Category Archives: Neoconservatism

Murder On Her Mind (Libya Had Paid for Lockerbie)

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Just War, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Terrorism, The West, War

The following is excerpted from “Murder on Her Mind,” now on WND.COM:

“We came, we saw, he died,” cackled Hillary Rodham Clinton. The gorgon who heads Caesar’s state department was gripped by a paroxysm of joy when a CBS News reporter informed her that Col. Muammar Qaddafi had been executed. ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’: ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ is attributed to Julius Caesar in 47 B.C.

The hilarity unfolded on October 20, 2011. Backed by American drones and French fighter jets above, our Libyan buddies, “the rebels,” apprehended Qaddafi as he fled his hometown of Sirte en route to Misrata, both on the Mediterranean Sea. As they lynched their former leader on camera, the rebels emitted their version of Hillary’s blood-curdling riff: ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.’ Sophisticated enough to film their ‘justice,’ these atavists had no qualms about tearing into a defenseless individual before summarily shooting him in the head. …

The war in Libya was Hilary’s special project. As in Greek mythology, it all began with three Gorgon sisters. Medusa’s posse included Samantha Power (special assistant to the president and member of his National Security Council), and UN Ambassador Susan Rice. The women devised the casus belli for this war, and cultivated the ‘angels and demons’ Disney production, which starred an evil dictator who was killing his noble people, and three amazon warriors, who—high on estrogen-driven paternalism—rode to the rescue.

Human Rights Watch is tracking the blood sports in Libya as best it can (for the NTC is as transparent as the emperor in the White House). And there’s a lot to laugh about.” …

The complete column, “Murder on Her Mind,” is now on WND.COM. READ IT.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Barnes and Noble is always well-stocked and ships within 24 hours.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher.

UPDATED (Oct. 28): Blood Feud? On the column’s WND Facebook Wall, some individuals have alluded to the proper way to exact justice on Col. Muammar Gadhafi. The implication is that Gadhafi needed killing, but not public lynching. I’m an Old-Testament kind of gal; everyone who reads this column, knows this about me. But I’m for justice, not a program of pogroms targeting all the men in the world the US deems to be bad.

Read the BBC News excerpt below. History tells us that the Libyan leadership had taken “responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and paid compensation to the victims.” It also handed over the “two Libyans suspected of organising the incident in 1999 for trial in The Hague.”

The Anglo-American axis agreed to these terms; it agreed that Libya had paid for Lockerbie. Primitives carry on a blood feud for eternity. And untrustworthy snakes go back on their word. How inspiring would it have been had the Egyptian springsters, over whom almost all media (libertarian too) slobbered, and the Libyan “rebels,” began their “democracy” with a show of forgiveness: Let their old dictators retire in ignomy. Leave them alone. Why kill them? (Mubarak is next, you know it.)

Via BBC New:

After the 1988 bombing of a PanAm plane above the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which the US blamed on Libya, the Gaddafi regime was shunned by much of the international community.
But it underwent a dramatic rehabilitation by taking formal responsibility for the bombing in 2003 and paying compensation to the victims.
Two Libyans suspected of organising the incident were handed over in 1999 for trial in The Hague under Scottish law. In 2001 one of the suspects was found guilty of killing 270 people in the bombing.
The UN lifted sanctions, and Libya’s subsequent renunciation of weapons of mass destruction further improved relations with the West.

UPDATE III: ALL The Victims of September 11

Iraq, Jihad, Just War, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Terrorism, War

The “SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 VICTIMS” is a site dedicated to America’s victims of the September 11, 2001 assault. It is profoundly moving (even if the hyperlinks to each individual profile do not display). The list, however, is woefully incomplete. All told, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians have died due to the actions the American state took to avenge the murder of those who perished in the WORLD TRADE CENTER, on AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHTS 11 and 77, on UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHTS 175 and 93, and in the PENTAGON.

On 10.11.06, I made a point of clarifying a study in The Lancet detailing the direct and indirect casualties of our invasion of Iraq:

“In the final days of Saddam’s reign of terror, i.e., in the 15 months preceding the invasion, the primary causes of death in Iraq were natural: heart attack, stroke and chronic illness. Since Iraq became another neocon object lesson, the primary cause of death has been violence, according to the report.”

