Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Miss Mubarak Yet?

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Islam, Middle East

Sadly, and as this writer wrote on October 18, 2011, when Mohamed Husni Mubarak was ousted, the Egyptian Christian Coptic community lost a protector.

Yes, how is the Lotus Revolution working out? That was how the West had dubbed the mess in Egypt. With few exceptions, the American media slobbered mightily over the revolution in Egypt.

So, you had the Beltway libertarians joining Anderson Cooper (CNN), Neil Cavuto (Fox News), and Christiane Amanpour (ABC) in spirit at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to celebrate Egypt’s democratic spring; you had America’s female journos rushing to the mainly macho scene to show solidarity with the generic freedom fighters, who, it turned out, doubled up as common-or-garden gropers and rapists.

At the time, this writer wrote about the impossibility of a happy ending “in a country that has become progressively more Islamic since the 1950s.” I added that, “Mubarak’s dictatorial powers were directed, unjustly indubitably, against the Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim brotherhood.” Unjustly, but probably quite usefully.

“This is about freedom,” said the immensely silly Lara Logan before the freedom fighters piled up on top of her.

Indeed.

In touting the sea-change underway in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world, our moron media interviewed 0.1% of the country’s population, the intelligentsia, to extrapolate to the majority. And there was also the a central stupidity, so prevalent in the US, whereby all human beings are said to be the same under the skin, with an equal “civilizing potential.”

Michael Scheuer: Let The Russians Or Chinese Deal With Middle-East

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, libertarianism, Middle East, Terrorism

“A pox on all of them,” says former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden tracking unit, Michael Scheuer. “…What could be better than to let the Russians or the Chinese deal with the Middle-East mess?” We’ve borne the burden for long enough. “In the past we bet on tyranny. That’s gone. As is our influence.”

AND, “We have managed to turn a democratic election in Egypt into a disaster for the US. We’ve helped put the military back in power and aggravated an enemy that could be very powerful, as have we opened the way to civil war in Egypt. Time to cut aid to the whole lot, Israel too.”

Or, as this writer put it, “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn.”

Especially accurate is what Scheuer had to say about John McCain and Lindsay Graham, the neoconservative senators whose positions are in opposition to the interests of the American people (whether the latter know it or not): “The two might as well be sitting in the Israeli Knesset.”

The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills

Ancient History, Foreign Policy, Just War, Military, The State, War

“The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Libertarian extraordinaire John Stossel asks the right questions. He doesn’t always arrive at the right answers.

The questions Mr. Stossel poses on his Fox-Business TV show, small mercies, have little to do with the mindless things that busy Big Media. For the last couple of weeks, for example, the impetus among the mindless has been to provide the priapic Anthony Wiener with the boost his worthless life and life’s work have clearly needed.

The sexting antics of this engorged organism—a New-York City mayoral candidate and once a Democratic congressman—have allowed Mainstream Media to carry out its mission: knocking down one straw man (Weiner) to conceal the catastrophes of another (Obama).

Back to Stossel. To the question of ‘Are We Rome?’ posed on the July 18 segment of his eponymous show, Mr. Stossel replied, ‘Not yet.’

Wrong.

Mr. Stossel takes comfort in the fact that ‘we don’t kill people for sport. When we go to war, misguided or not, we don’t conquer or plunder. And when we win, we usually leave.’

The popular host is utterly mistaken—just as he was wrong to summarily dismiss the the threat to liberty of the ‘National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls,’ to quote his nonchalant column.

Who is Stossel kidding? American assassins hunt down and kill very many innocents abroad by drone. Unmanned aerial U.S. ‘drones have killed thousands, many of them civilians,’ attests Gabor Rona of Human Rights First.

And talk about a Roman spectacle! Targeted killing is even a bit of a sport—so much so that the latter-day Rome has established a “new medal that honors drone pilots and computer experts” for their long-distance killing prowess. It was to be called ‘The Distinguished Warfare Medal.’

Rome’s rulers were not early as efficient as the US is at killing. Uncle Sam has industrialized and streamlined war-time slaughter. No longer do thousands of legionnaires lay siege to a city with attack catapults; one pilots flattens it with a single ‘daisy cutter’ (and few qualms). …”

The complete column is “The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills.” Read it on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

• At the WND Comments Section. Scroll down and “Say it.”

• On my Facebook page.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” this week’s “Return To Reason” column.

Welfare For The World Even When The Law Says ‘No’

Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Law, Welfare

Even US law on occasion provides a way out of welfare for the world. Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act is a case in point. But not on Obama’s watch:

“Many laws are complicated, but Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act isn’t,” explains Noah Feldman at Bloomberg. “It reads: ‘None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.’ In other words, money spent to aid a foreign country such as Egypt can’t be spent if there has been a coup. There is no loophole in this language. … ” MORE.

Isn’t it time the ponces of the press compile a comprehensive survey of all the instances in which this president has flouted the law of the land? Of course not. What was I thinking?!