Issue 3

The Abolitionist

10/07/2015
Editor: Will Porter

The Young Americans for Liberty Campus Newsletter

No action can be
virtuous unless it is

White House: Bombing Afghan

Hospital Not a War Crime

freely chosen.
Murray Rothbard

By Jason Ditz

A weekend US attack on a hospital full of civilians outside the Afghan city of Kunduz
has sparked international condemnation, with the aid group that was operating the
facility, Doctors Without Borders, urging an immediate independent investigation
with the presumption that a war crime had been committed.
Thats unlikely to happen, however, as the White House insists bombing the hospital
wasnt a war crime, and Gen. Campbell, dancing around the issue, claims
simultaneously that the attack was intentional, and the result of an Afghan
government request, but that the civilian deaths were accidental.
Huge civilian tolls in US attacks in Afghanistan have been a common occurrence
throughout the 14-year occupation, and legal experts say its very unlikely that the
International Criminal Court will look to step in on the
incident, believing it would be too politically sensitive for the
the White
US.

House insists
bombing the
hospital wasnt a
war crime

The Afghan government has so far defended the attack, calling

the hospital a Taliban base and claiming the slain civilians
were armed terrorists. Though the US is stopping short of
such an outrageous claim, Pentagon investigations rarely end
in any serious action against personnel for killing civilians.

Doctors Without Borders is an organization with some

influence, however, and the UN Rights Council is similarly saying its likely that a
war crime was committed in this attack. Ultimately, however, the Pentagon has a lot
of recent experience with weaseling out of such incidents, and that means whatever
the letter of the law, officials will be fighting hard to bury this situation like they
have so many others.

[This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com October 05, 2015]

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Who is Mordechai Vanunu & Why Should You

Care?
By Will Porter

An Act of Defiance
En route to an apartment building situated in the old quarter of Rome, Italy, a darkcomplexioned Israeli man and an attractive female tourist sit quietly in a taxicab.
Ready to relax for a short holiday in the beautiful Italian city with his beautiful
companion, the man feels at ease.
The couple arrive at their destination, pay the cab driver, but as they enter the unlit
abode, something immediately feels wrong. Out of the darkness of the room, three
figures spring forward, attacking the man who walked in only seconds prior. Before
he can think, he is overpowered, thrown to the floor, and handcuffed. He has just
enough time to feel a syringe pierce his flesha sedative flows into his veinsbefore
he fades from consciousness.
That man was Mordechai Vanunu: Israeli nuclear technician-turned-whistleblower
his female companion and three assailants all intelligence agents of the Israeli
Mossad, on a mission to abduct him. These would be his last moments of freedom for
the next 18 years.
Vanunu's story begins a decade earlier, however, in 1976, when he applied for a job
at the Negev Nuclear Research Center (NNRC), a facility located in the Negev desert,
about 13 kilometers south-east of Dimona, Israel.
Following his application, he met with a security official to attain proper clearance,
then underwent an intensive training course in mathematics, chemistry, physics,
English, first aid, and fire-fighting, and was officially hired in February of 1977 as a
shift manager and plant technician. Vanunu worked at the facility over the next
three years without incident.
In 1980, Vanunu embarked on a trip abroad. Sometime after a stay in the United
States, he became critical of several Israeli policies, such as its treatment of Arabs
both in Israel and the occupied territories. When he returned to Israel, he began to
associate with pro-Arab activists, a fact which officials at the NNRC eventually
caught wind of. Beginning in 1984 Vanunu was interrogated three separate times
and, in at least one instance, was sternly warned by a security official not to divulge
any sensitive information.
Vanunu would get laid off in 1985, but soon returned with the help of his labor union.
Sometime between his resumption of work and 27 October 1985 (the day he quit the
job), Vanunu made a life-altering decision: He smuggled a small camera into the
nuclear facility, made illicit access to sensitive areas, and captured 57 images of
rooms and equipment. Such images would directly contradict the claims of Israeli
officials, who maintained a policy of "nuclear ambiguity."
Nobody but Vanunu knew about the photographs at this point, so upon his departure
The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

YAL Group Schedule:

10/7/2015 General meeting
and What is Bitcoin
presentation by David
Nieman. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.
10/14/2015 General
meeting. 4:00pm-5:30pm in
LA 161.
10/17/2015 Civil Liberties
Graveyard build. 12:00pm2:00pm (location TBD).
10/20/2015 Civil Liberties
Graveyard event. 10:00am4:00pm in Student Center.
10/21/2015 General
meeting. 4:00-5:30 in LA
161.
10/24/2015 Students for
Liberty Ohio Regional
Conference.
10/28/2015 General
meeting and end-of-themonth film screening
(1984 ). 4:00pm-6:30pm in
LA 161.
[Note: This schedule is subject to
change.]

