Category Archives: Foreign Policy

‘Bribing Some Countries & Bombing Others’ Equals Big-Time Blowback

America, Drug War, Foreign Policy, Free Speech, Islam, Jihad, Ron Paul

After days of listening to the eminence grise of American opinion makers, it is clear to me that, left and right, Republican and Democrat; all are agreed and united in stupidity: The Arab world has erupted once again because of our pole dancers, our potty-mouthed entertainers, our loud and loutish politicians, those of us who insult Jihad’s muse (Mohammad); you know, the stuff that makes us “free”—to the exclusion, of course, of the IRS that hounds us to the end of the world, the alphabet soup of regulation agencies that prosecutes and regulates our best and brightest to the gills, the War on Drugs that claims our property and freedoms, a welfare state that one analyst likened “not [to] a principality, but [to] a vast empire bigger than the entire budgets of almost every other country in the world,” and a warfare machine that, much to the delight of the same stock characters, who deploy such similar stock phrases, has gobbled up so many of our men and so much of our wealth.

From the War Street Journal to the White House web journal; the empty heads who’ve invested huge egos (and out-of-control Ids) in a false, foolish storyline are singing from the same hymn sheet.

Ron Paul isn’t. “Bribing some countries and bombing others” equals big time blowback:

In Libya we worked with, among others, the rebel Libyan Fighting Group (LIFG) which included foreign elements of al-Qaeda. It has been pointed out that the al-Qaeda affiliated radicals we fought in Iraq were some of the same groups we worked with to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya. Last year in a television interview I predicted that the result of NATO’s bombing of Libya would likely be an increased al-Qaeda presence in the country. I said at the time that we may be delivering al-Qaeda another prize.
Not long after NATO overthrew Gaddafi, the al Qaeda flag was flown over the courthouse in Benghazi. Should we be surprised, then, that less than a year later there would be an attack on our consulate in Benghazi? We have been told for at least the past eleven years that these people are the enemy who seeks to do us harm.

MORE.

“‘Islamikazes’ in Our Midst” put the whole “they hate us because of our liberties” debate thus:

“While it is far from a sufficient one, our adventurous foreign policy is a necessary precondition for Muslim aggression.”

UPDATE II: Why I Am So Sad (It’s not About Libya, Israel or 9/11)

Democracy, Elections, Foreign Policy, Free Speech, Human Accomplishment, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Israel, libertarianism, Middle East, Private Property, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry

The current column, now on WND, is “Why I Am So Sad.” An excerpt:

“I AM SO SAD—and it is not because a justifiably angry crowd of Libyans in Benghazi stormed an embassy that represents the brute force that destabilized their lives for decades to come.

I feel for my countrymen who perished in that embassy, but the truth remains that they acquiesced in leveling Libya. And by so doing, they invited into that country the very lynch-mob that took their lives. The Americans targeted had become an irritant to the long-suffering Libyans, who will use any US provocation, real or imagined, to expel the people who “came, saw, and conquered.”

To those who imagine the death of our diplomats in Libya turns on American free-speech, I say this: You have no right to deliver your disquisition in my living room. You have only the right to request permission to so do from this (armed) private-property owner.

By extension, you have no universal right to “free speech” on another man’s land. More so than to America’s diplomats—Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Iran belong to the people of Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Iran.

I AM SO SAD—and it is not because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen a most inopportune time to insert himself into the middle of a rancorous American election season, and by so doing, make Mitt Romney’s foreign policy bellicosity look good to a war-weary people that can ill-afford it.

Now is not a good time, Bibi. Israel is a wedge issue in the coming election. If Israelis love Americans as Americans love Israel, they need to understand that, “The Titan is Tired”:

We Americans have our own tyrants to tackle. We no longer want to defend to the death borders not our own—be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.

I AM SO SAD—and it is not because another 9/11 has come and gone. The polls indicate that Americans want to move on; have moved on. Perhaps Americans have realized that it behooves our “overlords who art in DC” to keep them stuck in grief. By stunning us like cattle to the slaughter, the statists have been able to perpetrate in our name crimes way worse than 9/11.

I AM SO SAD because … ”

The complete column, “Why I Am So Sad,” can be read now on WND.

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UPDATE I: In answer to a Facebook reader, my saying that, “More so than to America’s diplomats – Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Iran belong to the people of Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Iran” is not collectivist. It is, overall, correct, not least as a just sentiment intended to discourage interventionism.

Moreover, as a libertarian thinker, I choose to offer meaningful insights that comport with reality, rather than score reductive, pedantic points for the sake of theoretical purity. Tell the Arabs rioting that YOU are one of them b/c you, an American, bought the city their ancestors inhabited for centuries. I’m a private property absolutist, but the institution of private property has a cultural and historical dimension and context.

UPDATE II (Sept. 14): For describing a reality the US brought on itself with its Lawrence of Arabia complex, I am accused by a reader of “sympathizing with these al Qaeda people.”

