It's official, the Constitution is a joke

When the president violates the law of the land and two senators lead the charge in legislation that essentially says, "you go guy" the constitution has ceased to exist. It is now moribund in any meaningful sense.

If the Neutralist had written Obama's Speech

The United States wishes hopes and prays for peace among all parties in the Middle East. Good luck and au revoir.

The Neutralist is suspending its fundraiser in favor of antiwar.com

We suspend our fundraiser

The Neutralist occasionally announces a fundraiser that is known mostly for its failure. The terms are a minimum $10million per donor. This year, we are again suspending the effort in favor of antiwar.com.

Antiwar.com is holding another one of its begathons and unlike public radio, they have earned support. After all, public radio has never forced the establishment to retreat if only because they are part of the establishment.

Of course, if you do have that spare 10 big ones lying around...........

The Terrorists have won

Res ipsa loquitur.

Any questions?

Hat tip to David Kramer at LRC Blog

The Pakistani Role and what should we do about it?

Did the Paks know? Short answer, I'm guessing, probably. So, what do you want to do about it? Invade? Good luck. Bomb? We do that a lot. If it worked we would have won Nam and Afghanistan would be a liberal democracy now. Oh yeah, there was Serbia, but if you remember, we bombed because we added some conditions to the peace agreement and the Serbs rejected them. We bombed and then agreed to the conditions. We have since gone back on them.

Since the usual diplomatic methods, bombing and invasion don't look so hot, let's leave. Unless you believe there is a solution instead of an outcome, it is the only sensible route.

A number of years before 911, Harry Browne said "we have a very strong national offense, but a very weak national defense." The felling of the Towers proved his point. What has changed? Not sure. A lot of security theater and a country on lockdown with swat team a growth industry, but it is not getting better.

Does the word Pyrrhic come to mind?

My fellow countrymen are not fond of studying history. Believe me on this. I was a history nerd and generally kept it to myself. My abysmally low level of popularity could only get worse. The few readers of this blog are probably more aware than the general population, but I shall recap the career of The Macedonian general Pyrrhus.

Southern Greece was over time being subjugated by Rome. One of the Greek states, Tarentum, requested the help of Pyrrhus. He came over with an army and beat the Romans in a few battles. The problem was, the Romans, though defeated on the field, managed to kill so many of Pyrrhus men that he was not winning the attrition aspect of the war. After being congratulated on one of his victories, he has said to have said, "Another victory like this and I shall go home without an army."*

It is the classic explanation of the game not being worth the candle. Was it really worth it to invade a country to chase someone who might have eventually been apprehended with good intel? Maybe, but I disagree.

Here is the Neutralist corollary to Pyrrhus, "One more war like this and we go home without out an economy." Well, maybe we won't have one anyway. I could have put it better, but I hope you get the point.

Declare Victory and Leave

Yes, Bin Laden is dead. He will not be missed. Moi, I would have rather he had been captured and interrogated. "First question, how'd ya manage to live large instead of that cave you supposedly had to inhabit?"

Of course there are many questions for others as well. Our intel services, what took so long? The Paks, well, I've got a long list for our "allies."

Suffice it to say, our Afpak and Iraq advetures in revenge for 911 led to another equivalent in deaths of American military personnel. Yeah we slaughtered a lot of them, big whoop. We have gotten nothing real out of this. We are broke.

Come home America.