An Old Right isolationist take on the Fort Hood massacre

It's not surprising to me that Pat Robertson is banging the Islamophobia drums.

I'm not surprised, either, that Antiwar.com's editorial director Justin Raimondo is also jumping to rightwing conclusions over the Fort Hood shooting untethered from any factual basis. But I thought I would link to his post The War at Home: Jihad at Ft. Hood 11/09/09 for a couple of reasons. One is that it shows how on this particular subject, he's willing to leap to conclusions based on scarce evidence. It's also an example of his Old Right isolationism, in which he simultaneously sounds like he's trying to give an empathetic explanation of why an American Muslim would think himself justified in killing American soldiers and also promote a paranoid rightwing notion of a super-efficient Al Qa'ida having deadly sleeper agents prowling among us here in the Homeland. In his opening paragraphs, he could be mistaken for Michelle Malkin:

It’s been grimly amusing to watch the liberal mainstream media spin the murder spree at Ft. Hood. They are trying mightily to pretend it was all about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s inner psychological turmoil, given his job as an Army psychiatrist whose task it was to counsel troubled veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars. He is depicted as a victim of post-traumatic stress syndrome, even though he was never in combat. His identification with his clients’ suffering, his poor job evaluations, even his lack of a wife are all blamed for his rampage, which killed 13 (so far) and wounded dozens of others.

In order to give this narrative of victimization credibility, the touchy-feely school of thought has to ignore the mountains of evidence that – given his premises – Hasan acted rationally and there was nothing inexplicable about his deadly spasm of violence.

Raimondo has already decided that Maj. Hasan is guilty of the shootings (a reasonable enough conclusion at this point) but also that he did so for jihadist religious-political reasons:

In 2001, before his transfer to Ft. Hood, Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., where Anwar al-Awlaki – recently banned from Britain due to his open advocacy of attacks on British troops in Afghanistan and his support for organizations deemed terrorist – preached and held sway. Two of Hasan’s fellow congregants were Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour, both among the 9/11 hijackers. A third hijacker attended the radical imam’s services in California.

These might be potentially interesting connections, if we knew a lot more than we do about the shooter's motivation than we actually do. Until then, it's speculation. Raimondo proceeds immediately to wilder speculation:

It is perfectly possible Hasan met the two and was recruited into al-Qaeda, a "sleeper" to be awakened at the right moment. The nut-job known as "Azzam the American," a Muslim convert from a Southern California Jewish family, issued a statement not long ago calling on Muslim Americans – specifically Muslim members of the armed services, of which there are thousands – to rise up and strike the infidels on the home front.

It's also "perfectly possible" that most of our TV pundits are space alien Pod People, too. But I would actually say we have more evidence for the Pod Pundit idea than we have for the idea that Hasan was an Al Qa'ida sleeper agent recruited by 9/11 hijackers.

He continues, sounding even more like Michelle Malkin:

The American-born Hasan, son of Palestinian parents who emigrated to the U.S. sometime in the 1960s, joined the military against the wishes of his family. Here is someone who was brought up in this country, presumably immersed in the culture of the West, and yet still responded to the call of al-Qaeda to make war on his homeland. With millions of native-born Muslims in this country, how many are similarly susceptible to Osama bin Laden’s appeal to strike at the "far enemy" – who is, for them, quite near?

This, of course, is just the question the neoconservatives have been asking ever since the Twin Towers were downed, and their answer is, oddly, the same as al-Qaeda’s. Both, for different reasons, are hoping for a crackdown by the U.S. government, starting with the banning of Muslims from our military. If we are indeed embarked on a religious war against Islam – and it sure seems like it – who can argue against this? The wet dream of the neocons and their ostensible opposite numbers in bin Laden’s cave is that the authorities will one day carry out Michelle Malkin’s vision of a repeat of FDR’s wartime internment camps, albeit this time filled with American Muslims instead of Japanese-Americans. That would certainly make both the editors of Commentary magazine and al-Qaeda’s top commanders quite happy. [my emphasis]

Was Hasan responding "to the call of al-Qaeda to make war on his homeland"? We don't know that, and neither does Raimondo. But it didn't stop him from embracing Malkin's suggestion about rounding up potentially disloyal Americans and putting them in preventive detention. It wouldn't at all surprise me for neocons to defend such an action. But it's certainly a broad generalization he makes to say it's their "wet dream".

