Category Archives: Military

UPDATED: McMussolini Vs. Marshmallow Man (Man Reads McCain His Rights)

John McCain, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, War

In this clip, an intelligent, informed, Syrian American hammers “McMussolini,” exposing his ignorance and arrogance. The exchange shows the measure of the man. McCain’s reply to her amounts to platitudes. His message is clear: “It’s my way or the highway.”

Via Economic Policy Journal:

I like “marshmallow” man even better. Here you see him get in McCain’s face 1:58 minutes into the YouTube clip:

UPDATE (9/8): “The simple irony is that the domestic enemy now in this country is the government of the Unites States.”

Man reads McMussolini’s his rights. The sleeping giant has awakened.

Again, to all consistent and principled anti-war warriors, the specter of Americans rising against Uncle Sam’s bloody suzerainty is … wonderful.

UPDATE II: On Syria (And All Else), It’s ‘Us’ Against ‘Them’ (The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democracy, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, Military, War

“On Syria (And All Else), It’s ‘Us’ Against ‘Them'” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

The “Us” of this column’s title needs no explaining. The “Them,” however, does. We the American people are up against an entity far more sinister than the traditional, inchoate enemy—terrorism—around which we are instructed to unite in purpose.

The debate over whether to strafe Syria or to stay out of that country pits us against the military-congressional-industrial complex, whose interests run counter to ours. …

… Prominent among a new breed of military man turned lawmaker to stalk the people’s House is Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger. A “veteran of the military,” who still serves as a military pilot in the National Guard, is how Kinzinger bills himself. War weary though he purports to be Kinzinger is not. The verbally flatulent representative from Illinois loved it when his ilk flew sorties over the Old Stable Iraq, and seeks a repeat performance over Syria. He appears to see no limits to the role the U.S. should play in rolling back evil around the world, out of “the goodness of our heart.” Yes, the constitutional principle Rep. Adam Kinzinger invokes to justify war against the wishes and interests of the American people is “The Goodness of Our Heart” Clause.

But then, a “Global Force for Good” is how the Navy promises to fulfill “The Goodness of Our Heart” Clause of the U.S. Constitution, on its frightful, promotional website. You see, members of the U.S. military do not regard themselves as defenders of the realm—unless by “realm” one means empire. They’ve been brainwashed to be foot soldiers for the federal government, whenever, wherever.

Imagine what America’s Founding Fathers would think of a military that straddles the planet, having assumed the unauthorized role of a “global force for good.” Those sages opposed the idea of a standing army. They understood that “a standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”

The magnificent Robert E. Lee, on the other hand, had it right. To this American hero, local was beautiful. Gen. Lee saw himself as a Virginian first. Rep. Kinzinger is a Syrian first.

Baseless too is the idea that someone who’s seen war will be especially judicious in sending others to war. John McCain had suffered in war and has not stopped advocating for it ever since. John Kerry voted to go into Iraq. Ditto Chuck Hagel. …

Read the complete column. “On Syria (And All Else), It’s ‘Us’ Against ‘Them'” is now 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.

UPDATE I: “Most lawmakers undecided on Syria.”

“By CNN’s count, 59 senators and more than 280 representatives aren’t sure how they’ll vote on President Obama’s request for a military strike on Syria.” FULL STORY

UPDATE II (9/8): The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened.

… phones are bouncing off the hook, and almost unanimously people are saying do not get involved in a bloody and chaotic civil war in Syria

Mum’s The Word About The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

Conservatism, Critique, Ethics, Etiquette, Government, Healthcare, Military, Morality, Republicans

Mark Levin the radio Mouth could be heard inveighing against what is surely a sickening specter: “Healthcare lobbying on K Street.” As The Hill divulged:

More than 30 former administration officials, lawmakers and congressional staffers who worked on the healthcare law have set up shop on K Street since 2010.
Major lobbying firms such as Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, The Glover Park Group, Alston & Bird, BGR Group and Akin Gump can all boast an Affordable Care Act insider on their lobbying roster — putting them in a prime position to land coveted clients.
“When [Vice President] Biden leaned over [during the signing of the healthcare law] and said to [President] Obama, ‘This is a big f’n deal,’ ” said Ivan Adler, a headhunter at the McCormick Group, “he was right.”
Veterans of the healthcare push are now lobbying for corporate giants such as Delta Air Lines, UPS, BP America and Coca-Cola, and for healthcare companies including GlaxoSmithKline, UnitedHealth Group and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

This, no doubt, is ANC-style corruption; the stuff of banana republics, carried out with considerable aplomb and within the bounds of what is considered The Law.

