Why The Neutralist? The term Isolationist implies a narrow Fortress America outlook and is used as an epithet. The term Neutralist does not indicate someone hiding out from the world. No one calls the Swiss isolationists. The Wilsonian world view is old, tired and wrong. Our interventions have been less and less successful and now the failure can no longer be covered up.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Do you see anything? Moi, nothing. David Pakman and Peter Ingemi do not confront the elephants in the room

The last day of the year and I am driving on Route 9 here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts from Wormtown to the Holy City of Noho.  This is truly a privilege as I get to listen to the radio and go from the loony right to the vapid left in one drive.

First up is Mr. Peter Ingemi, DaTechGuy on WCRN.  He did not talk tech, but politics as is his wont.  He sounds like what he is, a tea partier who was downsized and moved on.  He does not like Ronnie Paul because he won't save us from the muzzies or something.

As Worcester receded, and I got closer to Happy Valley.  Mr. David Pakman's voice got clearer on WHMP.  He is a bit more focused in his weltanschaung.  Ronnie had misgivings about evolution and ergo is not fit to be president.  Your man has a point.  Washington, Adams and Jefferson never heard of Darwin and they sucked as presidents and human beings.

Saturday is a talk radio ghetto.  I may have been one of the pairs only listeners.  Guys in working class Worcester are out doing something.  The cool people out west are listening to Bob and Ray, I mean Tom and Ray and Car Talk from the Ministry of Information.

It has been a hard few years for our country.  The average person's net worth is way down.  Still, no matter how hard it is, there is no one in this country so poor that they cannot afford an elephant in their living room to ignore.  The president has signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.  If you agree with Glenn Greenwald, this is about as big a deal as it gets constitutionally.

El Presidente signs it today and nada from either Mutt or Jeff.  Now, I suspect the techie likes it because, gosh, we gotta be secure and he is always tired of hiding under the bed.  The bad news is who signed it.

Pakman, it is a little tougher.  You had George Bush and all his wars and now you have the demi-god and the wars have not changed (other than some cosmetic withdrawls).  An honest man would have to say Obama was a fraud.  Well, an honest man would say that.

As we head into the 12th year of the Bush/Obama administration maybe Rodney King couldn't get us to all get along, but there is at least some consensus in the Ingemi/Pakman Axis.

I believe in evolution, but opposing the NDAA and not believing evo is okay with me.  Being for NDAA and believing in NDAA is evidence of personal devolution.

David Pakman does his best to be the smarmiest guy on WHMP.  The competition is fierce.   Learn more about him here.

You can learn more about Mr. Ingemi here.

In truth, I may have not heard it because I was listening in the car.  If I am mistaken and they took the issue on, they have my apology.  If Mr. Pakman called Obama on it, I'll need a pacemaker.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

National Defense Authorization Act of 2012-finally and admission that fighting them over there was a sham

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 has passed and the president is to sign it.  So we used to say we were fighting them over there so we would not have to fight them over here.  Well the Neutralist never said it.  We believe the whole posture of our so called War on Terror is a scam.  When semi chicken hawk (is a legal guy in the army, medal for paper cuts maybe), Lindsay Graham said the bill would "basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield" he admitted as much.  If we are at this point, the terrorists have won.
Gene Healy's column, If America is the battleground, nobody has any rights at the Washington Times is worth reading.

Has any congress member, aside from those who voted no, ever read the Constitution?

Sunday, December 18, 2011

He has truly won!

Somewhere, maybe Drudge, it was noted, the biggest story of 2011 is the death of OBL.  There was a victory dance or ten caught on media.  The heartbreaking aspect of it all is that dead or alive, he won.  If we won, the new defense authorization act could be slimmer and indefinite detention would not be on it.

Radley Balko had a post in May outlining our defeat.   If you don't sigh after reading, you don't get it.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Droning on and on

So, we've been using drones for years and they are pretty spiffy. It's been such a success that a drone was used to recapture some errant cows. The Neutralist is not a psychometrician, but we feel we have proof that proof that Iranians are smarter than cows. They seem to have captured a drone used by, we guess, the Air Force. So the relative IQ scale is Iranians, drones, cows. I won't go on with this, because as an American, I find it embarrassing.

So we are using drones and have covert ops going on in Iran.  Yet we are in high dudgeon over a plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador that looks pretty shaky.  So it's right and just for us to bug the Persians because we're the good guys, but not right for them to do something here that might or might not be a set-up.


The Iranians have been telling us to go fry ice for a number of years now.  I just hope they don't have a viable plan to close the Strait of Hormuz as the Neutralist does not like an interesting life.


