Steve Sailer has come out for Neutralism at his blog and in an article at Vdare.
He makes the argument for neutralism as well as any neutralist.
Strange as it may seem to readers of the Washington Post, there are countries that essentially have no foreign policy—such as Switzerland, which has espoused strict neutrality for the last two centuries, and Finland, which was forced to delegate its foreign policy to the Soviet Union from 1945-1989—and yet are famously pleasant places to live.
The basics of a sustainable, sensible foreign policy are simple—1) Don't invade anybody; and 2) don't let anybody invade you.
Then, he identifies the groups who are most for entangling us where we don't belong,
The various foreign policy hobbyist factions can be loosely categorized as:
A What Dwight Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex.
B Lobbyists, flacks, and intellectuals on the payroll, directly or indirectly, of foreign interests.
C Ethnic lobbies, such as Cubans, Armenians, and Jews.
D War Enthusiasts. These are guys who should be spending their energies on what successful hypercompetitive men normally do across this great land of ours: bribe star high school football players to sign with Old State U. Yet, because the most influential Enthusiasts typically went to colleges with weak sports programs, such as the Ivy League or the military academies, they instead funnel their enormous competitive urges into playing the Game of Nations as if the United States of America was their alma mater’s team, even when there is very little national interest at stake. Historians may someday attribute much of America's hyperactive 21st Century foreign policy to the lack of first-rate college football teams in New York City and Washington D.C. to soak up the aggressive urges of the rich and influential.
E The Stuff White People Like set, who demonstrate their moral superiority by demanding that something be done about Tibet, Burma, and a handful of other fashionable topics. They somehow know with complete certainty who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in obscure territories on the other side of the globe. Of course, after they succeed in driving out the bad guys and the good guys inevitably begin to act like the bad guys they replaced, the Stuff White People Like people lose interest and move on to the next fad.
The one group he does not identify is 'er Majesty's Government which gamed us into WWI. Of course, over the Twentieth Century and into the New Millenium, it is murky as to who was the gamer and gamee. In this century it appears we are using them a tad more than the other way. What sane government would have followed us into the land of the Kut disaster unless there were a "Special Relationship."
Also, Steve at one point seemed to have a crush on Auntie Maggie. You can still find them together at his old website.
He will never mention us, maybe because he does not know we exist, but still, we can recognize his having attained a certain maturity now that he may have lacked before.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Come Out of That Closet, Fab
In reading Fabius Maximus' post The Myth of Grand Strategy, it is obvious there is nothing grand about our national strategy in the world.
He quotes the late Colonel Boyd (a man who oft appears to be the patron saint of his blog) as defining grand strategy as focusing,
our nation’s actions — political, economic, and military — so as to:
• Increase our solidarity, our internal cohesion.
• Weaken our opponents’ resolve and internal cohesion.
• Strengthen our allies’ relationships to us.
• Attract uncommitted states to our cause.
• End conflicts on favorable terms, without sowing the seeds for future conflicts.
One would not be remiss in thinking that we are not doing all that well on any of the above. Indeed, our great cold war victory might be explained as merely outlasting the dumbest economy that ever existed.
He then goes on to devastate the idea of an ambitious grand strategy. Thomas Barnett's esquire article The Pentagon's New Map gave a view of the hubristic FP,
LET ME TELL YOU why military engagement with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad is not only necessary and inevitable, but good. When the United States finally goes to war again in the Persian Gulf, it will not constitute a settling of old scores, or just an enforced disarmament of illegal weapons, or a distraction in the war on terror. Our next war in the Gulf will mark a historical tipping point — the moment when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.
The only thing that will change that nasty environment {the Middle East} and open the floodgates for change is if some external power steps in and plays Leviathan full-time. … Freedom cannot blossom in the Middle East without security, and security is this country’s most influential public-sector export. By that I do not mean arms exports, but basically the attention paid by our military forces to any region’s potential for mass violence. We are the only nation on earth capable of exporting security in a sustained fashion … Until we begin the systematic, long-term export of security to the Gap, it will increasingly export its pain to the Core in the form of terrorism and other instabilities.
Fab's critique,
The Iraq War demonstrates the folly of Barnett’s ambitious grand strategy. We quickly floundered due to lack of accurate information. Our preconceptions, based on reports from exiles such as Ahmad Chalabi, proved erroneous. Our plans repeatedly proved specious, either unworkable or counterproductive. Our major tools, the State Department and Department of Defense, demonstrated an impressive degree of institutional incompetence.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Even more to the point,
At the end of his Esquire article Barnett lists those nations in the Gap, the “non-integrating” part of the world:
Haiti, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, former Yugoslavia, Congo, Rwanda/Burundi, Angola, South Africa, Israel-Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Indonesia.
Two Gap nations invaded (but not but not yet “integrated”), and only 16 more to go! Looking forward, he lists candidates for possible future action, the “new/integrating members of Core I worry may be lost in coming years”:
China, Russia, India.
As Carl Sagan would say, there are bil-li-ons and bil-li-ons of people waiting for us to liberate them from their culture.
Mr. Barnett is still in business as a consultant and is paid to make speeches. With Mr. Barnum's estimate of the population of his potential customers, he should be in business awhile. Oh, I know the Neutralist harps on the chickenhawk thingee, but we do not approve of someone who is okay with people dying for their vision and yet have never put themselves in that position. Suffice it to say, from his bio, it seems he has never gotten close to having to learn the joys of low crawling.
Fab then discusses,
Why do Grand Strategies Fail?
General Semantics also sees the world in terms of maps. It is a science of applied epistemology invented in 1933 by Alfred Korzybski. The “ABCs” of General Semantics explain why grand strategies tend to fail, and greater ambition increases the odds of failure.
A. The map is not the territory.
A map is an abstraction drawn from our experience and knowledge. The wider the scope of a grand strategy, the more abstract — the less granular– its map. Which makes it less reliable. Maps like Barnett’s include the world’s religions, political structures, and economies. No single person or small group has the necessary knowledge necessary to do more than a cartoon sketch of our complex and changing world; and even that will be riddled with errors.
B. The map doesn’t cover all the territory.
As Secretary Rumsfeld said so aptly, we face unknown unknowns –significant factors of whose very existence we’re ignorant. These can be like demographics, factors so large and slowly developing that they remain invisible to most of us. Or they might be of a dimension completely unknown to us, like the lead in Rome’s water and wine that robbed them of the IQ margin needed for survival.
C. The map reflects the map maker.
We all have biases, prejudices, and parochial views. These limit our ability to see and think broadly enough to shape a global grand strategy.
Nothing a neutralist would disagree with.
He then gives us a strategy that we shall annotate,
America’s Need for a Humble Grand Strategy
The point of this essay is not to compare our performance with an impossible perfect ideal, but to suggest that humility is appropriate when conceiving a grand strategy. Because, of course, we always have a grand strategy — our collective policy with respect to the external world — either by design or default. Perhaps we should consider building our grand strategy on lower, more solid ground. Consider these four principles as the foundation for our grand strategy.
1. Respect for other peoples, their values and beliefs. We speak of multiculturalism, but often act to impose our “universal values” (aka human rights). First show respect by not being near them.
2. Reluctance to use our power and awareness of our limited wisdom. Amen
3. Defense in preference to offense. Yup
4. Defense is inherently the stronger posture, and more appropriate for a hegemonic state like America. A kinetic and unpredictable hegemon disturbs other States — both friends and foes — exacerbating the natural tendency for other States to ally together against a it. It will get better if we drop the hegemon pose
5. Firmness in response to clear threats. A Neutralist Foreign Policy will cut down on those threats. We are okay with hitting back hard.
Game theory shows “tit for tat” to be the most effective strategy in many games. Our system of international law, going back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, justifies military action only in response to an attack by another state — not preemptively. The Iraq War is another lesson in the wisdom of that policy.
He quotes William S. Lind to finish,
So long as we are on the grand strategic offensive, threatening to impose our ways on every one else through military force, we will be defeated regardless of how many battles we win. Like Germany in both World Wars, we will generate new enemies faster than we can defeat old ones.
I liked his article. I just wish he would follow it to its logical conclusion and use the N (Neutralism) word.
He quotes the late Colonel Boyd (a man who oft appears to be the patron saint of his blog) as defining grand strategy as focusing,
our nation’s actions — political, economic, and military — so as to:
• Increase our solidarity, our internal cohesion.
• Weaken our opponents’ resolve and internal cohesion.
