When looking (in order to answer a query from a commenter) for a link to the what one could call the “objectively pro-war”* ideologue Justin Raimondo’s use of the terms quisling and traitor to describe Iraqi security forces, I found that just today Raimondo has another rambling tour through his personal paranoias, one that repeatedly mentions (not very positively, of course) my humble self, but without any links to any of my criticisms of Raimondo’s absurd views and posturings. Instead, he links to a large picture of me under the link of “some pro-war types who claim to be ‘libertarians.'” [I was against the war, but…whatever.] Loud and shrill Mr. Raimondo may be, but courageous he is not. Of what is he so afraid?
*”Objectively pro-war” because, although he claims to be against war and interventionism, his efforts undermine and discredit the case against war and interventionism. Calling Iraqi police and army recruits traitors, peddling crazy theories about the involvement of Jewish art students in the September 11 attacks, sliming political figures such as Viktor Yushchenko (whom he mocks for being disfigured by dioxin poisoning), and on and on and on only discredit the cause of peace. Were I a crackpot conspiracy theorist like Justin Raimondo, I would claim that Justin Raimondo has been paid by the neo-conservatives to discredit the reasonable critiques of them offered by others. Since I’m not a crackpot like Raimondo, I accept the more plausible theory that A) he’s just vain enough to prefer attention over changing the world, and B) he’s a kook.
Mr. Palmer, you describe Justin Raimondo as loud and shrill. I agree that the tone in most of his articles is agressive and sarcastic, but that is his style. Look at his picture, the man looks like an Amsterdam junkie ready to pounce on some unsuspecting tourists.
In the article you refer to he describes the way many Iraqis view their new protectors, as traitors and quislings. If you look beyond the sarcasm and Raimondo’s sharp tongue you’ll see his point: the new police and army are untrustworthy at best, criminal at worst and hated by the Iraqi public.
Now instead of attacking Justin Raimondo and the whole of LewRockwell.com on style and form, and then dismissing them because of supposed anti-Amercanism, you would do well to answer their critiques for a change.
J.L.E.’s remarks about Mr. Raimondo are much harsher than I would make. For one thing, his appearance is irrelevant to his arguments.
I would suggest that he take the time to read my comments on Mr. Raimondo’s savage and vicious mocking of Viktor Yushchenko and his insistence that he was not poisoned. Or read the discussion threads on the various other postings about the lewrockwell cult (they can be found under the category “The Fever Swamp” on the left side of the web site). I am not concerned about Mr. Raimondo’s looks. My primary concern is certainly not with his style. It is with what he asserts, which is not merely offputting, but wrong, immoral, and loathesome. It’s J.L.E.’s prerogative not to read criticisms of lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com, but he ought to try doing so before he says that they’re limited to “style and form.”
You owe it to yourself, J.L.E.
P.S. You might note that Raimondo’s courage extends to linking to a large photo of me and to an essay by another person who attacks me but doesn’t name me and provides no link to my critique. If it were all about style and substance, don’t you think that he wouldn’t be so afraid?
Justin may have been worried about your bandwidth, Tom. A link from AntiWar.com could easily lead to several thousand hits an hour and crash your site.
No doubt Tex’s explanation is right. It’s what a gentleman would do.
On the other hand, I recall what my father told me when I was a small boy. Bullies are almost always cowards.
You know what is amazing to me, Tom? Justin hasn’t commented on your accusations on this blog. That really isn’t like him. I’ll email him a link and see if he can defend himself.
Just to get me a head start here, can you point out where Justin called for the killing of American soldiers? Don’t paraphrase – quotes, with links.
Also, where has Justin ever given any kind of political support to the insurgents (of whatever variety)?
Exact quotes and links, please.
Tom, why did you shut comments down on this thread?
http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/016527.php#comments
I was going to answer a post you made, so would you open the comments again, please?
I just got in from a festive end of year non-denominational holiday party. I will take up Tex’s challenge tomorrow before heading to the airport. (And Tex, please send me an email with your posting. I close some of the threads when they get so long that they lose touch with the original question or when it becomes too taxing to follow them; however, I’ll post your comment.)
“On the other hand, I recall what my father told me when I was a small boy. Bullies are almost always cowards.”
Tex,
The one who has toasted the killing of American soldiers is Mike Rogers of lewrockwell.com at http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/006888.html. Justin Raimondo’s unique contribution to the effort to ensure that Iraq spirals downward into further chaos and mayhem has been to label Iraqi police and national guard recruits as quislings and traitors. As I explain in this post(http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/016326.php , which links to this hate drenched essay by Justin Raimondo, http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4045 ), the use of the term quisling is “an endorsement of the jihadist beheaders who are attacking them and U.S. and coalition troops. (Vidkun Quisling was a traitor to Norway who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of his country; anyone who brands someone a quisling is endorsing the forces fighting against the alleged ‘quisling.’)” Mr. Raimondo know quite well what “quisling” means — it implies that the U.S. soldiers are equivalent to Nazi invaders of Norway and that it is fully proper to resist and kill them. In response to Mr. Kerner’s attempt to reformulate Mr. Raimondo’s use of the term as merely “endorsing the fight,” I wrote:
“Otto Kerner’s point seems a bit of quibbling about ‘quislings.’ Even if all that Justin Raimondo is doing is ‘endorsing the fight,’ he is endorsing evil. The faster that the Iraqi government is able to defeat or at least suppress the beheaders and the Ba’athist insurgents, the sooner our troops will get out. That’s a reasonable prediction. The U.S. government is not going to allow Iraq to fall into the status of a “failed state,” and no friend of liberty should want that, in any case. A stable constitutional regime is preferable to warlordism, civil war, and organized terrorist training camps. Everyone knows that, except for the people at lewrockwell.com and antiwar.com. We should hope that more Iraqis join the police forces and the civil guard in order to establish a law-governed state, which in turn makes it more likely that troops from the U.S., the U.K. Poland, Australia, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and the other countries will be withdrawn. ‘Endorsing the fight’ is endorsing the killing of American soldiers, endorsing the slaughter of Iraqi civilians, and endorsing the continuation of war when it could be replaced by peace and withdrawal of foreign troops.”
