Free Republic

Since the outbreak of the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict, Pat Buchanan and other paleoconservatives have made themselves true exponents of populism: the Jew-baiting, conspiracy-driven demagoguery of 1890s agrarians. In two columns, posted at WorldNetDaily this week, Buchanan accused President Bush of being a puppet of nefarious Jewish warmongers. Outlets of the Hate America Right – especially Paul Craig Roberts and LewRockwell.com – have joined him, and then some. Nothing sets Buchanan’s imagination racing like a Bush-backed Israeli war. On Tuesday, Pat asked, “Who is whispering in his ear?” His answer: bloodthirsty Hebrews. That Tel Aviv is maneuvering us to fight its wars...

I would add 9/11 Truther, but there’s only so much room in the headline to list all his many virtues. Let’s start with the obvious one. Here is how Eric Margolis, a member of the Academic Board of Ron Paul’s new Institute for Peace and Prosperity, greeted the election of Barack Obama. Americans did not `liberate’ Iraq, but they certainly liberated their own nation last week by sweeping the Republican Party from power. One prays America’s long nightmare of foreign aggressions, fear, religious extremism, and flirting with neo-fascism is finally at an end…A forward-looking Democratic Party that represents America’s increasingly...

The U.S., Israel and Iran are playing a very dangerous game of chicken that soon could result in a new Mideast war. U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration and Israel, recently joined by France, are issuing increasingly loud threats of military action to frighten Iran into halting its nuclear enrichment program. Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely for civilian use. Tehran is alternating between conciliatory statements and threats to retaliate against any attack by inflicting economic chaos on the global economy. Europe fears the economic damage a war against...

Musharraf feels the heat As turmoil spreads in Pakistan, Musharraf's grip on power weakens By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN Henry Kissinger once quipped that being America's ally is more dangerous than being its enemy. The latest example: Washington is abuzz with leaks the Bush administration plans to dump its faithful but embattled Pakistani retainer, Gen. Pervez Musarraf, and replace him with a new general or a co-operative civilian-led government. This column already reported Washington's "regime change" plans a week ago, citing vice chief of staff Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani as Musharraf's most likely replacement. As turmoil spreads across Pakistan, Musharraf's grip...

WASHINGTON – The capital may be buzzing with talk about the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, but the US Air Force appears to be planning for a long stay in Mesopotamia and Central Asia. The USAF is reported to be expanding its air bases in Iraq, including lengthening a second 11,000-ft runway at Balad Airbase, a nerve center for American air operations. There are persistent reports from the Pentagon that the US intends to keep four to six major military bases in Iraq, each with a powerful air component, and a 3,500-man helicopter-mobile, rapid reaction infantry brigade. Other US...

President George Bush charges that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s trip this week to Syria was undermining U.S. foreign policy. He’s absolutely correct. If ever there was an administration whose foreign policy needed undermining, it’s the Bush/Cheney duo. Speaker Pelosi, the third ranking government official, and a remarkably capable lady, is doing all Americans a service.

The ME may soon feel India's growing power By Eric Margolis Tue, 13 Mar 2007, 11:32:00 The Bush Administration's serial blunders in the Middle East have not only seriously undermined American influence over the region, they have opened the way for new, emerging superpowers to vie for its energy resources. Energy security has become the primary and most immediate strategic concern of Asia's two rising giants, India and China. The Middle East will soon feel the full force of this growing competition. China's and India's blazing nine per cent plus economic growth rate has pushed them well beyond their original...

The racist cartoons By Eric S. Margolis THE disgraceful racist cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed originally published by a sensation-seeking Danish newspaper have produced an international firestorm of hysteria and racism. Mobs of enraged Muslims have rioted from Morocco to Indonesia and burned Danish and Norwegian embassies. Editors of other European newspapers that ran the offensive cartoons piously insist they did so to defend the sacred right of free speech. This writer detests any form of censorship, including so-called ‘hate laws’ that are really modern forms of heresy and blasphemy statutes. But free speech, as the great American jurist Felix...

Never in my lifetime have I seen the United States so hated and despised around the globe. Only five years ago, the world’s image of the US was generally positive. No longer. Thank the neocon cabal that has been running US foreign policy. But many Americans still don’t know, or care, that much of the outside world sees their nation as a dangerous rogue state, and President George Bush and mentor VP Dick Cheney as the real axis of evil. They are as brainwashed as were Russians who depended on Soviet party-line media for their view of the world. Every...

Among the numerous anti-American and anti-Israel scribes polluting the Canadian media, few can match Eric Margolis–corresponding foreign editor for the Leftist tabloid the Toronto Sun–for vitriol, duplicity or twisting the facts. Margolis’ most recent paean to Middle Eastern despots and Islamo-fascists appeared in the March 28 issue of Pat Buchanan’s paleoconservative magazine, The American Conservative. Margolis’ piece, titled “Syria in the Sights?” was notable for his trademark America and Israel-bashing rhetoric (which frequently echoes the “reporting” of Al-Jazeera) as well as for his shameless Syrian apologia. For instance, Margolis calls Lebanon a “creation of European colonialism” that was “detached” from...

COMMUNIQUE: 24 February 2005 Beyond the Margins Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis crosses the bounds of ethical journalism. Opinion columnists perform an important public service when providing cogent arguments supported by factual information. This is true regardless of where the columnist falls out on the spectrum of opinion. But when a columnist regularly demonizes one side of the Arab-Israeli conflict ¯ while resorting to outlandish conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated allegations ¯ the columnist has crossed the bounds of ethical journalism. Case in point: HonestReporting Canada reports that the Toronto Sun's Eric Margolis, who has a long record of Israel-bashing, recently...

The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon anti-terrorist unit called something like "Contelinpro." Life imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name "JCS Conplan 0300-97," authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret "anti-terrorist" military units on American soil for what the author claims are "extra-legal missions." In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the...

Will today's elections for 7,785 unknown candidates in violence-racked Iraq mark the dawn of genuine Mideast democracy, as U.S. President George W. Bush claims, or be another step deeper into the bloody quagmire in Mesopotamia? First, no election held under a foreign military occupation resulting from an unjustified war is legal under international law. During the Cold War, elections staged by the Soviets after invading Afghanistan, Hungary and Czechoslovakia were rightly denounced by the U.S. as "frauds" and the leaders elected as "stooges." Second, Shiites, excluded from political power since Britain created Iraq in 1921, will win since they represent...

The White House's Iraq fib factory went into overdrive last week, ballyhooing claims that the new "caretaker government" the UN had supposedly just installed in Baghdad was "fully sovereign" and "totally independent." We would like to believe American president George Bush. But this latest claim comes from the same truth-deficient people who concocted Iraq's imminent threat to destroy the U.S. with nuclear and germ weapons, Saddam Hussein's vans and drones of death, Saddam's tryst with Osama bin Laden, and a slew of other preposterous whoppers that would have made the Nazis' propagandist, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, blush deep crimson. A political...

Dangers Of War Here is a quotation from Reich Marshal Hermann Goering. It's a statement he made during the Nuremberg trials: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Eric Margolis, an excellent journalist, quoted this in a recent column. While I can't verify the quote, I have no reason to doubt it. After all, it is one of those truths...