04/09/07 – Justin Raimondo – The Scott Horton Show

All right, my friends, welcome back to Anti-War Radio.
I'm your host, Scott Horton, and joining me on the phone is Justin Raimondo, he's the editorial director of AntiWar.com, the author of Enemy of the State, The Life of Murray N. Rothbard, and also Reclaiming the American Right, the Lost Legacy of the American Conservative Movement.
Welcome to the show, Justin.
Great to be back.
Good to have you here.
You know, I was just talking about the anniversary of the fall of the Iraq, of the Saddam Hussein statue and the fall of the Ba'ath regime, and what was called Operation Iraqi Liberation originally, I guess, and the acronym there, of course, being OIL.
But I wonder about your opinion, just if we can start here, Justin, with the media a bit here.
What does it mean when, in America, wars are named like products, you know, Operation Desert Storm and Operation Liberate the Iraqi People?
I mean, there are guys with this carved in their gravestones now, these slogans.
Right.
Well, I mean, it's not so much products as it is movies.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, like Americans, I mean, everything is entertainment, you know, we're a truly decadent society.
Everything is entertainment.
I mean, look at Rome, for example, they have, you know, the Roman arena, gladiators, stuff like that.
So a war is reduced to a spectacle.
Yeah.
So they get us cheering for our football team, and then they just kind of transfer that over into military action.
Right.
And it's just fun, all good fun.
And they give a, you know, a snappy name to it, kind of heroic sounding.
And they, you know, perhaps they get an acronym out of it.
And it's distant from most Americans' lives.
I mean, most people don't have, you know, like relatives in the army, you know, or, you know, like in any branch of the U.S. military.
So it's all very distant from them, you know, it's like American Idol, it's just like something to watch.
Yeah.
So it becomes very easy for them to create these narratives where, you know, as you say, we don't know anybody involved in it to tell us that, nah, trust me, I'm in the army and that's not right.
Right.
And so it's all about fantasy.
I mean, it's fantasy that, you know, people in the blogosphere, for example, you know, on the right side of the blogosphere are saying, yes, the surge is working, yes, we have to win, you know, the Victory Caucus, so-called is saying, well, you know, all the news coming out of there is just not right, actually, we're winning, but it's, you know, the liberal MSM that is really, you know, obscuring our, you know, view of, you know, like the reality to them.
Well, is there something, you think there's something to that, that the media's narrative has switched to, oh, we all don't like George Bush now, so let's only report the bad news?
May they have a point?
No, I know, I don't think they have a point.
I think the news is actually worse.
I mean, look what they're not reporting, for example, you know, like all of the casualties, you know, like the Iraqi casualties that are being caused by the bombing, they don't talk about the bombing raids.
And plus, when that Lancet study came out saying that 650,000 Iraqis to billions have been killed, it was generally thought to be an overstatement.
But actually, now we're finding out, but it wasn't, that it's pretty close to a truth.
Yeah, in fact, the British government, it's, I guess, papers have revealed that the science advisors and so forth for Tony Blair told him, hey, this is good methodology here.
We have no problem with it at all.
Right.
No, you know, I think that actually, it's probably still a lot worse than, you know, we actually know.
And plus, you know, like, there's a big difference.
And this gets into the whole, you know, distancing tactic that they use.
I mean, it's one thing to read about a war.
And then it's another thing to actually see it and be in the middle of it and look at somebody whose brains are being splattered on the sidewalk rather than just reading about it.
So I think that people miss the moral implications of all this.
And you know, as a writer, you know, I tried to get around this in writing a column, which, you know, your readers might, or like, rather, your listeners might want to go back and look at.
It's called Murder Incorporated that I wrote.
And in it, I tried to use all video links, because I think that video was really the future of the internet.
And you know, I was talking in the column about how our troops are over there, and they are committing atrocities.
I mean, they are slaughtering people at random, basically.
