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Articles
"Anti-War" Poseurs: All Whine, No Spine, by Terry Michael, RealClearPolitics, 23 Nov 2005 Related Topic: Vietnam War "Weapons of mass destruction was always a marketing ploy, as admitted to by Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the madness ... Playing on homeland insecurity, the neo-cons ... succeeded in getting the pre-emptive ('we're powerful and can do anything we damn well please') war they so badly wanted."
A Bogus Libertarian Defense of War, by Sheldon Richman, Freedom Daily, Oct 2007 Related Topics: Randy E. Barnett, Murray N. Rothbard Examines Randy Barnett's Wall Street Journal article "Libertarians and the War" and a follow-up at the Volokh Conspiracy blog "... libertarian principles tell us that any response to a truly unprovoked attack must respect the rights of innocents. Actions that can be expected to harm people not involved in the original attack should be avoided. War must not be an occasion for dispensing with normal moral prohibitions. Those who disagree lose their standing to object to the murder of innocents on 9/11."
A Matter of Conscience, by Sgt. Kevin Benderman, 18 Jan 2005 "... there are no valid arguments for the destructive force of war. People are destroyed, nations are destroyed, and yet we continue on with war ... I cannot tell anyone else how to live his or her life but I have determined how I want to live mine – by not participating in war any longer ..."
America, meet your leaders, by Harry Browne, WorldNetDaily, 19 Sep 2002 "... we found out that the Pearl Harbor attack was neither 'unprovoked' nor a 'surprise.' ... we discovered that the Vietnamese didn't really fire on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin ... only later do we discover that what we knew about the war and the enemy was a lie."
End Draft Registration!, by Sheldon Richman, 29 Dec 2006 "Rangel says the draft would ensure that unpopular wars would provoke public opposition, as it eventually did in the Vietnam War. ... A far better way to enable people to effectively object to wars is the volunteer army. At the very least, a society with pretensions of freedom should recognize the right of people to abstain from fighting wars they disapprove of."
Glorious War!, by Joseph Sobran, The Reactionary Utopian, 31 Aug 2006 Related Topics: George W. Bush, Republican Party "The popularity of war is intense but brief. Americans will support quick and victorious wars, but after a few months the thrill tends to wear off. ... Being the most devastating of human activities, war would seem to be at the opposite pole from conserving anything. ... few things are more abnormal than war."
Immorality, Inc., by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., Mises.org Daily Article, 31 Jul 2006 "War has been called a form of crime on a mass scale, and a particularly egregious form because it comes with the endorsement of elites. For centuries ..., awareness of war's lawlessness led to a consensus that the conduct of war should be restrained by rules ... But in the modern age, all that changed. Civilians became targets. Cities were not spared. Proportionality is not a consideration."
Just War, by Murray N. Rothbard, Costs of War, May 1994 Related Topic: Hugo Grotius "My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing coercive rule over them."
On the English Foreign Policy - Wikisource, by John Bright, 29 Oct 1858 Speech given to the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce "Therefore, if war has provided you with a trade, it has been at an enormous cost; but I think it is by no means doubtful that your trade would have been no less in amount and no less profitable, had peace and justice been inscribed on your flag instead of conquest and the love of military renown."
Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran, by Karen Kwiatkowski, 27 Feb 2007 Related Topic: Iraq "... history is full of examples of bald-faced lies being told to sell particular agendas. Often times those agendas include war making, certainly in Vietnam they did, under LBJ and a few other presidents. ... So politicians and their politically appointed military leaders will lie, historically do lie when it has to do with making war, particularly making a war that they want."
Preventing Opposition to War, by Sheldon Richman, 13 Apr 2007 Related Topic: The State "War can be highly useful to this cause because in time the taxpayers may begin to catch on to the scam that drains their wealth. If they can be made to fear that an external enemy threatens their safety, they will happily trust their rulers with more power and money and ignore the occasional overt corruption. Nothing better serves this purpose than a foreign war."
Rambo Was A Chump: John Kerry Should Be Ashamed of Vietnam Service, by Ted Rall, 27 Aug 2004 Related Topics: Iraq, Vietnam "Serious people and historians know that Kerry was right the first time around. Like Iraq, Vietnam was an ill-conceived, doomed war that wasted countless lives for no good reason, launched by a president who lied about a Cold War threat (the absurd "domino theory") that simply didn't exist."