You won’t hear conservatives like Mark Levin protesting or even mentioning the tentacles of The Thing that enervates every corner of the American government, economy, foreign policy, you name them: the military-industrial-Congressional complex, where corruption and “influence peddling” are the order of the day.

Over to the formidable Chuck Spinney:

… SPINNEY: Right. Let’s say I’m the program manager for the F-16 in the Pentagon. I get a call from one of my wholly owned subsidiaries over on the Hill on the armed services committee. “We got it funded for you guys, but those guys in the House are gonna screw us.” So you know, “You got to do something.”

So all I have to do is I call up the program manager at the prime contractor, who I know because I work with him on a daily basis. And say, “Hey, we got a problem.

“The House is gonna kill our program. The Senate’s on board. Turn on the pressure.” Well, at that point, I don’t have to do anything in the government. The rest of it takes care of itself because the people whose future it…are at hand are gonna work overtime to solve that.

The contractors then start calling up the subcontractors. They unleash the fax attacks. They unleash the emails. And then of course they start calling the lobbyists, the Gucci shoe crowd on K Street, and say, “Hey, you got to start beating the… beating the pavement in the halls of Congress. We need some newspaper op-eds.” The whole process takes care of itself. One phone call turns it on.

MOYERS: Who gets the money?

SPINNEY: The contractors get it. The Congressmen get it, you know through… they get the power because they keep getting voted back in office. They may also get some Congressional contributions. But I think the bigger benefit is the power, the stability of their job.

And remember the people in the Pentagon that are promoting this thing are basically… they’re also creating a situation where they can roll over and get into that sector and make the big bucks. All you have to do is look at the number of retired generals working for defense contractors.

MOYERS: The revolving door?

SPINNEY: Yeah, yeah. The revolving door.

… Over in the Pentagon, we’re not holding people accountable.

I think basically here is you have in Congress the oversight committees for defense, which are essentially the armed services committee. And the defense appropriations subcommittees in both houses are so tied in to the Pentagon and the defense contractor base that essentially oversight has been displaced by what some of us call overlook. They’re basically watching the money flow out the door and encouraging it to go.

And basically it’s in members of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s best interest to keep the money flowing. It’s in the Pentagon’s best interest to keep the money flowing.

MOYERS: Because?

SPINNEY: It’s in the defense contractors’ best interest to keep the money flowing. Because it’s the military industrial Congressional complex and this is their way of life. They live on the money flow.

MOYERS: The military industrial Congressional complex?

SPINNEY: Right. Which I believe was a term that Eisenhower considered using in his speech, but he dropped the reference to Congress.

MORE WITH MOYERS.

And The Silent Conspirators in the Case Of Major Nidal Malik Hasan Are …

Islam, Jihad, Justice, Military, Multiculturalism, Terrorism

…The top brass of the US military, of course.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, “the Jihadi who committed fratricide at Fort Hood,” was promoted at every step of the way by “the wise monkeys of the military,” who chose “to see no evil, hear no evil, and most certainly speak no evil of Holy Hasan.”

Hasan was convicted, Friday, of murdering 13 people and maiming 32 on that United States Army post.

Hasan’s conduct, as was observed in “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program,” was reviewed and dismissed the December prior to the attack by “no less than two Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” which determined that “Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s extensive correspondence with the infamous radical cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi” was but “an innocent exchange.”

Honest Hasan took every opportunity to inform his colleagues and classmates that he was a Muslim first, an American and an officer second, and that Islamic law usurped the Constitution. That minor tidbit failed to rattle the military.

During his secure career as a psychiatrist in the Army Medical Corps, Major Nidal, as he was known, openly proselytize for his faith. Preaching Islam to already traumatized patients did not hinder his rise through the ranks.