Mr. Raimondo and his supporters may attempt to dodge the implications of his endorsement of the fight (to use the least offensive, but immoral nonetheless, formulation of his call). I do not subscribe to the school of thought that offers only the most flattened of possible interpretations of texts. If someone says, “Death to the Great Satan,” that school responds, “Well, he’s not saying ‘Let’s go out and kill the Americans,’ he’s saying that Satan should die. What’s wrong with that?” Such approaches to meaning show that they have no idea of how words, terms, and phrases are used. When someone in central Europe rails against “New York based finance capital,” a term often used of Mr. George Soros, we all know that it means “Jews.” When Mr. Raimondo calls the young men who volunteer for the Iraqi army “quislings” and “traitors,” we know what he means “They should be killed.” And when Mr. Rogers offers a “toast” under a photo of a burned out American tank, directly next to a burned out Nazi tank, we all know what that means, too.
The phrase “Kill the American soldiers” doesn’t have to appear in the text for that meaning to be conveyed. Adults know that. Attempts to deny it are no more intellectually honest than children learning to parse their parents’ instructions so narrowly that they can get away with what was clearly forbidden. (She said, “Don’t eat any cookies before dinner, but this is a cake!”) Raimondo has endorsed killing Iraqi police and soldiers. Rogers has endorsed killing American soldiers. That is immoral and loathsome.
Now let’s turn to Mr. Raimondo’s disgusting smears against Viktor Yushchenko, more than likely the next president of Ukraine. Consider the characterization here (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=4072 , where Mr. Raimondo makes a series of despicable insinuations of criminality on the part of Yushchenko, none of which is believed by the leading financial publications or institutions around the world. And consider Mr. Raimondo’s characterization of a man who suffered a most debilitating and disfiguring poisoning, “The prince becomes a toad.” Viktor Yushchenko has been rendered quite ugly on the outside. But Justin Raimondo has shown what an ugly soul he has. (I was on the phone today with Ukrainian and Russian friends in Kyiv and Moscow, all of whom tell me that all of the liberals in the region are working for Viktor Yushchenko, to substitute something decent for the gangsterism from which Ukrainians have suffered. I wish them all well, as I do all who strive for freedom, wherever they may live.)
For Tom L,
Thanks for the suggestion of a trackback system. I don’t know how they work, but will ask my friendly volunteer webmaster, who set up the website for me and fairly recently set up the comment system.
I wasn’t aware that it was cowardly not to have that, but it’s a good suggestion, anyway. (I don’t think, by the way, that the lack of trackbacks or comments on Justin Raimondo’s or Lew Rockwell’s sites are signs of cowardliness. No one has an obligation to create such systems. But distorting what I say and then for evidence linking to a picture of me, with no reference to my criticisms of Raimondo is different. That is cowardly.)
Now let’s turn to your remarks. The most interesting thing is that if someone refers to another person’s rhetoric as shrill, he is likely to be called by others shrill, in turn. Fine. That’s the risk you take when you take on a bully. A fair reader of his columns will find him shrill. That doesn’t mean that all fair readers are themselve shrill, because they find someone else shrill. By your logic, if you find me shrill, that would make you…shrill. Surely, that can’t be right, can it?
If you find Justin Raimondo to be a credible source of information, just follow his frantic attempts to deny that Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned. At antiwar.com you’d find that it was, after all, a case of bad sushi. Very credible, indeed.
I hope that people who have been attracted to the apparent radicalness of antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com (and of Lew Rockwell’s other ventures) will think a bit before their enthusiasm overcomes their better judgement. Ask whether you want to be associated with the crowd of kooks, cranks, and zanies there who endorse the armed fight to overthrow the Iraqi government and stop the elections (Justin Raimondo), who endorse killing American troops (Mike Rogers), who hang out with holocaust deniers (Joseph Sobran), who call for stoning homosexuals to death (Gary North), who mock the death by friendly fire of Pat Tillman (Lew Rockwell), who yearn for the revival of the Confederacy (Lew Rockwell and his ilk), and on and on and on. People judge you by the company you keep. It becomes a part of your public identity. Is that the identity you wish to create for yourself?
In any case, I’m about to head to the airport to spend some time in the Austrian Alps, far away from thoughts of anti-American hatemongers, such as Justin Raimondo and Lew Rockwell. Best regards to all.