And Raimondo gives us an example of how an antiwar postion can simultaneously be a xenophobic, rightwing conspiracy theory.

Our wars abroad are a diversion away from the main front in the effort to defeat al-Qaeda, which is right here at home. There is no doubt in my mind that bin Laden’s legions have planted their agents on our soil, and these murderous Myrmidons will spring forth fully armed when the time is ripe. Our borders, our security measures around such facilities as nuclear plants, and our intelligence-gathering methods are the weak links in our defense, made all the more so by the massive diversion of resources to a series of futile, draining, and unwinnable overseas conflicts. [my emphasis]

Antiwar.com is nominally a "libertarian"-type forum featuring antiwar writing from a variety of poltical positions from left to right. The Antiwar Radio feature frequently has sensible commentators associated more with the left side of the political spectrum, including human rights attorney Scott Horton, historian Gareth Porter, Glenn Greenwald and Tom Hayden.

Raimondo is also an "adjunct scholar" of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Ludwig von Mises was a hardline rightwing economist who was also an editor a member of the editorial advisory board of the John Birch Society's American Opinion magazine. The founder and chairman of the Institute is neo-Confederate Lew Rockwell, whose articles can be found in abundance at his LewRockwell.com site. The site also features neo-Confederate Abraham Lincoln revisionism in its King Lincoln Archives.

Chip Berlet writes about the Mises Institute in Into the Mainstream Intelligence Report Summer 2003. "Around the country, ideas that originated on the hard right or in the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists are finding their way into the mainstream," he writes. And he identifies the Mises Institute as one of the groups performing that service for the extreme right.

Antiwar.com identifies itself as a project of our parent foundation, the Randolph Bourne Institute," whose main reason for existence appears to be funding Antiwar.com. Antiwar.com's mission statement also declares, "Our dedication to libertarian principles, inspired in large part by the works and example of the late Murray N. Rothbard, is reflected on this site." Justin Raimondo is the author of an admiring Rothbard biography, An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (2000). Berlet describes Rothbard's "libertarian" approach as follows:

A key player in the [Ludwig von Mises] institute for years was the late Murray Rothbard, who worked with [Lew] Rockwell closely and co-edited a journal with him. The institute's Web site includes a cybershrine to Rothbard, a man who complained that the "Officially Oppressed" of American society (read, blacks, women and so on) were a "parasitic burden," forcing their "hapless Oppressors" to provide "an endless flow of benefits."

"The call of 'equality,'" he wrote, "is a siren song that can only mean the destruction of all that we cherish as being human." Rothbard blamed much of what he disliked on meddling women. In the mid-1800s, a "legion of Yankee women" who were "not fettered by the responsibilities" of household work "imposed" voting rights for women on the nation. Later, Jewish women, after raising funds from "top Jewish financiers," agitated for child labor laws, Rothbard adds with evident disgust. The "dominant tradition" of all these activist women, he suggests, is lesbianism.

Other sources of Old Right isolationist commentary include Taki's Magazine, The American Conservative (which like Antiwar.com also publishes liberal and left war criticism) and Chronicles Magazine (not to be confused with The Chronicle of Higher Education).

Antiwar.com's mission statement claims that while acknowledging their Rothbardian point of view, they take their journalistic role seriously. Having the editorial director publish a paranoid, evidence-free claim about a sophisticated network of Al Qa'ida sleeper agents in the United States does anything but enhance their reputation for journalistic seriousness.

