Antiwar Libertarians and Conservatives and The War on Terrorism [From Libertarian and Conservative Critics of Foreign Interventionism

by Ryan McMaken, 2002]

In January of 2001, Justin Raimondo wrote a review of the year 2000 and concluded that the United States was suffering from an Icarus Syndrome and it would soon find itself flying too close to the sun: [U]nder Clinton alone, the US lashed out at the Serbs and the Iraqis, the Haitians and the Somalis, the Afghans and the Sudanese, and threatened to intervene on numerous occasions. Well, we dont know the exact number of such threats, but then threatening has become the leitmotif of American foreign policy in the post-cold war world. These days, the brazen belligerence of the US goes way beyond arrogance and all the way to hubris, the old Greek conception of a pride so overweening that it literally begs to be toppled, like the Icarus felled for daring to approach the sun.1 Raimondo then quoted the Old Rights Garet Garrett on empire: How now, thou American, frustrated crusader, do you know where you are?.. Is it security you want? There is no security at the top of the world [H]ow now do you protect yourself? Will you go on crashing the barriers of time and space? And when you can travel so fast you arrive ahead of your own sound, what will you bring to the world at that speed? Not peace. Peace would be happy to fly no faster than a dove.2 For libertarians and anti-interventionist conservatives, the decade following the end of the Cold War was not the decade of a return to laissez faire, but a decade of a rapidly accelerating American empire bent on subjugating the world. In 1994, Murray Rothbard had sarcastically suggested that the United States invade the entire world since surely someone somewhere in the world is indulging in a hate thought, and such crimes against American national interest must be eradicated. Had Rothbard lived to see the end of the twentieth century, he probably would not have been surprised that the United States had considerably increased its political interests in every corner of the globe. By the beginning of 2001, this ceaseless Moralizing with Cluster Bombs, as James Bovard has called it, made Garretts admonition that There is no security at the top of the world seem all the more urgent.3 When over 4,000 American civilians were killed in the terrorist attacks of September 2001, antiwar libertarians and conservatives felt tragically vindicated in their demands that the American state abandon aggressive foreign policy in the name of defense.

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Raimondo, Justin. Know Thy Enemy Antiwar.com ww2.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j010101.html Raimondo is quoting Garrett from The American Story (Regnery Press, Chicago. 1955) in Raimondo, Justin. Know Thy Enemy Antiwar.com ww2.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j010101.html 3 Bovard, James. Feeling Your Pain St. Martins Press. New York 2000

