Category Archives: Foreign Policy

UPDATED: The Vexing Case of the Vanishing Iranian Scientists

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Intelligence, Iran, Israel, Middle East

I fully expect to hear former CIA operative Michael Scheuer on Judge Napolitano’s Freedom Watch tonight. I expect Scheuer to implicate the Israeli Mossad in the killing of an Iranian nuclear chemist by motorbike assassins. For once, I expect I to agree almost completely with what Scheuer will posit on the show (if Nap’s producers have been quick on their feet, as I expect they have).

If Israel has indeed been eliminating Iran’s intellectual arsenal, it may be acting in bad faith, in seriously bad faith. It knows that the US has zero credibility with the Arab world. No surprise there. America’s lack of credibility in the Middle East is well deserved. Israel knows full well that if Hillary Rodham Clinton, “the gorgon who heads Caesar’s state department,” denies doing the deed, as Clinton has, no one will believe the woman who cackled, “I came, I saw, I conquered,” when she was informed of Col. Muammar Gadhafi’s execution by her proxies.

If Israel had indeed “recruited Iranian operatives on the ground,” as it is alleged to have done, to carry out these precision killings, Bibi’s government has placed the Obama administration in a very dodgy position.

UPDATE: I stopped listening after a while; I have an allergy to truth deniers such as Erika Payne. I think the story was not covered on Freedom Watch. Perhaps tomorrow.

Everything You Need to Know About Perry But Were Afraid to Ask

Elections, Foreign Policy, Iraq, John McCain, War

As you know, Iraq is imploding, as it has been since the US took out the glue that held it together by hook or by crook: Saddam Hussein.

Seventy five percent of Americans have, belatedly and at long last, realized that we have to leave that godforsaken place. Presidential candidate Rick Perry obviously counts himself in the minority when he promised to “send troops back into Iraq. …”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now?
PERRY: I — I think we start talking with the Iraqi individuals there. The idea that we allow the Iranians to come back into Iraq and take over that country, with all of the treasure, both in blood and money, that we have spent in Iraq, because this president wants to kowtow to his liberal, leftist base and move out those men and women. He could have renegotiated that timeframe.
I think it is a huge error for us. We’re going to see Iran, in my opinion, move back in at literally the speed of light. They’re going to move back in, and all of the work that we’ve done, every young man that has lost his life in that country will have been for nothing because we’ve got a president that does not understand what’s going on in that region.

As informed is John McCain, who has called for the deployment of a “residual force” to Iraq.

How about Meghaan McCain? She qualifies as a “residual” spent force.

UPDATED: The Cause Ron Paul Should Champion (Defer to the Tenth)

Christian Right, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Republicans, Ron Paul, States' Rights

“The Cause Ron Paul Should Champion” is my new WND.COM column. Here’s an excerpt:

On his website, tricky Dick Morris, former adviser to Bill Clinton, claims comically to be fighting for the soul of the Grand Old Party. Morris has dubbed a potential contest between Republican presidential contender Ron Paul and President Barack Obama as “the biggest [Republican] wipeout in American history.”

Less dramatically, the Des Moines Register conceded, in the aftermath of the “the first contest of the 2012 election season,” that, while “many Iowa caucus-goers connected with Paul’s belief in less government spending and regulation, in free trade and private property rights and in opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”—they nevertheless “worried about Paul’s prospects in the general election.”

With 21.4 percent of a volatile vote, Rep. Ron Paul came in a strong third in Tuesday’s Iowa Republican caucuses. Assuming second place, and trailing Mitt Romney by eight statistically insignificant votes, was former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, the dark horse in this race.

Still, what separates Dr. Paul from his Republican rivals is this: Whereas their national appeal is likely to plateau—coffined by militarism and social conservatism—Paul’s appeal, by contrast, has the potential to transcend the confines of the Republican Party.

For one, Ron Paul can woo Obama’s sizeable anti-war base which is sick and tired of the killer drone. (One definition of a drone is “an idle person who lives off others; a loafer, a drudge,” a Barack Obama. Another definition of a drone is “a pilotless aircraft operated by remote control,” frequently utilized by the aforementioned “idle person who lives off others” to kill others.) …

Read the complete column, “The Cause Ron Paul Should Champion,” on WND.COM.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help this cause.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATE (Jan. 6): DEFER TO THE TENTH. That’s what Ron Paul should do. Michael Boldin’s Tenth Amendment Center article draws the distinction between immigration and naturalization, in the context of 18th century locution:

…a common 18th century definition of naturalization was “The act of investing aliens with the privileges of native subjects”, while emigrate had a common meaning of “to move from one place to another.”
Such a delegated power over “naturalization” then, does not specifically address the power over immigration rules in any way. But, Constitutionally-speaking, one also has to then consider the common law doctrine of principles and incidents (i.e. the necessary and proper clause) to find authorization for anything not spelled out in the constitution.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument that control over who can and cannot cross a border was considered by the Founders to be an incidental (lesser and directly required) power related to the delegated power over naturalization.
But, I’m sure someone will try to make one eventually. And yes, I’m all ears! Otherwise, such power is something retained by the people of the several states to be dealt with by their state governments or not – as they see fit.

AND FROM “Tell Establishment Media A Dog Died On The Border”:

One of the finest minds on matters pertaining to immigration and the Constitution is Kris W. Kobach, a University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law professor, and an author of the Arizona law. Kobach has determined that “state police, exercising state law authority only,” may make arrests for violations of federal law”—a right Kobach anchors in a state’s status as a sovereign entity.

States are sovereign governments possessing all residual powers not abridged or superseded by the U.S. Constitution. The source of the state governments’ power is entirely independent of the U.S. Constitution. … the states possess what are known as ‘police powers,’ which need not be specifically enumerated. Police powers are ‘an exercise of the sovereign right of the government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort, and general welfare of the people.

UPDATED: The Year of the Killer Drone

Barack Obama, Criminal Injustice, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Technology, War

A drone can be “an idle person who lives off others; a loafer, a drudge,” also known as Barack Obama. A drone is also “a pilotless aircraft operated by remote control,” frequently utilized by the aforementioned “idle person who lives of others” to kill others.

“When Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the nation’s clandestine drone war was confined to a single country, Pakistan, where 44 strikes over five years had left about 400 people dead, according to the New America Foundation. The number of strikes has since soared to nearly 240, and the number of those killed, according to conservative estimates, has more than quadrupled.” (WaPo)

The New America Foundation breaks it down in a table. Between 2004 and 2007, when Genghis Bush reigned supreme, we killed 112 Pakistanis. The total number of Pakistanis eliminated by drone between 2004 and 2011 was 2,680.

Do the math. Obama is the killer drone.

UPDATED (Jan 1. 012): STARSHIP TROOPERS USA.