Some good stuff from Sic Semper Tyrannis

Common sense reigns on Col. Patrick Lang's committee of correspondence known as Sic Semper Tyrannis.  The Neutralist will comment on a couple.

First up is

South Sudan Another Failure of U S Foreign Policy

by Hank Foresman.  Now I don't know who Mr. Foresman is, but I did try to do a little research.  It appears he had a military career like Col. Lang and has graduate degrees.  At the end of the day, the credentials are not as important as the validity of what he wrote.  I agree with his analysis that Rice and Powers don't get it.  

He praises the older generation of realists such as, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Baker, Sam Nunn, James Baker, and Jeanne Kilpatrick.  To an extent, I agree.  They did have a better connection to what was possible to manage.

Of course, the Neutralist does believe that the short term goal of American FP should be to undo World War I and the long term to position ourselves so that we need not go on foreign adventures.  The aforementioned wise men and woman were not on that team. 

Of course, as usual, my blood boils when I read the I word as in this comment from Col. Foresman,

Hank Foresman said in reply to Alba Etie...
Mr. Etie: I believe we are seeing a more restrained Foreign Policy but one that is still heavily influenced by the likes of Slaughter, Rice, and Power. The Neo-cons are still a prominent force in the loyal opposition but they are increasingly being challenged by neo-isolationists such as Rand Paul and his father and Wyden and others on the left side of the Senate aisle. I am not very optimistic that realism will see the light of day in the near term.

The Rands are Neutralists even if they don't know it.  They are certainly anti-intervionists.

Even more instructive are Col. Lang's comments on the new NIE on Afghanistan.

The Neutralist has no connections and knows no one, but we saw Afghanistan and Iraq coming a cropper before either invasion.

Justin, celebrate Neutralism, not the I word!

In a previous post, Justin Raimondo writes an Neutralist column without mentioning the N word, The Neutralist observed how Justin wrote about Neutralism without saying the magic word.  Two Cheers for ‘Isolationism’ How’s that ‘global leadership’ thing working out for us?was a good column, but needed to use the word.

Justin is at it again.  In Long Live ‘Isolationism’! It’s a synonym for peace he again makes the Neutralist case, but calls it Isolationism.

Wrong word.  America need not be a hermit country like Japan before Perry.  We can be engaged with the world, but not running it.  That is the difference in the words.

Your a great man for the cause, Justin.  Just get the right word.

Why Imperialism Sucks-Part Whatever II

So we have a war on drugs that is important to fight.

We are helping the Afghans do something and have beaucoup troops there to do that.

Drudge led me to this.

After 12 Yrs of U.S. Occupation, Afghanistan Sets Record for Growing Opium

It is a conservative site so maybe it's ragtime.  They do quote the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The best part of the article is where it says, 

In fact, according to the latest worldwide data on opium-poppy cultivation, Afghanistan dedicates more land to the cultivation of opium poppies than all of the rest of the world combined.

Okay people, no one with the least detectable pulse believes the American people get anything out of being in Afghanistan.  Someone is, but for, as Mr. South Carolina put it, US Americans it's nada.

I hope the Loya Jurga refuses an SOFA.

Drudge off the deep end!

Drudge has a picture of Obama holding up a piece of paper.  the headlines accompanying it are,

PEACE FOR OUR TIME...

American Held Hostage In Iran For 444 Days Calls Deal 'Foolishness'...

'Like Jimmy Carter all over again'...

Krauthammer: Worst since Munich... 

Saudi Arabia warns it will strike out on its own...

Rift with USA… 

Subtle it ain't.  So we have given over and the Iranian storm troopers will either be at the gates of D.C. or raining nukes on Lubbock in no time flat, or something.

The Saudis are going out on their own, according to the Telegraph.  Good luck to 'em.  Maybe the Chinese will be better partners.  Doubt they will be as easy to snooker.  Or maybe Bandar can leverage his special relationship with Putin.

The Neutralist is aware that the western industrial world runs on hydrocarbons.  If it is a choice of having our sons, and increasingly daughters, involved in another mid-east conflict with the same level of success as, oh, let's say, Iraq or Afghanistan, we should take our chances.