Rings of War, by Charley Reese, 1 Jan 2007 "... the problem with undeclared foreign wars. The great majority of Americans are excluded from participation. Politicians start wars, and politicians are the only ones who can end them. The fewer people involved in the war, the less pressure there will be on the politicians to end it. That leaves them free to posture on either side of the issue without actually doing anything."
The Abominations of War: From My Lai to Haditha, by Cindy Sheehan, 5 Jun 2006 Related Topics: George W. Bush, Haditha Massacre, Iraq War (2003) "War, under any circumstance, is not a 'core value' of humanity; in fact, it is the ultimate failure of humanity. War turns our mostly normal American youth into wanton murderers who have lost their own humanity and love of others. Haditha in this war and My Lai in another disgusting war were unfortunately not aberrations. War is the abominable aberration."
The Endless War on Terrorism, by Jacob G. Hornberger, 1 Sep 2004 "In declaring that the war on terrorism can never be won, President Bush should have also mentioned that, coincidentally, the big beneficiary of all this is the federal government, because its power continues to grow and grow and grow under perpetual war."
The Failed Attempt to Leash the Dogs of War, by Bart Frazier, Freedom Daily, Dec 2006 Related Topic: Standing Armies "Not only does warfare cost a country in terms of lost lives, it also has detrimental effects on the economy and society itself. ... Since 1950, the military has been deployed 71 times to 42 countries and U.S. soldiers have died in 17 operations in 16 countries with more than 98,000 U.S. dead and more than 279,000 wounded."
The Justice and Prudence of War: Toward A Libertarian Analysis, by Roderick Long, Mises.org Daily Article, 20 Sep 2006 Related Topics: Libertarianism, Non-aggression Principle "... a consistent libertarian theory of warfare must apply the same prohibitions and permissions to governments and private individuals alike. ... A libertarian analysis of war must take into account not only the actual conduct of warfare but also the means of supplying the war machine."
The Myth of War Prosperity, Part 1, by Anthony Gregory, Freedom Daily, Dec 2006 Related Topics: Broken Window Fallacy, World War II Review of Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy by Robert Higgs "Hawks will sometimes argue that ... a war will give a much-needed boost to production and thus bolster the economic health of the country. Leftist cynics will also sometimes say war benefits the economy ... Such naive reactions to spending due to war ... are perfect examples of what ... Bastiat described as the broken-window fallacy."
The Real 'Existential Threat': War with Iran augurs a global conflict, by Justin Raimondo, 30 Mar 2007 Related Topics: Democratic Party, Iran "The coming war with Iran will not end until the entire region is aflame – with the fire spreading to three continents, and beyond. Is this the price the world is willing to pay to put an end to the 'existential threat' to Israel? Or will our rulers pause, before plunging into an abyss, to ask: what about the existential threat to the rest of the world?"
The non-debate on the war, by Terry Michael, The Washington Times, 25 Aug 2005 "We're not getting that honest debate. Instead, those who control access to mainstream media are telling a quiet, corrupting lie when they allow the Bush administration and 'opposition' congressional Democrats to engage in Amish-style shunning of those who advocate immediately ending the war."
War Loses, Again, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., 8 Nov 2006 "More than three years ago, George Bush unleashed the dogs of war on Iraq, perhaps hoping that he would take his place among the 'great' war presidents. ... It's been more than 50 years since war immortalized a president, and yet they keep trying. The dogs of war didn't build freedom and democracy in Iraq, or bring justice or peace. Rather, they came right back and ravaged the Republican Party in the election of 2006."
Warring as Lying Throughout American History, by James Bovard, Freedom Daily, Feb 2008 Related Topics: American War Between the States, Gulf War, Ronald W. Reagan, World War II Recounts how U.S. Presidents and their administrations since James Polk have lied about wars, from start to finish "Presidential deceits on foreign policy have filled cemeteries across the land. ... Lying and warring appear to be two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, many Americans continue to be gullible when presidents claim a need to commence killing foreigners. It remains to be seen whether the citizenry is corrigible on this life-and-death issue."
