Another Chickenhawk

So I start up the family car and the radio has been left on by another fam member. They have a proclivity for C & W. Now, I am not a fan, but there is the odd song that the toe will tap to. Unfortunately, the song that came on was not one.

It was the lyrics that were listened to. The song was An American Soldier by Toby Keith. One line sings is "I am an American Soldier." Well, Toby isn't and never was. His soldier personna claims to be fighting for freedom. The poor lads who are in Iraq or Afpak have my sympathy, but they are not fighting for the freedom of their countrymen and women. It is absurd to suggest it. Not when they and the wife and kids can be genitally felt up at airports.

Mr. Keith appears to have a cottage industry on patriotic songs. Maybe he believes what he is singing. Maybe he donates every cent of profit to veterans groups. If he does not the conclusion as to what he is is obvious.

For those true believers that still believe in the purity of the Libyan adventure

Libyan Rebels Accused of Pillage and Beatings

plus ça, well you know.....

The Petition

Reader and commenter Bailey has suggested the drafting of a petition with a clearly defined statement, purpose, and an outline of pros and cons. The role of neutrality needs to be solidified in its scope so that the people will understand that we shall still be a strong nation; however, a nation that only defends. Bailey also suggests that To appeal to the masses, we must show how beneficial neutrality can be to the well-being of our country. We must also determine what will be argued against neutrality and prepare rebuttal that will defuse their arguments.

So what does himself, the Neutralist, think about the proposal? A reasoned, logical petition should not be hard to draw up, especially as it is our belief here at Neutralist GHQ that neutralism is obviously inherently reasonable and logical. Once finished, Bailey would be willing to take it around in his home state.

I am touched by his willingness to do his part. I think a petition, well crafted, could not hurt. Unfortunately, Bailey is my only soldier. Considering the reaction to the Neutralist blog, the whelming has been under. As my what is to be expected screed to the right puts it,

What is to be expected from the Neutralist? Unfortunately, not much. There are think tanks galore in this country for all shades of thought, but, so far, neutralism is an orphan with only one known supporter. The concept is tied up with the I word, Isolationism. To get noticed and be taken seriously will be next to impossible.

Sadly, I have met all my expectations. There have been a few who have encouraged me, but only a tiny few. Moi, I have hardly been stalwart. My name, while not a complete pseudonym, has been crafted to protect my privacy. So what is the purpose. Just to bring about awareness. so tell your friends and neighbors. Heck, submit articles, links, etc.

I hate the terms like viral, but a groundswell would be nice. I admit to wishing for what I wished to happen, also to the right,

What is hoped? That the idea of neutralism will be noticed and that the concept of Wilsonian Internationalism will be seen as the failure it is. That at least a core group will form that will support the idea and spread it in blogs, articles and conversation.


What I am truly hoping with all my heart is to avert disaster. You see, neutralism of a form is coming anyway. Conservatives don't get it. They are only hoping for an end to the current loser wars (that would be all of them). They don't have an aversion to interventionism per se. So we might get, under current conditions, a partial withdrawl and new wars can await a better day. The other scenario would be some form of Dien Bien Phu. After that debacle, we were available to pick up the French pieces. If we have a DBP, our lads may never make it out.

Maybe we shall always be strong enough to avoid that. I would be more confident if we were a rich country. We are not and we'll be neutral be cause, sooner or later, we won't be strong.

Anyway, thanks Bailey. Hopeless as it seems, I still hope.

Arnie Arnesen butchers the English Language

As the Neutralist, I would not want a war monger like Sarah Palin to be president. Still, I do like that she upsets all the cool people. One of them was on the Callie Crossley Show and went after La Palin. Memo to Arnie, if you are going to be a grammar nazi, make sure you know what you're talking about.

Quoting Arnie, "She butchers the English Language, and as someone who works with you know students of English as a Second Language and I have to like repair their assignments, I'm lookin at this.going I want an esl student to feel much better about themselves because this women thinks she can be president."

I'm going to try and help English learner Arnie. Arnie, I think you meant to say, "She butchers the English Language, and as someone who works with students of English as a Second Language and I have to repair their assignments, I'm listening to this thinking I want an esl student to feel much better about themselves because this women thinks she can be president."

Of course other than the example above, she was more than competent to hold up her end of the banal banter during the show.

It's official, the Constitution is a joke

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

If the Neutralist had written Obama's Speech

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

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

We suspend our fundraiser

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

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

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

The Terrorists have won

Res ipsa loquitur.

Any questions?

Hat tip to David Kramer at LRC Blog

The Pakistani Role and what should we do about it?

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

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

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

Does the word Pyrrhic come to mind?

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

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

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

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

Declare Victory and Leave

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

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

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

Come home America.

Vittorio Arrigoni, and neutralism

I know little of Mr. Arrigoni other than he was in Gaza following the example of Rachel Corrie. One must assume he was prepared to die for his beliefs. Unexpectedly, he was not killed bearing witness to Israeli oppression, but by a rival Palestinian group.

Though the Neutralist does not know the exact details, just the broad outline, it is enough to expound on. There is an Irish saying we heard from the late academic, John Roche, we feel applies here, Never get involved in the religious wars of churches you don't belong to.

Now we have to trust the Paddy on this one. People who have had their share of intra-national religious battles should know enough to walk on by when they see, say, a Jain and an animist arguing theology.

I don't mean to make light of the man's end, but he trod where he could only know so much of struggle that he stepped in. So it is with our involvement in all the squabbles we have made our own and most recently Libya. We at the Neutralist offer up a Kool Aid Free Zone.

I'm stealing from The Agitator, it's just too good

Mr. Radley Balko aka The Agitator posted this with attribution and I am doing the same. It speaks for itself. Snake handling moves left.