Israel is not amused with us either.  We wish Prime Minister Netanyahu luck as well.  After all it is his neighborhood.

The principal fact to keep in mind is that it is not our neighborhood.  We don't have to demand Iran do anything and we shall be no worse if we leave the region entirely.

The guy cited as the hostage above and who thinks the deal with Iran sucks may be right.

“My personal view is, I never found an Iranian leader I can trust,” he said. “I don’t think today it’s any different from when I was there. None of them, I think, can be trusted. Why make an agreement with people you can’t trust?”

haven't had to deal with Iranian leaders, so The Neutralist can't disagree.  Maybe in another news item the man can tell us a world leader who is absolutely trustworthy.

As we have said before, time to say au revoir.

Why Imperialism Sucks-Part Whatever

Without any legitimate provocation, we saw Spain off from the Caribbean and Far East in the late Nineteenth Century.  What did we get out of it?

Not much.  Our attempt at a Cuban protectorate took kinda for a while, but is long gone.  The 

Philippines, we fought the Spanish, then the people and then the Japanese.  Now gone.  A few islands in the Pacific are still ours.  What a waste.

The reductio ad absurdum is Puerto Rico.  Puerto Ricans can be charming and upstanding people.  It is as unfair to stereotype a people as all good as all bad.  Suffice it to say, the Puerto Rican experiment has not been an unmitigated success.  Maybe not even a mitigated triumph.

Now we have a CNBC headline, 

Worsening Debt Crisis Threatens Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has as much debt per person as Detroit and we've had Detroit about twice as long.

And who does PR want to bail them out?

Thank God we didn't land troops in Libya.  A successful invasion would have meant a headline like the one above  hundred years hence.

Time to give into the Puerto Rican Independence movements, sans severance package.  Heck, time to start a Detroit independence movement.

,

Eric "Bring the Boys Home" Margolis tells us what to do about the debt

Okay, to be honest, Mr. Margolis middle name is not Bring the Boys Home.  Still, his column leads in that direction.  He does not say bring all the boys and now some lasses home, but the logic is inescapable.

"The United States has no serious strategic enemies that can be identified."

Like duh.  As we always say at the Neutralist, the Middle Eastern countries ain't getting into carrier fleets to invade the lower the "Homeland."

there are elements that see themselves as our enemies, but if we don't let them in here, they will probably just bother their neighbors.

It's more of a "we have met the enemy and he is us" situation.  So much money being spent on what we can't afford.  The amount spent on the military benefits us in almost no way.

We need a military only to defend the US.  Our bloated defense establishment does us no good chasing poor tribesmen around some benighted backwater.

You can read the whole column here.

William S. Lind and our best policy in the Middle East-It's a Neutralist strategy

I used to read William S. Linds essays on strategy that that appeared at the Free Congress Foundation.  After they abruptly stopped, I read him whenever possible.  It has been mostly at The American Conservative.  He always makes sense, though the Neutralist is sure we can find something to disagree with if we try hard enough.

Not today, however.  Mr. Lind has written a thoroughly neutralist column at TAC.  The title says it all,

Islam’s Civil War

America can win it—by staying out.

Yup, as we've said before, they ain't jumping in their carrier fleets to invade our east coast.  

some have decried Mr. Lind's attitude as gloating.  I hope it is not.  I take no pleasure that Shia and Sunni will fight and kill each other.  May they find peace.  Still, facts are facts, and we, and they are better off without our attempts at managing it.

To read Mr. Lind, go here.  

He is now a fellow of the Neutralist Foundation whether he likes it or not.  If we can, we'll hit him up for dues.

A simple explanation as to why the American people are not feeling war love

a Madison Avenue fable.

 Seeking to produce a new dog food, a big corporation set market researchers, food chemists and advertising agencies to work. The experts came up with a new product they were proud of. The dog food sold well, for a while. Then it slumped. Puzzled, the corporate executives commissioned a public opinion firm to see what was wrong. 

Soon, the answer came back: "The dogs don't like it."

