Libertarians For Tyranny

I was reading Cato Institute fellow Tom Palmer’s blog yesterday and he had a roundup of posts from so-called “libertarian” bloggers who were mourning the death of Serbia’s former genocidial dictator Slobodan Milosevic. The first disgusting blog entry was from Lew Rockwell.com blogger Daniel McAdams who wrote:

Today’s apparent death of former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic bares the bloody fangs of the New World Order, a totalitarian construct of the United States and allies to fill in the post Cold War void:

“If we cannot convict you on our lies, we will at least make sure you don’t get out alive.”

Let us recall that Milosevic was captured — kidnapped — by the NWO shock troops in exchange for aid promised to a Serbia recently decimated by NATO bombs to halt a genocide that subsequent investigation proved a lie by the Clinton Administration and dutifully amplified in the lap-dog media.

Chiming in on this topic is “Antiwar”.com’s Nebojsa Malic:

However embarrassing a second death in six days might be, the Hague Inquisition probably breathed a sigh of relief when Slobodan Milosevic was found dead today.

From the very first day, their effort to stage a show trial providing quasi-legal cover for Empire’s nefarious deeds in the Balkans by blaming everything on Milosevic and Serbia (often not making a difference between the two) has been thwarted at every step. Milosevic refused to suicide. He refused to get a lawyer, or even recognize the ICTY’s legitimacy. His cross-examinations exposed dozens of perjured witnesses and demonstrated fully the vacuity of the prosecution’s case. Had he stayed alive, the Tribunal would have faced the embarrassing quandary of having to convict him (and they would have, otherwise their whole raison d’etre would have disappeared) without ever actually proving anything. Dead men tell no tales; they can’t defend themselves from accusations, insinuations, rumors and propaganda. Milosevic may have been beating them at their own game for years, but he finally lost at Last Man Standing.

One of the questions that will surely be asked in the coming days is to what extent is the ICTY responsible for Milosevic’s deteriorating health. As the “trial” went on, Milosevic was getting progressively worse – something his detractors tried to cover up by claims he was “faking” illness to prolong the trial(!). The Inquisition recently denied his request to be transferred to a Russian hospital for treatment, arguing that Dutch doctors were good enough. Obviously, they weren’t.

Another “Antiwar”.com contributor, Christopher Deliso plays the Balkan version of the race card:

In the aftermath of Milosevic’s death, CNN is wheeling out one arrogant imperial blowhard after another. Right now is Daniel Serwer, who was preceded by the always entertaining Richard Holbrooke.

As could be expected, they are pushing the “Milosevic was responsible for everything that ever went wrong” line to the hilt. And of course, Holbrooke gravely intoned that Milosevic was right up there with Hitler and Stalin.

All of this media bombast has little to do with Milosevic, and a lot to do with the Western media and power structures, whose reputations and careers are at stake. The coming week is going to see a long and drawn-out public orgy of hatred and slander against everything Serbian. Milosevic’s death is just the catalyst, and anyone who doubts that will have to ponder why has-been Holbrooke used his time on CNN to not just call for but to ORDER that Kosovo and Montenegro be made independent; he also said there are “two more” war criminals who must be apprehended (Karadzic and Mladic), conveniently ignoring another duo, Haradinaj and Ceku over in Kosovo. That’s because they are on the side of The Good, in other words, the West.

Lew Rockwell.com columnist Paul Craig Roberts decided to compare Milsosevic to Abraham Lincoln

Milosevic was caught up in the post-Soviet era break-up of Yugoslavia. Nationalist forces broke up the Yugoslav federation. During 1991–92, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina seceded from Yugoslavia. Large Serbian minorities in Croatia and in Bosnia objected and claimed the identical right of self-determination to remain in the federation as Croats and Muslims claimed to leave it. Croatian and Bosnian Serbs organized and a war against secession began.

Milosevic could hardly remain a Serbian leader and not support the Serbs. Abraham Lincoln was canonized for invading the South to prevent its secession, but Milosevic was damned for trying to protect Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity. In the end Milosevic accepted secession. In 1995 Milosevic negotiated the Dayton Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia. According to the encyclopedia, Wikipedia, “Milosevic was credited in the West with being one of the pillars of Balkan peace.”

In the following four pieces, we see so called “libertarians” come to the defence of the genocidal thug Milosevic because he was an enemy of the United States. Therefore, in their mind, the enemy of my enemy is a friend, no matter if they are mass murderers or tyrants. There are other examples of so-called libertarians acting as apologists for anti-American tyrants. It is time that we as libertarians, classical liberals, small government conservatives, etc. repudiate these people. These people have taken their opposition to American interventionism (some of which that I share) and taken to it to a point where they excuse tyranny and genocide, as long as the tyrant and mass murderer oppose American foreign policy.

We must, as libertarians, debate how we want US foreign policy and what kind of interventionism, if any, are we going to have. We must also be open to those who are both hawkish and dovism on the use of military force. However, we must not open our tent so big that we allow the apologists for tyranny to come on in. To criticize American interventionism is one thing, but to try and spin the enemies of America as good guys and portray them as innocent victims and praising the death of American soldiers are competely different things.

Lew Rockwell and his website’s contributors and “Antiwar”.com should be repudiated and taken out of the company of respectable libertarians for these and other reasons.

I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.