Wishing That Heroes, They Truly Exist

Saturday, April 2nd, 2011

“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.”

–Britney Spears, in 2003, commenting on the war in Iraq.

“But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I’d literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he’s smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted. I voted for him because I trust him, and I still do.”

– Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum, in 2011, on Obama’s war in Libya.

(Hat tip: Jeromee P. Snash.)

Neutralist slam dunk by Mish!

At MISH'S Global Economic Trend Analysis, Mish posted about where the Republican budget proposals fall short. I don't know if he is a neutralist, but he sure reads like one. Here is what he wrote about defense:

What About Defense Spending?

Can we really be serious about tackling the deficit while doing nothing about defense spending? I think not, and Ryan wimps out big time by failing to address it.

The United States spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined. We have troops in 140 countries. Yet, the simple fact of the matter is the US can no longer afford to be the world's policeman.

If other countries want our troops, perhaps they should pay us. However, it would be better yet if we would simply leave on our own accord.

As long as we are packing our bags, we should pack up and leave Iraq and Afghanistan. It's time to declare the wars are won and leave.

If we do that, and pull some troops home, it should be an easy matter to cut $200 billion a year out of the defense budget. That would save $2 trillion over 10 years. Actually I think we should cut far more, but I am hoping to come up with a number that has a chance.

Thanks, Mish. It is to the point and not arguable by anyone sane.

It's lonely being the neutralist, but sometimes someone else says the right thing and we feel better.

All honor to the Kamikaze

Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.
“He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term.”

Maybe this gives us a glimpse as to what it meant to sacrifice one's life on the deck of a carrier. A nation that produces such sons deserves to live.

Let us not equivocate. My relatives were in the Pacific. Japan treatment of POWs was not glorious. The courage in the face of such odds was and is.

Ed Shultz, Chickenhawk

So your man, Ed Shultz, who was against any war W wanted has had an epiphany. Libya is a holy crusade according to the big guy. I think we can parse this. Bush devil, Obama god. I looked up himself on wikpedia and can find no evidence that he was ever in the military. Ed Shultz, the Rush Limbaugh chickenhawk of the left with a smaller audience.

Libya is no different from the other wars except this president is consulting congress even less. Shultz gets the Al Smith, no matter how you slice it, it's still baloney award.



Jeremy Scahill takes him to the cleaners.

The King's, er the President's Speech

As the Neutralist, I suppose it is necessary to go on record concerning POTUS' speech explaining his actions as regards Libya for my readers, or maybe reader, or whatever. There is not too much to opine about. Your man said, “When our interests and our values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act.” Of course I didn't come away with any real idea how our values or interests were at stake, but so what.

Now that I know "we have a responsibility to act," Iam ready. After I post this, I shall climb into my jet fighter and fly over to Libya to strafe those MG loyalist bastards. Oh, I don't have a jet and am not really going to strafe anyone. Oh, I get it, the corporate "We." So even though I'm not participating, it is being done in my name.

I am aghast. Just remember the words of a US Senator intoned in 2007, "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." I wonder who that solon was?

So who the heck is Bonnie Kristian and why is she making sense? Most succinct reasoning about Libya yet

Surfing a few sites this morning I came upon an article at Antiwar.com. It is a piece the Neutralist wishes he wrote. 10 Reasons the US Should Leave Libya NOW is a well ordered repository of the reasons not to be in Libya. If you know somebody who is on the fence or drinking the kool aid on the issue, urge them to read it. You don't change many minds in this life, but if someone is not invincibly ignorant, this should make an impact.

To show my gratitude to the author, I am going to steal part of her article. Specifically, Reason 9:

9. This goes against our founders’ vision for American foreign policy. Let me simply provide a few telling quotes:

“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” — Thomas Jefferson

“America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” — John Quincy Adams

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison

“The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.” — George Washington

“All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.” — Benjamin Franklin

So called conservatives think a conservative foreign policy is "supporting the troops" (of course for them, that does not often mean being one) no matter what silly intervention is proposed. A real conservative war policy is to not get into wars as evinced by the quotes above.

Poor Bonnie Kristian, we have closed the competition. There will be no more entries. Bonnie Kristian is the Neutralist Rookie of the Year. Granted, it is not a much coveted award, and brings neither money or great applause. No matter, it's still less of a joke than the Nobel.

If Bonnie wants an 11th reason the Neutralist can supply one. The only successful exit strategy the US has executed was Viet Nam.

David Corn and a Good War

On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns -- after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces -- at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.

There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.


From 1984 by George Orwell, Part 2 Chapter 9.

The analogy is not perfect, but it is close enough. David Corn tried to make the case that the Obama war is holy and Bush interventions, not so much. There is no real qualitative difference in the policy of the incumbent and his predecessor. Was Mr. Corn ever in show biz. He is quite a song and dance man.

Welcome year 11 of the Bush Obama administration.

Saving Libya, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished-This was even too fast for moi to comprehend

So after dithering for what seemed like forever, A coalition of US and Euro countries with UN authorization is moving against Mo Q. The Arab League said that they wanted a no fly zone and passed a resolution to that effect.

Now that the coalition is sending the bombs and rockets, Les Arabes are not feeling it. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said, What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone,” he said in a statement carried by the Middle East News Agency. “And what we want is the protection of civilians and not the shelling of more civilians.”

Hey Amr, sorry about that, but what did you expect? Broken and eggs and omelets, you know. The Neutralist position has always been hands off. Not meaning to be undiplomatic, but cher ami, maybe the Arab League could have imposed the NFZ on their own. Yeah, when there is a cold snap in the place of eternal damnation.

We, at the Neutralist are somewhat taken aback on the speed of the condemnation. we expected a more reasonable amount of time for the League to express its regrets.

Of course, even if it had been done perfectly, there is no chance gratitude would have been expressed.