The Neutralist is somewhat Menckenesque in attitude toward the electorate.  I am happily amazed that they find the flavor of the current sales pitch a bit off.

this is from Ben Wattenberg.  I have no idea how he feels about intervention, it is just that the story works. 

Anatoly Karlin dissects the stupid rhetoric on Syria

I can't say I know much about Mr. Karlin other than guessing he is a Russian living in the US.  Always interesting, but this time superb.  His dissection of the rhetoric could be a primer on the subject.  His introduction to the post Game of Homs is dead on,

What striking about Syria is how so many people insist on speaking about it in profoundly moralistic, Manichaean terms. This is complete nonsense, given that its civil war isn’t a showdown between democracy and dictatorship, but an ethnic and religious conflict.

His explanation of what the regime is doing is also worth reading.

The Assad regime 

The rhetoric: He kills his own people! He is the Evil Overlord (TM)! 

The reality: That’s kind of what happens in a civil war. Abraham Lincoln also “killed his own people,” you know. It is obvious why the “regime” fights on: That is what regimes do  – as a general rule of thumb, they’re fond of surviving. The rather more interesting and telling question is: Why do key elements of the population continue to back them?

As far as the Alawites and Christians are concerned, it’s pretty clear: The Sunnis have never been particularly well disposed to them, and the past few years haven’t made them any fonder. The last time the Sunnis revolted in Hama in 1982, one of the slogans of the Muslim Brotherhood was “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the graveyard.” 

In the game of Homs, you win or you die – and the “you” is in its plural form. No wonder Assad has a solid support base. 

there is more to it and everyone should read it.  Unfortunately, the web being what it is, only folks who have heard of him will notice.  The vast sea of my incurious countrymen will never see it.

Fortunately, other than the Obamanots, few still buy the idea that another war is the ticket.

Report from the telescreen-Diane Sawyer introduces the women snipers of Syria

The Neutralist almost never watches network evening news.  In our so called adult life we have witnessed all to much propaganda masquerading as news that little shocks us.  Last night, we came close.  It was not that it was blatant.  The problem was there was no effort to not be stupid.

Diane Sawyer in "I am a serious newsreader" mode introduces us to the women snipers of Syria.  She hands off to Muhammad Lila on the ground who is with black clad teachers by day who are snipers by night.  Didn't answer the question as to when the lasses get sleep, but when it's life or death for the cause, you do what you have to do.

According to Muhammad, "they've been trained as rebel snipers, patrolling to keep their neighborhood safe."

Was it all contrived?  Snipers don't ususally patrol, they have a position to observe the enemy lines and pick a target of opportunity.

But, damn it all looked contrived, and the average American wouldn't know anyway.

It is getting harder and harder for the major media to propagandize effectively.Ten, fifteen years ago, the shilling for war would have been more effective.  They must be surprised that less and less people buy the line.  Of course, there is the internet and also, they've gone to the well a little too often.

Maybe folks have the felling, fool me once shame on you, fool me ten times.........

Mara Liasson and NPR your tax dollars at work

Listening to NPR after Sunday Baroque.  Mara is talking oh so seriously about how the president has a problemo with his war as the American public is "seriously conflicted" about the proposed debacle,  She said this not just once.

I googled and found a poll that said support is 50% up from 9 or something.  I am not sure that that means we are conflicted.  Most people I are not anguishing.  They have an opinion and others have a different one.

What it means is not enough people, even NPRbots have blindly accepted the pro-intervention line.  NPR, and the other media can't sell it even to some Obama loyalists.  NPR, Fox for the left.

The story after was even more vapid.  It was Jill Biden talking about her important work in education or something.  I am sure she is a nice lady, but if she were not Gaffer Joe's wife, she would not be on radio.

What got me was I think she said, "Just after we were elected."

Good luck Mr. President

Sir I wish you this sincerely.  I hope you were not really hot for the adventure and it seemed like you might have been hesitant.  Were the furies, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, pushing you?

Who knows your thoughts?  Certainly not the Neutralist.

But here is a chance to climb down.  Here are two options:

1. Let a vote happen and lose and blame the Republicans for every bad thing that happens in the ME.

2. Make a speech laying out why intervention would be a bad thing and you were for peace and unicorns or some twaddle.  Wait and collect another Nobel.