• Strengthen our allies’ relationships to us.
• Attract uncommitted states to our cause.
• End conflicts on favorable terms, without sowing the seeds for future conflicts.
One would not be remiss in thinking that we are not doing all that well on any of the above. Indeed, our great cold war victory might be explained as merely outlasting the dumbest economy that ever existed.
He then goes on to devastate the idea of an ambitious grand strategy. Thomas Barnett's esquire article The Pentagon's New Map gave a view of the hubristic FP,
LET ME TELL YOU why military engagement with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad is not only necessary and inevitable, but good. When the United States finally goes to war again in the Persian Gulf, it will not constitute a settling of old scores, or just an enforced disarmament of illegal weapons, or a distraction in the war on terror. Our next war in the Gulf will mark a historical tipping point — the moment when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.
The only thing that will change that nasty environment {the Middle East} and open the floodgates for change is if some external power steps in and plays Leviathan full-time. … Freedom cannot blossom in the Middle East without security, and security is this country’s most influential public-sector export. By that I do not mean arms exports, but basically the attention paid by our military forces to any region’s potential for mass violence. We are the only nation on earth capable of exporting security in a sustained fashion … Until we begin the systematic, long-term export of security to the Gap, it will increasingly export its pain to the Core in the form of terrorism and other instabilities.
Fab's critique,
The Iraq War demonstrates the folly of Barnett’s ambitious grand strategy. We quickly floundered due to lack of accurate information. Our preconceptions, based on reports from exiles such as Ahmad Chalabi, proved erroneous. Our plans repeatedly proved specious, either unworkable or counterproductive. Our major tools, the State Department and Department of Defense, demonstrated an impressive degree of institutional incompetence.
Res ipsa loquitur.
Even more to the point,
At the end of his Esquire article Barnett lists those nations in the Gap, the “non-integrating” part of the world:
Haiti, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, former Yugoslavia, Congo, Rwanda/Burundi, Angola, South Africa, Israel-Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Indonesia.
Two Gap nations invaded (but not but not yet “integrated”), and only 16 more to go! Looking forward, he lists candidates for possible future action, the “new/integrating members of Core I worry may be lost in coming years”:
China, Russia, India.
As Carl Sagan would say, there are bil-li-ons and bil-li-ons of people waiting for us to liberate them from their culture.
Mr. Barnett is still in business as a consultant and is paid to make speeches. With Mr. Barnum's estimate of the population of his potential customers, he should be in business awhile. Oh, I know the Neutralist harps on the chickenhawk thingee, but we do not approve of someone who is okay with people dying for their vision and yet have never put themselves in that position. Suffice it to say, from his bio, it seems he has never gotten close to having to learn the joys of low crawling.
Fab then discusses,
Why do Grand Strategies Fail?
General Semantics also sees the world in terms of maps. It is a science of applied epistemology invented in 1933 by Alfred Korzybski. The “ABCs” of General Semantics explain why grand strategies tend to fail, and greater ambition increases the odds of failure.
A. The map is not the territory.
A map is an abstraction drawn from our experience and knowledge. The wider the scope of a grand strategy, the more abstract — the less granular– its map. Which makes it less reliable. Maps like Barnett’s include the world’s religions, political structures, and economies. No single person or small group has the necessary knowledge necessary to do more than a cartoon sketch of our complex and changing world; and even that will be riddled with errors.
B. The map doesn’t cover all the territory.
As Secretary Rumsfeld said so aptly, we face unknown unknowns –significant factors of whose very existence we’re ignorant. These can be like demographics, factors so large and slowly developing that they remain invisible to most of us. Or they might be of a dimension completely unknown to us, like the lead in Rome’s water and wine that robbed them of the IQ margin needed for survival.
C. The map reflects the map maker.
We all have biases, prejudices, and parochial views. These limit our ability to see and think broadly enough to shape a global grand strategy.
Nothing a neutralist would disagree with.
He then gives us a strategy that we shall annotate,
America’s Need for a Humble Grand Strategy
The point of this essay is not to compare our performance with an impossible perfect ideal, but to suggest that humility is appropriate when conceiving a grand strategy. Because, of course, we always have a grand strategy — our collective policy with respect to the external world — either by design or default. Perhaps we should consider building our grand strategy on lower, more solid ground. Consider these four principles as the foundation for our grand strategy.
1. Respect for other peoples, their values and beliefs. We speak of multiculturalism, but often act to impose our “universal values” (aka human rights). First show respect by not being near them.
2. Reluctance to use our power and awareness of our limited wisdom. Amen
3. Defense in preference to offense. Yup
4. Defense is inherently the stronger posture, and more appropriate for a hegemonic state like America. A kinetic and unpredictable hegemon disturbs other States — both friends and foes — exacerbating the natural tendency for other States to ally together against a it. It will get better if we drop the hegemon pose
5. Firmness in response to clear threats. A Neutralist Foreign Policy will cut down on those threats. We are okay with hitting back hard.
Game theory shows “tit for tat” to be the most effective strategy in many games. Our system of international law, going back to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, justifies military action only in response to an attack by another state — not preemptively. The Iraq War is another lesson in the wisdom of that policy.
He quotes William S. Lind to finish,
So long as we are on the grand strategic offensive, threatening to impose our ways on every one else through military force, we will be defeated regardless of how many battles we win. Like Germany in both World Wars, we will generate new enemies faster than we can defeat old ones.
I liked his article. I just wish he would follow it to its logical conclusion and use the N (Neutralism) word.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
This Guy is Fein By Me
Alan Bock's April 19, 2008 article, Prosecuting No-Threat Stumblebums is worth reading for its examination of the government's policy of encouraging losers to conspire against the US and then arresting them and trumpeting how Holy Mother State then saved the day.
The Neutralist is especially grateful to Mr. Bock for pointing us to Mr. Bruce Fein.
Mr. Bock quotes from Mr. Fein's advice to the next president as published in Slate,
End the ‘war on terror' as a legal paradigm. International terrorists are criminals, not warriors. The next president should see to it that terrorists will be captured, interrogated, prosecuted, and punished according to civilian law. The United States is not at war with international terrorism. The next president should ensure that we do not brandish the weapons of war in lieu of traditional law enforcement against international terrorists.
Mr. Bock complements those "Fein" words with a few of his own,
Haven't we lived in fear of phantom threats long enough?
Of course I could not resist clicking on the link to Mr. Fein's article. His beautiful words sent cold chills up and down the Neutralist's spine.
Withdraw all U.S. troops from foreign countries. The Declaration of Independence explains that the purpose of government is to secure unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The United States was not created to build an empire, to aggrandize government, or to purge the planet of nondemocratic regimes. Accordingly, the next president should announce that we are withdrawing all U.S. troops from foreign countries and that, hereinafter, all the nation's military resources will be devoted to building missile, electronic, and other defenses against potential foreign attacks. The United States lacks the wisdom necessary to spin modern democratic gold from centuries of despotic flax by military force or otherwise. Iraq and Afghanistan are clear proof. Further, the United States has no moral responsibility for the destiny of persons outside its jurisdiction who pay no taxes to support the government and pledge no allegiance to the republic.
He got even better,
Torture should be categorically renounced. President Bush has hedged on whether he would torture suspected al-Qaida detainees in hopes of extracting intelligence. There is no evidence that torture works. The Defense Department and the FBI renounce water-boarding, and intelligence veterans concur that information derived from torture is worthless. Moreover, if the United States tortures, the risk of torture to our own captured soldiers climbs exponentially. The new president should categorically renounce torture. It cannot be justified pragmatically. And no civilized nation stoops to imitate the savagery of its enemies.
Indeed, the whole article is now on our index of required reading.
Mr. Fein is one of the principals of the American Freedom Agenda. He was also with the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration.
Mr. Fein, this is not your lucky day. We have decided to inflict on you the prestigious article of the month award.
The Neutralist is especially grateful to Mr. Bock for pointing us to Mr. Bruce Fein.
Mr. Bock quotes from Mr. Fein's advice to the next president as published in Slate,
End the ‘war on terror' as a legal paradigm. International terrorists are criminals, not warriors. The next president should see to it that terrorists will be captured, interrogated, prosecuted, and punished according to civilian law. The United States is not at war with international terrorism. The next president should ensure that we do not brandish the weapons of war in lieu of traditional law enforcement against international terrorists.
Mr. Bock complements those "Fein" words with a few of his own,
Haven't we lived in fear of phantom threats long enough?