And so I tried to, you know, like, illustrate this by going to YouTube and typing in American atrocities.
And if you do that, you come up with some pretty incredible and real footage of what is actually happening over there.
And I think that, you know, so I tried to sort of overcome this distancing effect by incorporating, you know, video in my column.
And you know, I hope to do more of that.
But you know, it's really a big problem, you know, we don't have a draft.
And of course, I don't advocate that we do have a draft, but I'm saying that this makes it more difficult for people to really understand what is going on over there and, you know, and to really take the moral lesson of what they are complicit in.
I mean, if you're not protesting this war, you are complicit in it, at this point.
You know, I always thought that was really, perhaps the only real value in the movie Fahrenheit 9-11 was when it showed that woman basically cursing America and how dare you come and destroy my house?
What if I came and destroy your house?
And that kind of just very basic human reaction, stuff that we do not see on television ever, ever, do we get to see an Iraqi woman distraught, screaming and crying and saying, how could you do this to me?
What did I ever do to you?
We never get to see that on TV.
Well, actually, that's a very good point because in that column I was just referring to, there's a clip from YouTube about, do you remember there was some footage that got through and it was from some reporter who was embedded and it showed these supposed Iraqi insurgents who were in a mosque and it showed our troops going in there and so these guys are sort of lying on the ground pretending to be dead.
One of them was pretending to be dead so he wouldn't be shot and somebody noticed that he was not really dead and so, you know, the guy just shot him right there.
Yeah, I do remember that.
Right.
So, in the actual news reporting of this, they didn't show him actually shooting this insurgent.
You know, they wouldn't do it and they kept saying, well, this is too bloody, it's too disturbing to show to you, as if Americans are these children who are basically being – I mean, it's just outrageous.
Why isn't the media showing this?
Right, it's perfectly okay to cheerlead us into a war but it's definitely not okay to show us the consequences of it at all.
Right, and you have to remember that the American media, I mean, right after 9-11, these guys were wearing, you know, flag lapels on their suits, you know, as they reported the news and so these are the same people, you know, who were doing that.
Yeah, they consider themselves de facto government employees most of the time, I think.
Well, you know, and it's understandable because that's where they get their news from.
I mean, these government guys won't talk to them, you know, like, unless they toe the line to some extent, so, you know, it's tied in with that, you know, like, with their careers.
Yeah.
I'm Scott Horton, this is Anti-War Radio, I'm talking with Justin Raimondo, he's the editorial director of AntiWar.com and now let's talk a little bit about that, Justin, for the folks in the Chaos Radio audience here in Austin, Texas.
Tell us about AntiWar.com and how different we are than what they get stuck with on the TV news.
Well, I mean, we just don't take their word for it, I mean, we look into stuff and we look at alternative, you know, sources of news, so, you know, if you want the real story, just tune in to AntiWar.com and you'll get it.
And we do.
When I look down the list of columnists here, obviously the base of the makeup of AntiWar.com's writers are Libertarians, yourself, David Henderson, Alan Bach, Doug Bandow, Ivan Eland, Charles Pena, but also paleoconservatives like Philip Giraldi, Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, well, Ron Paul's more of a Libertarian, I guess Gordon Prather would be counted as a paleocon, but also a lot of great liberals, Aaron Glantz and Tom Englehart, Joshua Frank, and we really do try to reach out to the best of the left and the right.
I swear, not long ago I looked at AntiWar.com in the morning and there was George Soros right next to Pat Buchanan.
George Soros.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, we don't discriminate against the left, we don't discriminate against the right or the center.
We are looking to forge a new consensus about American foreign policy, and that consensus ought to reflect the majority view, which is, if you look at a Pew poll that was held maybe a year ago, people were asked, well, which best suits your view of a proper American foreign policy?
And one of the choices was, minding our own business, that was endorsed by a majority of the American people.
Too bad our Congress critters don't actually reflect that consensus.
So we're working to sort of make that real consensus the actual political consensus.
