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• Top News
• Opinion and analysis
• Events

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"War is the motor that runs the turbine of growing government power," our Editorial Director Justin Raimondo wrote last week. "It is in wartime that the power of the State takes a ‘great leap forward,’ and, in the holy name of ‘national security,’ overpowers the private sector and the realm of freedom."

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Things are always picking up here at Antiwar.com and the past few weeks have been exceptionally active. Justin Raimondo was quoted in the New York Times last week scorning the War Party’s Iran propaganda. Steve Horn has provided on the ground, exclusive coverage of the Chicago protests at the NATO Summit and the police state’s efforts to charge youthful demonstrators with terrorism. Our DC Editor John Glaser appeared in a 30-minute TV spot on Russia Today, debating NATO policies with a British member of Parliament and a Polish political analyst. Glaser also attended an event in DC hosted by the National Iranian American Council, featuring the following speakers: PJ Crowley, Aaron David Miller, Bijan Khajehpour, George Perkovich, moderated by Trita Parsi.

Our work is vital and continues to persuade people that war is the antithesis of both liberty and security. Our news section is hard-hitting and comprehensive. The blog is on fire. Our columnists are as brilliant as ever. Antiwar Radio continues to stand out in getting distinguished scholars, journalists, and activists on the air. But it’s up to you to keep it all going.

This week’s top news:

US: World Obviously Won’t Accept Iran’s Civilian Enrichment of Uranium: The Baghdad summit between the P5+1 and Iran has ended, with both sides agreeing to launch another round of talks next month in Moscow. No agreements beyond this were reached, but Western powers seem to insist on continuing sanctions and denying Iran’s legal right to a civilian nuclear program.

US Prepares to Vet Syrian Rebels for Indirect Shipments of Arms: The Obama administration is preparing a plan that would attempt to vet rebel militias in Syria to determine whether they would be suitable recipients of munitions coming through Gulf Arab states with U.S. help, according to officials. Except they are already receiving this lethal aid with U.S. help and without any vetting process.

Afghanistan Secretly Adopts Indefinite Detention Regime With US Instruction: With Washington’s supervision, Afghanistan is secretly adopting a system of indefinite detention for thousands of prisoners previously held without charge by the U.S.

Growing Opposition as US Mulls Arming Domestic Drones: Opposition to the use of domestic surveillance drones by law enforcement had only just begun, but now U.S. authorities are doubling down by considering actually arming their domestic drones.

China Accuses Pentagon of Hyping Chinese Military Threat: China’s Defense Ministry has accused the Pentagon of hyping Chinese military power and inflating the threat it may pose to its neighbors, as ties between the two powers continue to be undermined by Washington’s aggressive postures.

Russia’s New Missile to Target US Missile Shield: Just days after NATO announced that its missile defense shield in Europe is provisionally operational, the Russian military has successfully tested a new ICBM that it says is designed to penetrate the system.

Opinion and Analysis

• Justin Raimondo examined the "NATO Three," the ideological origins of the military-industrial-media complex, and the phony negotiations with Iran.
• Kelley Vlahos documented War Inc.’s shift homeward.
• Ivan Eland urged the U.S. to leave NATO, not shore it up.
• Philip Giraldi explained what’s wrong with "lawfare."

Events:

Angela Keaton will be speaking on techniques on how to speak to non-activists about the War at Porcfest, June 22nd. Porcfest is an annual gathering of peace and freedom lovers in Lancaster, NH.

Walter Williams, who is a member of the college’s board of trustees, gave a positively Rothbardian talk last Saturday. He started out by telling the assembled that he would discuss “fundamental principles” necessary to “preserve the blessings of liberty.” “The first principle of a free society,” he said, “is that each person owns himself.” And “the direct implication of self-ownership is people must own those things they produce.” “The idea of self-ownership” he continued, “is what makes slavery, murder, rape, assault, extortion, theft, and the like immoral acts.” The market economy not only preserves these fundamental rights of property, but brings into being a prosperous middle class and permits the leisure and extended division of labor necessary for civilization. In the market, income is earned by serving others and can be used for genuine charity towards those in need.

Our social problems do not stem from the market, but from the state. “The great problems that confront our nation,’ he said, “have their roots in morality where we’ve asked government to commit immoral and unconstitutional acts.”

The charge he gave to our graduates was “to be moral yourself and to try to sell to our fellow man on the superiority of personal liberty and its main ingredient, limited government.”

If you have suffered through a commencement speech recently, console yourself with his speech.

When I crashed my car a couple weeks ago, I learned just how tough Antiwar.com bumper stickers are. Unfortunately for me, the sticker did not absorb enough of the impact to save my vehicle. On the other hand, the sticker was a helpful reminder that Antiwar.com gladly accepts cars (even this one!) as a donation, and it’s tax deductible. Nobody involved in the accident was injured, but now as a donation, the car may be a part of injuring the War Party’s propaganda onslaught. You don’t have to total your vehicle to help out Antiwar.com, but if the situation arises where your ride is not as useful to you, please remember the peace movement will make the best of it.

