End the War on Freedom

Chris Hedges at LewRockwell.com - War and Empire - a commencement speech Mr. Hedges attempted to give at Rockford College. He was shouted down. The war lust is still too hot for people to step back and see the truth. [lew]

This is a war of liberation in Iraq, but it is a war now of liberation by Iraqis from American occupation. And if you watch closely what is happening in Iraq, if you can see it through the abysmal coverage, you can see it in the lashing out of the terrorist death squads, the murder of Shiite leaders in mosques, and the assassination of our young soldiers in the streets. It is one that will soon be joined by Islamic radicals and we are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq.

We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.

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Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war. Thank you.

Marc J. Victor at LewRockwell.com - My Contribution to Science - a principled libertarian defense attorney tells the tale of his very short stint at presiding as a criminal judge. He has published his Pro Tem Recusal Minute Entry and An Article by Dary Matera, worth reading, about his short-lived term as judge pro tem. [lew]

I recall learning about the painfully short half-life of certain chemical compounds in high school chemistry. Some of those nasty little compounds expire in hours, minutes or even a few short seconds. Several years after high school, I can now truly empathize with such ill-fated compounds. I have discovered that the half-life of a principled libertarian superior court judge on the criminal bench is about one half hour.

Voltairine de Cleyre - Anarchism and American Traditions - an old essay at the Doing Freedom! Reading Room. No date, but appears to have been written around the time of Presidents Roosevelt and Taft.

In the earlier days of the revolt and subsequent independence, it appeared that the "manifest destiny" of America was to be an agricultural people, exchanging food stuffs and raw materials for manufactured articles. And in those days it was written: "We shall be virtuous as long as agriculture is our principal object, which will be the case as long as there remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do there." Which we are doing, because of the inevitable development of Commerce and Manufacture, and the concomitant development of strong government. And the parallel prophecy is likewise fulfilled: "If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface." There is not upon the face of the earth today a government so utterly and shamelessly corrupt as that of the United States of America. There are others more cruel, more tyrannical, more devastating; there is none so utterly venal.

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And now, what has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be "a necessary evil," and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.

Anarchism says, Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

J. Zane Walley at Siera Times - To Return To a Constitutional Society: The Five Vital Elements - Mr. Walley claims that there is momentum gathering behind returning America to its constitutional roots. I hope he's right. He presents some practical strategies for influencing elected officials, bureaucrats, the public, and "opinion-makers", and stresses "the massive power of the boycott." [trt-ny]

By understanding the five vital elements that are essential to restoring and maintaining our freedoms, we glimpse "How" it is achievable to take America back from the brink of global socialist government, and return it to a sovereign, vital, and free nation. However, it all depends on one word: "Work." Words on paper, well-intended plans, and erudite thoughts are as worthless as whining and complaining -- unless they are put on the ground and actualized.

news.com.au - US plans death camp - Heil Bushcroft! Sieg Heil! [smith2004]

THE US has floated plans to turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, with its own death row and execution chamber.

Prisoners would be tried, convicted and executed without leaving its boundaries, without a jury and without right of appeal, The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported yesterday.

The plans were revealed by Major-General Geoffrey Miller, who is in charge of 680 suspects from 43 countries, including two Australians.

The suspects have been held at Camp Delta on Cuba without charge for 18 months.

General Miller said building a death row was one plan. Another was to have a permanent jail, with possibly an execution chamber.

J.J. Johnson at Sierra Times - Whack'em & Stack'em: A Tactical Guide for the Young Officer - an instruction manual for the new cop, newly licensed to kill. This would be funny if it weren't so close to the truth. [sierra]

Warblogging - US Violates Laws of War - a UK newspaper alleges that the United States is denying Iraqi prisoners access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, in contravention of the Geneva conventions. [warblogging]

The Observer is reporting from Baghdad that the United States is holding thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war while denying them access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC says that it believes there are up to 3,000 prisoners held around the Baghdad airport in conditions similiar to the conditions al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees were held in following the war in Afghanistan.

They are being held with blindfolds, hoods and gags. There is, I might add, no doubt whatsoever about the status of these prisoners. Unlike the detainees from Afghanistan, there is no case that can possibly be made that these prisoners are not POWs. They do not belong to the fictious category of "battlefield detainee". They are clearly prisoners of war. As the Red Cross told the Observer, "they are prisoners of war because they have been captured during a clear conflict between two states. If they served in the armed forces or in a militia with distinctive clothing which came under the chain of command of one of the warring states, they are protected under Article 143 of the Geneva Convention."