I mean, you have to look at how the people look at this stuff and how the elites look at that stuff.
It's very, very different.
And why is that?
Well, I know what the elites will say.
The elites will say, well, Justin, you and the American people might want to mind our own business, but we know that we are too powerful and therefore, like Spider-Man, have too much responsibility to protect the world and to intervene to save lives and never again and all these kinds of things.
And so what you're talking about is merely wishful thinking.
Well, I mean, I would remind the elites that Spider-Man is a fictional character.
And so, I mean, speaking of fantasies, look, I mean, we have limited resources and limited means to achieve our goals.
And so I just don't see how we can be Spider-Man.
I don't think the American people want us to be Spider-Man.
And isn't this a democracy, supposedly?
What happened to that?
Well, and so if the liberals and the conservatives and the American people kind of in general are favoring a non-interventionist foreign policy more and more, what's it going to take to really bring them together and forge that consensus?
Don't the libertarians have to be the leaders of this new realignment?
Well, you know, I mean, I don't want to take a sectarian, partisan, semi-partisan line.
I mean, I'm willing to get in bed with anyone who is willing to stop Uncle Sam from trying to impose what the neo-cons call global hegemony over the entire world.
I mean, it's just a crazy idea.
What I'm really getting at is don't the libertarians have to get there?
They have to get their house in order in order to make the argument, to keep making the argument.
I mean, the liberals and the conservatives who are opposed to interventionism, as I'm sure you'd agree, have their flaws.
And yet they can't really turn to the libertarian movement to get it straight because the libertarian movement is split.
I don't know if it's in half or 60-40 or what, but there's a whole lot of people who are for all this aggressive warfare who call themselves libertarians.
Well, there's not a whole lot, but they are placed in strategic positions.
I mean, look at Reason magazine, for example.
There was a recent post by Michael Young, their resident Middle East expert, who is the editorial page editor of the Lebanon Daily Star.
And I mean, his views are in a distinct minority.
He wrote a post saying that Nancy Pelosi perhaps ought to be prosecuted under the Logan Act for going to Syria.
And what's the Logan Act for people who don't know, Justin?
Well, I mean, it's just that it's a law saying that only the president can really talk to foreign nations and that you can't go off, even if you're a Congress member, and make your own foreign policy.
You can't start negotiating with foreign powers.
Right.
Well, but that's the funny thing is it doesn't say congressman.
It's everybody but congressman and the president.
It's what the Logan Act says.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Whatever.
So that's why she's not in violation of it and Michael Young is an idiot.
Though to be fair to him, I mean, he doesn't actually say that she ought to be prosecuted, but he cites other people who do say that and he doesn't say they're wrong.
So anyway, so he has this post up there.
And if you go to their website and you look at their hit and run blog, you can see it.
And if you look at the responses, I mean, there's 350 responses, I think, or some outrageous number, and most of them are disagreeing with him.
So what you've got is this libertarian movement that is in some part financed by neocons.
And I mean, that's where reason gets a lot of their money from, these big neocon foundations.
And of course, the price of that is that they cannot take an unequivocally anti-war stance.
I mean, I was told by a member of the reason staff this.
You know, there's a rule from on high that says you can be anti-war, but not unequivocally anti-war.
Well, I mean, their position is that they have no position and that there is quote unquote diversity on their staff in regards to foreign policy.
And I mean, look at the Cato Institute, for example, I mean, they did a study years ago to measure the degree of libertarianism in the voting public.
And the standard they used was civil liberties and economic issues.
Foreign policy?
Oh, no, that's a matter of opinion.
You can hold any foreign policy view, according to them, and still be a libertarian.
You can say let's invade the entire world and make it libertarian and still be a libertarian.
So by not including foreign policy, they placate their sponsors and, of course, up their numbers.
Oh, look, 34% are libertarians, but guess what?
They ain't.
Yeah, it'd be better to have smaller numbers and stay honest with our definitions.
