Category Archives: Military

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.

Israel Can Do Without Thief-In-Chief

Barack Obama, Elections, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Military, Palestinian Authority

A transfer of funds via wire is faster than a good-will state visit. So brazen is Barack Hussein Obama about using the people’s purse to feather his own nest—that he doesn’t even bother with appearances. To upstage Mitt Romney’s campaign stop in Israel,

Obama is authorizing an additional $70 million in military assistance to [that country].
The official says the funds will go to help Israel expand production of a short-range rocket defense system. The system, called Iron Dome, helps Israel defend itself against rocket attacks.

(Politico)

Chicago politics? Make that DC as usual.

The American Founding Fathers believed that politicians had no right to be benevolent with funds belonging to the people.

From “Is Ron Paul Good For Israel?”:

HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE. For foreign aid, Israeli leaders have been forced to subordinate their country’s national interests to Washington’s whims. This is bad for both allies. Those of us who want the U.S. to stay solvent—and out of the affairs of others—recognize that sovereign nation-states that resist, not enable, our imperial impulses, are the best hindrance to hegemonic overreach. Patriots for a sane U.S. foreign policy ought to encourage all America’s friends, especially Israel, to push back and do what is in their national interest, not ours.

There’s something else that might surprise Americans, who’ve been convinced that unless they intervene to assist, Israel won’t make it. Israel’s doing alright. Relatively speaking, its economy is better than that of the US.

The crazies are threatening it on the north (Lebanon & Syria), the south (the lovely Egyptian revolutionaries), and the east (the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and beyond), but, as the US and most of Europe decline, Israel’s economy flourishes. Here are Israel’s fiscal fundamentals, courtesy of Bloomberg.com:

• GDP growth of 4.8 percent this year
• A raised credit rating of A+
• Very low unemployment
• “60 companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, the most of any nation outside North America after China.”
• “The largest number of startup companies per capita in the world.”
• A ranking of “third in terms of projected growth this year among MSCI’s list of 24 developed economies, after 6 percent for Hong Kong and 5.3 percent for Singapore, according to the IMF.”
• “Israel’s exports are high-added value exports like informatics and technology”: This means the stuff the Israelis make adds real value and jobs, unlike Obama’s state-manufactured jobs, which result from moving money around.

SADLY, that thing we in the US celebrate and anticipate—the Arab spring—threatens commence, innovation and economic prosperity in the region’s most productive oasis.

On the military front, Israel doesn’t need American assistance with rocket-deflection technology. The Israelis (a contractor called Rafael and the US-based Raytheon) vastly improved upon the American patriot missile system that misfired so badly at Dhahran.

At the time, the Israelis had already identified the problem and informed the US Army and the PATRIOT Project Office (the software manufacturer) on February 11, 1991, but no upgrade was present at the time.[citation needed] As a stopgap measure, the Israelis recommended rebooting the system’s computers regularly, however, Army officials did not understand how often they needed to do so. The manufacturer supplied updated software to the Army on February 26, the day after the Scud struck the Army barracks.

(Wikipedia)

To remedy the problem, the Israelis developed,

David’s Sling, expected to have a longer range than the Patriot and also to one day replace the Hawk surface-to-air missile systems in air defense missions.

As for a system designed to stop short-range rockets; the Israelis have that covered too. They’ve had to. How else do you live (and prosper) near the oasis known as Gaza?

My in-house wireless expert tells me that to deflect short range, small, fast-moving rockets, the RF radar tracking system of the Iron Dome is already “impressive.”

Israel is good to go.

UPDATE II: Mitt’s Foreign Policy Is Obama’s With A Daisy Cutter On Top (Unbridled, Bellicose American Exceptionalism)

Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Republicans, War

Today, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nevada, Mitt Romney renewed his allegiance to the Obama-Bush Warfare State, only with a cherry on top.

Or make that a Daisy Cutter.

Romney accused BHO, aka, Killer Drone extraordinaire—the man who has “developed” new theaters of war for America across the world—of compromising the US’s bloated military-industrial-complex by cutting its budget.

“I am not ashamed of American power,” Romney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention …, adding “I do not view America as just one more point on the strategic map, one more power to be balanced.”
…Romney said he wanted to bring an “American century” in which the United States has the world’s strongest economy and military that secures peace through its strength.
“And if by absolute necessity we must employ it, we must wield our strength with resolve,” Romney said to applause. “In an American century, we lead the free world and the free world leads the entire world.”

Since Republicans and Democrats have comparable records on sustaining the Welfare-Warfare State, you should remember that, “each party operates as a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging in perpetuity from the one set of colluding quislings to the other, and back. … No sooner do the Republicans come to power, than they move to the left. When they get their turn, Democrats shuffle to the right. At some point, McCain reaches across the aisle and the creeps converge.”

UPDATE I: In reply to the thread on Facebook:

While I feel immense sympathy for the poor men who were drafted, I don’t begrudge those, like Romney, who were able to avoid the draft. What I despise is when the same people talk up wars that others’ children must fight. I want a law enacted now that would draft the Bush and McCain girls and the Romney boys to the front. Oh, I already wrote a column in “support of the draft…for politicians and bureaucrats.”

UPDATE II: Romney’s unbridled, Bellicose American exceptionalism:

From Berlin to Cairo to the United Nations, President Obama has shared his view of America and its place among nations. I have come here today to share mine.
I am an unapologetic believer in the greatness of this country. I am not ashamed of American power. I take pride that throughout history our power has brought justice where there was tyranny, peace where there was conflict, and hope where there was affliction and despair. I do not view America as just one more point on the strategic map, one more power to be balanced. I believe our country is the greatest force for good the world has ever known, and that our influence is needed as much now as ever.

About Mormonism and American exceptionalism, Amy Sullivan at The New Republic says this:

…an enthusiastic belief in American exceptionalism is part of Mormon culture and theology. There is the sacred significance of America as the setting for the Book of Mormon and the birth of the Latter-Day Saints. But there is also the belief by early LDS leaders that Mormons would one day rescue the country when it threatened to fall apart.
In an essay on this topic last month, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune included this quote from Brigham Young: “There is not a Territory in the Union that is looked upon with so suspicious an eye as is Utah, and yet it is the only part of the nation that cares anything about the Constitution.” Bagley explained:
The Saints saw themselves as a link in a chain beginning with the Pilgrims, continuing through the Founding Fathers, and leading up to the establishment of Christ’s righteous government.

My position is this: “the United States, by virtue of its origins and ideals,” was unique. But most Americans know nothing of the ideas that animated their country’s founding. In fact, they are more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical liberal philosophy of the founders, and hence wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive state and the fulfillment of their own needs and desires through war and welfare.

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.