Facing the prospect of a new and lengthy war, antiwar critics of foreign intervention renewed their objections to war as a centralizing and despotic force. By the time of the War on Terrorism, however, these critics had been seriously routed and were engaging in a small rearguard operation in the hopes of keeping any kind of opposition alive. To students of Garet Garrett, it had to be clear that the imperial mindset had become more entrenched than ever. If we again consider the criteria for empire that Garrett set forth in 1952, the current state of imperialism seemed obvious to the antiwar right. The five criteria were: (1)the dominance of executive power; (2) the subordination of domestic to foreign policy; (3) the ascendancy of the military mind; (4) a system of satellite nations; (5) and a continually reinforced fear of the barbarian enemy.4 In a variety of ways, antiwar conservatives and libertarians would match each of Garretts criteria with specific developments they identified since the initiation of the War on Terrorism (WOT): (1) The passage of the USA PATRIOT Act granted vast new powers to the executive branch without even a declaration of war. (2) As it had been used during the Cold War, domestic policy was to act as little more than s support for the WOT and little consideration was to be given to factional or local concerns in the political arena. (3) Rhetoric arose demanding that terrorism be treated as acts of war rather than as a criminal act and that only a military solution was acceptable. (4) The world was quickly separating into nations that support the American idea of the WOT and the nations that do not, thus creating the American sphere and the Terrorist sphere. (5) The portrayal of militant Muslims as barely human barbarian hordes ready to storm the gates. While each of these developments would produce its own opposition from the antiinterventionists on the right, it was the growth of the executive power that would be most distressing. In 1988, conservative Samuel Francis had blamed the rise of American militarism on the Congresss unilateral surrender to the Presidency.5 Since the Second World War, executive power had increasingly overshadowed the Congress until Congress had all but completely abandoned its role in foreign policy. Following the terrorist attacks of 2001, the resulting anti-terrorism legislation threatened to make the presidential shadow even longer, and it was the USA PATRIOT Act and related legislation that would prove to be the most controversial part of the war among conservatives. In opposing the measure, the anti-interventionists were given some help from mainline conservatives as well. Although Jonah Goldberg of the National Review declared opposition to expanded wire-tapping powers as paranoid hysteria,6 his fellow columnist Dave Kopel, warned Americans not to push the panic button and illustrated that similar legislation of the past (like the Alien and Sedition Acts) had never actually done anything to increase domestic security, but were simply unnecessary and irresponsible knee-jerk reactions to a foreign threat.7 William Safire joined in when he condemned the Bush Administrations efforts to create a new system of
Stromberg, Joseph. Garet Garrett on Empire. Antiwar.com. Center for Libertarian Studies. Burlingame, CA. August 8,2000. url: www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s080800.html 5 Francis, Samuel. Beautiful Losers. University of Missouri Press. Columbia. 1993. pp161-169 6 Goldberg, Jonah. http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg010702.shtml 7 Kopel, Dave. Dont Press the Panic Button National Review Online. September 21, 2001. nationalreview.com
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military tribunals in order to circumvent certain civil liberties for accused terrorists.8 Safire accepted that military tribunals may be necessary at times, but pointed out that the tribunals the Bush administration wanted did not even conform to current military law, but were something altogether new. According to Safire, Bushs fiat turns back the clock on all advances in military justice through three wars in the past half-century.9 The strategy was bound to fail in the long run, Safire said, because it undermined the United States credibility in matters of extradition and international law. Since the United States could no longer be trusted to follow its own justice system which had once been the envy of the world, foreign nations would be far less inclined to assist the U.S.. In short, the Bush administration is ceding to nations overseas the high moral and legal ground long held by US justice.10 Attorney General John Ashcroft, the tribunals main supporter in the cabinet, made his disdain for his critics known when he declared that anyone who questions the necessity of military tribunals is aiding the terrorists.11 One such person who, according to Ashcroft, was aiding the terrorists was Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. Paul had refused to vote for the USA PATRIOT Act since it had not even been printed or available for reading before a vote was taken. After the vote was taken, according to Paul, the House leadership proceeded to try to stigmatize those who voted against the bill. Paul scoffed at the very idea of calling the antiterrorism bill a patriot bill and complained that his fellow house members suggested that Im not patriotic because I insisted on finding out what is in it and voting no. I thought it was undermining the Constitution, so I didnt vote for it and therefore Im somehow not a patriot.12 The creation of new military tribunals would vastly increase the power of the executive branch by stripping the accused of Constitutionally-protected rights in peacetime and granting vast new search and seizure powers to federal law enforcement through the orders of secret US Courts. Conservative Thomas Fleming also weighed in on the anti-terrorism bill. Most upsetting to the antiwar right was how so many conservatives had come out in favor of destroying domestic civil liberties. Fleming saw no end to the blind politicking of the Republicans in this regard: With the exception of Ron Paul, the libertarian naysayer, most Republicans seem prepared to back their president all the way to thumbscrews and the Iron Maiden. I expect to hear, before too long, conservatives explaining why Bills of Attainder and Star Chamber courts have been insufficiently appreciated by squishy liberals who are soft on crime.13 Writing at Antiwar.com, Harry Browne examined the role war hysteria plays in destroying civil liberties. Examining Attorney General John Ashcrofts comment that I think its important to understand that we are at war now, Browne wrote that such a statement can