For one, how in logic do you arrive at sympathy for savages from this:

I feel for my countrymen who perished in that embassy, but the truth remains that they acquiesced in leveling Libya. And by so doing, they invited into that country the very lynch-mob that took their lives. The Americans targeted had become an irritant to the long-suffering Libyans, who will use any US provocation, real or imagined, to expel the people who “came, saw, and conquered.”

Force breeds force; nation building where you have no business imposing your will—will results in what transpired in Libya. Fact: Those idiotic and arrogant interventions have a price. These are the people our diplomats were working with in a patronizing foolish way. I just heard Hillary say as much. This was, in part, a reaction to imposed authority. Yes, Hillary is trying to separate the attackers from her lovely rebels. Our reader is buying what Hillary is selling because it feeds into a storyline neocons simply can’t resist.

I suggest the reader mine the Archives here. I’ve documented this vehement hate for the US—beginning in our decade long expeditions to the region—that have seen the US remain over there indefinitely.

Americans do not understand the culture. The writer actually grew up in the region, so I have a better inkling. I hear Hillary declare that the ambassador was working with the “rebels” and that they had come to love him. Oh yes? That’s Lawrence-of- Arabia type romantic rot. And can you be that dumb? A smile and outward charm don’t mean they like you! But our navel-gazing, patronizing (unarmed) diplomats think that everyone should love the US despite its actions in the region, in general, and in Libya, in particular.

I suggest the reader reconsider the logic of his accusation. Calling reality as it is does not imply sympathy for the offending parties on my part. I suppose the reader would prefer that I fulminate irrationally like some of the neoconservative Jihadi and Sharia trackers whom he probably follows. (And who never even mention the possibility that we should, as true patriots, defend our own porous borders, before we violate and then presume to “defend” the boundaries of other nations.)

Now Is Not A Good Time, Bibi

America, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen a most inopportune time to demand face time with Barack Obama. A smart man, Bibi knows exactly that he can help make Obama look bad, and with this maneuver, make Romney’s insane foreign policy bellicosity look good.

I would even venture that Netanyahu has pulled a self-serving political maneuver by inserting himself into the middle of a rancorous American election season.

Via RT:

Reuters report that Netanyahu’s office had requested a meeting with the American commander-in-chief, but that staffers for the president don’t seem interested in entertaining the idea. “[T]he White House has got back to us and said it appears a meeting is not possible. It said that the president’s schedule will not permit that,” an Israeli official tells Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Now more than ever I fear that Mitt Romney, were he to be elected, would go to war with Iran, simply to fulfill a campaign promise: friendship with Israel no matter the costs to war-weary Americans.

I understand that readers who frequent this space crave partisanship. They’ll have to go elsewhere. I detest Obama and what he stands for. But that doesn’t mean I will not call it as I see it on those rare occasions when the president is right. Obama is on the campaign trail (fooling the American people for the second time around). Israel is a wedge issue in this election. Now is not a good time, Bibi.

Moreover, and as I put it in “The Titan is Tired”:

The titan is tired. We Americans have our own tyrants to tackle. We no longer want to defend to the death borders not our own—be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Israel, wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.

Romney: So Nice, So Wrong

Business, China, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Iran, Neoconservatism, Republicans, Trade

MSNBC was my first port of call, right after Mitt Romney completed his address to the 2012 Republican Convention. Romney’s sworn enemies would be the best gauges as to how well the speech resonated.

The cobra head at MSNBC—Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz—all were remarkably mild in their reactions. Other than the hissing Chris Matthews, these people were partial to the man and his message.

O’Donnell: ‘It was an effective presentation’
Chuck Todd: ‘optimistic nostalgia’
Ed Schultz: a ‘pitch to women’
HuffPo: “Solid.” “Competent.” “Workmanlike.”
Chris Matthews, aka The Snake, was the only one to rightly condemn Romney’s “jingoistic language about war,” as “bad for the country.”

AND FOR THE WORLD!

Tomorrow these pundits will have returned to their default position. But, for now, they seemed to have finally seen that, while Romney’s political positions are horrid, he’s a lovely man. As incongruous as this may seem, it is nevertheless true.

I’ve seen enough of life to know a lovely man when I see one. Ann Romney, herself a delightful lady, is a lucky woman. Romney is a great provider, fabulously devoted to family and church, consistently generous and charitable to all those around him, and brilliant in all endeavors, academic and other.

Unlike those of Obama, Romney’s university transcripts will stand scrutiny.

Sadly, Romney is wrong on almost all issues of policy.

WRONG on China.
WRONG on Foreign policy.
WRONG on Iran.
WRONG on Russia.

So wrong about so much, yet such a lovely man. (And I did cheer, “Bain, Baby,” when he talked up free enterprise.)

“Repeal-and-replace statism” is what the Ryan-Romney ticket is about.