Right.
And, you know, if you look at the discussion about libertarianism that is taking place just now, you know, Brian Doherty's book, Radicals for Capitalism, a Free-Wheeling History of the American Libertarian Movement, it's like a 700-page tome.
And in it, since Doherty is an honest writer, even though he does work for Reason Magazine, and did work for Cato, I mean, he has to recognize and does recognize that opposition to imperialism and to, you know, like aggressive wars is the linchpin of libertarian thought, and has been historically.
So in relating the history of this movement, he assumes this, and yet you have, you know, all these people who are talking about the book.
There's a big discussion over, you know, like, of it over at the Cato Institute website.
I mean, nobody talks about this.
You know, they just drop it, and it's, you know, it's an interesting thing.
Well, that really was the linchpin, too, wasn't it?
The split in the post-World War II right between the conservatives and the libertarians, where the libertarians were anti-war.
I mean, you can't even talk about the history of libertarianism without referring to the Vietnam War.
I was a young libertarian back in the 60s, and, you know, I was a member of Young Americans for Freedom, the right-wing youth group, and our platform, you know, of a libertarian faction was opposition to the draft, opposition to the war, opposition to drug laws, and, you know, stuff like that.
So, you know, like, there was a split, and it was over Vietnam.
I mean, the whole country was talking about Vietnam.
The whole country was protesting the Vietnam War, and that is what pretty much precipitated the split.
You know, people talk about, oh, yes, you know, Nixon's wage and price controls, you know, is what forced libertarians out of the fusionist thing with the National Review crowd, and actually, it was Vietnam.
It was Vietnam.
So that's the history, you know.
They can blank it out all they want, but that's the reality, and we all remember it, even if they don't choose to.
So, really, by definition, a libertarian is against aggressive warfare, and if someone is for aggressive warfare, then they are not a libertarian?
Exactly.
I mean, look, how can you be for aggressive warfare when the state is acting most like the state?
I mean, you're slaughtering thousands, if not tens of thousands of fellow human beings.
If that is not a violation of the non-aggression axiom, which is that you ought not to initiate force against anyone, then it doesn't exist.
All right.
So, speaking of initiating force, we have a president whose poll numbers are consistently in the low 30s and has already lost two wars.
Is it really possible, Justin, that he could start another one?
Oh, sure.
I mean, this has been the plan all along.
I mean, you know, you don't think that they were going to stop with Iraq and Afghanistan, do you?
This was the plan.
We're going to liberate, and they said it.
They said it openly.
We're going to transform the Middle East.
We've got to implant democracy, drain the swamp, quote-unquote, as they put it.
And we're going to solve the problem of terrorism once and for all.
And the only way to do that, they said, is by transforming an entire region.
Of course, it's just a coincidence that most of the oil on Earth is in that region.
But there you go.
Yeah.
Well, and Greg Palast, I think, in his book, Our Madhouse, makes a pretty good case that the policy since the 20s has been to keep that Iraqi oil off the market, that the last thing they want to do is have this state be able to rebuild themselves on their oil money and be this strong Arab state and be able to compete with the Saudis for dominance in OPEC.
They want to keep Iraq under the thumb of the Saudis.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that sounds pretty credible to me, though I haven't read his book.
I think you might like Our Madhouse.
I know Greg Palast can be kind of frustrating, but there's some really good reporting in there, too.
And I think he speaks—it's funny to read a whole book about Iraq that doesn't have the word Israel in it anywhere—but he talks a lot about James Baker's role and how the Baker guys wanted basically a coup d'état and to keep the Baathists in charge.
And the neocons got their full-scale invasion, but then there's been this internecine fight inside the administration over what to do with the oil.
The neocons wanted to privatize it, sell it all off, and drop the price of oil down to ten bucks or something and destroy the Saudis.
Whereas, of course, the guys in Houston said, oh no you don't, the Saudis are our friends and they're staying on top and we're going to keep this oil off the market.