For same day pick up for your used car, please call the Car Donation Center Toll-Free at 1-800-240-0160. Tell them Antiwar.com sent you.

Riggs: The State Department recently released a report on human rights abuses in Mexico. That report found that Mexican military and LEOs ”engaged in unlawful killings, forced disappearances, and instances of physical abuse and torture” while fighting TCOs.

I was wondering if your office could provide me with a statement about the new report in light of Administrator Michele Leonhart’s earlier claim, made to the Washington Post, in which she said, “It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs….[cartels] are like caged animals, attacking one another,” as it seems cartels are not the only people in Mexico committing violence.

DEA: We will let the State Department and Mexico speak to this rather than us

Riggs: If the DEA won’t comment on the report, can you at least tell me if Administrator Leonhart stands by her claim that the “the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success” in the war on drugs?

DEA: She has been consistent that the violence represents the pressure cartels feel from Mexican law enforcement/military and the U.S.

Riggs: But [she] has no comment on violence perpetrated by DEA partners in Mexican military and law enforcement?

DEA: nope

It’s important to point out that Mexican security forces have been committing crimes with U.S. backing for some time now. And it is well known. Human Rights Watch back in November of last year released a report providing evidence that Mexico’s security forces participated in “more than 170 cases of torture, 39 ‘disappearances,’ and 24 extrajudicial killings since Calderón took office in December 2006.” And these are just what they could confirm.

“Instead of reducing violence, Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ has resulted in a dramatic increase in killings, torture, and other appalling abuses by security forces, which only make the climate of lawlessness and fear worse in many parts of the country,” said José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch. What’s more, claimed the report, is that most of these crimes are committed with impunity. Security forces are by and large immune from any accountability for these actions.

President Calderon’s policy to deploy 50,000 Mexican troops and thousands more federal police officers – forces that are trained by the United States – has only increased the violence, which has left more than 50,000 dead since about 2006. The Mexican drug cartels –  which the Washington Post reported yesterday are at war with each other – have dug in their heels and terrorized Mexico with progressive cruelty following every increase in hardened drug war policy (directed by Washington, of course).

“George W. Bush backed Calderón’s militarization with a $1.8 billion package of helicopters, police training, and intelligence cooperation,” wrote The New Yorker’sSteve Coll recently. “Obama has continued the program.”

See other recent drug war coverage on this blog here, here, and here.

Think of devaluation as the monetary equivalent of the “tragedy of the commons”. In a nutshell, if everyone owns something, it is in each individual’s interest to grab what they can as quickly as possible, which soon depletes the resource.

With currencies, as with fisheries and sheep pastures, there’s an advantage for those who move first and pain for those who dither. Consider Iceland’s nearly-instantaneous recovery from its epic banking crash:

In European Crisis, Iceland Emerges as an Island of Recovery
VESTMANNAEYJAR, Iceland—Three and a half years after Iceland collapsed in a heap, Dadi Palsson’s fish-processing plant has the air of a surprising economic recovery.

Mr. Palsson arrived at 4 a.m. on a recent workday. Twelve tons of cod were coming in. Soon, his workers would bone, slice and pack the fish for loading onto towering container ships headed abroad.

In 2008, Iceland was the first casualty of the financial crisis that has since primed the euro zone for another economic disaster: Greece is edging toward a cataclysmic exit from the euro, Spain is racked by a teetering banking system, and German politicians are squabbling over how to hold it all together.

But Iceland is growing. Unemployment has eased. Emigration has slowed.

Iceland has a significant advantage over stressed euro-zone countries—a currency that could be devalued. That has turned its trade deficit into a surplus and smoothed its recovery.

So brisk is the fish business that Mr. Palsson’s factory draws Polish workers to this island off an island, a heart-shaped dollop of volcanic rock five miles from Iceland’s south coast.

“Every house is full because we can offer so many jobs,” said Mr. Palsson, 37 years old. On his humming factory floor, cod whip through machines that lop off heads and slice out bones. Rows of workers in Smurf-blue smocks lean over illuminated tables to cut the filets.

Iceland—with its own currency, its own central bank, its own monetary policy, its own decision-making and its own rules—had policy options that euro-zone nations can only fantasize about. Its successes provide a vivid lesson in what euro countries gave up when they joined the monetary union. And, perhaps, a taste of what might be possible should they leave.

Iceland fell hard in 2008. Its engorged banking system sunk and unemployment soared. The government was jeered out of office by dispirited voters in angry street protests. Young people packed their bags. As in the euro zone, the International Monetary Fund parachuted in with a bailout.

Its currency devalued by half. That boosted exports, like Mr. Palsson’s fish, and trimmed costly imports, like cars. The weakened krona was hard on homeowners who borrowed in foreign currency, but Iceland’s judges and policy makers orchestrated mortgage relief. Expensive foreign goods also ignited inflation. Consumer prices have risen 26% since 2008.
That rescue, in turn, weighed on the financial system. But unlike Ireland, for example, Iceland let its banks fail and made foreign creditors, not Icelandic taxpayers, largely responsible for covering losses.

