Category Archives: Just War

UPDATED: Republicans Desperately Need To … Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy (Entrenched, Un-Rothbardian Meta-Perspective)

Democrats, Elections, Just War, libertarianism, Liberty, Middle East, Military, Old Right, Political Philosophy, Politics, Republicans, War

Democrats and Republicans are warring over who won last night’s vice presidential debate. Democrats say Joe Biden; Republicans Paul Ryan.

While I agree with Daniel Pipes’ impressions of Biden’s repulsive demeanor (excerpted below); to the impartial observer, the outcome was clear. This time around, Ryan took the place Barack Obama occupied last week: loser.

Or, rather, relative loser (BHO was an absolute loser).

Ryan, of course, was never as bad a loser as Obama, as he is far more intelligent, studious, and quicker on his feet than the president. But overall—and during most of the bickering—Ryan lost.

Here’s Pipes on “Joe Biden’s smirk”:

Actually it was not just the smirk – it was also the false hilarity, the 82 interruptions of Ryan, the finger pointing, the preening arrogance, and the talking down to the audience – that overshadowed all else in the debate. Not until the last fifteen minutes did Biden talk like a normal human being, and then he became quite effective. Before then, however, his ugly demeanor overwhelmed his words, leaving a powerfully unpleasant impression. In contrast, Ryan spoke earnestly and respectfully, even while getting in a couple of sharp elbow jabs.

Dr. Pipes and I diverge over the nature of the principles mentioned, but Pipes correctly points to the absence of any in the debate, writing that, “With only a few exceptions, both candidates (as was also the case in the presidential debate) stayed aloof from principles, preferring to make the case as to who is the more competent manager. … those endless numbers and the disagreements over small facts meant the discussion verged on the tedious.”

Particularly painful (to longtime observers vested in an Old-Right, non-interventionist foreign policy) was Ryan’s deer-in-the-headlights look under Biden’s relentless barrage of,

“You gonna go to war (Iran)? You’d rather Americans be going in doing the job instead of the [Afghan] trainees? You wanna send our soldiers to the border with Pakistan; let the Afghans step-up. We’re leaving! Let them step-up. The last thing America needs is to get in another ground war in the Middle East …”

I’ll say this much: Poor Paul Ryan knows his Afghan mountain passes.

His boss’s behind Biden saved.

The debate dovetailed with “Desperately Seeking A Flip-Flop On Foreign Policy,” this week’s column, now on RT. It pointed out that “in fact, there is little daylight between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, as far as foreign policy goes.”

UPDATED (Oct 14): ENTRENCHED, UN-ROTHBARDIAN META-PERSPECTIVE. In reply to the Facebook thread, and Myron Pauli’s entrenched meta-perspective.

Myron, you mean you would not wish to hear and see Republicans commit to not launching wars and leaving all foreign bases? What kind of libertarianism is THAT!? Not Murray Rothbard’s. He was a tireless political junky, never one to sit on the fence lazily and feign disinterested piety. Alas, we have this debate every week, Myron. It’s not a debate. You adopt the same meta-perspective on politics; I cut and paste a characterization of your response, and it is this: “… We libertarians must not comment on policy, for it compromises our precious libertarian purity. We must not apply the mind to the issues of the day to enlighten our readers and bring them closer to liberty, for no enlightenment other than the immediate and absolute application and acceptance of the non-aggression axiom can be entertained.

Diplomatic Immunity From The Dangers Of Occupation

Barack Obama, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Government, Individual Rights, Islam, Just War, Terrorism, War

Our government’s only legitimate function is to protect American lives, one by precious one. Yet under “W,” ordinary Americans were regularly beheaded in the theaters of war Genghis Bush launched. None of their representatives stateside bargained for their lives or staged showy Congressional hearings to probe their forsaken security.

“President Bush sat bone idle, never lifting a bloodstained finger to haggle for his countrymen.”

The helpless faces in televised pleas of Americans such as Private First Class Keith Maupin, Paul Johnson, Nick Berg, and American engineers Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong; the depraved indifference of my countrymen to their plight—these haunted me throughout 2003-2004, documented in columns such as “AFTER THEIR HEADS ROLL, AMERICA’S DEAD REMAIN FACELESS.”