Safire, William. New York Times November 26, 2001 ibid. 10 ibid. 11 quoted in http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg010702.shtml 12 O.Meara, Kelly Patricia. Police State. In Insight Magazine. November 2001. pp. 7-11 13 Fleming, Thomas Hard Right November 18, 2001. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/HardRight/HardRight111801.htm
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only be accepted if one rejects any importance of maintaining rule of law.14 Browne pointed out that Congress had not declared war, and that until such time as Congress acted, wartime measures must remain illegal. But Browne concluded that such basic tenets of law would be ignored since the first effect of war hysteria is to reject any primacy of law. Who gave your rights away, Browne asked. You did if you supported the idea that politicians should be free to do anything they want to satisfy a national lust for revenge.15 Justin Raimondo concurred with Browne on what Raimondo called Ashcrofts Reign of Terror and examined the anti-terrorist legislation requiring private business people to open all records to any inquiring federal agents and to be required by federal law to report suspicious transactions.16 Raimondo became curious: What makes a transaction suspicious? You can bet there will be a 500-page manual to answer all your questions, and if you want to stay in business you had better commit it to memory or finding yourself accused of aiding and abetting terrorism.17 The idea that the USA-PATRIOT Act would apply only to foreigners was laughable to Raimondo. To him, the Act did nothing less than repeal the regulations enacted during the 1970s that restricted spying on religious and political organizations by federal officers. Such regulations had grown out of the abuses by federal law enforcement during the Vietnam Era, and Raimondo saw the USA PATRIOT Act as the key to allowing the same sorts of abuses to take place all over again.18 While some mainstream commentators like Safire and Kopel warned against the excesses of police powers, they remained in a small minority. The overall drive was toward calls for a rapid expansion of the surveillance state and to rationalize it on the grounds of national security. Such behavior would not have been alien to John T. Flynn or Garet Garrett or Frank Chodorov who knew that those who maintain some modicum of sanity would always be subjected to persecution in wartime.19 It was part of the refusal to accept dissent from the population that made up the central components of Garretts tenets demanding the subordination of domestic policy and the reinforcement of the military mind. These manifested themselves in the foreign policy bipartisanship that infected Washington after the terrorist attacks. As the stigmatizing of Ron Paul and the lack of availability of the USA PATRIOT bill illustrates, actual debate and discussion on domestic issues was no longer a matter of concern for those interested in prosecuting the war.

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Browne, Harry. Secret Trial Endanger Security Antiwar.com December 15, 2001.

Brown, Harry. A Quiet Little Jihad?. Chronicles February 1999. Rockford Institute. Rockford, IL. pp.18,19 16 Raimondo, Justin. Ashcrofts Reign of Terror. Antiwar.com December 3,2001 17 ibid. 18 Raimondo, Justin. It Can Happen Here Antiwar.com November 26,2001 19 Chodorov, Frank. Fugitive Essays. Edited by Charles H. Hamilton. Liberty Fund. Indianapolis. 1980

The military mind was further reinforced by the rhetoric that framed the attacks as an act of war rather than the actions of an international crime ring. Writing at LewRockwell.com, Ron Paul wrote that: The terrorist enemy is no more an entity than the mob or some international crime gang. It is certainly not a country, nor is it the Afghan people. The Taliban is obviously a strong sympathizer with bin Laden and his henchmen, but how much more so than the government of Saudi Arabia of even Pakistan? Probably not much.20 Conservative columnist Paul Craig Roberts agreed with Paul and criticized the Bush Administration for turning the War on Terrorism into a war on the Taliban, even though the Taliban itself was far more concerned with maintaining its domestic power than with engaging in international terrorism.21 To libertarian Llewellyn Rockwell, the idea of waging war on any innocents of any nationality remained repugnant. Rockwell attributed much of the war hysteria to the valor of the columnists: War populism is one thing. Far more bizarre is a related phenomena: the rise of bloodsoaked rhetoric among the non-enlisted punditry class as a substitute for the display of classical virtuesThe idea is to appear, as you type into your word processor, to be unflinching in the face of the enemy, to contemplate and mentally conquer the possibility of horror.22 Like Garrett, Rockwell recognized that demands for lengthy foreign wars do not simply materialize out of nowhere. After all, there was nothing inherent in the attacks of the September 11th attacks that demanded that a war be started with a government that could not be proven to be involved in the attacks. The fact that so many columnists were calling for a large-scale war following the attacks was an important variable in maintaining the military mind. To Rockwell, Paul, and Roberts, the problem with the American response was that it was pretending as if there was a country or a city somewhere that could be wiped out and thus end the terrorist threat. As a result, Rich Lowry of National Review had been urging Americans to consider nuclear strikes.23 Joseph Sobran, however, was not sure as to what exactly the United States should nuke. According to Sobran, the terrorist network is a loosely knit and decentralized network of criminals. Nuclear weapons are useless against such an enemy. You cant nuke anthrax.24 Rothbards analogy of firing a machine gun into a crowd in the hopes of hitting some criminals appears apt once again. As Garrett contended, the military mind trumps reason in times of war.

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Paul, Ron. Keep Your Eye on the Target. LewRockwell.com. url: www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul6.html 21 Roberts, Paul Craig. Taliban the Wrong Target VDARE.com November 13, 2001. 22 Rockwell, Llewellyn H., Jr. The Valor of the Columnists LewRockwell.com October 30, 2001. 23 Lowry, Rich http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry112901.shtml 24 Sobran, Joseph. What is Defense?. LewRockwell.com November 21, 2001.