Of course I could not resist clicking on the link to Mr. Fein's article. His beautiful words sent cold chills up and down the Neutralist's spine.
Withdraw all U.S. troops from foreign countries. The Declaration of Independence explains that the purpose of government is to secure unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The United States was not created to build an empire, to aggrandize government, or to purge the planet of nondemocratic regimes. Accordingly, the next president should announce that we are withdrawing all U.S. troops from foreign countries and that, hereinafter, all the nation's military resources will be devoted to building missile, electronic, and other defenses against potential foreign attacks. The United States lacks the wisdom necessary to spin modern democratic gold from centuries of despotic flax by military force or otherwise. Iraq and Afghanistan are clear proof. Further, the United States has no moral responsibility for the destiny of persons outside its jurisdiction who pay no taxes to support the government and pledge no allegiance to the republic.
He got even better,
Torture should be categorically renounced. President Bush has hedged on whether he would torture suspected al-Qaida detainees in hopes of extracting intelligence. There is no evidence that torture works. The Defense Department and the FBI renounce water-boarding, and intelligence veterans concur that information derived from torture is worthless. Moreover, if the United States tortures, the risk of torture to our own captured soldiers climbs exponentially. The new president should categorically renounce torture. It cannot be justified pragmatically. And no civilized nation stoops to imitate the savagery of its enemies.
Indeed, the whole article is now on our index of required reading.
Mr. Fein is one of the principals of the American Freedom Agenda. He was also with the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration.
Mr. Fein, this is not your lucky day. We have decided to inflict on you the prestigious article of the month award.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Unprecedented Award of Article of the Week for two pieces. To the same writer!
Burkeman1 has scored twice. We therefore have no choice but to award the Article of the Week twice whether he wants it or not.
In Enemies Everywhere, he tells the American right to get over their paranoia. The world is not about to overrun us. In his writing, we don't know if he intended to make the case for neutralism, but he did. After all, if they are not coming to get us, there is no reason for us to be going overseas to get them.
In A Debate Parameter of Lies: Hillary and McCain on Iran. Burkeman writes about a show I've never seen to make a point very well,
In the cartoon show "The Boondocks" there was once an episode in which two "wigger" characters (one a distant parody of George Bush) rob a conveinance store at gun point staffed with an Arab clerk. A security guard stumbles upon the robbery and pulls his gun on the two bandits in the middle of the robbery. The Arab clerk has his hands in the air and is unarmed. The security guard orders the robbers to lay down their guns at which point the two wiggers insist they were being robbed by the Arab and that he has a gun.
The security guard, perplexed looks at the Arab holding up his hands and responds that he doesn't have gun and repeats his demand that they lay down their weapons and surrender. At which point the robbers insist again even more stridently that this "Terrorist looking mutherbleeper" has a gun! The guard- nervous- looks again at the Arab clearly holding up his empty hands and repeats that he sees no gun. The robbers again say the Arab clerk has a gun and tell him to look more closely. The guard, scared, and out gunned and intimidated by the two robbers, hesitates and says "I don't see a gun though!" To which they reply simply, slowly and even more loudly- look again, He has a gun! At which point the guard says "well maybe . . ." The scene goes on like this for a good 5 minutes until finally the worn out nervous guard agrees against his own plain sight that indeed the unarmed hands in the air Arab clerk has a gun and they proceed to all fire upon him.
Perhaps the most devastating allegory I have seen of the runnup to the Iraq war ever put in simple stark terms. A true delight (even if most of the rest of that cartoon series is unwatchable black nationalist twaddle) and a rare example of unambiguous moral clarity on the Iraq war.
I was reminded of that episode upon reading of recent statements of John McCain and Hillary Clinton concerning Iraq. The same pattern is being repeated. A wholly false parameter of "debate" about Iran has been setup that the two fraud sides pretend to debate over when there is actually no factual basis, at all, for their positions. And our "free press" simply allows them to prattle on with zero challenge.
Burkeman1 explains it more, but this is enough for us.
We must warn Burkeman1 that he is on thin ice here. Two articles gets two awards. If he ever does the trifecta we shall be forced to make him a Fellow of the Neutralist Institute.
In Enemies Everywhere, he tells the American right to get over their paranoia. The world is not about to overrun us. In his writing, we don't know if he intended to make the case for neutralism, but he did. After all, if they are not coming to get us, there is no reason for us to be going overseas to get them.
In A Debate Parameter of Lies: Hillary and McCain on Iran. Burkeman writes about a show I've never seen to make a point very well,
In the cartoon show "The Boondocks" there was once an episode in which two "wigger" characters (one a distant parody of George Bush) rob a conveinance store at gun point staffed with an Arab clerk. A security guard stumbles upon the robbery and pulls his gun on the two bandits in the middle of the robbery. The Arab clerk has his hands in the air and is unarmed. The security guard orders the robbers to lay down their guns at which point the two wiggers insist they were being robbed by the Arab and that he has a gun.
The security guard, perplexed looks at the Arab holding up his hands and responds that he doesn't have gun and repeats his demand that they lay down their weapons and surrender. At which point the robbers insist again even more stridently that this "Terrorist looking mutherbleeper" has a gun! The guard- nervous- looks again at the Arab clearly holding up his empty hands and repeats that he sees no gun. The robbers again say the Arab clerk has a gun and tell him to look more closely. The guard, scared, and out gunned and intimidated by the two robbers, hesitates and says "I don't see a gun though!" To which they reply simply, slowly and even more loudly- look again, He has a gun! At which point the guard says "well maybe . . ." The scene goes on like this for a good 5 minutes until finally the worn out nervous guard agrees against his own plain sight that indeed the unarmed hands in the air Arab clerk has a gun and they proceed to all fire upon him.
Perhaps the most devastating allegory I have seen of the runnup to the Iraq war ever put in simple stark terms. A true delight (even if most of the rest of that cartoon series is unwatchable black nationalist twaddle) and a rare example of unambiguous moral clarity on the Iraq war.
I was reminded of that episode upon reading of recent statements of John McCain and Hillary Clinton concerning Iraq. The same pattern is being repeated. A wholly false parameter of "debate" about Iran has been setup that the two fraud sides pretend to debate over when there is actually no factual basis, at all, for their positions. And our "free press" simply allows them to prattle on with zero challenge.
Burkeman1 explains it more, but this is enough for us.
We must warn Burkeman1 that he is on thin ice here. Two articles gets two awards. If he ever does the trifecta we shall be forced to make him a Fellow of the Neutralist Institute.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Actually, The Surge is Working, in a subtle sort of way.
Retired Colonel Douglas MacGregor makes the point that the reason for the Surge was to get Americans to the November elections without talking about Iraq. I agree with most of what the Colonel says. I am not sure about his thesis above, but I don't say he is wrong.
Can't say the dots completely connect, but Gavin at Gavinthink says,
I'm tired of hearing about the war. It has been discussed to death over the last five years, with the Left saying that we shouldn't have done it in the first place, and the Right saying that we HAD to do it (and that either Unforseen Circumstances have made it go poorly, or that the Administration made some "unfortunate" decisions along the way).
Now, I can't say if the surge is causing that attitude, but if Gavin who lives in Amherst, MA (but is not a typical Amherst cool aid drinking type), a town where you can always find a peace vigil whether you want to or not, has a hard time discussing the war, one must suspect the effect would be greater elsewhere.
To his credit, Gavin does still talk about the war.
An interesting interview with the Colonel is here.
We give Col. MacGregor our interview of the week award, even though we are not sure of the date and don't absoulutely agree with everything. Colonel, you will just have to live with the shame of being one of our awardees. Congrats.
Can't say the dots completely connect, but Gavin at Gavinthink says,
I'm tired of hearing about the war. It has been discussed to death over the last five years, with the Left saying that we shouldn't have done it in the first place, and the Right saying that we HAD to do it (and that either Unforseen Circumstances have made it go poorly, or that the Administration made some "unfortunate" decisions along the way).
Now, I can't say if the surge is causing that attitude, but if Gavin who lives in Amherst, MA (but is not a typical Amherst cool aid drinking type), a town where you can always find a peace vigil whether you want to or not, has a hard time discussing the war, one must suspect the effect would be greater elsewhere.
To his credit, Gavin does still talk about the war.
An interesting interview with the Colonel is here.
