Category Archives: Military

UPDATED: ‘At Peace’ In War

Iraq, Just War, libertarianism, Military, Paleolibertarianism

He’s a fine man (inside and out), which is why it is numbingly absurd, if predictable, for a CNN correspondent to have drawn a moral equivalence between Jordan Matson’s mission and that of 100 or so other Americans, who’ve flocked to fight alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

You see, Matson is an American soldier fighting, voluntarily, with the Kurds against ISIS. And he is not part of Rome’s tax-funded Army’s. Rather, after praying “about what to do for a month or two,” Matson resolved to help the Kurds: “For me, it’s for the Kurdish people,” Matson told CNN.

Matson is “from Sturtevant, Wisconsin, a ‘mom and pop town’ as he described it, with just a few restaurants and three gas stations. He worked the third shift at a food packaging company,” before enlisting with the Popular Protection Unit (YPG), “a Kurdish militia set up to protect the Kurdish areas” from ISIS.

Unless they are pacifists—a quality as odious as militarism—libertarians ought to have no issue with Matson: He is risking his own life, doing what he believes in, is fighting a Just War, and is not funded by the American taxpayer.

Although there is no doubt that this man would rush to the aid of his “little platoons” in America—Edmund Burke’s description of a man’s social mainstay, his family, friends, coreligionists, coworkers—there is, seemingly, no place for Matson in an increasingly feminized, manliness-averse, honor-free America:

“Civilian life just wasn’t for me. The normal 9-to-5, I just wasn’t comfortable with it,” he said.

As to why there is no moral equivalence between Matson and ISIS enlistees:

* Matson is a Christian who prays to the G-d of the Hebrews and the Christians. Some of us think that Islam is problematic and that “ISIS is Islam.”
* Matson does not behead, rape, enslave anyone, much less innocent civilians.
* Matson is not fighting an expansionist aggressive war, his is a defensive war against an aggressor.
* Matson is on the side of the only people that has made good on their sovereignty; are westernized and are profoundly pro-American (G-d only knows why).

UPDATE (10/28): Tinny libertarianism, again. From the Facebook thread:

Myron Robert Pauli: Funny thing but I said about the various neocons like Krauthammer and Kristol that they ought to put their $$ where their mouths are and lead volunteers to fight rather than commit a collective national effort. Jordan Matson decided to do as an individual fight against some international evil that he personally cares about – fine for him. It is the policy of forcibly dragging the nation as a whole into imperial efforts that I object to.

Ilana Mercer: Myron Robert Pauli, so ISIS is just some amorphous “international evil.” Don’t lapse again into tinny, “lite libertarianism.”

Myron Robert Pauli: ???? ???? ISIS has not attacked the US. They have attacked Kurds, Shiites, or opposing Sunnis in Syria and Iraq which, last time I check, are not in the US – which makes them external – now perhaps I should have used the word external instead of international. But a non-interventionist policy for a limited-government republic would not “go around searching for monsters to destroy” (John Quincy Adams). So maybe we have a disconnect but I am not sure what you call “lite libertarianism” here – people overseas have the responsibility to defend themselves against the scumbags that attack them but we don’t have an obligation to help them (and it usually is counterproductive when we “help”) but if some individual wishes to help, that is probably fine.

Ilana Mercer WTF, Myron Robert Pauli: From the fact that ISIS has not attacked the US, it does not follow that one is morally neutral as individuals to their deeds against other innocents. We went over this “argument” when I wrote “Masada on Mount Sinjar.” By your “argument,” no individual had the right to mess with the Germans who murdered close on 6 million Jews and others.

The Hos @ State On Outsourcing Safety To The Enemy

Foreign Policy, Gender, Hillary Clinton, Military, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Terrorism, The State

To counter other grand theories about Benghazi, I have always contended that, to quote, “Hillary Clinton, the woman who cracked the whip at Foggy Bottom at the time, had clearly resolved to run the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, as one would an open community center. This was meant to signal that her war on Libya had been a success, when in fact Hillary’s adventure there had as much ‘host-nation support’ as George Bush’s faith-based forays into Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The next tidbit is by no means news, yet it always disgusts me afresh on a number of levels: What it says about the submissiveness of soldiers who serve Uncle Sam. Its confirmation of the state’s eagerness to sacrifice those who serve it for the tyranny of ideology—in this case the idea that one can safely outsource the safety of Americans to the enemy: Muslim militia.

Over to Marie Barf, Whore at State (do you have an audial recollection of the grating tart tones the woman emits from her mouth?):

QUESTION: On Libya?

MS. HARF: Uh-huh.

QUESTION: Marie, in Friday’s briefing where you addressed the stand-down controversy, you repeatedly said that there was “a short delay” that was ordered by the chief of base that night was smart and prudent because it was designed to help the CIA security contractors obtain, as you put it, additional backup and additional weapons. From whom and where did the chief of base expect to procure this additional backup of weapons?

MS. HARF: I don’t have details for you on that, but again, he thought it was prudent to take a short time to see if they could get additional weapons and backup, given they did not know the severity of the security situation they were sending their men into. Of course, wanted to avoid additional loss of life, but again, as I said on Friday, there was no stand-down order. There’s a fundamental difference between a short delay for these kind of security considerations and a stand-down order, which implies some effort to prevent people from aiding those under attack. As we know, these gentlemen eventually did go and assist, so disproving the theory that there was a stand-down order.