Understand, I hope you extricate yourself not because I love any politician, but because this is a bad idea.

Bonne Chance!

Syria, beyond the beyond!!!!

I have no way of describing what is happening now as we hurtle to a war for no reason.

Except,

there has to be a reason.  The Saudis and Qataris, the Israelis, whatever.  Whomever is getting something it ain't the American people. There is absolutely no reason any American should want to be involved in Syria.

It should be self-evident that interventionism has reached its reductio ad absurdam long ago.  chem weapons, WMDs, Kuwaiti incubators, War to end all wars, Remember the Maine.

The Neutralist is slightly encouraged by the fact that polls show the the citizenry are not buying it.  On the other hand, the administration is completely disregarding popular opinion in the matter.  At least Bush sent Powell to fib to the UN.

Anyway, it's sad and discouraging, but expected.  The Neutralist has links that my few readers probably know about.

Anatoly Karlin is Russian, so one supposes that makes him suspect in some circles.  Then again, there are some of my countermen who would abandon the idea that 1+1=2 if it could be shown the devil himself believed in it.  I am passing on something he passed on as it does not sound unreasonable.  That does not mean I absolutely believe it, but Mr. Mercouris might not have less credibility than John Kerry.

If you aren't already reading Col. Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis, you should be.  Let me give you a taste:

Kerry informed the world that he and the president were absolutely sure that the Syrian government had used CW en masse against people in the Damascus suburbs.Evidence?  He said that he had seen the videos and pictures on the internet and that they tore open the wounds of his heart once again.  That was all the evidence that he mentioned except to claim that the US Government has more information that it will make available at some future time. 

So, it has been decided.  If I were more aggressive and had more readers, I would run a contest, what will be our first post Syria aggression.

Finally, someone uses the N word correctly!

In truth, I am not overly surprised that it was posted at the LRC Blog.  LewRockwell.com
bills itself as Anarcho-Capitalist and anti-war.  As the Neutralist has never observed a pro-war post at the blog or column on the website, we assume that LRC is not anti-neutralist.

Yet we never see the word Neutralism or any of its forms on the internet.  anti-intervention maybe, but it is still not the same thing.  Even people who have seen the light and see the need to stop interfering in other countries will state how they have become somewhat Isolationist.  Of course this plays into the hands of neocons and the mainstream press as they portray Isolationism as an epithet and its belief as a form of primitivism.So we were pleasantly surprised to see the title of Michael S. Rozeff's post at the LRC blog, NeutralityToward Syria Is a Non-Aggressive Policy, But Obama Wants Assad Out.  

We were not at all shocked by the thoughts expressed in the post, and we are certainly in agreement with its sentiment.  It is just the this N word never gets spoken.

It goes without saying, we don't think Mr. Rozeff changed his way of thinking and had a special moment.  He has probably always been a Neutralist, but just have never used the word.

No matter, Michael S. Rozeff has won the so far not coveted Neutralist of the Week Award.  Keep up the good work, Sir.

·       

It is time to just give Afghanistan to the Taliban unless we can find somebody else stupid enough to take it

Colonel Lang reports that Afghanistan customs is dunning us for the vehicles we brought into the country to keep them in power.  Maybe there was an age old and respected statute we are violating and we should be paying up.  Whatever it is, however, it should be offset by our saving the skins of the corrupt members of the government apparatus.

What is happening was characterized thus by the Colonel,

This is a standard "shake down" technique practised across the region from Morocco to Bangla Desh.  It is a common thing for governments to try to charge customs duty on everything foreign military forces or aid organizations bring into a country.

Our foreign policy of military intervention and aid is viewed by the recipients as a cow to milk.  It will always be thus and is a compelling argument for a Neutralist foreign policy.

The Colonel also writes,

The fact that this is "coming to a head" in Afghanistan is an indication that the flow of cash money is drying up.

So there is an end, at least partial coming and some are trying to suck the cow dry beforehand.  I suspect when we go the Taliban will have a run at it.  I don't want the Afghan kleptocrats finding asylum here.  I don't care if they spend their declining years in Dubai and am not wanting to see them najibullahed.  I just don't want them over here pontificating on my countries mistakes.