We give Col. MacGregor our interview of the week award, even though we are not sure of the date and don't absoulutely agree with everything. Colonel, you will just have to live with the shame of being one of our awardees. Congrats.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Boston Radio Chickenhawk Reports the Surge is Working, again
Michael Graham, Boston Radio Chickenhawk (WTKK 96.9 FM, 9AM to Noon) while listening to General Petraeus tells us that the surge is working. I wasn't listening too closely as the war is always going swimmingly according to him. Maybe it is, but how we can tell from the Petraeus snapshot when he was saying it was going well before the surge which if it was, why the heck was el surgeo needed?
Maybe Mr. Graham might want to read someone else's testimony like the left wing anti military General Odom's testimony.
He could read the words of Anthony Cordesman who formerly served as National Security Assistant to dovish Senator John McCain. (hat tip Parapundit)
Nah, your man has been shilling for the war for a long time and will not stop. Hey, a few more deployments for the stopped loss cannon fodder and enlist the cat IVs and it will work.
Support those troops, Mike, especially the ones who gave money to Ron Paul. Think they might have been making a statement.
As I wrote before,
"Yep, we're winning. Winning now. Winning next month, Next year, two years from now. Five years from now. Maybe longer.
Then we shall leave, having accomplished zip."
All the happy talk from the war mongers won't change that.
Maybe Mr. Graham might want to read someone else's testimony like the left wing anti military General Odom's testimony.
He could read the words of Anthony Cordesman who formerly served as National Security Assistant to dovish Senator John McCain. (hat tip Parapundit)
Nah, your man has been shilling for the war for a long time and will not stop. Hey, a few more deployments for the stopped loss cannon fodder and enlist the cat IVs and it will work.
Support those troops, Mike, especially the ones who gave money to Ron Paul. Think they might have been making a statement.
As I wrote before,
"Yep, we're winning. Winning now. Winning next month, Next year, two years from now. Five years from now. Maybe longer.
Then we shall leave, having accomplished zip."
All the happy talk from the war mongers won't change that.
Monday, April 07, 2008
I Don't Know About Waterboarding, but The Torture of Logic is Happening Apace.
The Israeli Water Guy is an interesting fellow. He has lived in a few places and speaks a number of languages. He has many posts about interesting social and historical subjects. He also should be sent to the Hague for criminal torture of logic.
You see, he thinks the Iraqi war an improvement over sliced bread. Mr. Greg Cochran is more impressed with sliced bread. The IWG responded to Cochran's indictment of the profitability of colonial involment with the words, "From where gcochran got the bizarre idea that wars should be profitable? What is it, a business operation? I am starting to agree with mencius that Prof. Cochran's neurone count has been declining lately."
Ah, well, what would be the point of colonialism but for the gain of the colonialist power? It never happens as Greg made the point, but no intelligent person really believes that spreading civilization silliness. Anyway, a nation that watches reality shows is not in a position to spread civilization.
The whole thing started on the 2blowhards website with a back and forth between Cochran and Mencius Moldbug. Now it is my opinion that Greg did better, not because Mencius is unable to present his position, it is just when you come down to it there is nothing there to defend and he has to do the song and dance like bringing up Egypt. To believe in the war and the lies that led to it leaves you in a, well, I can't think of a charitable way to put it.
Of course, I'm not all that interested in being charitable to your man. After coming out the worst in the fray, he deigns to comment,
Finally, Greg Cochran and I had another altercation about Iraq at 2Blowhards. I really take no pleasure in this sort of thing. Cochran has obviously lost a step or two - it's like beating up an old man.
Nerve he has, class he lacks, unless of course his tongue was in his cheek.
He does mention being 34 yo. Believeing in, letting alone defending fairy tales at that age is sad.
You see, he thinks the Iraqi war an improvement over sliced bread. Mr. Greg Cochran is more impressed with sliced bread. The IWG responded to Cochran's indictment of the profitability of colonial involment with the words, "From where gcochran got the bizarre idea that wars should be profitable? What is it, a business operation? I am starting to agree with mencius that Prof. Cochran's neurone count has been declining lately."
Ah, well, what would be the point of colonialism but for the gain of the colonialist power? It never happens as Greg made the point, but no intelligent person really believes that spreading civilization silliness. Anyway, a nation that watches reality shows is not in a position to spread civilization.
The whole thing started on the 2blowhards website with a back and forth between Cochran and Mencius Moldbug. Now it is my opinion that Greg did better, not because Mencius is unable to present his position, it is just when you come down to it there is nothing there to defend and he has to do the song and dance like bringing up Egypt. To believe in the war and the lies that led to it leaves you in a, well, I can't think of a charitable way to put it.
Of course, I'm not all that interested in being charitable to your man. After coming out the worst in the fray, he deigns to comment,
Finally, Greg Cochran and I had another altercation about Iraq at 2Blowhards. I really take no pleasure in this sort of thing. Cochran has obviously lost a step or two - it's like beating up an old man.
Nerve he has, class he lacks, unless of course his tongue was in his cheek.
He does mention being 34 yo. Believeing in, letting alone defending fairy tales at that age is sad.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Gen. Odom wins The Neutralist Testimony of the Week Award
Below is the testimony of retired general William E. Odom on Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We bestow on him the uncoveted Testimony of the Week Award for the common sense and clarity of his words.
We have a quibble. Below Gen. Odom states,
The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region.
We fully agree, but then he goes on,
The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq.
Regional stability is devoutly to be wished, but, if he means it as anything less than the prelude to our instituting a complete neutralist foreign policy, then we disagree. Any FP that ties us to the labyrinthe of the mid east, let alone all other areas for other than the period necessary to completely disengage will just lead us back into a never ending one more intervention situation. The temptations are too great.
In high lighting the absurdity of current American foreign policy, the money quote is,
one need only take note of the al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.
As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of the Senate are aligned with al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.
It is surprising this is not in The Onion.
We do wonder if the General is not channeling The Neutralist,
Also disturbing is Turkey’s military incursion to destroy Kurdish PKK groups in the border region. That confronted the US government with a choice: either to support its NATO ally, or to make good on its commitment to Kurdish leaders to insure their security. It chose the former, and that makes it clear to the Kurds that the United States will sacrifice their security to its larger interests in Turkey.
We made the same point in the post, Our Bestest Buddies, The Turks, Or Is It The Kurds? back on Ausgust 2, 2007. Of course, we know the General had the score all along, but we are needy.
Please read his worthwhile words spoken to people who will probably not listen.
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE ON IRAQ
By William E. Odom, LT General, USA, Ret.
2 April 2008
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked. Last year I rejected the claim that it
was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success.
I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims.
Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced but today there is credible evidence that the political situation is far more fragmented. And currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant in several other parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in Baghdad and Anbar Province.
More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such is the result of the surge tactic.
No less disturbing has been the steady violence in the Mosul area, and the tensions in Kirkuk between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen. A showdown over control of the oil fields there surely awaits us. And the idea that some kind of a federal solution can cut this Gordian knot strikes me as a wild fantasy, wholly out of touch with Kurdish realities.
Also disturbing is Turkey’s military incursion to destroy Kurdish PKK groups in the border region. That confronted the US government with a choice: either to support its NATO ally, or to make good on its commitment to Kurdish leaders to insure their security. It chose the former, and that makes it clear to the Kurds that the United States will sacrifice their security to its larger interests in Turkey.
Turning to the apparent success in Anbar province and a few other Sunni areas, this is not the positive situation it is purported to be. Certainly violence has declined as local Sunni shieks have begun to cooperate with US forces. But the surge tactic cannot be given full credit. The decline started earlier on Sunni initiative. What are their motives? First, anger at al Qaeda operatives and second, their financial plight.
Their break with al Qaeda should give us little comfort. The Sunnis welcomed anyone who would help them kill Americans, including al Qaeda. The concern we hear the president and his aides express about a residual base left for al Qaeda if we withdraw is utter nonsense.
The Sunnis will soon destroy al Qaeda if we leave Iraq. The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.
As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of the Senate are aligned with al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.
Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. You might want to find out the total costs for these deals forecasted for the next several years, because they are not small and they do not promise to end. Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government’s troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.
Now let us consider the implications of the proliferating deals with the Sunni strongmen. They are far from unified among themselves. Some remain with al Qaeda. Many who break and join our forces are beholden to no one. Thus the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves. Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.
This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications. At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki’s military actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military fragmentation. We are witnessing is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization. He describes the process as building the state from the bottom up.