Iceland also imposed draconian capital controls—anathema to the European Union doctrine of open financial borders—that have warded off the terrifying capital and credit flights that hit Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and now test Spain and Italy.

And instead of rushing into the sort of spending cuts that have ravaged Greece and Spain, Iceland delayed austerity. Initially, the country even increased social-welfare payments to its poorest citizens, whose continued spending helped cushion the economy.

Some thoughts
In Greece and the other PIIGS countries, Iceland is the real-world blueprint for those who want to abandon the euro experiment and take back national control of monetary policy — in other words, to regain the ability to devalue.

Iceland is also an example for many proponents of holding the eurozone together, who see a monetization of peripheral country debt as the only way to preserve the union and keep the big German and French banks solvent. In other words, they’ll keep the euro but devalue it.

So regardless of whether the eurozone dissolves or is endures, devaluation is the centerpiece policy. Either the drachma, peseta and lira are revived at a 50% discount, or the euro is devalued by a similar amount. There’s no sound-currency solution to all this debt.

Everyone also knows that the benefits of devaluation go primarily to those who strike first, so there’s a growing sense of urgency.

Which brings us back to the tragedy of the commons. When (not if) the eurozone starts devaluing, the dollar and yen will have to follow suit, and then it’s game on, a race to the bottom with no winners. Except for gold.

Meanwhile, in Europe, where Greeks have been pulling money out of banks steadily since the first of the year, loan to deposit ratios are much higher, as this chart reflects.

From Zero Hedge’s vantage point,

With banks such as Danske, SHB, Swebank, DnB, and Nordea literally at 200% Loan-to-Deposits, but most other European banks too, even the tiniest outflow in deposit cash (ala what is happening in the PIIGS) will send the system into yet another liquidity spasm. Only this time, since what little unencumbered assets remaining have already been pledged to the ECB, there will be no quick LTRO collateral-type fix this time.

Today, Murray N. Rothbard shows up in Switzerland’s most prominent newspaper, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), in an article titled “Dangers of the paper money system”:

http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/wirtschaft/uebersicht/gefahren-des-systems-mit-ungedecktem-papiergeld_1.17034050.html

Rothbard is noted as being the leading figure of libertarianism and for having blamed the Fed for being an evil inflation machinery, supporting commercial banks in their inflationary efforts.

I guess the NZZ journalist deserves some applause!

Furthermore, Antiwar.com has obtained a copy of a video shot of the arrest of Occupy Pittsburgh activist, Taylor Hall, who was arrested on May 19 for alleged aggravated battery of a member of the Chicago Police Department.

Increasingly, evidence is being obtained that flies in the face of the narrative the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has been offering. These newest photos, which show the infiltrators “Mo” and “Gloves” deeply involved in many activities with Occupy Chicago activists, speak volumes for how skilled these infiltrators were, masking their identities for weeks in the prelude to the preemptive arrests in the days leading up to the NATO Summit.

The photos can be seen below and the video below. The questions that have yet to be answered: how did this all occur, why did it all occur, who hatched the plot, and what are the real identities and backgrounds of “Mo” and “Gloves,” among others?

Stay tuned for more answers to these multi-faceted questions from Antiwar.com as the craziness in Chicago continues to unfold and answers to these key questions arise.

Gloves and Mo on May Day

Gloves with Black Bloc

Mo at Woodland Clinic

Mo on May Day

Gloves at May Day

It’s been almost four years since the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 put President Bush’s warrantless wiretap program on legal footing by authorizing broad, programmatic surveillance of Americans’ international communications. The only thing the public really knows about it so far is that it was almost immediately misused, resulting in “significant and systemic” overcollection of Americans’ purely domestic communications. Subsequent reporting revealed that the improperly “overcollected” communications could number in the millions, and included former president Clinton’s private e-mails. So naturally, the Senate is charging ahead toward the renewal of these sweeping powers without hearings or debate.

…This is a truly incredible state of affairs. We have a vast apparatus for intercepting—and retaining indefinitely—American communications on a mass scale. We are being asked to take it as an article of faith that this is absolutely necessary to the security of the United States, even though similar claims about the original warrantless wiretap program could not be substantiated by later internal audits. The government doesn’t want to have to even defend the constitutionality of this program in front of a judge. And Congress doesn’t seem interested in so much as discussing the question, or making the public privy to so much as the raw numbers involved, before giving the NSA four more years of carte blanche. But hey, look over there, someone tangentially related to a presidential campaign said something dumb on cable television! Clearly there’s no time to discuss trivia like this “vast government database of intercepted communications.”

The ACLU also has a nice round up on links including “the Obama administration’s explanation of the law here“ and “the ACLU’s letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee here” and the ACLU’s “lawsuit challenging the law here.” They also explain how the Director of National Intelligence “said it isn’t even ‘reasonably possible’ to estimate how many Americans are swept up in the NSA’s expansive dragnet.”

The Obama administration, as is usual in cases where they disregard the Constitution, promises this mass surveillance comes with strong safeguards and accountability. In reality, the war on terrorism is continuing to be used to justify major infringements on the civil liberties of Americans.