And so this has been the big split in fighting over what's to be done with the oil, or at least it was for a time.
Makes for interesting reading, I'll tell you.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's basically two strategies over how to subjugate the Middle East.
And there's the Likud argument, which is that you can't trust Arabs, you have to eliminate them and turn them into something else.
And then there's the Baker realist point of view, which is, well, we have to make the best of it, there are limits to American power, so we have to use our allies in the region, i.e. the Saudis, to basically control what's going on there.
And of course, the Saudis, I mean, that's a very brittle regime.
So to sort of count on them is like counting on Bashar Iran.
And of course, we all know how that turned out.
Yeah, well, and you know, I saw recently in the news, there's been talks going on between the Iranians and the Saudis, and for that matter, between the Saudis and the Sunnis and the Syrians, I mean, and the Saudis and the Israelis.
So I'm thinking if America leaves, you know, maybe the war won't get worse, you know?
Right.
I mean, it seems like these people have the will to work these problems out on their own.
They'll have to.
And I mean, that's the thing.
Look, I mean, Bill Clinton reformed welfare in America.
And he started off by saying, you know, the era of big government in America is over.
And so people who were on welfare had to sort of either make it or break it, sink or swim.
And so I mean, let's just apply that paradigm to the peoples of the Middle East and say, look, okay, you know, we made a mistake, we, you know, we invaded Iraq.
Now we have the greatest military disaster in our history, we're out of here.
And now you guys have got to make it on your own.
I mean, that's, that is the only solution.
And in the end, that will be the solution.
So either that or more war.
I mean, that's the choice you have.
You have a choice, either you're going to invade Iran, or you're going to get out of there.
Right.
Yeah, I think I agree with that.
If we stay under, you know, the auspices of, you know, the James Baker style pullout that we're still going to end up with a war with Iran anyway, one way or another, right?
As you've often said, we're just a border incident away at any given time, they could choose any one of these pretexts to seize on.
Well, I mean, all those borders don't mean anything.
Those borders were actually created not by the people who live there, but by the British Foreign Office.
They drew a line in the sand, literally, and said, okay, well, you know, this is, you know, this is the border.
But it had nothing to do with the actual ethnic, you know, like religious and political realities of, of the region.
Just like Africa, you know, all the European powers carved up Africa, and they say, okay, this is ours, and this is the French, and this is the British, and this is the, you know, the Belgians and whoever, the Germans, and they just, you know, sliced it up, and they created arbitrary borders.
And of course, these borders are the reason now for the post colonial wars that have racked up Africa, and also the Middle East.
Well, so at this point, do you think that Bush is going to go with the neocons and try to bomb Iran?
Or is he going to submit to the authority of James Baker and try to, you know, at least wait until it starts accidentally?
Well, the thing is, is that, I mean, you have to understand, Bush is a neocon.
So he's not going to go with the neocon.
I mean, he is the most fanatical of them all.
I mean, he makes Max Boot look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
So this guy is totally committed to their program of conquering the Middle East.
I mean, that's what he wants to do.
The question is, wanting it and being able to do it are two different things.
So I mean, is he going to recognize the actual reality that we don't have the truth to do that?
Or is he going to go ahead and do it anyway?
I think he's going to go ahead and do it anyway.
I mean, there's something unhinged about our president, and it's frightening to me.
But nevertheless, it's pretty visible, I think.
And I think that before he is out of office, George W. Bush is going to launch yet another war.
And I think that it's best to prepare.
Well, you know, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who I guess we can lump in with the Baker faction, oil and banker guys rather than neocons and military industrial complex types.
He went in front of the U.S. Senate and then even went so far as to go to explain it to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and said, look, if we bomb Iran, we're going to own all the land between Israel and India, basically, you know, because Pakistan, he said, will probably fall, good chance Jordan will fall, you know, with more chaos there.
Can America possibly own and control and pacify the land between Israel and India?