from the NNRC, he was granted a severance-pay of $7,500 and a positive letter of
recommendation. He took the money and again left to travel abroad, to or through
Greece, Russia, Thailand, and Burma, eventually settling in Sydney, Australia.
In Australia Vanunu met Oscar Guerrero, a Colombian freelance journalist, to whom
Vanunu eventually revealed his secret. Guerrero, assuring Vanunu of the immense
monetary value of his story, began looking for a major media outlet to publish it.
Failing to interest Newsweek, Guerrero caught the attention of the Sunday Times, a
British newspaper.
A few days after contacting the newspaper, Vanunu conferred with Sunday Times
journalist, Peter Hounam, who determined the story at least plausible (newspaper
outlets were especially skeptical of sensational-sounding stories at this time, due to
the then-recent Hitler Diaries hoax). In September of 1986, Vanunu was flown to
London, England to relate his story in full detail to the Times' writers and staff.
The newspaper, in turn, sought verification from American nuclear weapons
designer, Theodore Taylor, and British Atomic Weapons Establishment engineer,
Frank Barnaby. Both experts corroborated Vanunu's claims and estimated from his
information that, at the facility's rate of production of weapons-grade plutonium,
Israel could possess somewhere around 150 nuclear weapons (many multiples of the
amount analysts had estimated before).
The Sunday Times ran the story 5 October 1986. It was the world's first definitive
confirmation of a significant Israeli nuclear weapons program, a subject of mere
speculation and conjecture before Vanunu blew the whistle.
By 6 October 1986, Vanunu had already been captured by the Mossad and taken
back to Israel to be convicted. In a classic "honey trap" operation, the Mossad sent an
attractive female agent to seduce Vanunu into false trust. He agreed to join her on a
short trip to Italy for vacationthe rest has already been told.
Mordecai Vanunu was found guilty of treason and espionage in a secret trial on 28
March 1986, and spent 11 out of 18 years imprisonment in solitary confinement. He
was released from prison in 2004, but remains on a strict probation (which he has
violated, more than once leading to additional time behind bars). For his brave
actions he is heralded worldwide as a hero and an icon, someone who dared to do
what nobody had done before him.

Why This Matters

This story, while an incredible one in even the narrowest sense, has a greater
importance to world affairs. The country most vocal in recent times regarding
nuclear issues, Israel, is perhaps the most notorious among "rogue" nuclear states in
the world. Israel, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty. In light of this fact alone, Israel's rabid demands on Iran are rendered hollow
and hypocritical.
Israel's nuclear weapons program, long known to exist, has only recently been
acknowledged by American officials (who, I doubt, will ever publicly discuss the
program's quasi-criminal origins).
The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

Contact Information :
Please feel free to contact us
with questions, comments,
concerns, or anything else
youd like us to know.
We accept article
submissions; contact the
editor for details.
Will Porter YAL Chapter
President for WCC and
Abolitionist editor:
Cell 248-464-0564 (Call or text)
Email WKP.AnCap@Gmail.com
Twitter @WKPAnCap

The broader issue of nuclear weapons should have particular significance to antiwar
activists and libertarians. By their very nature, such weapons effectively cannot be
used without the destruction of innocent life. To echo the libertarian position, nuclear
weapons are impossible to target, thus they should, in almost any practical usage, be
considered de facto violators of the libertarian principle of non-aggression.
Not everyone is capable of striking as strong a blow to the menace of nuclear
weapons as Mordechai Vanunu, but libertarians, peaceniks, humanitarians
humansshould reject them on principle. However remote in the future, we ought to
ultimately seek a world free of the bomb, a world in which humanity is no longer held
hostage.

[This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com August 20, 2015.]

The Military Gravy Train: Full Speed Ahead

By Andrew Syrios
Theres something very odd about the United States military that makes many of the
most budget-hawkish fiscal conservatives turn into starry-eyed, big government
welfare pushers. The hypocrisy is breathtaking; at the same time as many
conservatives are talking about Americas descent into socialism they are pushing
their own brand of military socialism to ever more absurd lengths.
At a whopping $581 billion per year, the United States already spends more than the
rest of the world combined on its military. However, even that number doesnt
represent the entire picture. As Robert Higgs has shown, when everything is
included (from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the nuclear weapons
expenditures in the State Department to the net interest on past debt-financed
defense outlays, etc.) that sum is actually over one trillion dollars. Despite this, every
Republican presidential candidate is pushing to increase the military budget. Even
Rand Paul proposes adding $76.5 billion to the defense budget which by itself is
more than the military budgets of all but two other countries in the world (China and
Saudi Arabia).
Fiscal conservatives love to pass around examples of government waste such as the
$615,000 grant that was given the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize
photos, t-shirts, and concert tickets for The Grateful Dead or the $175,587 spent to
determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior. Yet,
many of the best examples of such mind-numbingly insane expenditures come from
the woefully bloated military of the United States.
For example, in 2007 the Pentagon spent $998,798 to ship two 19-cent washers and
the Department of Defense spends over $10 million dollars each year to maintain
hundreds of golf courses it owns, presumably an effort to keep America safe. But the
worst boondoggles may be the F-22 fighter. Or perhaps its the F-35? Its hard to
decide.