Wartime Attacks on Civil Liberties, by George C. Leef, Freedom Daily, Dec 2005 Related Topic: Freedom of Speech "If it is true ... that war is the health of the state, it is equally true ... that war is the sickness of individual liberty. The state always menaces its people with an array of orders, prohibitions, and confiscations, but never so much as in times of war, when it can count on widespread support for all measures said to be necessary to ensure victory."
What People Believe, by Charley Reese, 20 May 2006 "The millions killed in all the wars were nobodies as far as the leaders who sent them into war were concerned. They were cannon fodder. They all shared in common the fact that their political leaders were willing to sacrifice them for greed or ego. ... The dead are known only to the people who loved them."
Without the State, No Troops to Support, by Jeremy Weiland, 6 Mar 2007 Related Topic: The State "'Support the troops' is a failsafe mechanism designed not to stop wars but to conserve the power to wage war another day. Oil, terrorism, and dictators are just peripheral issues, after all, compared to the bedrock goal of preserving faith in the power and sanctity of our government. The only thing worse than losing a war is losing the right to wage war."
Would You "Support the Troops" in Bolivia?, by Jacob G. Hornberger, 27 Dec 2006 Related Topic: Standing Armies "Where is the morality of killing people who have never attacked the United States and who have done nothing worse than try to defend their country from a wrongful invader? Where is the morality in killing in 'self-defense' when you don't have a right to be there killing people in the first place?"
Beware Income-Tax Casuistry, Part 2, by Sheldon Richman, Freedom Daily, Sep 2006 Related Topics: Taxation "The United States got its first income tax during the War Between the States, again demonstrating that war harms ordinary people in more ways than militarily. During any war government becomes an especially voracious consumer of the people's resources and dissent is stifled or suppressed."
Graydon Carter Shows How Bush Makes Lies Seem True, and Just What We've Lost on Bush's Watch, BuzzFlash, 29 Sep 2004 Related Topics: Graydon Carter "There's probably nothing more serious that you can do as a leader than to take your country into war. And to take your country into war on a bone pile of false assumptions, without any clear sort of strategy for maintaining the country after you’ve taken it over, or managing it toward a democratic state, is irresponsible."
I Resign From the Mont Pelerin Society, by Paul Craig Roberts, 21 Aug 2008 Related Topics: Mont Pelerin Society Explains Roberts' rationale for resigning from the Society "The US strategic objective ... will lead to war, the destruction of liberty and perhaps life on earth. This gratuitously insane neoconservative foreign policy is one that will lead to nuclear war. It stands in total contradiction to the alleged values of the Mont Pelerin Society. As every great libertarian and the founding members of the MPS acknowledged, war is the greatest enemy of liberty."
Inflation and War Finance, by Ron Paul, Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk, 29 Jan 2007 Related Topics: Inflation "If every American taxpayer had to submit an extra five or ten thousand dollars to the IRS this April to pay for the war, I'm quite certain it would end very quickly. The problem is that government finances war by borrowing and printing money, rather than presenting a bill directly in the form of higher taxes. When the costs are obscured, the question of whether any war is worth it becomes distorted."
Killing Iraqi Children, by Jacob G. Hornberger, 19 Jun 2006 Related Topics: Iraq War (2003) "Some would argue that such 'collateral damage' is just an unfortunate byproduct of war. War is brutal. People get killed in war. ... Such claims, however, miss an important point: U.S. military forces have no right, legal or moral, even to be in Iraq killing anyone. ... Don't forget that aggressive war was punished as a war crime at Nuremberg."
Libertarianism and the War: Over at Cato Unbound, it's Cato unhinged, by Justin Raimondo, 2 Apr 2007 Related Topics: Libertarianism "At no time other than war is it more readily apparent that states are agencies of aggression, and that this represents a human evil. On other occasions, governments and their apologists may dress up the consequences of state action as somehow beneficial or just, but making this statement while surveying a battlefield is a difficult task."
Machiavelli and U.S. Politics, Part 4: War, by Lawrence M. Ludlow, 22 Aug 2005 Related Topics: Politics "The writer Gore Vidal, however, has made up for this oversight. In his book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace Vidal lists 201 U.S. military operations that took place between the victory over Japan in 1945 and the attacks of September 11. The list was compiled by the Federation of American Scientists. Think of it: 201 conflicts since 1945."