Original article at the Washington Post.

Margolis vs. Lang on Egypt plus a better analysis

Two of my favorite writers on the web differ in their view of the current affairs in Egypt.  Eric Margolis  thinks the coup was planned by a deep state and the the MBs were fair and moderate.

Not sure how Col. Lang view the deep state biz, but he does not find the MBs to be completely savory.

Now these are two men who do not buy the official interpretation of events, but they differ in analysis.  Of course we come to the conclusion that the unfathomable aspect of events is even more reason to be a Neutralist.

Another article we are linking to is Egypt's Possible Civil War by 28 Sherman.  Opens up by observing the hunger aspect, which is not mentioned enough.  Egypt does not produce enough food for its population that vastly exceeds carrying capacity.  Thanks to all the unrest, the money is not being made to buy food.  Of course, guess who supplies a lot of the food?

Food and civil war, hmmm.  I vaguely remember reading that Rwanda was the most densely populated region on the continent and had hunger problems. 

 Maybe giving all that food on the cheap did not help the Egyptians plan for population control.

28 Sherman touches on the regional political situation regarding Egypt, Sudan and Ethipia.  As to managing it he writes, "The British did this so much better than us."  Yeah, well HMG don't have too many colonies these days.  There empire was a waste of time.  More reason for a neutralist FP.

American Foreign Policy Reductio Ad Absurdam Report - Just how ridiculous does Syria have to get before we are embarrassed

As the song goes, the answer my friend is blowing in the wind.  the Neutralist thought the Libyan adventure mindless, but maybe the goody two shoes had a really truly spiffy reason that the Neutralist did not understand.  The results since make it plain that it was just goofy.

That does not mean that there is a NWO or petro theft reason.  Maybe there is a method to someone's madness, but we have no sources.  Of course we never leave out the possibility of mere stupidity.

Now our president has, out of compassion, plighted our troth with the Syrian rebels.  After all, if you google chemical weapon use in Syria, Assad is trying to gas his whole country.  There is some dissent, but the chorus is deafening.  The Neutralist loves to be the skunk at the lawn party.  Why would the regime use chemical weapons when they know the neocons are itching for an excuse?

So the American people will get nothing out of a Syrian intervention, but maybe there is a strata of society that does.  I have no idea, but the thought is hard to escape.

So we are told that Assad & Co. are the bad guys, but to date, I don't think one of his troops has had a taste for human flesh.  A rebel leader eats the heart of a regime soldier.  These are supposedly the good guys.

So now news has come out that the rebels have, in a video, beheaded a Syrian Catholic Priest named Francois Murad.  Keep in mind that according to the administration it is the Syrian government that has crossed the line.

For the most part, there has been a news blackout in the so-called quality press.  Googling "New York times" and "Father Francois Murad" turns up nothing.  So what's up.

Truther, Birther, Infowars, that stuff is not our style.  Still, the paranoid get some credibility when it seems all the team from the networks and big papers are on the team.

So, just who stands to benefit from our intervention?

Finally, someone brings bipartisanship to DC by speaking "Truth to Power"

And who would that be, Edward Snowden.

When Nancy and John and other elected government workers join hands to condemn someone along with the chorus of all the scribblers for the establishment journals and TV outlets, you know someone is  actually saying something the cool people don't want to hear.

Anita Hill used it in a title of her book about how she courageously stood up for truth about Clarence Thomas.  The fact that she had to be outed before she testified is of course irrelevant, as is that she has done rather well out of it all.  Not like the White Rose activists and Franz Jägerstätter

One can be celebrated in this world for Speaking Truth to Power, but if you actually "Speak Truth to Power," you get squashed like a bug. If you want to see what the fate of truth to power tellers is look at the White Rose and Franz Jägerstätter not to mention people who merely whispered truth and got into the maw of the Gulag.

The fatuous Bobby Schieffer went after Snowden for not being MLK or Rosa Parks and taking off to save his skin.  the Neutralist does not know if the whistleblower is for real or afflicted with any of the character disorders being attributed to him.  If he is genuine, we have to give him credit for being smart enough to get out of the way.