I challenge you to press the administration’s witnesses this week to explain this absurdity. Ask them to name a single historical case where power has been aggregated successfully from local strong men to a central government except through bloody violence leading to a single winner, most often a dictator. That is the history of feudal Europe’s transformation to the age of absolute monarchy. It is the story of the American colonization of the west and our Civil War. It took England 800 years to subdue clan rule on what is now the English-Scottish border. And it is the source of violence in Bosnia and Kosovo.
How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense.
To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration’s witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.
The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region. The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran’s policy toward Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.
No quick reconciliation between the US and Iran is likely, but US steps to make Iran feel more secure make it far more conceivable than a policy calculated to increase its insecurity. The president’s policy has reinforced Iran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons, the very thing he purports to be trying to prevent.
Withdrawal from Iraq does not mean withdrawal from the region. It must include a realignment and reassertion of US forces and diplomacy that give us a better chance to achieve our aim.
A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely. I have refuted them repeatedly before but they have more lives than a cat. Let try again me explain why they don’t make sense.
First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.
Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the “domino theory” in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it.
The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.
Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran’s regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies’ interest.
I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq.
Thanks for this opportunity to testify today.
We have a quibble. Below Gen. Odom states,
The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region.
We fully agree, but then he goes on,
The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq.
Regional stability is devoutly to be wished, but, if he means it as anything less than the prelude to our instituting a complete neutralist foreign policy, then we disagree. Any FP that ties us to the labyrinthe of the mid east, let alone all other areas for other than the period necessary to completely disengage will just lead us back into a never ending one more intervention situation. The temptations are too great.
In high lighting the absurdity of current American foreign policy, the money quote is,
one need only take note of the al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.
As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of the Senate are aligned with al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.
It is surprising this is not in The Onion.
We do wonder if the General is not channeling The Neutralist,
Also disturbing is Turkey’s military incursion to destroy Kurdish PKK groups in the border region. That confronted the US government with a choice: either to support its NATO ally, or to make good on its commitment to Kurdish leaders to insure their security. It chose the former, and that makes it clear to the Kurds that the United States will sacrifice their security to its larger interests in Turkey.
We made the same point in the post, Our Bestest Buddies, The Turks, Or Is It The Kurds? back on Ausgust 2, 2007. Of course, we know the General had the score all along, but we are needy.
Please read his worthwhile words spoken to people who will probably not listen.
TESTIMONY BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE ON IRAQ
By William E. Odom, LT General, USA, Ret.
2 April 2008
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked. Last year I rejected the claim that it
was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success.
I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims.
Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced but today there is credible evidence that the political situation is far more fragmented. And currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant in several other parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in Baghdad and Anbar Province.
More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such is the result of the surge tactic.
No less disturbing has been the steady violence in the Mosul area, and the tensions in Kirkuk between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen. A showdown over control of the oil fields there surely awaits us. And the idea that some kind of a federal solution can cut this Gordian knot strikes me as a wild fantasy, wholly out of touch with Kurdish realities.
Also disturbing is Turkey’s military incursion to destroy Kurdish PKK groups in the border region. That confronted the US government with a choice: either to support its NATO ally, or to make good on its commitment to Kurdish leaders to insure their security. It chose the former, and that makes it clear to the Kurds that the United States will sacrifice their security to its larger interests in Turkey.
Turning to the apparent success in Anbar province and a few other Sunni areas, this is not the positive situation it is purported to be. Certainly violence has declined as local Sunni shieks have begun to cooperate with US forces. But the surge tactic cannot be given full credit. The decline started earlier on Sunni initiative. What are their motives? First, anger at al Qaeda operatives and second, their financial plight.
Their break with al Qaeda should give us little comfort. The Sunnis welcomed anyone who would help them kill Americans, including al Qaeda. The concern we hear the president and his aides express about a residual base left for al Qaeda if we withdraw is utter nonsense.
The Sunnis will soon destroy al Qaeda if we leave Iraq. The Kurds do not allow them in their region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al Qaeda. To understand why, one need only take note of the al Qaeda public diplomacy campaign over the past year or so on internet blogs. They implore the United States to bomb and invade Iran and destroy this apostate Shiite regime.
As an aside, it gives me pause to learn that our vice president and some members of the Senate are aligned with al Qaeda on spreading the war to Iran.
Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. You might want to find out the total costs for these deals forecasted for the next several years, because they are not small and they do not promise to end. Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government’s troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.
Now let us consider the implications of the proliferating deals with the Sunni strongmen. They are far from unified among themselves. Some remain with al Qaeda. Many who break and join our forces are beholden to no one. Thus the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves. Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.
This can hardly be called greater military stability, much less progress toward political consolidation, and to call it fragility that needs more time to become success is to ignore its implications. At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki’s military actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military fragmentation. We are witnessing is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization. He describes the process as building the state from the bottom up.
I challenge you to press the administration’s witnesses this week to explain this absurdity. Ask them to name a single historical case where power has been aggregated successfully from local strong men to a central government except through bloody violence leading to a single winner, most often a dictator. That is the history of feudal Europe’s transformation to the age of absolute monarchy. It is the story of the American colonization of the west and our Civil War. It took England 800 years to subdue clan rule on what is now the English-Scottish border. And it is the source of violence in Bosnia and Kosovo.
How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense.
To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration’s witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.
The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region. The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran’s policy toward Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.
No quick reconciliation between the US and Iran is likely, but US steps to make Iran feel more secure make it far more conceivable than a policy calculated to increase its insecurity. The president’s policy has reinforced Iran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons, the very thing he purports to be trying to prevent.
Withdrawal from Iraq does not mean withdrawal from the region. It must include a realignment and reassertion of US forces and diplomacy that give us a better chance to achieve our aim.
A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely. I have refuted them repeatedly before but they have more lives than a cat. Let try again me explain why they don’t make sense.
First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on military skills.
Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard that argument as the “domino theory” in Vietnam. Even so, the path to political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public and themselves if they believe it.
The real moral question is whether to risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no American leaders seems willing to assume.
Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our threat to change Iran’s regime are making the region unstable. Those who link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has done nothing but advance our enemies’ interest.
I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the commitment of US forces to war in Iraq.
Thanks for this opportunity to testify today.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Neutralist Policy on Tibet and Eric Margolis Is Awarded "Best Article of the Week" Whether He Wants It Or Not
As Chairman and only member of the Neutralist Association of The US, I deem it policy that I avoid expressing my personal feelings. Still, I do have them. One of them is that personally, at heart, I am a secessionist or at least a decentralist. The more power that accretes to an imperial center, the less well off a nation.
So, I am for Israel out of Palestine and Palestine out of Israel. England out of Ireland and Ireland out of England. France out of Brittany. Russia out of Chechnya and Independence for Lower Slobbovia.
As to our own unpleasantness 1860-1865, I am glad the South is still part of the US, but I can't think of a constitutional reason that secession was illegal. Of course if it can be proven that the men who approved the constitution burned holy cards in their hands as they approved it, then I would concede the point. We Nortenos forget the Hartford Convention or that the Empire State specifically reserved the right of leaving in their ratification.
Having said that, here is the official statement of The Neutralist, It should be the policy of the American Republic never to involve itself in disputes of other political entities as to what constitutes the official territory under government.
Notice the period at the end of that statement. That's it period. We again reiterate Adams that America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy" as well as the Irish proverb that only a fool gets involved in the religious wars of churches to which he does not belong.
Having reiterated the policy, we recommend the article by Eric Margolis, HOW TO RESOLVE THE TIBET CRISIS It is quick lesson on how we got to where we are and where are we going. We tend to forget that India is just south of Tibet and may have interests that do not coordinate with China's. The Tibetans are oppressed by China. It could not be otherwise no matter how well intentioned the uninvited guest may be.
His suggestions are wise, but will probably not be heeded. This is sad, but "face" is big in Asia. Heck, it's big here to, we just pretend it isn't.
So, I am for Israel out of Palestine and Palestine out of Israel. England out of Ireland and Ireland out of England. France out of Brittany. Russia out of Chechnya and Independence for Lower Slobbovia.
As to our own unpleasantness 1860-1865, I am glad the South is still part of the US, but I can't think of a constitutional reason that secession was illegal. Of course if it can be proven that the men who approved the constitution burned holy cards in their hands as they approved it, then I would concede the point. We Nortenos forget the Hartford Convention or that the Empire State specifically reserved the right of leaving in their ratification.