No More Great Presidents, by Robert Higgs, Mises.org Daily Article, 19 Feb 2007 Related Topics: United States Presidents, Grover Cleveland, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington "... a remarkable correlation: all but one of the presidents ranked as Great or Near Great had an intimate association with war, either in office or by reputation before taking office. ... In contrast, of the eleven presidents ranked as Below Average or Failure, all but one ... managed to keep the nation at peace during their terms in office ..."
Statement on the Iraq War Resolution, by Ron Paul, 14 Feb 2007 Related Topics: Iraq War (2003), Terrorism Speech before the U.S. House of Representatives "Special interests and the demented philosophy of conquest have driven most wars throughout history. Rarely has the cause of liberty, as it was in our own revolution, been the driving force. In recent decades our policies have been driven by neo-conservative empire radicalism, profiteering in the military industrial complex, misplaced do-good internationalism ..."
Stop the Cannon Fodder, by Charley Reese, 27 Jan 2007 Related Topics: Children, Iraq "Individual soldiers who survive combat often come home to realize that all of the horrific and heroic actions they took don't mean anything. Vietnam, for example, is ruled by a communist government. Nobody but a historian even remembers what World War I was all about, much less the 10 million young men who died fighting it. World War II and Korea are likewise fading from public memory."
That Death Toll, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., 21 Jun 2006 Related Topics: Iraq War (2003), George W. Bush "Before the 19th century ... Soldiers were direct employees of the sovereign, and there were limits on their numbers. ... Today, mobilization in war is total, and all citizens are expected to pay the price. The sovereign believes there is no price too high because the regime itself does not bear the liability. Death is just a number."
The Anatomy of the State, by Murray N. Rothbard, 1974 Related Topics: The State, Bill of Rights, Albert Jay Nock, Franz Oppenheimer, Property "... a war between rulers was converted into a war between peoples, with each people coming to the defense of its rulers in the erroneous belief that the rulers were defending them. ... it was not too long ago that the mass of subjects regarded wars as irrelevant battles between various sets of nobles."
Two-dimensional libertarianism, by Anthony Gregory, Rational Review, 30 Sep 2004 Related Topics: Libertarianism "... the World's Smallest Political Quiz asks no questions about, and the Nolan Chart plots no answers concerning ... war! ... What makes libertarians libertarians is that we recognize that all liberties relate to each other. ... it really is a one-dimensional model -- Liberty on one end, power on the other."
Why I Am An Anarchist, by Caleb Johnson, The New Hampshire Free Press, 12 Mar 2008 Related Topics: The State Contrasts the general public view of anarchism with the reality of national governments and their actions "Every war that has ever been fought was created and nurtured by states. War, that great scourge of mankind, can only exist among states. ... Would hundreds of thousands of young men, merely on their own initiative, have armed themselves to the teeth and journeyed to Iraq to torture, kill, and terrorize? No, to accomplish that great evil they needed a state to tell them that it was alright to do what they would otherwise find repugnant."
Will the Democrats Become Part of the Problem?, by Paul Craig Roberts, 10 Nov 2006 Related Topics: Democratic Party, September 11, 2001, Israel "... the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ... were illegal. Those responsible must be held accountable. The American prosecutors of the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg emphasized ... that Germany's crime was not in losing the war but in starting it. Under the Nuremberg standard, to launch a war of aggression is a war crime. It is punishable with a death sentence."
Wilson in the Mirror, by John M. Peters, 23 May 2006 Related Topics: Woodrow Wilson, George W. Bush, Foreign Entanglements "Also common to the agendas of Presidents Wilson and Bush, is an unending commitment to warfare to achieve their stated goals. ... Wilson was adamant that 'There can be no compromise.' ... Bush described his war on terrorism as 'a task that does not end.' ... 'Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.'"
ISBN 0910884153: Paperback, Libertarian Press, Reprint edition, 1985
On The Law Of War And Peace, by Hugo Grotius, 1625 Electronic text (translated by A. C. Campbell in 1814) available at the Constitution Society's Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics
War as Government Program, by Sheldon Richman, 3 Jun 2007 Speech the Future of Freedom Foundation's conference "Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties"
Podcasts
The Health of the State, by Ralph Raico, The Lew Rockwell Show, 17 Aug 2008 Lew talks with Raico about war, U.S. foreign policy, the role of Commander in Chief and related topics