Tags: isolationism, justin raimondo, old right

Ron Paul takes the money and doesn't run, leaving unrequited love behind

Justin Raimondo and other folks at the Antiwar.com Web site have been big fans of Ron Paul in this Presidential election cycle.

But for Raimondo at least, he has reached the point of wondering what Ron Paul, also the darling of white surpremacist groups, was really up to. He writes about it in A Revolution Betrayed? Taki's Top Drawer 02/13/08. (He says that the title wasn't his.)

Paul made big headlines for his prodigious online fundraising. But he actually spent very little money in key primary and caucus states on ad buys. If he was really interested in winning the Republican nomination, laying the groundwork for a third party run, or trying to build opposition to the Iraq War, it doesn't make much sense to not make big media buys in the early contests.

It seems to be dawning on Raimondo that hardline rightwinger Ron Paul may have been playing "libertarians" and other war critics for suckers. He writes of Paul's statement effectively pulling out of the Republican Presidential race and also announcing he will not make a third party run:

To summarize: the presidential campaign is in limbo, there will be no third party run, and we'll get back to you later about what we're going to do with all that money we raised ($6 million still unspent).

As Representative Paul put it: Whoa!

But isn't that how "libertarian" capitalism is supposed to work? Everyone is in it for a buck and acting on perfectly selfish impulses. If you can gull the rubes into giving you their cash, you win. If they're dumb enough to get scammed by you, too bad for them. It just illustrates that the guy who winds up with the money is a winner in the Social Darwinist selection process.

Raimondo accurately points out that Paul was never likely to be the Republican candidate, and that his Presidential candidacy really only made sense as laying the groundwork for a third-party run. If Raimondo takes Paul's opposition to the war as seriously as he claims, one would think he would include building the antiwar movement as a possible rationale. But since I see the core of Paul's Old Right isolationist outlook as being extreme nationalism, I never took Paul's support for anti-militarist that seriously.

Raimondo points out that Paul's claim that he has to worry about preserving his House seat against a well-funded primary opponent is bogus. But his article also conveys the sadness of true faith that has been let down:

Paul’s presidential campaign galvanized so much energy and enthusiasm that, at times, it mimiced the dimensions and depth of a real mass movement, that is, of a serious effort to recapture the GOP from the neoconservatives and inaugurate a new era on the Right. The Paul campaign ignited interest at both ends of the political spectrum, and drew in a broad array of activists and more passive supporters (contributors and voters) that, despite their ideological diversity, showed remarkable cohesion and an amazing degree of self-organization. As a grassroots phenomenon, it has outpaced anything seen in the libertarian movement or, indeed, on the far right side of the political spectrum; since the storied days of Barry Goldwater. (my emphasis)

That would be the "storied days" of Barry Goldwater's Presidential campaign in 1964, when his two main issues were promoting an immediate drastic escalation of the war in Vietnam and opposing integration in the South. It's such things that fire the hearts of Old Right libertarian idealists. He continues:

Furthermore, all this activity generated more publicity in the mainstream media than any comparable candidate: national newspapers, magazines, television, and the Internet have all featured interviews, profiles, stories, and editorials that have focused attention on Paul, and made him the subject of discussion from sea to shining sea. Two appearances on Jay Leno: more publicity than this no libertarian standard-bearer ever dreamed of. ...

Paul set out, I think consciously, to recreate the Old Right coalition on contemporary terrain. Was he so astonished by his own success that he pulled back at the last moment? We can’t know that, but what we can ask is why he failed to give us the leadership implicit in his presidential bid. After all, when you run for president, and put yourself at the head of a movement, you have a responsibility to follow through: you’re asking your supporters to make a commitment, and, implicit in that, is an unwritten agreement on the candidate’s part to follow through. (my emphasis)

Ah, it's so poignant to discover that the idol of white-supremacist and militia types could also be a cheap scamster, just like many of his most passionate followers. So sad.