Having said that, here is the official statement of The Neutralist, It should be the policy of the American Republic never to involve itself in disputes of other political entities as to what constitutes the official territory under government.
Notice the period at the end of that statement. That's it period. We again reiterate Adams that America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy" as well as the Irish proverb that only a fool gets involved in the religious wars of churches to which he does not belong.
Having reiterated the policy, we recommend the article by Eric Margolis, HOW TO RESOLVE THE TIBET CRISIS It is quick lesson on how we got to where we are and where are we going. We tend to forget that India is just south of Tibet and may have interests that do not coordinate with China's. The Tibetans are oppressed by China. It could not be otherwise no matter how well intentioned the uninvited guest may be.
His suggestions are wise, but will probably not be heeded. This is sad, but "face" is big in Asia. Heck, it's big here to, we just pretend it isn't.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Our First Ever Presidential Rankings
I am moved to set up our Presidential Rankings after watching Jim Rogers on Youtube suggest closing down the Fed and firing Bernanke.
Mr. Rogers is entertaining, but that is not the real reason for including the video. Dear CNBC, I am available as a commentator. I can put on a fake downmarket Brit accent and sound as stupid as the commentators (their accents aren't fake, but they do sound stupid). Granted, I don't look as good as Maria, but she doesn't look as good as she used to.
But I digress. Rogers is decrying the socialization of the losses. I was wondering if we really do need a fed. I did some imperfect research. According to a goldbug, Howard Katz, the Fed is our third national bank. We have done without a Fed before. Mr. Katz opines that the Fed serves not our interests, but those of a few.
I am not an expert in economics. As a Polish American major at a reserve intelligence school I attended (don't laugh) used to say, "I have all my money in cash." In the next few years, I expect to be getting a W-2 from the blood bank as I shall have to find tuition resources for my kids.
Still, I have some opinions about the Fed. One rationale for its existence was to make sure we did not have those old panics and crashes. How did that work out from 1929 to WWII?
Thus to our ranking. Two prezzies who go up in value are Andrew Jackson and US Grant. Jackson for vetoing the National Bank Charter extension and Grant because he vetoed the Inflation Bill which would have been the 19th Century equivalent of Helicopter Ben throwing money out the window. Grant had the excesses to deal with of a war he did not start but did more than anyone other than Sherman to end.
I specifically put these men above Madison, Polk, Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Bush and Bush. Why? If these lads were so great, they would have been smart enough to figure out how to avoid a war. J&G were at least not warmongers.
In our rankings, avoiding war gets you extra points.
Mr. Rogers is entertaining, but that is not the real reason for including the video. Dear CNBC, I am available as a commentator. I can put on a fake downmarket Brit accent and sound as stupid as the commentators (their accents aren't fake, but they do sound stupid). Granted, I don't look as good as Maria, but she doesn't look as good as she used to.
But I digress. Rogers is decrying the socialization of the losses. I was wondering if we really do need a fed. I did some imperfect research. According to a goldbug, Howard Katz, the Fed is our third national bank. We have done without a Fed before. Mr. Katz opines that the Fed serves not our interests, but those of a few.
I am not an expert in economics. As a Polish American major at a reserve intelligence school I attended (don't laugh) used to say, "I have all my money in cash." In the next few years, I expect to be getting a W-2 from the blood bank as I shall have to find tuition resources for my kids.
Still, I have some opinions about the Fed. One rationale for its existence was to make sure we did not have those old panics and crashes. How did that work out from 1929 to WWII?
Thus to our ranking. Two prezzies who go up in value are Andrew Jackson and US Grant. Jackson for vetoing the National Bank Charter extension and Grant because he vetoed the Inflation Bill which would have been the 19th Century equivalent of Helicopter Ben throwing money out the window. Grant had the excesses to deal with of a war he did not start but did more than anyone other than Sherman to end.
I specifically put these men above Madison, Polk, Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Bush and Bush. Why? If these lads were so great, they would have been smart enough to figure out how to avoid a war. J&G were at least not warmongers.
In our rankings, avoiding war gets you extra points.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Monday, March 03, 2008
Is Karl Rove Challenging Douglas Feith for the Title?
In one of his presidential campaigns, Harry Browne said the US had a great offense but no defense. 911 proved that to anyone who had the ability to reason.
Unfortunately, there is no dearth of people who find that a difficult undertaking. Shortly after the Twin Towers went down some pundits opined how now people saw they needed big government. Okay, the leviathan that took oodles of tax money to build up a military and intelligence apparatus that allowed 911 was now to be looked for to save us. So we sent them into Afghanistan to not capture our grand antagonist. Oh, don't worry, Hilary will be there to answer the phone.
Now Karl Rove, mastermind of two not so overwhelming Bush victories and the loss of the House and Senate goes on national television to say
Well, we were not involved in the world before 9/11, and look what happened.
Now, if Mr. Rove believes that we had just a few national guard units hanging out weekends at the armory, he needs Britney Spears dad to be appointed his guardian. I'm guessing he is just being as the Irish phrase has it, glich francach caca laca (I'll clean it up, cute as a outhouse rat).
Then he went on to say,
If we were to give up Iraq with the third largest oil reserves in the world to the control of an Al Qaida regime or to the control of Iran, don't you think $200 a barrel oil would have a cost to the American economy?
Maybe a recession will intervene to moderate prices, but does anyone remember the price of gasoline before we went into Iraq. I don't think our being there has caused it to stabilize.
The producers of Fox News Sunday should make Rove standup when he is on as that is the usual position of a comedy routine.
Hat tips to antiwar blog and Daniel Larison
Unfortunately, there is no dearth of people who find that a difficult undertaking. Shortly after the Twin Towers went down some pundits opined how now people saw they needed big government. Okay, the leviathan that took oodles of tax money to build up a military and intelligence apparatus that allowed 911 was now to be looked for to save us. So we sent them into Afghanistan to not capture our grand antagonist. Oh, don't worry, Hilary will be there to answer the phone.
Now Karl Rove, mastermind of two not so overwhelming Bush victories and the loss of the House and Senate goes on national television to say
Well, we were not involved in the world before 9/11, and look what happened.
Now, if Mr. Rove believes that we had just a few national guard units hanging out weekends at the armory, he needs Britney Spears dad to be appointed his guardian. I'm guessing he is just being as the Irish phrase has it, glich francach caca laca (I'll clean it up, cute as a outhouse rat).
Then he went on to say,
If we were to give up Iraq with the third largest oil reserves in the world to the control of an Al Qaida regime or to the control of Iran, don't you think $200 a barrel oil would have a cost to the American economy?
Maybe a recession will intervene to moderate prices, but does anyone remember the price of gasoline before we went into Iraq. I don't think our being there has caused it to stabilize.
The producers of Fox News Sunday should make Rove standup when he is on as that is the usual position of a comedy routine.
Hat tips to antiwar blog and Daniel Larison
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Let Him Who is Without Sin Cast the First Stink Bomb
After the English Revolution had spent itself and Cromwell had died in his bed, England decided it wanted to be Merrie Old instead of a nation of saints. Charles II was invited home. Chuck 2 wasn't all that jolly about his dad's execution so he went about getting even with the regicides. One guy he could not kill, he dug up and hanged anyway. I doubt Ollie felt too much as he hung on the gibbet, but if it made Chucky Junior feel better then that was okay.
William F. Buckley, Jr. has passed on. There are mostly encomiums even from conservatives who had disagreed with him. They are of the, "I disagreed with him, but he wasn't all that bad," stripe. That is how ladies and gents observe the passing of anyone who at least did not kill Dumbledore. I never knew the man and have nothing to say other than we were not on the same wavelength but good luck in whatever dimension awaits you.
There is a website that I am ambivalent about. I favor immigration control for a number of reasons, partly because 911 was an immigration system failure more than anything else. I am more nuanced in my views on restriction. Still, I have found it interesting to read. The editor, Peter Brimelow, published his eulogy on the passing of Buckley and gave it the title of William F. Buckley, Jr., RIP—Sort Of. That "sort of" business says it all. Reading the article, one almost feels Mr. Brimelow feels bad he can't put the man on the gibbet before the body get too cold.
Undoubtedly, there will be many books out that will praise or pillory WFB. That would be the time to honorably stick the knife in with a review. Heck, I'm sure Mr. Brimelow could write one of those books.
Mr. Brimelow has put his character on display and it is not pretty. As the voice of humility, I've done the same. Mostly in my youth, I never passed up the chance to be less than gentlemanly and I regret it. I hope Mr. Brimelow figures it out.
