[Peace-discuss] Shaming the Antiwar Movement

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I've said for a while that we're more likely to find principled 
opponents of the war among paleoconservatives than among Democrat 
liberals, and recent events seem to bear that out.  --CGE]

	CounterPunch
	http://tinyurl.com/266skk <http://tinyurl.com/266skk>
	June 5, 2007
	Libertarian Conference on War and Liberty
	Shaming the Official Antiwar Movement
	By JOHN V. WALSH

"Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties," was the
title of a three-day conference hosted last weekend by the Future of
Freedom Foundation (http://www.fff.org <http://www.fff.org> ), a
Libertarian outfit in northern Virginia. It was remarkable in many 
respects. There seemed to be more attendants from "red" states than 
blue, and the critique of the war was unsparing.

It was also quite open and tolerant. Yes, it was Libertarian through and
through, weighted heavily with scholars like Robert Higgs and Joseph
Stromberg, writers like Lew Rockwell and the irrepressible Justin
Raimondo. And of course there was Ron Paul who had lots of old friends
there and was greeted like a rock star. But there was also Daniel
Ellsberg who gave the most moving and inspiring talk of the conference
and The Nation's Robert Scheer who received a standing ovation. And then
there was Joseph Margulies the attorney whose clients include Guantanamo
detainees and Mamdouh Habib, the victim of CIA rendering from Pakistan
to Egypt. And when I explained that I was a Green there were a few
double takes but everyone was welcoming.

This contrasts mightily with the UFPJ demonstrations and assemblages in
D.C. Ask for Ron Paul or Justin Raimondo as a speaker; and UFPJ
Co-chairs Leslie Cagan and Judith LeBlanc, of the "C"PUSA, turn thumbs
down. Dem political hacks are always welcome at the UFPJ confabs, but no
Libertarians, no Left radicals like ANSWER, no Ralph Nader; Greens are
encouraged by UFPJ to work on these things but not to speak up with the
Green message.

Then there was the vigor of the antiwar critique. Although there was
mention of the disgusting use of "the troops" as cannon fodder, more
emphasis was placed on the hundreds of the thousands of deaths of
innocent Iraqis under the weight of Clinton's "sanctions" and Bush's
bombs and tanks. The tone of the religious critique, which came from an
evangelical minister, Lawrence Vance, was stronger than I have heard
from "left" wing preachers. Vance is not the sweetness-and-light type of
prophet. His recounting of the atrocities of U.S. imperialism over the
twentieth century were so complete and frank as to leave one numbed. And
there was little of the tone of forgiveness for the U.S. rulers. And
this was the tone of speaker after speaker who spared us no truth about
the depredations of the U.S. empire. Nor was there any talk about a more
efficient war or "cleaning up" Afghanistan or heading for Iran or
Darfur. The Libertarians are deadly serious about terminating the
empire. Ron Paul and others spoke of the non-interventionist foreign
policy at the heart of the Libertarian view, demeaned by the mainstream
as "isolationism."

And there was no hesitation to condemn the Israel Lobby for its
ever-present hand on the tiller of the war machine in Iraq and
elsewhere. If you want a flavor of it and its lack of anti-semitism look
at Raimondo's speech <http://antiwar.com/justin/>. But Higgs and others
made it quite clear that "our" wars grow out of empire not simply the
maneuverings of one very privileged and well placed client state. The
Libertarian view of the state is strikingly similar to Marx's -- a
coercive apparatus in the hands of an economic, exploitive elite. I made
that point to Higgs and was surprised that he agreed. His contention is
that Marxists have a pretty sound view of the state but a lousy outlook
on economics. Libertarian and Marxist thought appear to have some common
ground running all the way back to the 16th century writings of La Boetie.

A lot of soul searching went on about exactly where the Republic has
gone wrong, and Karen Kwiatkowski, whose talk at the conference was on
C-Span, traced it back to abandonment of the Articles of Confederation.
But others looked to Woodrow Wilson and, most especially Truman, the
first president to wage a war not formally declared by Congress. This
most barbaric of presidents is now held up by the mainstream Democrats
as a great and "tough" leader. And the half century of the Cold War was
high on everyone's list of events that have turned us into such a
warlike society, a giant Sparta. In fact William Buckley was often cited
as one of the principal traitors to the old conservative movement,
willing in his words to tolerate a form of "totalitarianism" within our
land supposedly to fight it elsewhere.

In the words of the Libertarian guru, Murray Rothbard, "war is the
health of the state." And the principal concern for Libertarians is the
inevitable erosion of civil liberties that war brings in its wake, and
here they are eager to compare Bush to Lincoln in suspending habeas 
corpus. [That's not exactly original to Rothbard, of course.--DC]

There is also a generational shift in the Libertarian movement. The Cold
War Right is disappearing, and Libertarians like Raimondo who came of
age in the 1960s or later are coming to the fore. That too was evident
at the conference where some of the older participants would on occasion
lapse into loyalty to the Republican Party. But for the new generation,
this kind of partisanship is not on the agenda. The battle for their own
ideas is paramount, and they are not in a mood to compromise on them.

At the front of the hall throughout the proceedings, FFF had placed a
portrait of Jefferson. And we were reminded more than once of the quote
from Benjamin Franklin that "we must all hang together or surely we will
all hang separately." It is time for the official antiwar movement to
seek out allies like the Libertarians, who can reach many who cannot be
reached with the antiwar message of a socialist or Green. If we do not,
we may find ourselves, gradually, oh so gradually, put in the same fix
that Franklin feared.

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar at gmail.com