But, then, there's also the reliable fallback of blaming the Jews neoconservatives:

What really scared the substantial anti-Paul contingent among the conservative GOP establishment is that they looked at the youth movement he had generated and saw that this was the future of their movement and their party--if it was to have a future. The venomous smear campaign organized by the Orange Line Mafia, and the hooligan-style assault launched by Bill Kristol and the worst of the neocons, such as David Frum, was simply a defensive war, at least on their part. After all, Paul has continually gone after the neoconservatives, explicitly pointing to them as the real source of the GOP’s problems. His campaign was and is a dagger pointed at the heart of the neocon network in the Republican party, and they responded in kind – that is, in the only way they could, not with a refutation of Paul’s ideas but with smears and a campaign based entirely on the "principle" of guilt-by-association. I’ve covered that campaign [elsewhere], and won’t get into specifics, except to say that, in assessing the effect of the Paul campaign, this chapter takes on special significance.

Yes, there's special significance, here, know what I mean? (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink)

Never heard the term "Orange Line Mafia"? Me either. And, no, even after I followed the link in Raimondo's post I was still pretty much clueless. Finally I realized they were referring to the "orange line" on the Washington D.C. subway system. And lots of Jews seem to be involved.

But whatever the religious inclinations of these Paul opponents, Raimondo thinks they're down on him because they are, you know, urban elites and stuff who hate good, down-home, all-American white folks:

Of course, when anyone looked at the alleged “hate” in his [Paul's] infamous newsletters, and at the accusations leveled in The New Republic and by Marty Peretz’s "libertarian" cohorts, as I did, it became all to clear that the big objection had nothing to do with what was actually written. Paul’s real crime, in the view of his critics, was the very idea of appealing to what is, after all, Ron Paul’s mass base: rural, white, home-schooling, primarily Midwestern farmers and lower-middle class small business owners and blue-collar workers. For the Beltway “libertarians,” this simply will not do. As Radley Balko, of the Cato Institute, lamented: "The Ann Althouses of the world, for example, are now only more certain that opponents of federal anti-discrimination laws should have to prove that they aren’t racist before being taken seriously." (my emphasis)

Speaking of those dang, mannish-type wimmin:

The Ann Althouses of this world amount to a very small percentage of the general population: after all, what if we got together all the cranky, neoconnish know-it-all female lawyers--;would we even have enough to fill a small room?

Yet it is unfair to apply this argument to the Beltway types, who couldn’t care less about building a real political movement outside the confines of the Georgetown cocktail party circuit. That’s why they care more about the Ann Althouses of this world than they do about that North Dakota farmer who spray-painted “RON PAUL” on hay bales. Heck, they’re embarrassed that Paul won his highest vote totals in rural districts like North Dakota and Montana. Why, those places are nowhere, they don’t matter: only the Washington-New York-Hollywood axis matters: the rest is fly-over country, which, if it isn’t exactly uninhabited, is certainly empty intellectually, as least as far as the Orange Line Mafia is concerned. (my emphasis)

And, hey, we know what kind of people run "New York" and "Hollywood" and of course Washington, too, don't we? (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink)

So, if Paul's true believers can't believe their man bamboozled them as bad as Cheney and Bush and Maverick McCain suckered people about Iraq's WMDs, well, they can always take comfort in thinking that the Jews done him in.

It's a strange, strange world those Old Right isolationist "libertarians" live in.

Raimondo follows up that article with more anguish of unrequited political love in A March to Nowhere, also in Taki's Top Drawer 02/13/08. It includes a video clip of the "antiwar" Ron Paul telling his followers, among other things, grumbling that Republicans are joining with Al Gore on global warming.

Tags: isolationism, justin raimondo, old right, ron paul

Ron Paul gobsmacks Justin Raimondo

Even Justin Raimondo, a proud Old Right isolationist, Editorial Director of the Antiwar.com site and a columnist who praises Ron Paul regularly, even he has decided to take the candidate to task for his rightwing nativism, in Ron Paul’s Disgraceful Ad 12/29/07 Antiwar.com. He accuses the ad of "pandering to the worst, Tom Tancredo-esque paranoia and outright ignorance".