The man more than anyone else who might have reason to write a mean spirited bit on Buckley's passing didn't to my knowledge. He did write a piece about the man over a year ago that viciously got back at his former boss. Actually, no. He wrote kindly about the man as Buckley started his battle with emphysema. Peter, Joe Sobran has a lesson for you on how to be a gentleman.
William F. Buckley, Jr. has passed on. There are mostly encomiums even from conservatives who had disagreed with him. They are of the, "I disagreed with him, but he wasn't all that bad," stripe. That is how ladies and gents observe the passing of anyone who at least did not kill Dumbledore. I never knew the man and have nothing to say other than we were not on the same wavelength but good luck in whatever dimension awaits you.
There is a website that I am ambivalent about. I favor immigration control for a number of reasons, partly because 911 was an immigration system failure more than anything else. I am more nuanced in my views on restriction. Still, I have found it interesting to read. The editor, Peter Brimelow, published his eulogy on the passing of Buckley and gave it the title of William F. Buckley, Jr., RIP—Sort Of. That "sort of" business says it all. Reading the article, one almost feels Mr. Brimelow feels bad he can't put the man on the gibbet before the body get too cold.
Undoubtedly, there will be many books out that will praise or pillory WFB. That would be the time to honorably stick the knife in with a review. Heck, I'm sure Mr. Brimelow could write one of those books.
Mr. Brimelow has put his character on display and it is not pretty. As the voice of humility, I've done the same. Mostly in my youth, I never passed up the chance to be less than gentlemanly and I regret it. I hope Mr. Brimelow figures it out.
The man more than anyone else who might have reason to write a mean spirited bit on Buckley's passing didn't to my knowledge. He did write a piece about the man over a year ago that viciously got back at his former boss. Actually, no. He wrote kindly about the man as Buckley started his battle with emphysema. Peter, Joe Sobran has a lesson for you on how to be a gentleman.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
William S. Lind and Fools Rush In
William S. Lind's article title Fools Rush In says it alll. Mr. Lind, at the Defense and the National Interest blog, characterizes removing Kosovo from Serbia as a "crime and a blunder." Though the Neutralist yields to no one in disgust at our support of criminal acts we are more upset at blunders.
There is something about Europe and the US that WWI just has to be kept going. When George M. Cohan wrote were Over There and the lines, We won't be back till it's over over there, no one realized that it would never be over there. There must be magnets in the ground of the Balkans that keep attracting us. It's one of histories dumber attractions.
Mr. Lind says the Russkies are not amused and I don't blame them. He says they have the capacity to help the Serbs that they did not during the prior Clinton era unpleasantness. Memories are short in this life. Russia does not have to start a war to have a little fun with us. The two most complete defeats suffered by the superpowers postwar, Viet Nam and Afghanistan, saw neither patron commit ground units. It would not be without irony if we left Afghanistan because Russia started supplying, oh, I don't know, maybe something analogous to a stinger.
I don't think they really love the Taliban, but the Taliban did not invade Russia and never would.
Our forces are overextended. The opportunities for mischief are many.
Of course, there are no dearth of neocons touting the New Cold War. Of course, none of them are rushing to the colors.
Mr. Lind's proposal makes sense if there really were those magnets, but we don't have a real interest in Southeast Europe. We did not have one in 1916 either. It's too hard to say au revoir, let's just bug out. The Balkans were never worth Bismarck's Pomeranian Grenadier, they are not worth a National Guardsman.
There is something about Europe and the US that WWI just has to be kept going. When George M. Cohan wrote were Over There and the lines, We won't be back till it's over over there, no one realized that it would never be over there. There must be magnets in the ground of the Balkans that keep attracting us. It's one of histories dumber attractions.
Mr. Lind says the Russkies are not amused and I don't blame them. He says they have the capacity to help the Serbs that they did not during the prior Clinton era unpleasantness. Memories are short in this life. Russia does not have to start a war to have a little fun with us. The two most complete defeats suffered by the superpowers postwar, Viet Nam and Afghanistan, saw neither patron commit ground units. It would not be without irony if we left Afghanistan because Russia started supplying, oh, I don't know, maybe something analogous to a stinger.
I don't think they really love the Taliban, but the Taliban did not invade Russia and never would.
Our forces are overextended. The opportunities for mischief are many.
Of course, there are no dearth of neocons touting the New Cold War. Of course, none of them are rushing to the colors.
Mr. Lind's proposal makes sense if there really were those magnets, but we don't have a real interest in Southeast Europe. We did not have one in 1916 either. It's too hard to say au revoir, let's just bug out. The Balkans were never worth Bismarck's Pomeranian Grenadier, they are not worth a National Guardsman.
Friday, February 29, 2008
George Friedman and the Good War
George Friedman at Stratfor reminds us that there is still a place called Afghanistan and we are still there. Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War is kind of bad form on his part. He shouldn't be bringing this up and disturbing our collective thoughts, but that's his job. If the world were perfect, Stratforians would not have much to occupy their time.
I think the gist is, we are there, it's not going to get better, and we are going to be staying. He sums it up,
If the endgame in Iraq is murky, the endgame if Afghanistan is invisible.
Still, if we are going to keep AQ neutralized, we have to keep the Taliban off balance.
The neutralist disagrees. Our position is that we shall be forced out sooner or later and we compound the disaster by staying.
We have made it clear, the war was a mistake to begin with. Maybe, if we had bagged OBL and bugged out we could have claimed something, but we didn't. The most intelligent strategy I have ever heard was best explained in a letter to the Antiwar.com letters page years ago. It was posted by George D. of the UK, "the terrorists could have been hunted one-by-one by having a special task force that deals with it, like Israel did in hunting the Nazi war criminals, without going to war with the country that provided shelter for them." Of course such a policy would need focus over a long term and could not be a TV war and no party out of power would have been able to resist accusing the administration of doing nothing.
George ends on the following note,
Thus, while it may be a better war than Iraq in some sense, it is not a war that can be won or even ended. It just goes on.
Not forever.
See our previous discussion of Afghanistan
I think the gist is, we are there, it's not going to get better, and we are going to be staying. He sums it up,
If the endgame in Iraq is murky, the endgame if Afghanistan is invisible.
Still, if we are going to keep AQ neutralized, we have to keep the Taliban off balance.
The neutralist disagrees. Our position is that we shall be forced out sooner or later and we compound the disaster by staying.
We have made it clear, the war was a mistake to begin with. Maybe, if we had bagged OBL and bugged out we could have claimed something, but we didn't. The most intelligent strategy I have ever heard was best explained in a letter to the Antiwar.com letters page years ago. It was posted by George D. of the UK, "the terrorists could have been hunted one-by-one by having a special task force that deals with it, like Israel did in hunting the Nazi war criminals, without going to war with the country that provided shelter for them." Of course such a policy would need focus over a long term and could not be a TV war and no party out of power would have been able to resist accusing the administration of doing nothing.
George ends on the following note,
Thus, while it may be a better war than Iraq in some sense, it is not a war that can be won or even ended. It just goes on.
Not forever.
See our previous discussion of Afghanistan
Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Neutralist Article of the Week Award
It's only Thursday, but entries are closed. The Neutralist Grand Committee met just about a nanosecond ago in executive session to award the coveted Neutralist Article of the Week Award. Over a gourmet breakfast of cold, stale leftover pizza it was decided that the winner is Justin Raimondo's Wednesday, February 27, 2008 Behind the headlines column titled, McCain, Militarism, and the Legacy of Teddy Roosevelt Will Americans embrace "the strenuous life"?
The piece is almost a history lesson of interventionism vs. anti interventionism with analysis of the economic disaster that interventionism becomes and in our case is becoming.
Just a tad of his article is here:
The policy of imperialism, far from being the cause of riches descending on the nation, was an expensive and divisive "solution" to the alleged crisis of American capitalism, one that could not be sustained then any more than it cannot be sustained now. As underscored by the costs involved in setting up and defending our newly conquered Iraqi province, our empire is not a gain, economically, but a drain – although a new, rising class of war profiteers, colonial administrators, and investment bankers underwriting the whole imperial project directly benefits from our policies. McCain is their voice and their champion.
Elsewhere in the article he quotes McCain claiming to defend civilization. John McCain would not know what civilization is if it bit him in the ass.
Congratulations, Justin. You can now tout yourself an award winning writer. You have the full weight of the Neutralist behind you. You lucky dog.
