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.