A little preemptive strike of his own.

I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran–which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election–will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d’état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic…

I will put the taxes I owe in an escrow account. I will go to court to challenge the legality of the war. Maybe a courageous judge will rule that the Constitution has been usurped and the government is guilty of what the postwar Nuremberg tribunal defined as a criminal war of aggression. Maybe not. I do not know. But I do know this: I have friends in Tehran, Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Jerusalem and Cairo. They will endure far greater suffering and deprivation. I want to be able, once the slaughter is over, to at least earn the right to ask for their forgiveness.

Hedges is one of those leftists who seems like he should be British even though he isn’t. The name, the look, the journalism background, the paranoia about all forms of fascism except the Islamist version he’s quick to apologize for — he’s the American Robert Fisk, a grotesque caricature of the progressive foreign correspondent. But don’t take my word for it. Ace linked this last night but I would have anyway. Watch it if you missed it six months ago. And if you didn’t miss it, watch it again.