Beating swords into craniums, Part 2

No one wants "Forever Wars", but these folks have become tedious bores.

In 2023 as the Russo-Ukrainian War was completing its first complete year a group of activists came together in Washington, DC by the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool in the hopes of showing that the American people did not support their government’s steadfast material support and coordination with Ukraine. They called it the Rage Against the War Machine rally and it drew a wide net. Among the headliners were four former members of the US Congress - Democrats Cynthia McKinney, Dennis Kucinich, Tulsi Gabbard, and Republican Ron Paul. The other speakers also ran the gamut of viewpoints, which was the intent of the organisers Angela McArdle of the Libertarian Party and Nick Brana of the left-wing Movement for a People’s Party. At the time I considered attending both as a supporter of ending the war and a curious observer. Many of the names on the fliers were people I had come to be familiar with through their shows or podcasts, but whom I’d never met in real life.

I didn’t go in the end, perhaps deterred by the daunting drive to and from DC, but the longer I reflect on it this gathering was a snapshot of the unhealthy and conflicted nature of the American anti-war movement. As I mentioned in the last article, it is essential that there be an anti-war constituency in America, even if it is flawed; better to avoid an unnecessary war for the wrong reasons than enter it even for supposedly valid ones. However the rally was itself a total dud with estimates holding only about 1,000 met to protest the war and follow-up events went nowhere. But more importantly, McArdle and Brana didn’t gather a cross-section of the American political culture across the spectrum, but an assortment of groups with small followings and eccentric beliefs. For example no less than three representatives (Helga Zepp-Larouche, José Vega, and Diana Sare) of the LaRouche Movement received speaking slots even though the movement’s relevance peaked in the mid-1980s. Besides them, there was the bizarre Marxist-Leninist cult Centre for Political Innovation headed up by disgraced sexual abuser Caleb Maupin, obscure singer and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Tatiana Moroz, and Wyatt Reed of the Grayzone who in the past has worked for Russian and Iranian state-owned media. A number of the attendees explicitly supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a fact which negates the notion that this was a rally against the war.

Needless to say that the rally was not effective and would be dwarfed by rallies later that year in DC against Israel’s retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks, which engendered shows of support for much bigger cultural influencers such as rapper Macklemore and guitarist Tom Morello of the actual band Rage Against the Machine. Yet the wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue. One of the reasons for the flagging antiwar movement is that unlike in the 1960s when American youth began to speak out against Vietnam because of the very real danger of being drafted and sent into a war zone, since 1973 we have an all volunteer military. As a result, instead of the antiwar movement being a representative sample of the American public it has become a repository of fruitcakes and radicals. McArdle and Brana did not care about that, and instead cast as wide of a net as possible, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that their antiwar rally became interpreted as a pro-Russia one. I’ve made similar critiques of the “ceasefire now” rallies not being peace activism but rather partisan gatherings meant to spew hate against one group in the guise of it. I don’t think anything can top the “anti-WWIII” chorus that occurred prior to the recent airstrikes in Iran. Here are some of the best of the worst takes

Breaking Points and Glenn Greenwald (June 17)

During this segment Greenwald and the two co-hosts prognosticated ad nauseam about how Christian evangelical pro-Israel personalities like Glenn Beck were religious nut jobs and that therefore this was (as per the title) Iraq War 2.0. One of the most absurd parts was when Greenwald dismissed the Axios’s Israeli reporter Barak Ravid on the grounds that he had spent his military service in the Intelligence Corps, which he saw as disqualifying. This ignored the fact that Ravid’s articles and tweets have generally been accurate regarding announcements and communications in Washington, Israel, and Iran since active fighting began with Israel’s strike on June 13.

Candace Owens says to followers to get dishonourably discharged

This one was quite shocking in its brazenness. Owens, who has never served in the US military, encouraged service members to disobey orders and get a dishonourable discharge. “Who cares? who cares? Why should you die in a foreign land?"she asked her audience. This could lead to losing rights to own firearms, to vote depending on the state, and to any federal or state government employment and other penalties. When questioned about this stance by Piers Morgan, Owens contended that she would give the same advice to her own sons (“I’d rather they go to jail”), which is an academic point given that they are young children and she can also discourage them from joining the military to begin with. She was also saying this under the assumption there would be a long war and many troops would be deployed in the Persian Gulf region or other vulnerable locations than the approximately 60,000 already there. Woe to the person who took her advice.

Dave Smith says Iran assassination plots are untrue

On June 19 Matt Gaetz of One America News and ZeroHedge moderated a debate between libertarian activist and comedian Dave Smith and JihadWatch founder Robert Spencer. Whereas Smith contended there was no truth to the notion that Iran had harmed or attempted to harm Americans, Spencer began reading off a list of plots connected to Iran, including a 2011 assassination plot on the Saudi Ambassador to the United States as well as a prospective plot to murder then former US President Donald Trump. Smith immediately dismissed this out of hand, exclaiming “there is no proof, you’re telling me Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump!?”. As a matter of fact, the case Spencer was citing pertained to a criminal conspiracy that focused on targeting Trump, and was uncovered due to its detection when two US citizen co-conspirators were hired to murder Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad and were arrested. The case of the failed Saudi ambassador murder plot resulted in a conviction for suspect Manssor Ababsian in 2012. These two cases along with the fatwa and Iranian Revolutionary Guards directive to kill Muslim apostate author Salman Rushdie are exhibits of the regime’s past and ongoing projection of its threats abroad through acts of violence. Dave Smith’s only answer to this was simple incredulity. Warren Smith did a video reviewing this issue recently thanks to Tucker Carlson similarly brushing off the topic during his interview of Sen. Ted Cruz.

Scott Ritter’s post-war fantasy spaces

As I like to say, the best way to get the best picture of what is happening in the Middle East is to listen to Scott Ritter’s analysis and assume the opposite is true. I sometimes am bewildered that after so many terrible predictions about the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and now Iran why anyone bothers to have him in the conversation, unless their intent is to troll their own audience. In his first discussion with Mario Nawfal, he acknowledged that the situation had developed such that all of the wars that broke out after Oct. 7 may now be at their end, but still contended that it was Israel and not Iran that was in the worse strategic position today compared to 2023. When pitted against retired IDF spokesperson Col. Jonathan Conricus, Ritter clung to the oft-repeated line that the limited success of Iranian ballistics getting past Israel’s missile defence system was proof that Israel had lost the war, while ignoring the issue of Iran having suffered much more strategic losses in terms of personnel and material losses.

Also, it should be clear that the refusal or self excusal of all of Iran’s allies to help it with anything more than lip service during the war was a sign of weakness, not strength. None of its proxies was capable of playing a role, and it’s main strategic partner Russia clarified that its “strategic partnership” with Iran was not for mutual defense. This is the equivalent of when one’s date to a party says to someone else “I’m here with him, but I’m not with him”.