It seems like a bit of a stretch, even for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mr. Grant chessboard.
Yeah.
Well, Alexander the Great couldn't do it.
And I don't think that George, the very ungreat, is going to be able to do that either.
Yeah, George the Lesser.
Right.
Bush the Lesser.
Yes, that's a good designation.
I mean, this is why people like Senator Hagel are talking about impeachment.
I mean, I was astounded to actually hear Hagel bring this up.
But upon reflection, it's not so crazy.
Anybody who is actually proposing this course deserves impeachment, certainly.
So I mean, these are the stakes.
This is what's going on.
And it's all very serious.
Do you think that besides Hagel, anybody else in the Imperial Senate has the will to remove this guy from power?
No.
No.
I mean, it's like the Roman Senate in the waning days of the Roman Republic.
I mean, eventually, the Senate became simply an adjunct of the Emperor.
And I think that we're coming to that point.
So much power has been transferred to him that all their influence comes from being close to the president, rather than exercising their own authority.
Right.
Ever since Harry Truman did not consult the Senate or the House in sending troops to Korea, that precedent pretty much shattered the war-making powers of Congress and shattered the Constitution.
Nobody challenged it.
A few Republicans did.
But they were drowned out in the general Cold War hysteria that overcame the conservative movement and the Republican Party, as well as the Democrats at that time.
So that what we have now is we have a president imperator.
He's the commander in chief, and he's the president, and he controls American foreign policy pretty much single-handedly.
There are elements of the national security bureaucracy that can resist this, as in the run-up to the Iraq War, for example, in the CIA, in the State Department, et cetera.
But they can just slow down the march to war.
If the president wants to go to war, we're going to have a war, and that is it.
So you pay the consequences.
I mean, if you violate the Constitution and you render some of its provisions irrelevant, then you're going to unleash one branch of the government and just make it into a monster.
I mean, it's like cancer, when a cell just starts reproducing and getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it just overcomes the body and kills the body politic.
That's what's happening.
Until we return to constitutional government in America, we're not going to have any checks and balances anymore, especially on the powers of the president.
Speaking of checks and balances, I would have expected to hear an announcement of hearings in the House and the Senate about the case of Larry Franklin, who's pled guilty to charges of passing secrets to the Israel lobby.
The two guys that he was passing the secrets to are going on trial at the beginning of next month.
Why don't you give us a little bit of background there, Justin?
Well, if you expected hearings, I don't know what country you're living in, because you're not going to even hear about this at all, especially in Congress.
I mean, this is a case where, and it's very interesting since we're talking about the prospect of war with Iran, but this case involved two top employees of the America-Israel political affairs committee, AIPAC, which is the biggest pro-Israel lobby in the country and very powerful, second only to AARP.
What involved was the head of the lobby, Rosen, what was his first name?
It's in my mind.
Steven.
Steve Rosen.
Right.
Steve Rosen, who was the spark plug behind AIPAC and pretty much responsible for building it up into this formidable lobbying power.
And someone named Keith Weitzman, who was their Iran specialist, they cultivated and got in contact with Larry Franklin, who was the top Iran specialist in the Pentagon.
And they milked him for information, basically.
And of course, Franklin was a, well, I guess he still is, a dedicated neoconservative who thought that the Bush administration was not paying enough attention to the Iranian threat to our troops in Iraq.
And so, you know, the three of them were basically taking intelligence out of the Pentagon, most of it dealing with Iran, and funneling it to Israeli officials in Washington who were then transmitting it back to Tel Aviv.
So, what's the significance of this?
Well, I mean- What difference did it make?
There was a big battle going on, apparently, at the time, internally, over are we going to start going after Iran, or are we content with just staying in Iraq?
And there were the realists, again, who were saying, no, no, we have to just sort of, you know, hold the fort in Iraq.
And then there were the neocons who were saying, no, we've got to go into Iran, we have to start confronting the mullahs.