The righteous tones of Schieffer et al would be a bit more impressive if their outbursts led to a loss of livelihood somewhere.  Be assured, you will you will be seeing his well fed face commenting for years to come.

The heavens cry out for this rule!

Just as the Syrian conflict seems to be entering a stage where the government has attained a commanding advantage, if not victory, John McCain crosses into Syria to appear the..... well, we are not sure what, but it must have been serious.  It was not all that Syrious though.

The opposition is, for the most part, Islamist radicals with the occasional nice guy fig leaf.  The recent finding of sarin gas in rebel possession should give pause to the American cheerleaders, but it doesn't.

As usual, if there is a possibility of bombing someone, The senator from Arizona is at hand.  I don't know if he was depressed, but if anyone could give our man heart, it's the Syrian Rebels.

Anyway, whether it's Georgia, Iran, Libya, Iraq, or now Syria, you can count on John being for buffoonery.  Our man is sort of an anti-North Star, always pointing the wrong way.  The Neutralist therefore posits the McCain Rule.  If John McCain is for something, it's not merely wrong, it's dopey.  Granted, dopey is not a kind word, but this is not the time for euphemism.

A couple of pertinent links.

THOSE OLD COLONIAL LUSTS

Did John McCain Provide Material Support for Syrian Terrorists?

Justin Raimondo writes an Neutralist column without mentioning the N word

Justin Raimondo has a column at Antiwar.com that essentially channels the Neutralist's thoughts on our interventionist record.  Only one problem, Justin continues to use the I word when he should be calling for the N word.

I understand he has to call out those who use the Isolationist I word for the fakes they are.  Still, the Neutralist N word is where he should be heading.

Two Cheers for ‘Isolationism’ by Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com

Boston Silly

SI Rosenbaum was the editor at the Phoenix in Boston until its recent demise.  I’ve not read the Phoenix in years.  No one has, in print.  It’s all migrated to the Internet and thus words on paper struggle. 

In my youth, I marveled at the left wing tone while every fashionable shop or restaurant would advertise.  How did they expect the revolution to happen while they spent so much time at brunch?  That was back in the 70s.  Who knows what its orientation was as it breathed its last?

SI now blogs.  She has a site and as far as I can tell, there is one entry.  The gist is that everyone did the right thing there in Boston.  They all happily stayed indoors doing what people do in our culture.  Watch TV, surf the Internet, blog, play video games or, maybe even read a book.  Who knows?

Then when it was over all were happy.  Why would anyone think it was anything but voluntary?

To be fair, you should read her piece.  It is not the worst argument for the lockdown I’ve seen.  I disagree and posted a comment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2LrbsUVSVl8

The video speaks for itself, my scared little bunnies. For the record, I live in Mass, but outside of the zone. I have relatives who do.

I don’t listen to sports radio, but this is food for thought.

http://audio.weei.com/a/73784687/linda-calls-in-to-describe-the-scene-on-dexter-st-in-watertown.htm

There are other images of the searches and how they were not happy camping in home. I am glad to see how the Progressives of Eastern Mass have embraced Lindsay Graham’s definition of the homeland as the battlefield.

Ein reich, ein volk, ein Boston Strong.

The blogger did not let my comment through but posted:

SI Rosenbaum on April 25, 2013 at 9:16 am said:

Note to visitors: I reserve the right to delete any comments that trip Godwin’s Law, or contain any unironic use of “sheeple.”

Now to be fair, calling people scared little bunnies might be stretched to implying sheeple.  I think that term hackneyed and would not use it.

When people came out and yelled USA, USA, yeah, it kinda felt like people shouting ein reich etc.  No way was an jefe maximo being implied.  I think our lass was being glich francach caca laca.  It’s phrase in the westernmost Indo-European meaning cute as a shithouse rat.

The whole episode was embarrassing, from the lack of fire control that led to the wounding by his fellow cops of the T officer to the shots fired at the boat.  To feel it anything but a fiasco is buffoonery.

So is there a Neutralist connection here.  But of course.  The fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here meme is dead.