America's greatest chickenhawk is dissing the pres who has to be saying, "what have I gotta do.  I killed Osama and gave you another war and am deploying troops to more countries."


Well BHO, I have a suggestion.  Insert Cheney to retake the drone.

Friday, December 09, 2011

Pearl Harbor - Isn't that an elephant here in the room with us-Nah!

Pearl Harbor Day was Wednesday and was remembered less then when I was young. All my relatives who were in The Second World War are no longer with us.

No matter, the great epic is still with us. A film or documentary can be counted on every so often. The main thing for the great and good is to keep up the front that this was a holy war led by holy men. With great effort this can be done with Churchill and Roosevelt. Stalin is a problem. You might find a few of his defenders on the north bank of the Charles River, but even there, they are sparse.

The Diane Rehm show commemorated the day with guest host Tom Gjelton and two authors.; Ian Toll and Steven Gillon. According to the bio notes, Mr. Stoll is a former Wall Street analyst, Federal Reserve financial analyst, political aide and speechwriter; he the author of a previous book on naval history, "Six Frigates." Steven Gillon is a history professor and author of numerous books, including "The Kennedy Assassination - 24 Hours"; resident historian for The History Channel. The two men discussed the events leading up to the attack. It was informative, but what it does not address in detail is Herbert Hoover’s book, Freedom Betrayed. Talk about large elephants in the room and everyone pretending to “normalcy.” Whatever one might think about Herb and the Depression, is there anyone who thinks he was a nut or a liar? To not mention the book or address Hoover's points about an FDR campaign to inveigle the Japanese into war when such a book has been out since November 7 is cute or maybe the lads didn't know about the tome?

Pat Buchannan, as expected, has been all over it. With a review of the Hoover book, he details the efforts of the Roosevelt administration to get a war against the wishes of much of the nation. He details Hoover's account of Japan's efforts to avoid war and Team Roosevelt's work to avoid avoiding war. His piece is all over the web including TownHall which all too often appears to be Neocon heaven.

It has been the practice in this country mainly to ignore challenges to the orthodox doctrine. On occasion, the challenge is taken up to dismiss efforts.

So how does the Neutralist see this. In 1954, the great military historian and theoretician, Basil Liddell Hart wrote:

In reply President Roosevelt demanded , on the 24th July 1941, the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Indo-China ----and to enforce his demands he issued orders on the 26th for freezing all Japanese assets in the U.S.A. and placing an embargo on oil supply. Mr. Churchill took simultaneous action and two days later the refugee Dutch Government in London was induced to follow suit----which meant, as Mr. Churchill has remarked, that ‘Japan was deprived at a stroke of her vital oil supplies.’

In early discussions it had always been recognized that such a paralyzing stroke would force Japan to fight, as the only alternative to collapse or the abandonment of her policy. It is remarkable that she deferred striking for more than four months, while trying to negotiate a lifting of the oil embargo. The United States Government refused to lift it, unless Japan withdrew not only from Indo-China but also from China. No government, least of all the Japanese could be expected to swallow such humiliating conditions.
*

There is much controversy in the life of Liddell Hart. Suffice it to say, he had no political ax to grind, and it was no way controversial to say Roosevelt wanted to get into World War II at the time LH wrote. Point to Hoover.

The Neutralist position is that war cannot always be avoided, and the Neutralist never wants to see us ever lose, but greatness exists in avoiding committing your countrymen to death and destruction, while insuring that the interests of the nation are accomplished.

All else, even with victory, is failure.

Strategy,by B.H. Liddill Hart, 1954, 1967 by Faber & Faber Ltd., London, England, Page 254.

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Marco Rubio and the sanity test

I know my countrymen do not care and maybe the world does not either, but one wonders why an alliance of near broke nations would want to commit to defending a geographically isolated country known mostly for spawning maybe history's greatest tyrant. It would be bad enough to suggest this if the country we would go to war with for our ally was weak as a kitten. Granted the Bear ain't what he used to be but as the cliche goes, one nuke can ruin your whole day.

Proposing such an alliance would constitute the flunking of a sanity test. Jack Hunter over at the Daily Caller is on the case.

Last week, while most senators were focused on the important national issues of war funding and Americans’ constitutional liberties, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) seemed more concerned with the fate of a foreign country. Behind the scenes, Rubio moved to have a unanimous consent vote that would have hastened Georgia’s entry into NATO. The unanimous consent vote never happened because Senator Rand Paul single-handedly prevented it.

Gosh, ya gotta love that Paul family. See, when Marco was flunking, Rand was passing his sanity test with flying colors.

Of course, the Neutralist could be wrong. We humbly beg anyone out there who believes an alliance with the Georgians is a good idea to please set us straight. Good luck.