Since the Army was indifferent to Hasan’s place of worship ? “a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a ‘spiritual adviser’ to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001” ? it should come as no surprise that the FBI was equally unexercised about the man’s internet postings back in May of this year. On the Scribd.com website, user name “NidalHasan” compared “the actions of an American soldier who threw himself on a grenade in Iraq with those of Islamist suicide bombers.”

Hasan’s poor powers of reasoning ? the analogy doesn’t work! ? did not arise in a vacuum. Those “abilities” were hothoused in the military’s Jihadi-hospitable hospitals. Before unleashing Hasan at Fort Hood, his higher-ups had him practice his anti-kafir “craft” on damaged soldiers in the venerated VA system, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, to be precise. A mother whose son was left to the mercies of the Major described him as scary, inappropriate and without empathy.

Instructed to “make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program,” Hasan came up with this: “The Koranic World View As It Relates To Muslims In The U.S. Military.” The Washington Post tells of how the man “stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Would that his supervisors had at least failed this incompetent for his curricular creativity. As witnesses now crawling out of the woodwork attest, the products of the Major’s lazy, one-track mind drew no more than “really upset looks.” Substandard professional performance would get one purged from the private sector. It did nothing to undermine Hasan’s employment status, rank, six-figure income, and secret security clearance in the military.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s calling card advertized his commitment. Besides typos, the card features the SoA acronym which stands for “Soldiers of Allah.” Perhaps his superiors thought Hasan was a fan of a Muslim rap group that goes by that moniker.

If you doubt that psychiatry is quackery, read on. In mulling over Hasan’s devotional zeal, Army psychiatrists concluded that while he might be delusional, he was not dangerous. As an antidote to his preoccupation with Islam, Hasan was prescribed, wait for this, a course of lectures on Islam, the Middle East and terrorism.

The Diversity Doxology is clearly instantiated in the umpteenth iteration of the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Duly, the Army’s voodooists accepted Hasan’s “areas of interest” as merely “different.” Difference, as you know, is to be cherished.

From YouTube footage we glean that the military minded not a bit that Hasan breezed about the base in his Jihadi jumpsuit. The wise monkeys of the military saw no evil, heard no evil, and most certainly spoke no evil of Holy Hasan. A Muslim driven by devotion ? a potential murderer to the men around him; a martyr to his ilk ? Hasan was being Hasan.

As an extension of government, I submit to you that so too was the military being true to itself. When Republicans and conservatives cavil about the gargantuan growth of government, they target the state’s welfare apparatus and spare its war machine. Unbeknown to these factions, the military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government. Like government, it must be kept small.

Conservatives can’t coherently preach against the evils of big government, while excluding the military mammoth.

For all its faults and infractions, it is inconceivable that Blackwater Worldwide would, as a matter of policy, expose its warriors to a man like Major Nidal. No private security firm would subordinate the safety of its prized assets to the missions of left-liberalism.

Leave that to Lieutenant General Robert W. Cone, commander of III Corps at Fort Hood.

Manacled by multiculturalism, Cone was, moreover, careful to keep his grunts defenseless. “As a matter of practice, we don’t carry weapons here, this is our home,” he bragged about the “no-guns” policies on base. It remained for the victims at Fort Hood to wait for civilian police officers to rescue them from a lone gunman.

For 13 of the fragged men and women it was too late.

Grunts are not the only Americans who’ll soon be at the mercy of a dhimmi, DC-dominated, Jihadi protection program.Hasan was a medicine man ? a “healer” ? in a system governed by codified laws of non-discrimination and political correctness. Rest assured that B. Hussein’s hulking healthcare ministry will hot-house more such Jihad-prone practitioners.

If you doubt that military top dogs should have been in the dock with Hasan, read “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program.”

Hasan was “convicted Friday in the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, a shocking assault against American troops at home by one of their own who said he opened fire on fellow soldiers to protect Muslim insurgents abroad,” reports the bewildered Associated Press.

A jury of 13 high-ranking military officers reached a unanimous guilty verdict on all charges — 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder — in about seven hours. Hasan is now eligible for the death penalty.