Finally, we find that in the Cold War, the United States had found it necessary to partition the world into the good guys and the bad guys. We see in this policy echoes not only of Garretts system of satellite states and barbarian hordes, but also of Rothbards criticism of total war and the reduction of international conflicts to matters of good and evil. Bushs remarks that Our nation saw evil following the terrorist attacks may have been a genuinely emotional response, but it also provided an excellent starting point for painting all who might not be wild about the United States foreign policy as agents of absolute evil.25 You are either with us or against us were the words of President Bush as he and his advisors divided the world into the American realm and the terrorist realm. And it is this division of the world that also lays the foundation for Garretts final tenet of empire which is the perpetual fear of the barbarian hordes. Traditionalist conservatives, often explicitly Christian, were never big fans of Islam. For example, Chronicles in February of 1999 devoted a special issue to discussing the role of Muslim immigration and American multiculturalism in undermining Western civilization.26 Nevertheless, unlike the warhawks of the War on Terrorism, the conservatives at Chronicles only called for a respectful wariness of Islam and called for more restrictive immigration laws and better preservation of Christian values. According to Chronicles, it was the American intellectual establishment that had destroyed American civilization, and not the barbarian hordes who had somehow conquered the West against its will. Srdja Trifkovic, a confirmed Islamophobe, repeatedly criticized Islam on a variety of fronts. To Trifkovic, Islam is a religion founded on military conquest and is largely incapable of living in peace with Western nations.27 For Trifkovik, this is simply the reality however, and the West would do well to learn to live with it rather than use it an excuse to make war on them. Islam should not be blamed for being what it is, nor should its adherents be condemned for maintaining their traditionsWe should not hate it, nor ban it. We should, however, blame ourselves for refusing to acknowledge the facts of the case, and failing to take stock of our options. Those who have lost their own faith have little right to point a finger at those who uphold theirs. 28 To the anti-interventionists, the fact that the Americans treated so lightly the Muslim resentment of the American military occupation of Saudi Holy Lands and American financial and military support of the Israeli regime is foolishness on the part of Westerners, and not savagery on the part of Islam. The Price of Empire Revisited In 1997, Samuel Francis wrote: I know it will strike many people as odd to call the current foreign policy of the United States a form of empire building or imperialism, and of

25 26 27

Associated Press, September 12, 2001. Chronicles, February 1999

Trifkovic, Srdja. Multiculturalism and Islam Chronicles February 1999. Rockford Institute. Rockford, IL. pp.21-24
ibid.

