One of America’s national treasures, Antiwar.com, turns 30 on Dec. 9. It was started in 1995 by libertarians Justin Raimondo, a prolific polemicist who died in 2019, and editor Eric Garris, with occasional pieces turning into daily updates in April 1998.
I’ve been reading it every day since 1999, when it provided key insights into President Clinton’s senseless bombing of Serbia for 78 days during the Kosovo War. Raimondo wrote daily commentaries attacking the war, and Garris linked to stories from around the world. Clinton’s bombings in Serbia killed hundreds of Serbs and put the terrorist, drug-dealing Kosovo Liberation Army in charge, which then blew up dozens of Serbian Orthodox churches and murdered hundreds of Serbs.
I talked with Garris, 72, a Southern California native. He lived the past 50 years in San Francisco, but last summer moved to Florida.
Garris said Antiwar.com was started to encourage a broad-based opposition to war. Until then, he said, the opposition to war centered almost entirely on “the Democratic Party or hard-left groups.” The Kosovo War was a catalyst for the new “ecumenism,” with the opposition to Democrat Clinton’s war led by Republican Congressman Tom Campbell, R-California. Over time, the antiwar faction on the right would grow under the influence of leaders like Congressman Ron Paul and others.
The 9/11 attacks of 2001 ramped up the mission of Antiwar.com. The attacks led to the disastrous Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the latter based on the Bush administration’s lies about Iraq wielding “weapons of mass destruction.”
The Orange County Register was the biggest paper in the country opposing those wars. I was an editorial writer at the Register during this time, though most of our editorials on foreign policy were written by Senior Columnist Alan Bock. Under the heading “Eye on the Empire,” Bock was also Antiwar.com’s first columnist and a stalwart fighter for peace until his death in 2011.
After the Kosovo bombing stopped, Bock wrote in his July 8, 1999 Antiwar.com column, “But while American elites in all areas of the political spectrum seem comfortable with the idea of an American imperium empowered to intervene whenever a conflict in some foreign nation displeases them, I still don’t think the American people relish the idea of an American world empire.” Those words are just as true today, more than 26 years and many interventions later.
President George W. Bush in 2000 campaigned for a “humble” foreign policy, but gave us the Afghanistan War, which lasted 20 years; then the war with Iraq, a place where we still have troops. Garris pointed out how Bush’s GWOT – Global War on Terror – largely was aimed against al-Qaida. But President Donald Trump last month welcomed into the White House Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, an al-Qaida leader.
“Trump hosted a Syrian leader who was beheading civilians not long ago,” Garris said. “We constantly switch sides, fighting al-Qaida in Somalia, while its ally in Syria now runs parts of the country. The CIA runs huge operations aligned with groups we later call enemies.”
Garris reminded me President Barack Obama “ran on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he didn’t do. Quite the opposite. He started or expanded five wars, in Somalia, Libya, Syria and two in Yemen, where we switched sides.”
Then there’s Trump, whom I backed in three elections to end the wars. But on the morning I interviewed Garris, he had put up on Antiwar.com this story: “US Bombs Somalia for 100th Time This Year,” by Dave DeCamp. Yet Trump still calls himself the “peace president.”
Garris said presidents win campaigns promising peace, then always change in office. “Trump once admitted his instincts told him to leave Afghanistan and Syria, but he ignored them and listened to ‘the experts.’ This second term he has gone over the edge, abandoning any antiwar rhetoric he once had.”
Garris argues that presidents have to feed the giant maw of the Military Industrial Complex, and the Pentagon’s sprawling network of military bases around the globe. Antiwar.com recently linked to this Barron’s story, “Defense Stocks Fall as Trump Pushes Ukraine Peace Deal.”
Oh, no! Less killing means lower blood profits.
Looking to the future, Garris said Antiwar.com, in addition to posting links to outside articles, is going to put up more in-house originals, such as DeCamp’s. “We now put up 15 to 20 original news stories a day.” Google News long didn’t include Antiwar.com in its news feed, but does so now.
Who knows how many more wars we would be in without Antiwar.com? Perhaps in another 30 years America will learn to live in peace with the world and bring all our troops home.
John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board