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Antiwar.com's Week In Review (June 4th)

Antiwar.com's Week in Review | June 4, 2010

Israel, Gaza

On Sunday night, Antiwar.com covered news of Israel’s deadly raid on the Gaza aid flotilla hours before the MSM. By Monday, Jason Ditz refuted claims of self-defense by Israeli soldiers, adding that – whether it carried metal sticks or not – the Mavi Marmara was "violating no international laws in trying to deliver medicine and food to civilian victims of an Israeli blockade. Israel, on the other hand, was most assuredly violating international law in attacking an unarmed aid ship on the open sea."

If indeed these facts check out, according to Philip Giraldi, "then Tel Aviv is guilty of piracy, kidnapping, and murder, while the armed attack on a Turkish flagged vessel might be construed as inviting a military response from NATO."

While Obama has said little, members of Congress have since come out in favor of Israel, and Vice President Joe Biden stated that Israel "had a right to know." Filing from Israel exclusively for Antiwar.com, Ran HaCohen found the local outrage conspicuously absent. "How can you turn millions of fairly educated citizens into silent lambs, or worse, into supporters of their own state’s terrorism?" HaCohen looked for answers in the press.

Ultimately, if "the only way we can make the Israelis feel ‘secure’ is by allowing them to engage in international piracy on the high seas," said Justin Raimondo, "then perhaps this is the sort of high-maintenance relationship we can no longer afford."

For more on the Gaza aid raid:

• Antiwar.com Founder Eric Garris on Antiwar Radio
• Raimondo: An American among the nine
• Eight Turkish citizens slain, yet Turkey is the villain?
• Israel: Burden, not asset to U.S.?
• Ivan Eland: there is a silver lining
• Can Israeli spin machine overcome international fallout?

Terrorism: Cause and Effect

If the government does anything well, fomenting fear is high on the list. The Bush rhetoric of "terrorism 24/7" – inherited with open arms by Obama – has done a great deal to keep people afraid, but has it done anything to keep them safe?

In "Terrorism – Cause and Effect," Jack Smith argued that U.S. intervention abroad is often the cause of terrorist action, not the solution to it. He discussed five major policy decisions made in the last "65 years that turned public opinion in the Middle East against the United States and largely generated the conditions that led to the creation of al-Qaeda, jihadist warriors, and suicide bombers."

If the U.S. is more interested in perpetuating war than in defeating terrorism, perhaps Washington is the real enemy worth fearing.

Milestones Not Worth Celebrating

This week we officially passed the $1 trillion dollar mark for the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only does the U.S. lead the world in "defense" spending – a whopping 800 percent more than runner-up Russia – but we account for 44.32 percent of the total global tab.

And no sooner could AP tally the 1,000th U.S. military death in Afghanistan than Pentagon officials dismissed exit strategy timetables, saying that our eight-and-a-half-year long war could continue "way beyond July 2011."

Amid a devastating economic recession and despite warnings from the Congressional Budget Office that across-the-board cuts will need to be made, it seems that no amount of blood or money can deter the War Party.

Antiwar Radio

Antiwar Radio is expanding! As of June 7^th, Liberty Radio Network will carry Scott’s show Monday through Friday from 12–3 p.m. ET. It will also continue to air on KAOS Radio 95.9 FM in Austin, KPFK Pacifica Radio 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, KUCR 88.3 FM in Riverside, and of course on Antiwar.com.

This week’s guests included:

• Winslow T. Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project, questioned Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ halfhearted fight against Pentagon waste and wondered why our always increasing Pentagon budget paradoxically results in the worst-equipped military in a generation.
• Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, discussed WMD myths and Iran’s nuclear program with guest host Gareth Porter. "Iran is a critically important country … and at this point, given the relative decline in American standing and influence and the relative increase in Iranian standing and influence, [we’d] argue that the United States …can’t achieve its own objectives" without improving relations.
• Thomas Woods, co-editor of We Who Dared to Say No to War, reviewed the propaganda behind U.S. foreign policy and the slaughter of Iraqis. "If this government is run by liars and thieves and killers and I don’t trust a word they say on anything else, then I’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their monopoly on the use of military force. I’m just not going to do it ,and I don’t believe that that’s anti-American."

Listen to all of this week’s guests here, and don’t forget you can chat with other listeners during the show at the Stress Blog.

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Meet Our New Communications Director

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