QUESTION: But you can’t say who they were requesting —

MS. HARF: I can check and see if there are details on that.

QUESTION: It wasn’t the February 17th Brigade?

MS. HARF: I can check and see what the details are on that.

QUESTION: Okay. As we look back on Benghazi with almost two years from now, can we say with certainty – just given how the events unfolded that night – that it was indeed a mistake to invest such confidence in local militias there to help these U.S. diplomats?

MS. HARF: Well, I think that’s, quite frankly, grossly simplifying what was a very sad and tragic day, where we know more could’ve been done with security. We knew the situation in Benghazi and in the rest of Libya was a dangerous one, but State Department employees and our counterparts from other agencies serve in dangerous places because we believe it’s important for America to lead and to be engaged and to help promote freedom and democracy and help people who are working towards those ends.

So obviously, we’ve said that more could have been done with security. We’ve spent these last two years doing more: implementing the ARB’s recommendations, making our people safer overseas. That’s been the focus of what we’ve done. But broadly speaking, of course, we believed it was important to engage there, and we still believe it’s important, even given today’s, quite frankly, tough security environment in Libya.

QUESTION: Which is so tough that you’ve closed your Embassy and they’re now operating out of Malta.

MS. HARF: That our – we haven’t closed our Embassy, but —

QUESTION: Well, you —

MS. HARF: Right, exactly.

Yes, in the back. And then I’ll come up to you, Leslie.

*****

Does the gentle reader, perhaps, have an apt description for a whiny, insubstantial, empty-headed ho like Harf? State with the likes of Harf at the helm is a real community center for cretins.

‘Green-On-Blue’ Shooting, Or Blue-In-The-Face Desperation?

Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Islam, Military, Terrorism

“Terrorist” or “Taliban” is how they are labeled if they rebel against US plans for their homeland. But could it be that so-called random acts of murder, like the one committed today by a “man in an Afghan Army uniform,” occur because an occupying, militarized western force is unwanted in that part of the world?

Was this a random “green-on-blue shooting,” or a case of blue-in-the-face desperation: America and its allies simply don’t listen; they don’t want to leave the Afghans alone.

Those who died for nothing today: an “American general—one of the highest-ranked military deaths since 9/11.” “‘Perhaps up to 15’ coalition troops, including other Americans, were wounded in the attack. I believe that one has since died of his injuries.

UPDATED: Standing Armies Are Worse Than Useless (Israeli Major Gen. To US: Pot. Kettle. Black)

Ethics, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War, Middle East, Military

First up today, a think-tanker with the surname of Haas told CNN’s Don Lemon that Hamas kills Israelis and exploits Palestinians. No doubt. However, if given the option—something the dead are not afforded—would I rather be exploited by Hamas or killed by an Israeli bomb? I think you know the answer. (I was unable to locate the interview online.)

Next, this time on Fox News, a gentleman by the name of Adam Ereli, former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain, informed anchor Shepard Smith—and I paraphrase—that too much emphasis is being placed on Palestinian civilian casualties. Really? Are their lives forfeit for the sins of others?

This does not look good for Israel. My sense of this Gaza offensive is that a standing army such as Israel’s is unequipped to deal with guerrilla warfare. Standing armies are fat, lazy, imprecise and careless.

Not much has changed since I wrote, in 2012 (“Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards”), the following about Israel’s previous futile confrontation with Hamas:

… The fight was started by Hamas. Hamas hides among unwitting civilians, who have no way of controlling its activities. This fact does not give Israel the right to kill innocent non-combatants, not even unintentionally.

Besides, murder is not “unintentional” when you know it is inevitable.

To make matters worse, Gazans are helpless—they are without siren systems to warn them of an impending attack, or bomb shelters in which to hide.

After its 2006 Lebanon fiasco, I proposed that Israel deploy the best of its special-operations units. Israeli commandos such as the “Sayeret Matkal” are trained in surgical strikes, including modern urban counterterrorism operations. “Sayeret” soldiers can trace and neutralize the source of an attack against Israeli civilians sans “collateral damage.”

Yes, what’s the matter with Israel’s Special Operations capabilities? Where are Israel’s precision Pac Men? Did the Israel Defense Forces rain bombs, willy-nilly, on the civilians at the Entebbe Airport—in Uganda, on July 4, 1976—where the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held 100 hijacked Jews and Israelis hostage?

Not on your life.

Led by Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyau’s late great brother, 100 members of the “Sayeret” traversed 2,500 miles to rescue their brethren. They killed only those who needed killing.

It used to be that leaders like “Yoni” Netanyahu charged with their men into battle. Not anymore. Nowadays, celebrity, champagne-swilling generals give the order to chubby men in armored machines, who then bomb the anthills from above and afar. …

MORE.

UPDATE: Israeli Major Gen. To US: Pot. Kettle. Black. Retired Major General Amos Yadlin responded to the moralizing of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer brilliantly:

BLITZER: Should Israel, the IDF, be doing more to prevent civilian casualties?

YADLIN: The IDF are doing more than the Americans have done in Fallujah and more than the Americans have done in Germany in the second world war. We are the moralist army in the world. We have a code of conduct that we are allowed to attack only terrorists.

This too is true, but how much does it mean, and is it enough?