[Peace-discuss] From Libertarian blog...

Wed Feb 9 20:42:43 CST 2011

  Antiwar.com Blog <http://www.antiwar.com/blog>
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David Henderson on ‘Costs of War’ at UC Berkeley Wed. Night 
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Posted: 09 Feb 2011 12:01 PM PST

Antiwar.com economic columnist David Henderson speaks Wednesday night (2/9) at 
UC Berkeley. The event is sponsored by Students for Liberty. Here are the 
details from the group:

Our club’s first speaker event of this semester will be held this WEDNESDAY, 
FEBRUARY 9TH from 7-8:30 PM at 209 DWINELLE HALL (UC Berkeley). Professor David 
R. Henderson will lecture on the tremendous costs of America’s current wars in 
Iraq and Afghanistan from both the standpoints of economics and public policy. 
Continuing with our new tradition, there will be a casual social event following 
the lecture.

David R. Henderson is a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and a 
research fellow with the Hoover Institution. He is the author of /The Joy of 
Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey/ and editor of /The Concise Encyclopedia of 
Economics/. His articles have appeared in the /New York Times/, the /Wall Street 
Journal/, /Fortune/, the /Christian Science Monitor/, /Reason/, and many other 
publications. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, CNN, the Jim Lehrer 
Newshour, and the John Stossel show. He has testified before various committees 
of the U.S. Congress. This should doubtlessly be an exciting lecture, so I 
encourage you to RSVP to the Facebook Event and invite your friends 
<http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193920570618887>.

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Wednesday Iran Talking Points 
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Posted: 09 Feb 2011 11:23 AM PST

/from LobeLog <http://www.lobelog.com/>: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran 
relations for February 9th, 2011:/

/The Wall Street Journal 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704843304576126393150812416.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>/: 
Kenneth M. Pollack, director of the Saban center at the Brookings Institution, 
opines, “Could al Qaeda Hijack Egypt’s Revolution?” and observes, “the Iranian 
regime is also gleeful about the collapse of Mr. Mubarak, one of America’s most 
important Arab allies and one of Tehran’s most passionate enemies.” He 
continues, “Iran’s mullahs often see opportunity in chaos and violence, 
believing that anything that disrupts the region’s American-backed status quo 
works to their advantage,” and concludes, “All of this gives Iran and al Qaeda 
common interests that may drive them toward tacit cooperation—with the goal of 
fomenting a modern Bolshevik Revolution.”

/Tablet Magazine 
<http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/58461/jewel-of-the-nile/>/: Hudson 
Institute <http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Hudson_Institute> visiting 
fellow Lee Smith <http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/smith_lee> argues 
that the Muslim Brotherhood is still a radicalizing force in Egypt and calls 
Yussuf al-Qaradawi, the Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood preacher who exiled 
himself from Egypt in 1961, a “prospective Khomeini.” Qaradawi, who hosts the 
show “Shariah and Life” on Al Jazeera, “has cultivated among some American 
analysts a reputation for moderation with his fatwas, permitting masturbation 
and condemning Sept. 11 (while supporting suicide bombers in Israel),” says 
Smith. Smith goes on to argue, “While the parallels between Iran in 1979 and 
Egypt in 2011 can be overdrawn, it is foolish to pretend that they are not 
there,” and warns, “To the Iranians, Qaradawi is perhaps not the ideal voice of 
Sunni Islamism, but insofar as he rises and the Americans suffer, Tehran will 
make its accommodations.”

/Los Angeles Times 
<http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/58461/jewel-of-the-nile/>/: Jonah 
Goldberg writes a column on “The real realism in Israel” in which he argues 
against linkage and supports the view that the current unrest in Egypt has 
nothing to do with Israel. Goldberg, who is at the Herzliya Conference, on a 
trip underwritten by the Emergency Committee for Israel 
<http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/emergency_committee_for_israel>, says 
that proponents who see an Israeli-Palestinian peace process as a key U.S. 
foreign policy goal, such as Gen. James Jones 
<http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=207259&R=R1>, are detached from 
reality. “Such thinking falls somewhere between wild exaggeration and dangerous 
nonsense,” says Goldberg. He goes on to argue, “As we’ve recently been reminded, 
Israel is the only truly democratic regime in the region, and therefore the most 
stable. But, we are told, if we were only more conciliatory to corrupt 
dictatorial regimes and more sympathetic to the ‘Arab street,’ the region would 
be more stable. (Ironically, this is very close to Israel’s own position, no 
doubt because it will take any peace it can get.)”

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Rachel Maddow in Shock: Tea Partiers Defeat PATRIOT Act 
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Posted: 08 Feb 2011 06:20 PM PST

Rachel Maddow is using her “report” on the Republican tea caucus blocking the 
extension of the PATRIOT Act 
<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/gop-freshmen-help-derail-patri.html>to 
replay her “interview” with Rand Paul, and rail about abortion. Rant all you 
want, Rachel, but people are noticing that you haven’t even mentioned the Act 
/several minutes/ into your tirade.

Is this ad-libbed?

She misses, of course, the real story: which is that the libertarian wing of the 
GOP is defending what’s left of our civil liberties. There she is with a big 
Glenn Beck-like chart, explaining that there are two kinds of conservatives: 
libertarians and authoritarians. According to her — and me — the GOP party 
establishment has paid lip service to liberty, in the abstract, but in reality 
it has been quite the opposite. Everybody claims to be a “libertarian,” but when 
they get into power it’s a different story. Never mind that Democrats vote with 
them — they started it, according to Rachel. It’s all the Republicans’ fault.

And she still hasn’t mentioned that the Tea Party made the difference on the 
PATRIOT Act….

C”,mon, Rachel, you’re supposed to be reporting — and maybe even commenting on — 
the news.

OH WAIT — She’s finally mentioned it,/over five minutes/ into her rant: “26 
Republicans bucked their own party on this vote.” It’s “man bites dog” — 
Republicans voting against the Act “from the right.” And now they’re questioning 
Afghanistan. “What happens to American politics now?” she asks. “It’s a 
realignment.”

The evil smirking Thomas Frank is being brought in, at this point, so I’m 
changing the channel….

But as to what Rachel said about a realignment: that’s right, but it isn’t going 
to stop there. We’ve been doing our job here at Antiwar.com, reaching out to the 
Right on foreign policy and civil liberties issues, for fifteen years now, along 
with many others. That campaign is reaping a harvest, and the resulting 
cornucopia is going to astonish the country.

UPDATE: Oh,  and by the way, hours after the PATRIOT Act went down to defeat, 
Matt Drudge has yet to report it. Instead, we have the red-hot news that a Texas 
school district is having second thoughts about making the study of Arabic 
mandatory.

UPDATE 2: On the other side of the divide, the newly-AOL-ized Huffington Post 
headlines: “Beyond Left and Right: House Defeats Patriot Act Extension 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/house-rejects-extensions-patriot-act_n_820554.html>,” 
but the story doesn’t live up to its billing. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is quoted, 
but not a single Republican who voted “nay,” and the phrase “tea party” is 
nowhere to be found. Beyond left and right? Not quite.

UPDATE 3: The Washington Post got it right 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/08/AR2011020806345.html?hpid=topnews>, 
for once:

/“House Republicans suffered an embarrassing setback Tuesday when they fell 
seven votes short of extending provisions of the Patriot Act, a vote that served 
as the first small uprising of the party’s tea-party bloc.”/

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