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

5
According to The Washington Post, the F-22 has recently required more than 30
hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to
more than $44,000 Oh, and it cant fly in the rain either. On the other hand, the
F-35 has brought with it a modest price tag of only $400 billion dollars, 70 percent
over its initial cost estimate. And it cant even defeat the fighter jet it is supposed to
replace in a dogfight. These massive taxpayer rip-offs join many other projects
costing hundreds of billions of dollars, for weapons the military often doesnt even
want.
Indeed, the military-industrial complex as Dwight Eisenhower called it, is one of
the biggest, if not the biggest, examples of corporate welfare and
corporate/government malfeasance around. Lockheed Martin and other military
contractors use a variety of unsavory means to ensure ever bigger contracts for ever
more unnecessary military contraptions to be paid for at the taxpayers expense.
One method is spreading the work around. Basically, these companies will contract
and subcontract the work for any given project to as many congressional districts as
possible to ensure wide support among congressmen who dont want to see their
district lose jobs. (It should be noted that Eisenhower originally wanted to call it the
military-industrial-congressional complex.) For example, the F-35 mentioned above
had 1,300 suppliers in forty-five states.
Another tactic is using the cost plus approach, which basically has the government
pay the contractors cost, plus a certain agreed upon profit. Unfortunately, as is
probably apparent, this provides the extremely perverse incentive for the company to
let the project become as expensive as possible in order to make as big a profit as
possible. And with examples such as the F-35, its hard to believe these companies
havent taken advantage of this incentive.
Just as welfare degrades peoples work ethic and resourcefulness, when looking at
the sheer waste of these military contracts, it appears corporate welfare degrades a
companys dynamism. As Tom Woods notes in his book Rollback, the amount the
United States has spent on its military is absolutely staggering:

during the period from 1947 through 1987 [the Pentagon] used (in 1982 dollars)
$7.62 trillion in capital resources. In 1985, the Department of Commerce estimated
the value of the nations plants, equipment, and infrastructure (capital stock), at just
over $7.29 trillion. In other words, the amount spent over that period could have
doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced the existing stock.
And what has all of this gotten us? Tom Woods again:

after all this spending, the end result has actually been a smaller military with
older equipment. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, more than $2 trillion has
been added to the 1999 baseline Pentagon budget. Roughly half went to the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, while the other trillion went to non-war military spending.
What did Americans get for that trillion bucks? A smaller Navy and Air Force, and a
trivial increase in the size of the army.

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty

6
Add to this that the Pentagon is the only federal department exempt from audit
(well, aside from the Federal Reserve if you consider that a department). And this
makes perfect sense as its books are in complete disarray. Back in 2001, Donald
Rumsfeld admitted that According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in
transactions. And as Reuters reports, the Pentagon doctored ledgers [to] conceal
epic waste such as when the Army lost track of $5.8 billion of supplies between
2003 and 2011 as it shuffled equipment between reserve and regular units.
Is this the kind of small government these fiscal conservatives are looking for?
Perhaps it is. As conservative Mark Steyn noted in his book After America,
specifically with regard to the bloated welfare systems in Europe and the United
States, as well as the demographic decline of the West:

Faced with a choice between unsustainable entitlements and maintaining armed

forces of global reach, the United States, as Europe did, will abandon military
capability and toss the savings into the great sucking maw of social spending. That,
in turn, will make for not only a more dangerous world but a more vulnerable
America that, to modify President Bush, will wind up having to fight them over here
because we no longer have the capacity to fight them over there.
Perhaps Steyn should have rephrased it as the great sucking maw of military
spending would be transferred to the great sucking maw of social spending. And
what exactly the Iraq War, for example, did to make the world less dangerous or
America less vulnerable is for good reason left unstated.
And of course the biggest question is left altogether undiscussed; why does the
United States need either a bloated welfare state or a bloated warfare state?
And this boils down to the heart of it; the two parties have little more than two
slightly different versions of big government they want to foist on the American
people and use to line the pockets of their favored interests. Only slightly of course,
because its not like the Republicans reduce welfare spending or the Democrats
reduce military spending.
In the end, its not very complicated; a small government with a massive military is
an oxymoron. Its about time that fiscal conservatives figured this out.

[This article originally appeared on Mises.org September 28, 2015.]

The Abolitionist | Young Americans for Liberty