Moreover, “since March 2003, Iraqis have suffered from an excess of deaths, if you will.”

The relative risk, the risk of deaths from any cause was two-and-a-half times higher for Iraqi civilians after the 2003 invasion than in the preceding 15 months. But ‘the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the U.S.-led invasion.

In 2006, The Lancet cited a figure of 650,000 Iraqis, over and above the mortality rate during the Saddam era. Among these deceased Iraqis were thousands of individuals who had died because, since the invasion, the incidence of heart attacks, cancer, strokes, stress and displacement-related deaths, deaths associated with a lack of health care and potable water, etc had increased twofold, at least.

The total figure is now out of date.

Tomorrow, Sept. 11, think of our casualties—and of those innocent lives we shattered to avenge our dead.

UPDATE I (Sept. 12): NEED TO KNOW. “September 9, 2011: 9/11, ten years later” is a PBS program that offered decent 9/11 programing.

UPDATE II (Sept. 13): “9/11” by Nebojsa Malic of the “Gray Falcon” fame.

UPDATE III (Sept. 19): THE RECKONING: AMERICA AND THE WORLD A DECADE AFTER 9/11.

The Worst of Times

Bush, Economy, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Jihad, Liberty, Military, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Terrorism, War

National Journal has had an aha Moment: “The 10 years since the terrorism attacks of 9/11 rank among America’s most troubled,” concludes the Journal’s Ronald Brownstein:

[George W. Bush’s] “mismanaged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq sapped U.S. strength and imposed costs vastly exceeding their benefits. Overstretched and in the red, America ends the decade weaker on many international dimensions than when it began… At home,… the median income is now lower than in 2001 and the number of Americans in poverty nearly one-third higher. Most incredibly, fewer Americans are working today than in September 2001—a decadelong record of decline matched since 1900 only during the 1930s. Faith in all public and private leadership is flickering.”

No doubt, it began with Bush, who was bad to the bone.

Neocons Are Second-Handers

Conservatism, libertarianism, Literature, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans, Ron Paul, South-Africa

Readers often conflate popularity with quality. Periodically, a reader who’s recently stumbled upon the commentariat’s dirty little secret—libertarians who’ve been writing predictive op-eds for over a decade—will suggest that this writer petition one of their favorite, famous, thoroughbred neoconservatives for an audience. “Show your latest book,” the well-meaning reader will urge, to this or that NYT best seller neocon, pseudo-conservative, know-nothing.

Take the “portfolio,” goes the well-meaning chap’s advice, and seek a pat on the head from a particular dufus whom my reader, for some reason, considers to be a Delphic oracle.

Of course, in the larger scheme of things, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa” should survive long after the various neocon books.

Liberals this; liberals that; Bush was great; Cheney too, the world is dead without America; Europe sucks; we’ve discovered that debt and big government are bad now that Obama’s in power:

If you don’t already know that these titles and their authors all have precious little to impart for posterity—you should!

Mark Steyn’s freshly presented tired ideas are one of many such examples. Steyn is an entertaining writer and fun to read. However, The “One-Man Global Content Provider’s” epistolary razzmatazz should never be confused with unconventional analysis, as explained, by way of an example, in “Beck, Wilders, and His Boosters’ Blind Spot.”

As for this writer and her relationship with mainstream neoconservatives: Been there done that. I may one day write about the almost-flirtatious sweet nothings some big-name neocon-cum-conservatives whispered in my e-ear when I first appeared on the US scene. There were dinner invitations too, one at least was even attended.

All that was before I registered, on Sept. 19, 2002, the first of many principled objections against their war of choice on Iraq. That was before the neocons discovered I was not an S. E. Cupp, a Margaret Hoover, or a ditzy Dana Perino.

After that fatal date, I became a political persona non grata.

The neocon modus operandi is to ignore and vilify truth-tellers such as Ron Paul, so long as the truth is unpalatable. After a period of time has passed—say five years hence—Ron Paul’s economic and foreign policy prescriptions (or my analysis of the New democratic South Africa and its lessons for America) will become quite kosher because it will no longer be possible to deny reality. Then the usual gasbags will proceed to “borrow” ideas they have not originated.

Seldom will originators be credited, not by neocons, at least.

When it comes to Machiavellian machinations, however, neocons are originators second to none.