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course none of our leaders would ever call it that.29 It turned out that even after the War on Terrorism began, American policymakers would still refuse to call it as such, yet that would not prevent mainstream conservative writers from wishing that they would. In an article entitled Raise the Flag on a New American Empire, Jonah Goldberg, editor of National Review Online concurred with Wall Street Journal columnist Max Boot that a new American colonialism was not only necessary, but the most moral path that American foreign policy could take.30 Such statements provoked considerable outrage from columnist Brian Dunaway of LewRockwell.com. Dunaway echoed the pages of Chronicles when he sarcastically mused Ah, yes. Those halcyon days of colonialism. Rumpled cotton khakis, servants for two bits a month, cricket, caning the wogs. And, of course, teaching the rudimentary elements of civilization to the natives.31 To libertarians and other anti-interventionists, trotting the globe in pith-helmets in the name of bringing civilization to all was the height of folly, and they remember the words of Rudyard Kipling: Go, bind your sons to exile,/ To serve your captives needs.32 To the antiwar critics, the new drive for colonialism was just more of the same, newly invigorated by crisis. This time, though, the spread of civilization will be slightly different. Chalmers Johnson took note of this in an interview following the publication of Blowback. Noting that the Roman Empire was in some ways the expression of civilization rather than just of empire, Johnson questioned if any such connection could be made between civilization and the U.S. empire.33 Following the federal governments announcement that they would be using MTV to help them send messages of goodwill to the victims of American bombing campaigns, Dunaway noted that American culture will spread in its own way: Of course, well also carefully consider their spiritual needs. Instead of Dervishes spinning upon their right foot, whirling into a state of communion with God, their left eye will become fixated upon the gyrating navel of Britney Spears.34 This latter reaction seemed only natural from a movement of libertarians and conservatives who saw the entertainment industry as little more than a propaganda arm of the United States government., and many failed to see the foreign-policy benefits of broadcasting MTVs soft-core drama Undressed to the Muslim world.35 As far as colonialism in general was concerned, many consservatives and libertarians did not view the days of khakis and pith helmets with nostalgia, as they accused their opponents of doing. Instead, they saw the excesses of the old colonialists as cartoonish nonsense rightfully disparaged as wog caning megalomaniacal behavior.
Francis, Samuel. The Price of Empire. Chronicles June 1997. Rockford Institute. Rockford, IL. pp.14-17 30 Goldberg, Jonah. Raise the Flag on a New American Empire. National Review Online. October 12, 2001. url: www.nationalreview.com/gfile.html 31 Dunaway, Brian. White Mans Burden. LewRockwell.com Center for Libertarian Studies. Burlingame, CA. November 2001. url: www.lewrockwell.com/orig/dunaway6.html 32 Francis, Samuel. The Price of Empire. Chronicles June 1997. Rockford Institute. Rockford, IL. pp.14-17 33 Stromberg, Joseph. Chalmers Johnson on an Ersatz Roman Empire. Antiwar.com. Center for Libertarian Studies. Burlingame, CA. November 21,2000. url: www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s112100.html 34 Dunaway, Brian. White Mans Burden. LewRockwell.com Center for Libertarian Studies. Burlingame, CA. November 2001. url: www.lewrockwell.com/orig/dunaway6.html 35 Fleming, Thomas http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/HardRight/HardRight.htm
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During the Clinton years, Samuel Francis, James George Jatras, and F.W. Brownlow had all written in Chronicles that the Price of Empire would be the suicide of the West. After the destruction of the World Trade center, the phrase The Price of Empire would take on entirely new connotations. Following the attacks, Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute remarked: Until now, Washington has acted as if there was little price to be paid for intervening around the globe. Two years ago, the U.S. bombed [Serbia] for 78 days without losing a single serviceman. War seemed, to Americans at least, like a video game. No Longer.36 Bandow also denied the reasoning that terrorism sprang from envy and hatred of material wealth. To Bandow, Americans meddlesome foreign policy seemed like a better explanation: Terrorists might dislike Disneyland and loathe MTV. They might fear abundant consumerism and hate sensual imagery. But they dont kill for that reason. Terrorists strike the United States because they consider Washington to be at war with them. As the Defense Science Board reported four years ago: Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United StatesThere are almost certainly Serbs who lost family members during the U.S. bombing two years ago, who cheered the deaths of American citizens. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, who desire independence, but are now blocked by Washington, might eventually see terrorism as means to pressure their onetime benefactor. Many Iraqis, who have seen friends or family members starve during the decade-long U.S. embargo probably blame America. 37 I quote these passages so liberally because they succinctly sum up the arguments that poured from the pens of antiwar conservatives and libertarians who for a decade had condemned the foreign policy they now saw as the irresponsible catalyst of horrific terrorism. We were all about actions, and not about consequences, Justin Raimondo wrote. [U]nlike the empires of the past, America was thought to be exempt from any possible reaction to its imperial edicts. Now we know it isnt true: too bad we had to learn the hard way.38 As the shock of the attacks receded and the time came to formulate a response to the terrorist attacks, it became clear that the opposition of the antiwar right was not a simple case of pacifism versus the war machine. While the anti-interventionists blamed imperial overstretch for the dreadful events of September 11th, they also saw the need for self-defense.39 Drawing distinctions between the just and unjust theatres of the War on Terrorism, Justin Raimondo divided the war into the war that matters and [Secretary of Defense] Rumsfelds war. The war that matters is the war on anthrax, the war on hijackers and other madmen intent on killing

Bandow, Doug September 19 townhall.com Bandow, Doug. October 24, 2001 townhall.com 38 Raimondo, Justin. Terror Antiwar.com September 11, 2001 39 McConnell. Scott. Among the Paleos. Antiwar.com. Center for Libertarian Studies. Burlingame, CA. November 13,2001. url: http://www.antiwar.com/mcconnell/mc111301.html
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us right here in America.40 Rumsfelds war is the war on Afghanistan and an indeterminate number of foreign nations that are allegedly harboring terrorists. In the latter war, what seems clear is that Rumsfeld and his fellow hawks are intent on using a massive sledgehammer to eradicate a cloud of poisonous mosquitoes.41

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Raimondo, Justin. Two Wars at Once. Antiwar.com. Center for Libertarian Studies. Burlingame, CA. November 5, 2001. url: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2001/11/05/two-wars-at-once/
ibid.

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