Now, Republicans are attempting to saddle a war president by any other name—Barack Obama—with the blame for the “resurgence” of terrorism in America’s occupied territories, when the same anger was evinced by the occupied under Bush, and it will persist under future Republican leaders.

One voice of sanity on foreign policy is “departing Congressman” Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. Kucinich, who will be sorely missed, made a cameo today during the “House Hearing on Attack on U.S. Consulate in Libya,” where he asked about al-Qaida’s presence in Libya. Lt. Col. Andrew Wood said: ‘Their presence grows everyday. They are certainly more established than we are.'”

More from Kucinich via Reason:

Departing Congressman Dennis Kucinich said at today’s hearing on security failures in Benghazi that rather than engaging in partisanship Congress ought to look at its role in failing to curb American interventionism as what led to the terrorist attack in Benghazi on 9/11, saying extremists exist and are more powerful in Libya because the U.S. “spurred a civil war” there, “absent constitutional authority, might I add.”
Kucinich blamed “decades of intervention” on the rise of extremists in the region and asked why no lessons from Iraq were drawn on Libya.
“Interventions do not make us safer,” Kucinich said, “they are themselves a threat to America,” before asking how much more Al-Qaeda there is in Libya now than before the U.S. intervention (the only answer he got was that they have a bigger presence in Libya than the U.S. does.” He also asked how many surface-to-air missiles were still missing since the U.S. intervention. Between 10 and 20,000, according to one of the witnesses.

UPDATED: Anything Obama Can Do, I Can Do Deadlier: That Sums Romney’s Foreign Policy

Barack Obama, Constitution, Elections, Foreign Policy, Just War, libertarianism, Old Right, Republicans, Terrorism, War

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow stares into the Romney foreign-policy abyss, and demolishes Obama’s challenger for going AWOL, and allowing Americans to continue to drift unmoored. In fact, from Maddow’s impassioned plea, I hazard that if Mitt Romney fleshed out the details of an Old-Right, anti-interventionist stand, exposing the immorality of Obama’s adventurism and violations abroad, he’d get her respect, and, if not her own vote, that of many of her pals on the left.

Yes, on rare occasions, Rachel Maddow does surprise with a streak of independence. If I understood Maddow’s latest televised monologue–and I do believe I am not giving her undue credit—she is challenging Mitt Romeny to say something meaningful, anything, about US foreign policy. And, in particular, about Obama’s worldwide drone assassination program, which she, like any decent human being, abhors.

That’s all you’ve got. how about this. what would you do differently if the answer is we’d be stronger, that’s not an answer. we deserve a politics that is capable of giving us choices or setting up a debate about competing reasonable ideas about handling the controversial things the government does in our names.
I know what the obama administration’s position is on Afghanistan. because he’s the president. i have no idea what mitt romney would do differently in Afghanistan, if anything. i know what the obama’s administration is on drones. i frankly find that position hair raising. i know what the obama administration’s position is on Pakistan. i know mitt romney thinks pakistan is very important. is it inconceivable somebody would ask him why, how, what his plan would be when it comes to that country? politics should move us some distance toward debate and decision making on the hardest problems we face as a country. that is not what we’re getting from our politics right now. if we’re not getting it now, when…”

Obama, says Maddow, is “using flying killer robots to do kill people all over the world.” She invites Romney to step into the void,