The piece is almost a history lesson of interventionism vs. anti interventionism with analysis of the economic disaster that interventionism becomes and in our case is becoming.
Just a tad of his article is here:
The policy of imperialism, far from being the cause of riches descending on the nation, was an expensive and divisive "solution" to the alleged crisis of American capitalism, one that could not be sustained then any more than it cannot be sustained now. As underscored by the costs involved in setting up and defending our newly conquered Iraqi province, our empire is not a gain, economically, but a drain – although a new, rising class of war profiteers, colonial administrators, and investment bankers underwriting the whole imperial project directly benefits from our policies. McCain is their voice and their champion.
Elsewhere in the article he quotes McCain claiming to defend civilization. John McCain would not know what civilization is if it bit him in the ass.
Congratulations, Justin. You can now tout yourself an award winning writer. You have the full weight of the Neutralist behind you. You lucky dog.
Friday, February 22, 2008
End International Welfare
Kareem Amer is in an Egyptian Jail because the religious grand poobahs of his country don't really believe too much in God. Well, they don't think that much of him if they have to scurry to do his dirty work. It's not like God has told any of faithful that KA has caused him to want them to do anything about it. My guess is God is doing okay and KA's dissing of him does not have him in a tizzy.
Hey, Egypt is Egypt and if they want to go medieval, who am I to be upset. After all, you could get in Christian trouble for heresy in the West a few centuries ago. And of course, Spinoza had a few problems with Jewish heresy as did Christ.
My problem with medieval is I don't want to subsidize it. Egypt and a lot of countries get a lot of moolah from us and they don't make us proud.
I think the jailing of KA is disgusting. As a neutralist, I am anti-intervention If they want to pull this barbarism, they should do it on their own dime.
Hey, Egypt is Egypt and if they want to go medieval, who am I to be upset. After all, you could get in Christian trouble for heresy in the West a few centuries ago. And of course, Spinoza had a few problems with Jewish heresy as did Christ.
My problem with medieval is I don't want to subsidize it. Egypt and a lot of countries get a lot of moolah from us and they don't make us proud.
I think the jailing of KA is disgusting. As a neutralist, I am anti-intervention If they want to pull this barbarism, they should do it on their own dime.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Scrap of Paper
I forget a lot of stuff as I age, so I may be misremembering Thucydides account of the Peloponnesian War. What I recall is how the Greeks would make treaties, swearing oaths to the gods and conveniently forgetting their pious acts as soon as expedient.
So it is today. Kosovo will declare independence with at least our tacit approval even though we agreed it was to remain de jure part of Serbia when we needed to end our bombing campaign.
I suppose we knew and the Serbs knew at the time that this would happen. They saved face and Clinton did not have to suffer the expense and unpopularity of a ground campaign.
Treaties and agreements are always scraps of paper when of no value to the signatories.
It is the Neutralist's belief that a neutralist foreign policy would require less scraps of paper and those we did need would be of limited purpose to serve the real needs of signatories.
Anyway, With Kosovo's declaration and our acquiescing, we advertise ourselves a scrap of paper nation.
So it is today. Kosovo will declare independence with at least our tacit approval even though we agreed it was to remain de jure part of Serbia when we needed to end our bombing campaign.
I suppose we knew and the Serbs knew at the time that this would happen. They saved face and Clinton did not have to suffer the expense and unpopularity of a ground campaign.
Treaties and agreements are always scraps of paper when of no value to the signatories.
It is the Neutralist's belief that a neutralist foreign policy would require less scraps of paper and those we did need would be of limited purpose to serve the real needs of signatories.
Anyway, With Kosovo's declaration and our acquiescing, we advertise ourselves a scrap of paper nation.
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Neutralist Article of the Week Award
It is, of course, unfair to give this award to only one article. There have been some good ones, but it is the end of the week and this one is deserving.
Keep in mind, awardees may not wish to be honored by the Neutralist, so though we do wish to tar them with our brush as this is a lonely endeavor to begin with, we do issue the caveat.
Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece is a discussion of how poor Bill Kristol did so poorly when he went up against Daniel Ellsberg on Cspan just after the beginning of the Gulf War. The show has almost disappeared from history and if I were Kristol, I'd do what I could to see that it was forever gone because, to be kind, it does not enhance his reputation.
The article would be in the running just for showing up the foolishness of one member of our political class. It clinched the award with these lines,
What this suggests about the people running America is far worse than if they were simply malevolent super-geniuses: They don't know the backstory and couldn't care less. It's as though we're riding in the back seat of a car driven by people who demanded the wheel but aren't sure what the gas pedal does or what a stop sign actually looks like.
Kristol, ivy grad, best and brightest, displayed a lack of historical knowledge and an inventiveness of an alternate history that makes the quote dead on. Neutralism is warranted as our national foreign policy ethos because we will always have the ex student government types running things and the simplest foreign policy is the best they can manage.
Congratulations Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schwarz.
Keep in mind, awardees may not wish to be honored by the Neutralist, so though we do wish to tar them with our brush as this is a lonely endeavor to begin with, we do issue the caveat.
Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece is a discussion of how poor Bill Kristol did so poorly when he went up against Daniel Ellsberg on Cspan just after the beginning of the Gulf War. The show has almost disappeared from history and if I were Kristol, I'd do what I could to see that it was forever gone because, to be kind, it does not enhance his reputation.
The article would be in the running just for showing up the foolishness of one member of our political class. It clinched the award with these lines,
What this suggests about the people running America is far worse than if they were simply malevolent super-geniuses: They don't know the backstory and couldn't care less. It's as though we're riding in the back seat of a car driven by people who demanded the wheel but aren't sure what the gas pedal does or what a stop sign actually looks like.
Kristol, ivy grad, best and brightest, displayed a lack of historical knowledge and an inventiveness of an alternate history that makes the quote dead on. Neutralism is warranted as our national foreign policy ethos because we will always have the ex student government types running things and the simplest foreign policy is the best they can manage.
Congratulations Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schwarz.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Chickenhawks of the left, or, let George do it.
A couple of years ago, I was walking from Penn Station to the Javits Center in the Big Apple with my son of a Saturday. As we tramped along, we passed a two young men walking the other way. One, a well coiffed lad in his late teens and early twenties with the air of prosperity about him. He was wearing a sweatshirt as the autmnal temperature would have suggested. No surprise there. What caught my eye was the legend, “Save Darfur.”
I may be unfairly judging the man, but what such people seem to be telling me is, “I care, in a fashionable sort of way.” They are the chickenhawks of the left. They want to save Darfur the same way that species of the right wants to bring democracy to Iraq, through the blood of less well off men.
The make the world safe for democracy types have screwed up things in Iraq and the kumbyah chickenhawks wish to do it in the Sudan. Ah, but they would tell you they only want to help the poor and downtrodden. Well our track record in Iraq is not all that good, why would any suspect it would get better in another hot desert clime?
Why indeed. Over at the FAIR website there is an article that getting involved would muck things up. I think Julie Hollar makes the case very well and if you want more you can go over to Antiwar Radio and hear Isabel McDonald, FAIR communications director makes it clear how do gooders do bad.
If you are optimistic about do gooder interventionism, how’d Somalia work out?
Hey, don’t get me wrong, if Gerorge wants to raise a battalion from sales of sweatshirts and his own fortune, that’s okay with me. He may miss a movie and a payday as he commands Clooney’s Own, but he will have not caused someone else to die for his taste.
I may be unfairly judging the man, but what such people seem to be telling me is, “I care, in a fashionable sort of way.” They are the chickenhawks of the left. They want to save Darfur the same way that species of the right wants to bring democracy to Iraq, through the blood of less well off men.
The make the world safe for democracy types have screwed up things in Iraq and the kumbyah chickenhawks wish to do it in the Sudan. Ah, but they would tell you they only want to help the poor and downtrodden. Well our track record in Iraq is not all that good, why would any suspect it would get better in another hot desert clime?
Why indeed. Over at the FAIR website there is an article that getting involved would muck things up. I think Julie Hollar makes the case very well and if you want more you can go over to Antiwar Radio and hear Isabel McDonald, FAIR communications director makes it clear how do gooders do bad.
If you are optimistic about do gooder interventionism, how’d Somalia work out?
Hey, don’t get me wrong, if Gerorge wants to raise a battalion from sales of sweatshirts and his own fortune, that’s okay with me. He may miss a movie and a payday as he commands Clooney’s Own, but he will have not caused someone else to die for his taste.
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