rade Markovic are imprisoned in Scheveningen. On a stone in that former Nazi prison a member of the Dutch Resistance engraved the following words:

"In deze bajes zit geen gajes, maar Hollands glorie, potjandorie."

which means:

"In this prison there are no criminals, but only the glory of Holland."

Let the NATO masters be careful how they treat Slobodan Milosevic and Rade Markovic.

- Jared Israel & Nico Varkevisser, Vice Chairpersons, International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic

http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/rade.htm

December 11, 2001

Dear Ambassador,

The Security Council must direct the United States that it may not attack Iraq and must cease threatening to do so. Nor can it train, aid, or finance other forces seeking the violent overthrow of the Iraqi government. Any such acts would violate the obligations of nations under the Charter of the United Nations and constitute crimes under international law.

U.S. military and economic assaults on Iraq in the past dozen years are a continuing crime against peace and humanity. They violate the Genocide Convention.

The Pentagon admits it conducted 110,000 aerial sorties against a defenseless Iraq dropping 88,500 tons of bombs equivalent to 7 1/2 Hiroshima bombs in 42 days from January 17 to February 28, 1991. The bombs targeted every type of structure and facility necessary to support civilian life. Family dwellings, water and food systems and supplies, industry, commerce, business, education, religion all across Iraq were the direct object of U.S. bombs punishing a whole population.

More than 150,000 thousands defenseless people died in Iraq as a result of this military assault, which included thousands of individual war crimes.

From August 6, 1990 to date the most severe economic sanctions and forced impoverishment have deliberately inflicted hunger, malnourishment, sickness and death generously among the people of Iraq killing and crippling infants, children, the elderly, pregnant women, nursing mothers, persons with chronic illnesses, and emergency medical cases fist and most frequently.

More than 1 1/2 million people have died as a direct result of these sanctions. More than half have been children under five years of age. The sanctions, coerced from the Security Council by the U.S., have violated the Genocide Convention because they have deliberately created conditions of life intended to destroy the Iraqi population in whole, or in part, because of the nationality, race, religion and ethnic origin of its people. The sanctions have had their intended effect.

Every U.N. agency dealing with food, health and children has confirmed the human horror of the sanctions. They include the FAO, UNICEF, WFP, WHO. The most courageous and honorable of the U.N. employee's directly involved with enforcement of the sanctions and inspections under them have resigned their positions and publicly protested the sanctions and inspections policies. The food for oil program approved only in late 1996, and used thereafter primarily as a devise for delay, frustration and accusation, was initiated only when international protest against the savagery of the sanctions overwhelmed the fear in which Security Council members held the threat of U.S. reprisal if they did not support U.S. policies.

The U.S. has bombed Iraq whenever it chose to do so at any time for the past twelve years. Missiles and bombs have targeted Saddam Hussin for assassination. Many hundreds have been killed, including as an illustration of the meaning of such bombing, Leila al Attar, the internationally famous artist, museum director, wife, mother, human being. The sound of U.S. jets over Iraq is omnipresent, keeping constant the terrifying memory of the continuous aerial and missile assault of February-March 1991 which averaged an aerial sortie every 30 seconds.

In the face of these staggering crimes against Iraq, the U.S. has conducted a constant campaign of vilification in the international media it controls. While claims Saddam Hussein is the evil it seeks to destroy its broad brush paints all of Iraq as a symbol of evil. The U.S. propaganda is racist, anti Muslim, hate engendering and false.

The U.S. has corrupted and seriously compromised the United Nations by appearing to act in its name, tragically diminishing humanities best hope for peace, dignity and decent conditions of life for all by its decade of brutish and criminal assaults on the people of Iraq. Though coerced, the Security Council is complicit in these crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes and genocide because it has at the least allowed its name and moral authority to be usurped by the United States.

The United States time and time again has acted on the advice of Plato's Athenian Stranger, who fearing the judgment of history remains anonymous by waging "...war for the sake of peace". Consider how victims of U.S. wars, surrogate and direct, since World War II have fared: Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, the Domenican Republic, the Philippines, Liberia, Cuba, Guatemala, Grenada, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Haiti, El Salvador, Honduras, Angola, Croatia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iran, Indonesia, Afghanistan. Yet where is the promised peace?

Consider the havoc direct U.S. military violence has wreaked in the past decade on the people of Iraq, all the Republics of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia created to make peace possible in the Balkans, Nicaragua, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, North Korea, Kosovo, Afghanistan. And who will be next? The media reports daily on the candidates.

Is there anything Iraq has done in the past decade which threatened peace, endangered life, or caused violence that could possibly compare with the violence and calumny the U.S. has visited on Iraq. There is no legal basis, or moral justification for a U.S. attack on Iraq, or for U.S. financing and assisting in the overthrow of its government. For the U.S. to do so is an international crime and prohibited by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Prevailing power in the U.S. and its government intends to attack Iraq when the current assault of Afghanistan has accomplished its purpose to consolidate U.S. domination over the Middle East, the Gulf region and central Asia.

Act immediately to end the shame of the Security Councils abject failure to assert the independence and sovereignty of the United Nations under its Charter and to end this scourge of war. Prohibit the United States from attacking Iraq.

Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark

http://www.iacenter.org/rc_121101.htm

the bush admirers would twist the truth and seek to impugn a good man's reputation. Clark upholds intenational law, even in allowing war criminals and others the right to defence.
Bush (and his admirers) prefer extrajudicial killings and open warfare, while laying claim to high principles. Do i hear a cat laughing?

.

"liberation would allow oil revenue to be shared by the people, not diverted to the palaces, anthrax labs"

a) You could feed the Iraqi people for an hour for the cost of a Palace. Do dome economics.

b) The anthrax contained in the letters sent to Democrats had the genetic fingerprint of Fort Detrick.

c ) Only Democrats who asked for time to assess the content of the Patriot Act were targets.

e) Some prescient members of congress started taking Cipro on the evening of September 11

d) Who uses biological weapons against their own people?

 

Sorry to burst your faith-based bubble, but all the inferential anthrax evidence points towards the Enron Administration.

Since the Enron Administration started taking Cipro some three-weeks before the attacks--the same day they stood down the airforce to prevent interception of the "hijacked" jets--a few more deaths by anthrax is hardly out of the question.

The Official Standown Order:
==============
At 9:25, [FAA Administrator Jane] Garvey, in an historic and admirable[!] step, and almost certainly after getting an okay from the White House, initiated a national ground stop, which forbids takeoffs and requires planes in the air to get down as soon as reasonable.
The order, which has never been implemented since flying was invented in 1903, applied to virtually every single kind of machine that can takeoff - civilian, MILITARY, or LAW ENFORCEMENT.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174912,00.html
=====================

Legal group wonders why White House took Cipro before attacks - Judicial Watch, June 07, 2002
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1967.shtml

Yes, and so was 911. It's obvious.

That's completely and utterly ridiculous. Geez.