Tags: authoritarianism, isolationism, justin raimondo, nativism, ron paul

Reanimated corpse of Old Right isolationism discovered on the prowl

Isolationist hero Charles Lindbergh at America First Rally: "The three most important groups which have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration." - Lindbergh 09/11/1941

Well, it looks like the ship has hit the sand. (I always wanted to use that dumb euphemism from Tennessee Ernie Ford.) The Calvin Coolidge and Ayn Rand fans are ready to proclaim Glenn Greenwald their new prophet.

Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com says in Why Are They So Afraid of Ron Paul? 11/14/07 that Greenwald "has risen as Ron's champion on the Left", defending Mr. Gold Standard against "the Smear Bund" composed of "liberals of the old school" and their (our) "viciousness" and "juvenility". Andrew Jackson? Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal? Hell, yeah, I'm a "liberal of the old school"! And that ain't what Raimondo's LewRockwell.com crowd call "Austrian school" liberals, either, by which they mean hardline "free market" Buccaneer Capitalism partisans like their boy Ron Paul.

Ron Paul has made a career out of "mainstreaming" far-right notions into the Republican Party. Now he's created a new opening. And the ideological spawn of Herbert Hoover and the America First Committee are rushing through it. Us "liberals of the old school" have some idea where they're coming from.

Check out Raimondo's article. I'm down with Andrew Bacevich's take on how "isolationism" is used as a bogeyman by Establishment foreign policy types. Writing about Old Man Bush's demagoguery as President, Bacevich says in American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (2002):

There were in fact few indications that the American people after the Cold war were inclined to "turn their backs on the world" - few, indeed, that they had ever done so throughout their history. But by reviving this shopworn refrain - and by portraying every foreign policy issues as a test of whether Americans would stay the course [yes, Old Man Bush liked the phrase, too] or shirk their duty to the world - Bush used isolationism as a calculated device for shoring up popular and congressional deference to the executive branch. Bill Clinton would do likewise.

But Ron Paul and the Paulists are isolationists in the tradition of William Borah, Charles Lindburg, Robert Taft and the pre-World War II America Firsters.

And Justin Raimondo is offering us a guided tour in his piece: John T. Flynn, the "antiwar" American First Committee, Murray Rothbard, Bob Barr (pal of the White Citizens Council), neo-Confederate Lew Rockwell. Politics makes strange bedfellows, as the saying goes. But if those are my bedfellows on the Iraq War, I want a full-body condom!

Raimondo goes after Dave Neiwert, a recovering former Republican, who is one of the country's leading journalistic authorities on the radical right. He credits Neiwert with an accomplishment of which I was not aware, referring to Neiwert's carefully documented criticisms of Ron Paul: "It's mass smearing on a scale never before attempted." Boy-hidey! I guess ole Goebbels was an amateur compared to that badass Dave Neiwert - if you buy Raimondo's version, that is. He continues on to refer to Neiwert as a "fool" after crediting him with a world-historic level of "smearing".

Raimondo also spends a long paragraph verbally (or at least literarily) rending his garments over anyone who actually bothers to analyze authoritarian movements. To make sense of this, you have to keep in mind that to the America First crowd, the New Deal was fascism. Abandon your sense of the normal meaning of words, all ye who enter into the wonderland of New Old Right isolationism. Justin Raimondo and the LewRockwell.com crowd definitely do not want people looking too closely at what authoritarian movements are about.

Bottom line: I think the tacit alliance is starting to wear very thin between rightwing "libertarian" critics of the Iraq War and the majority opposed to the war - liberals, independents, maybe a few conservatives, those who refer to themselves as "progressives" or "leftists": pretty much everyone who's actually part of the peace movement.

Tags: america first committee, authoritarianism, charles lindbergh, dave neiwert, isolationism, justin raimondo, ron paul