Update: Today’s show here.

Courts grant near-cop and prosecutor-level immunity to returning imperial troops for crimes they commit against any of the rest of us.

Hat tip to Lew.

As the Afghanistan war intensifies — Marja, soon Kandahar, and the steady arrival of 30,000 new American troops — it has come to be seen as Obama’s war.

Not so. It’s become America’s war. When the former opposition party — habitually antiwar for the past four decades — adopts, reaffirms and escalates a war begun by the habitually hawkish other party, partisanship falls away, and the war becomes nationalized.

And legitimized. Do you think if John McCain, let alone George W. Bush, were president, we would not see growing demonstrations protesting our continued presence in Iraq and the escalation of Afghanistan? That we wouldn’t see a serious push in Congress to cut off funds?

Why not? Because Barack Obama is now commander in chief. The lack of opposition is not a matter of hypocrisy. It is a natural result of the rotation of power. When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That’s its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, the party adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.

In this case, the antiwar party has followed the Bush endgame to a T in Iraq and has doubled down in Afghanistan. And there is no general restiveness (at least over this).

The rotation of power is the finest political instrument ever invented for the consolidation of what were once radical and deeply divisive policies. The classic example is the New Deal. Republicans railed against it for 20 years. Then Dwight Eisenhower came to power, wisely left it intact, and no serious leader since has called for its repeal.

Has Jerky been listening to my show? Anyway, no big news here, just that Chucky the Warmonger is still mongering war and Carroll Quigley’s approving observation about the role of the two party system in keeping the American people ever hopeful for change and forever hoodwinked about the prospect of achieving it remains as true today as when he wrote it in 1966.

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.… Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.

Thanks to Don for the link.

My name is **** and I am a graduate of VMI (Jacob Hornberger’s alma mater) and a 1LT in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort [something, USA.]

I want to thank you and also encourage you and your colleagues at AntiWar Radio and antiwar.com to continue to do OUTSTANDING WORK. I rarely miss any of the AntiWar podcasts on my drive to and from the empire’s training ground (work). Additionally, my current mornings consist of reading a few more pages of Human Action immediately followed by using my government computer in my own government office to read LRC and AntiWar. It is also worth noting that there is another LT who just left my company to take another position who is as radically opposed to the state and like me is an ardent proponent of anarcho-capitalism.

I say this, again, to enourage you. I come to work, sit at my desk and leave work incredibly cynical as an Army Officer who regrets his service. And I am sure you feel the same sometimes as you for instance have to debunk, yet again, Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

You do make a difference. AntiWar makes a difference… even with those in the military.

I wish I could walk away from my (illegal) contract right now. However, You, LRC, FFF, Mises.org, have all greatly contributed to my (and many others) maturation in understanding true liberty and sound economics as I (and others) prepare to NOT make another poor decision to serve the state after the military. You are helping us lay the groundwork for a new generation to make part of their new (private) careers commensurate with beating back the state.

Thank you.

[Name withheld]

Tune in 1-3 pm 95.9 FM in Austin or stream from KAOSRadioAustin.org or Antiwar.com/radio.

But anyone would have to be more loony than stupid to publish or believe this New York Times nonsense.

The Times is just delighted to report the progress the U.S. Marine Corps is making in training up "female engagement teams" to win over the local women in Afghanistan. The plan is to accomplish this winning-over by tabulating the locals’ grievances into the new remake-Afghanistan high-tech anthropological "change entire societies" database of hope.

Now, reports the Times, this is a most wonderful tactic, which, I suppose we are to suppose, will help the Marines to quickly bring Afghanistan into the fold of modern, western, technocratic, democratic™ nations. This must be part of our great leader General Petraeus’s brand-new, futuristic, brilliant, awesome, Counter-Insurgency Doctrine of Genius!

Is there anything the American empire cannot accomplish with the sophisticated utilization of women and computers?

Is there anything impossible that the editors of the Times will not believe - and would not have us believe?

And is it not some form of mental illness that would allow people to order and abet the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people for reasons that can’t stand up to a laugh test for a single minute? Should not the entire population of the white part of Washington D.C. - and the MSM with ‘em - all be immediately locked in prisons for the criminally insane? Should we not tie them up tight in straight-jackets and leave them locked alone in the dark forever?

I’m just saying that maybe it’s time to begin considering locking every federal government employee and their friends who write the news away in a cage for the rest of their lives, immobilized, since they are all crazy homicidal maniacs. That’s all I’m saying.