Thank you Lindsay and SI.

Assad to West, wise up!

File this under res ipsa loquitur.

Hat tip to ParaPundit.

ParaPundit is Neutralist of the Week

In a post entitled Thucydides And America: Foreign Adventures Gotta Go, Parapundit quotes another blogger quoting the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War on how Athenian hyper democracy led it to ruin and how demo ain't working for us.

As he writes,

With about two thirds of US federal spending going to old folks and poor folks we've already shot our fiscal wad before we get to foreign adventures. We really need to cut out the foreign games so that government can provide basic non-welfare services like prisons, crime investigators, roads, bridges, and scientific research.

I've followed your man for some time and this is his most Neutralist post yet.  It's not perfect, but still a strong position.  Keep up the good work.

Link here.

COIN-Another shiny theory bites the dust

COIN is Counter Insurgency Doctrine and was how we were going to make the 21st Century safe for democracy.  It had a lot of cheerleaders, chief among them David Petraeus.  It has been so successful that the Taliban has long closed shop and started taking sociology courses at Kabul U, not.

We were tipped off that it is not working by an article in Antiwar.com blog by Kelly Vlahos.  Actually, the Neutralist has always thought it snake oil, but too many of our national big shots bought into to it.  Kelly discusses and links to a Fred Kaplan interview at Small Wars Journal.

Just how damaged is the COIN doctrine.  According to Kaplan, it has met its Waterloo in Afghanistan.

Fred says, "The US tends to get into these kinds of wars, deliberately or otherwise, once every generation, but the previous instance had proved so dreadful that, immediately afterward, the generals ignore, or toss away, every lesson learned from it - so we spend the first few years of the next war screwing it up."

The quote goes on, but for the Neutralist, the words "the generals ignore, or toss away, every lesson learned from it - so we spend the first few years of the next war screwing it up" say it all.

We either break the pattern of history, that is the eternal recurrence of "these kinds of wars" or we get into another one that will be no more successful.  Unless, as we get near to the centennary of WWI and the beginning of a century of intervention, we change to a Neutralist Ethos, we shall repeat the stupidity.

Economically, this probably cannot go on anyway, but it would be smarter to recognize the situation and adapt to reality instead of trying to stay the dumb course.

Sequester Egypt

Poor Malcolm Pollack, he will never live this down.  We are awarding him the un-coveted Neutralist of the Week designation.  Twice he has provided us with fodder so that we have nothing to do but steal his well done post.

Pretty Sharp!
MARCH 3, 2013 – 11:43 PMI guess we’re all feeling pretty low, now that the Sequester has gone into effect. I haven’t been paying much attention to the news since Friday (been busy arranging the canned goods down in the shelter), but if the predictions I’d been hearing have turned out to be correct, the entire nation is now unemployed, our daughters are selling their virtue on the street, airliners are falling from the sky, and Twitter posts have been reduced to seventy characters.
Well, let not your hearts be troubled, readers! Things may be really, really bad, but all is not lost. Sure, meat inspections may be a thing of the past, and criminals will now be asked to arrest themselves — but I’ve learned that Mr. John Kerry will manage, nevertheless, to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood.
What’s that? You say that the Ikhwan is our mortal enemy, committed, in its own words, to destroying Western civilization, sabotaging our “miserable house”, and making “God’s religion” victorious over all others?
Come on. Seriously? What do you think we are, a bunch of chumps? Well, let me clue you in: if you want to know who’s really getting the short end of this deal, it’s Mohammed Morsi and the rest of those jihadist bozos.
That’s right: we’re giving the Brotherhood your money in exchange for future reforms.
Are those guys suckers, or what?

Yes, a tad sarcastic, but still dead on.  Foreign Policy is not the Western Republic's strong point and our good Malcolm has made the point for us.  We have every confidence that in the fullness of time, he will attain his full neutralismo.

Dumb foreign policy and simple eloquence

Malcolm Pollack is not a Neutralist, but his blog is always interesting.  Today, he hit a neutralist pitch out of the park.

Title of his post:

And The Burnt Fool’s Bandaged Finger

Body of his post:

… goes wabbling back to the Fire.