and his “answer is that he also thinks killing bin laden was a good idea. [and that] he wouldn’t crash [a drone] in iran. any questions? it is days like this when you realize that however important this presidential campaign is and this decision is, that we as a country have to make between these two candidates, our politics are essentially failing right now. they’re essentially impotent now for debating questions like this one. choosing between candidates is supposed to be the way we choose between policies in important thing that affect our country including national security. but our politics have been allowed to shrink if one side doesn’t want to talk about it, we’re not going to debate it as a country. let people in Washington figure it out. a new report out today says our secret drone policy, which we’ve been implementing for the better part of a decade, may be radicalizing the residents with a radical country. we’re not going to debate that at all. that’s not a policy matter that’s bort some national discussion. no competing ideas about maybe a choice in course. this is what the democratic president is doing. the republican party has no competing ideas on this at all? nothing to say? with this policy, due process that we afford people, that we kill people, the due process ultimately consists of the president of the united states making the call.
…but we are in the process of picking who’s going to be the next president and we’re not asking where these two men stand on that issue or if they think they should have that power. if that power should exist. if we’re not going to ask these questions now. look at this week. you have president obama at the UN talking about the policy of Pakistan and Hillary Clinton meeting the president of Pakistan on the same day. you have the developing story of the drone attack yesterday that killed an al qaeda leader. and you have a presidential campaign. but the conversation when it comes to this stuff is, “he seems like jimmy carter.” i read that he was a one-term president once. really? that’s all you’ve got. how about this. what would you do differently? if the answer is we’d be stronger, that’s not an answer. we deserve a politics that is capable of giving us choices or setting up a debate about competing reasonable ideas about handling the controversial things the government does in our names. i know what the obama administration’s position is on afghanistan. because he’s the president. i have no idea what mitt romney’s [is]…

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UPDATE (9/26): In reply to the Facebook thread: MRP, as per usual, your position is in contradiction to mine. As I’ve replied to you many times, and in almost every post or column of mine, yours is standard anarchism, and it goes as follow: “Don’t say anything, for it is nothing really. Do not comment on policy, for it compromises precious libertarian purity. Do not apply your mind to the issues of the day to enlighten your readers and bring them closer to liberty, for no enlightenment other than the immediate and absolute application and acceptance of the non-aggression axiom can be entertained.” Pretty much. I’m sorry, Myron, but, like it or not, what Maddow said is important. Objectively speaking. And my anti-war readers are better informed for understanding how truly remiss Romney is for not breaking with the Bush-McCain axis of evil. It takes no intellectual effort whatsoever to adopt a default position of intellectual ennui and superiority.
Finally, I am unconvinced Romney is as bad a man as is Obama, on a personal level. Romney is just a conformist, and pig ignorant in terms of political philosophy.

Timing The Truth

Barack Obama, Bush, Criminal Injustice, Journalism, Just War, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Military, Terrorism, War

I don’t know much about the political bent of Esquire Magazine. Is it left-liberal? (Bound to be.) Is it comfortably mainstream? (Ditto.) It looks like a déclassé New Yorker.

What I do know is that for “finishing off a 16-year old Yemeni boy—the son of Anwar al-Awlakias”—this writer, other non-beltway libertarians, and reporters outside the orthodoxy (the good folks at RT are an example) called Obama a murderer AROUND THE TIME HE COMMITTED THAT MURDER, not a year later.

Tom Junod of Esquire, a seemingly affable fellow, has only NOW come out with a “highly critical article about President Obama’s drone strike program.” To CNN, “Junod described Pres. Obama’s presidency as ‘lethal,'” and “told anchor Brooke Baldwin “why he wrote the article and the work that went into it.”

Junod’s essay, “The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama,” is dated July 9, 2012.

Read it, if you don’t mind the cloying format: a letter to the beloved Strong Man.

The point is that the establishment—Democratic and Republican—decides when Truth should be allowed to emerge. It’s not a conscious process; but a reflexive one. It’s not that these interests know the truth when they see it. Rather, reflexively, they marginalize those who speak it, until such politically opportune times when the truth can be spoken. Then they act (quite sincerely) as though they discovered said truth and are performing a great public service by speaking it.

“The Perils of a Killer President (Parlaying Vice into Votes)” was written on 09.30.11.

“Murder on Her Mind,” which also alluded to Uncle Sam’s assassin-in-chief, followed in October 28, 2011.

On February 3, 2012, “BHO: Uncle Sam’s Assassin” pulled back the curtain to reveal Barack Obama as the “uncrowned king of the killer drone.”

Barely a Blog’s latest in tracking this president—every bit as execrable as Genghis Bush—is “Killer Words & Kill Lists,” dated 05.29.12.