One of the main themes in any sensible antiwar world view, is how foreign policy gets contradictory when you deny that you’re really running an empire.

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I’ve been saying for a decade or so that the Clean Break policy is, just like pretty much everything out of the Israeli right and their American neoconservative allies’ brains, a really dumb policy for Israel.

Yeah, okay, so I can see how it sounds plausible for a minute: Hey, let’s get the Americans to overthrow all our neighboring governments and replace them with friendly Hashemite kings or, failing that, permanent, low-level chaos forever! It’ll be great! No one will ever threaten us again!

Makes sense. Even though Assad hasn’t done anything to Israel but fund and arm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon a little bit. He doesn’t say jack about the Golan Heights/Sheba Farms and all that or do a damn thing for the Palestinians either.

But I could see how it makes sense to a neocon – for a minute anyway. But then the thing of it is they tried it in Iraq, and now its war has spread to Syria and back again. Either way, Iran and al Qaeda have both gained in Iraq, and now one or the other or both will be gaining big from the war in Syria too.

So Israel’s strategy has been to replace stable secular nation states with their very worst enemies — and in the case of the mujahedeen, people with whom they can never deal.

Stupid.

Anyway, this guy in Foreign Affairs says that the Israeli government now knows how stupid it is and has come away with a saner point of view: leave Syria the hell alone for a while. ‘s worth a quick read.

Update: Heh. Oh, that’s right. “This guy” Halevy is the former head of Mossad

This one was a really special comic for me, because I think it hits home the real need for an antiwar movement in this country.  You don’t have to die on a battlefield to have your life destroyed by war.

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This strip was inspired with the protests in Mexico.  Roberto had a lot of input and helped me with the Spanish translation as well.

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This strip was my attempt to talk about some the economic impacts of war.  It’s so complicated and hard to jam into one page, but I think it came out well.  I could probably do a 100 page comic on this easy.  But for now, I like to stick with the broad strokes.

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Kara Sands’s son came home one day from school with a perfect 100% score on a quiz that asked “Why might the United States be a target for terrorism?” with the possible answers A) Other people just don’t like Americans, B) Decisions we made in the United States have had negative effects on people elsewhere, C) Terrorists hate everyone, or D) None of the above. The boy answered B.

This question and its correct answer are both misleading and a little annoying. Undoubtedly more people than just the mother and this writer believe they could have come up with something better, more educational. First off, the question asks “Why might” leaving an air of uncertainty in any answer. Of course, the answer is rather certain whether you’d rather hear it from Paul Wolfowitz or Ron Paul. Then the answer states “Decisions we made” opening up another can of worms I’ll address in a bit.

After posting on social media, Kara Sands took her shock and outrage to Fox News Channel as a guest on America Live with Megyn Kelly. Woe is them! Sands got things started saying that the school’s inculcation of her son was all well and good when it came to pledging allegiance to the flag and singing God Bless America but then she says their propaganda runs afoot!

“They blame the US for the [9/11] attacks [by saying] we misuse our power? Well, no!” frets Sands. Megyn Kelly attempts to top that with “Is this what we have to deal with now? We, we America, are to blame for the bad things that happen to us?”

This incessant “we”, “us”, and “our” stuff is fallacious and revealing. Their moral outrage was about the treatment of the United States, then by extension the boy student. Which does Sands value more? Is her son there to worship the state? Is the state there to serve her child? Is she so desperate to prove her loyalty to the state that she would capitalize on her son’s situation?

At one point, Kelly asked Sands if she “pay[s] attention more than most [parents]?” to which Sands replied, “I don’t know. Maybe I just speak out more.”

That is the average Fox News viewer summed up, isn’t it? Sands describes herself on Twitter as “Christian. Mom. Texan. Reagan Republican/Buckley Conservative. Political Junkie, Consultant & GOP Fundraiser.” The words “and Fox News contributor” have not been added yet.

Nobody disputes President Bill Clinton’s sanctions (not to mention bombings) on Iraq killed 500,000 children. Since 2004, 175 children have died from US drone strikes in Pakistan alone. But those parents’ shock and outrage isn’t as good on TV, so maybe that’s why Kara Sands reviles at her son’s quiz question. In addition to the outrage at the notion of blowback, Sands rightfully condemns the Bill of Rights part of the curriculum that claims “food and medicine” are civil rights. Responsibility is for personal actions, not state actions or so she would like to have her son taught.

Hey, sorry for the late post.  Had some technical issues on the site the other day.  This strip (and I loathe to use the word “inspired”) but it was thought up after I heard that famous Rahm Emanuel phrase.  If you’ve been listening to Scott’s program for a while, none of this will come as a shock to you.

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Thanks to Bradley Manning, the world learned important information about the U.S. government’s misconduct abroad. He pled guilty February 28 to leaking 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, the international source that has exposed the malfeasance of institutions the world over. He leaked these documents to reveal the government’s obsession “with killing and capturing people” and “to make the world a better place.” The documents shined light on mistreated detainees at Guantánamo and such atrocities as the now notorious 2007 civilian killings in Iraq that were publicized in the “Collateral Murder” video three years ago. Some have argued that some of the tens of thousands of diplomatic cables helped incite the Arab Spring.

Manning is expected to serve up to 20 years in prison. This, after he already languished for over a thousand days in detention. The Obama administration held him in a particularly sadistic form of solitary confinement for nine months, which over 250 lawyers protested in an open letter to the government.

Such solitary confinement was, of course, a form of torture, as most of the civilized world recognizes, despite Obama’s campaign promises to abolish the gruesome practice. Manning’s treatment also calls into question another one of Obama’s political vows: He had pledged in 2008 to rigorously protect whistle-blowers, whose “acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled.”

Instead, Obama has undertaken a war on whistle-blowers that makes George W. Bush look like a civil libertarian. The politician who promised and continues to boast unprecedented transparency arguably presides over its least transparent administration in history, which classified 92 million documents in 2011, and which, according to the Bloomberg News, has “prosecuted more government officials for alleged leaks under the World War I-era Espionage Act than all [of Obama’s] predecessors combined, including law-and-order Republicans John Mitchell, Edwin Meese and John Ashcroft.” Manning is among those so far targeted by this draconian legislation. This crackdown on whistle-blowers almost surely has a profound chill effect, discouraging people from coming forward with information about government wrongdoing.

The legal process Manning has faced has been even more a sham than usual.  …

Read the rest here.

Update: Would you read the comments under the Huffington Post version? Liberals. My God, they’re conservative.

Like the tyrants of old, Obama needed a food taster before dining with senators.

(Plagiarized from LewRockwell.com)

The Second Iraq War will cost not 3, not 5, 6 trillion dollars before it’s all said and done. Maybe more.

Millions went to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, leaving many with lifelong scars

Whistleblower accuses government of neglecting suicidal veterans and suppressing science

Ex-soldiers more likely to commit violent crime, study claims (video) (UK)

Via a leak to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the audio of Bradley Manning’s recent statement to the military court is now available!

MP3 here.

Isn’t it amazing that in this day and age, we’re still imprisoning the guys that expose war crimes while seemingly giving a pass to those that commit them?  This is what war does to a country, I guess.

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