So there was a big debate over this.
And what basically happened is that there was this policy statement that was being drafted over what stance to take.
But in order to find out what the debate was all about, because, you know, of course this debate was going on in secret.
So they had to transmit all the intelligence back to Tel Aviv in order to give the pro-Israel lobby and, of course, Israel itself, some view of the lay of the land, to see what was going on inside the U.S. government, and what stance was ultimately going to win, you know, the pro-war or the realist stance.
So, I mean, basically these guys were spies.
They were spies for Israel.
And now they're going to go on trial.
And you know, of course, now we are confronted with the question of what to do about Iran.
So I mean, as the Iranian crisis comes to a head, this trial is going to commence.
So it'll be very interesting to see how the media covers this, or if the media covers this.
You know, the trial of Scooter Libby was all about how we were lied into war, basically, and who was doing the lying.
This trial is going to be about how the same crowd is trying to lie us into war, and who was doing the lying with Iran.
So it's part two, it's Scooter Libby part two, basically, except there's espionage involved.
And the link to Israel is made explicit.
So, again, very interesting.
And this guy, Larry Franklin, he's pled guilty and has agreed to testify for the state, right?
Right.
I mean, what they did was, see, they were investigating AIPAC anyway.
They were following these guys routinely.
So that when Larry Franklin met with Rosen and Weissman in a restaurant in, I believe it was Alexandria, Virginia, the FBI was listening into their conversation.
So they're following these guys, they're listening to their conversations over the phone, and they're bugging restaurants that they're in.
And then they pounced on Franklin and said, look, you have a choice.
We can either put you in jail for a long, long time, or you can wear a wire and still interact with Rosen and Weissman while we build a case against them.
So Franklin did the rational thing and chose the latter course.
So I mean, they've got these two guys.
They've got Weissman and Rosen, pretty much.
And now they're struggling, well, actually, their lawyers are struggling to keep the trial from actually going on.
Because apparently what happened was that these guys got such good information and such deep, dark secrets out of the Pentagon that any trial is going to reveal these secrets.
So the government is moving to have some of the testimony done in secret.
And of course, there are objections from the defense, and all these so-called civil liberties groups are screaming, oh, this is terrible, blah, blah, blah.
And it's very interesting because Weissman and Rosen's defenders in the media, and there are a lot of them, are saying, well, this is what goes on in Washington all the time.
People exchange information, and if you criminalize what they did, then no journalism can ever take place ever again.
Of course, I mean, this is funny because journalists do not hand over classified information to foreign agents, or do they?
Am I missing something here?
Yeah, well, or maybe they publish it on the front page of the Post or something, but they don't just directly hand it over.
Right.
Yeah, and again, these guys, Rosen and Weissman, are not journalists, and this has nothing to do with First Amendment issues.
And now, I guess, as you say, this is going to be a real test for the mass media, and it's all the very same people who all led the cheers for the Iraq War, none of whom have been fired.
There's probably even less accountability in media than there is in government these days in terms of how wrong you're allowed to get it and still be the number one talking head, and it's these guys who I guess we're going to have to rely on to tell us the story here.
Well, it'll be very interesting to see how many people actually cover this trial.
You know, all these anti-war left-wing bloggers were actually in the courthouse covering the trial of Scooter Libby.
Right.
So we'll see how many of these guys are going to be over in Alexandria, Virginia, in the courthouse covering the trial of Rosen and Weissman.
I would bet zero.
It'll be interesting to see, well, that's what antiwar.com is for.
We know for sure that you'll be covering it.
Well, I'll be covering it, though, not XO.
Actually, it would be a good idea to actually sit there and, you know, sit in the courthouse and try and get press credentials.
Maybe I'll do that.
Yeah, there you go.
You just need a couch crash on in Alexandria, I guess.
There you go.
Write me and offer me one.
He's Justin Raimondo, editorial director of antiwar.com.
Thanks for your time, Justin.
Anytime.