Mr. Pollack linked to an article in The Washington Post with the title, U.S. moves toward providing direct aid to Syrian rebels.  No need to read the article.  Pollack said it all.

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 Neutralist takes Mencius under our protection

I accidentally found that way back in the blog stone age of mid 2009 one of the giants of the blogosphere had linked to me in a post.  Unqualified Reservations, the vehicle of a Mencius Moldbug cited my views on American policy as regards Israel and the Palestinians.  He actually agreed with it.  This is not better than the young Marilyn Monroe asking one to come over for drinks, but I'll take it.

To be honest, I am intimidated by MM (Mencius not Marilyn).  I start reading his offerings and they go on so long that due to laziness or an intellectual deficit, I stop.  They are always intriguing and easy to start, but mea culpa, I can't keep up.

Never the less, if someone of his qualities mentions me favorably, he has my loyalty.  I don't care if the next week he trashes me, The Neutralist is nothing if he is not a nepotist.  So watch out.

Blog Post of the week-The Paks are not feeling the love!

Dennis Mangan noticed the Gallup that sampled the displeasure the Pakistanis have for us.

Dennis succintly notes the fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them over there is ridiculous

But, but, these are terrorists! Maybe, but last I checked they have no navy or air force and thus cannot invade the U.S. The only reason some of them might be able to get to us is because we're letting them in.

We have been making that point since we started.  Reinforcements, however, are appreciated.

Getting to Dead, Algeria shows the way

There is an industry of hostage negotiators and I've heard some interviewed and they sound a reasonable tribe.  Through talking and empathizing with the hostage takers they save lives.

There is an alternative theory.  The book, Getting to Yes apparently has not been read in Algeria.  the rulers of that country fought the French and despite getting handled roughly, refused to admit defeat sufficiently that the Gauls ended up doing the admitting.

Not so long ago they fought and defeated Islamists in a bloody conflict.  I know a little more than the average American about the Algeria and it's conflicts.  That is to say, I know a tad north of zilch.  What I do know is that these are a crew that don't roll over.  US style Rodney Kingism is not their method.

So in the recent hostage event, the algerians were not interested in compromise.  They were brutal and they won.  I wonder if they were also sending a message to us like screw you and the Arab Spring bs.

I was pointed to this article by Malcolm Pollak.  I know about as much about The American Interest as I do about Algeria.  Still, it rings true and I recommend it.  Mr. Garfinkle may not be a Neutralist, but the piece does not harm our beliefs.

All must have prizes-women can kill!

Women are now to be allowed in the front lines.  the belief in absolute equality has reached the reductio ad absurdam.

I commend the article "Women in Combat" by Stephen Browne.  I disagree with him in some matters and he is certainly not a neutralist.  His article is a concise examination of the question.

He points out women have served well in places, amongst other duties as Soviet snipers.  I don't know if he is aware of the "Night Witches" an amazing group of flyers who terrorized the Wehrmacht.  These lasses beat the Germans in biplanes.  The Neutralist does not believe in equality, but hardly denies that the heroism and effectiveness of, as the Brits say, horses for courses.

The Neutralist sees this integration as part of the gender spoils system.  As such, it will not enhance military power.  A degradation will ensue.

One might say, the Neutralist would be encouraged by such a development.  It can only hasten the day when the imperialist absurdity crashes.  We don't.  The crash due to our forces deteriorating can only be horrible.

note:  I first became aware of Mr. Browne reading his article on the Saudis.  Maybe his writing is a lie, but it sounds logical, if not brilliant, to me.  I thank him for saving me the necessity of a trip to KSA.

John Kerry moves up. There is not much to say.

The last standing big local talk radio show in Boston has dredged up all of the clips of John Kerry's Gaffes.  The man is at Joe Biden level.

I get pilloried in describing my mechanical ability as "hire the handicapped, they're fun to watch."  Insensitive to the disabled, but in my case accurate.

On the diplomatic level, Secretary Kerry should be a laugh riot to watch as he tries to secure his legacy as a statesman while living high on our dime.

See my memory of the man here
.