Category Archives: War

Trump Must Lay Responsibility For Libya At Hillary’s Chubby Feet

Hillary Clinton, Islam, Middle East, War

Donald Trump finished George Bush off and, by extension, brother Jeb’s candidacy. Trump should not be shy about laying Libya at Hillary’s chubby feet—from the invasion to the fiasco of Benghazi.

Republicans have confined their critique of the war Hillary Clinton initiated in Libya to criticism of her role in the Benghazi tragedy. Given their comparable zeal for unconstitutional, unethical and futile wars; Republicans have never seriously gone after the war Hillary launched on Libya; a war that has seen the US leave another Arab country in ruins.

I’ve heard Sean Hannity attempt this line of inquiry. He stopped short of pursuing a critique of the US-led ruination of Libya, perhaps because it would’ve left him and like-minded conservatives vulnerable. After all, had they not cheered a similarity unjust adventure in Iraq? Indeed they did.

The New York Times has a two-part expose, written, naturally, from the utilitarian perspective that it’s OK for the US to launch such wars, provided the war turns out well.

Part 1: In Their Own Words: The Libya Tragedy: Highlights of interviews with decision makers involved in the Libya intervention about what went wrong. Read the series.

Part 2: A New Libya, With ‘Very Little Time Left’ By SCOTT SHANE and JO BECKER: The fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi seemed to vindicate Hillary Clinton. Then militias refused to disarm, neighbors fanned a civil war, and the Islamic State found refuge.

RELATED:
“Libya: A War of the Womb.”

“To Be Or Not To Be In Benghazi; That’s The Question.”

“‘Left’ And ‘Right’ Bamboozling You On Benghazi.”

The Russell Kirk We love Is …

Classical Liberalism, Conservatism, libertarianism, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, War

… the Russel Kirk who, “Toward the end of his life, … returned to his anti-war beginnings. He went so far as to say that ‘not a single American war … had been absolutely necessary.’ He denounced the neoconservatives as warmongers; and he had no use for National Review. ‘Kirk came to believe that Buckley had sold out to the neocons, claiming in a private letter to [Peter] Stanlis, ‘As Patrick Buchanan remarks, National Review is now the New York office of the New World Order.’”

David Gordon is always streaks ahead of the rest of us mortals. Read David’s review of Russell Kirk: American Conservative, by Bradley J. Birzer (University Press of Kentucky).

I will say that I knew, from my edition of The Conservative Mind, “that Kirk in the 1940s was himself a libertarian, or close to it.” And that: “… he strongly opposed America’s war policy, in particular the use of atomic weapons and the internment of Japanese Americans.”

I didn’t, however, know that Kirk “corresponded with both Albert Jay Nock and Isabel Paterson, both renowned libertarians. Indeed, he favorably discussed them in the first edition of The Conservative Mind.”

Best tidbit from David’s review:

Buckley was a former CIA agent, and the principal point of the [NR] magazine was to reorient the American Right from a noninterventionist foreign policy toward a militant pursuit of the Cold War against Russia and to purge those who dissented from militarism and war. Four of the editors, Willmoore Kendall, James Burnham, Frank S. Meyer, and Willi Schlamm, favored preventive war against Russia. Kendall and Burnham were also former CIA agents; and the late great George Resch told me that Henry Regnery, Kirk’s publisher, called National Review a CIA operation.

READ “The Real Russell Kirk” by David Gordon.

UPDATE II: Making America Great Means Exposing ‘W’ (Readers Get IT)

Bush, Donald Trump, Federal Reserve Bank, Iraq, Neoconservatism, Politics, War

“Making America Great Means Exposing ‘W’” is the current column, now on WND (please Like, Tweet, and generally Share column on social media). An excerpt:.

Making America great again, the theme of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, depends on dispelling the myths and myth-making that made America bad.

Beginning with George W. Bush.

Said Saint Augustine: “The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.”

The Republican Party under Bush did the devil’s work. Bar the sainted Ron Paul, not a dog of a Republican lifted his leg in protest of the unjust war on Iraq.

To embark on the good, the GOP must come clean about the bad. To that end, Donald Trump has begun a vital process of expiation.

The 43rd president is categorized as “bad” and ranked 37th by Ivan Eland, author of “Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty.” Having undermined the republic at home and peace abroad, “Bush’s presidency,” avers Eland, “was one of the worst of all time.”

Coming to terms with the Bush legacy, moreover, ought to prevent the rise of another Bush. For the bogus Bush Doctrine is alive and well-exploited in the words and promises of each of the Republican candidates, other than Donald Trump.

The Bush dictum of fighting them over there so they don’t come here —as if Islamic State can’t, won’t and hasn’t attacked there and here—is alive and well-exploited by almost every fork-tongued politician in the Republican and Democratic races.

Other than Trump and Bernie Sanders, there’s a potatoes vs. spuds quality to the foreign policy articulated by both sides.

Each time the interchangeable John Kasich or Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush are asked about death by Muslim in the United States; they whip out that dumb “W” Doctrine, tethering attacks like San Bernardino in the US to wars the US should be waging over in the Middle East, and will be waging if these candidates have their way.

If you liked Bush’s willful and criminal war on Iraq; if you enjoyed watching aw-shucks “W” “Shock and Awe” Iraq to kingdom come with BLU-82s—boy, do you have a treat in store.

If you took pleasure in Bush unseating and executing law-and-order leader Saddam Hussein; you’ll love the plans Rubio, Kasich and Brother Jeb have for Bashar Assad and his family. As for Vladimir Putin, the not-so-comical three stooges have practically diarized conflagration with Russia.

I almost forgot: If you licked your chops when Bush disarmed dem little Iraqi boys by littering their playgrounds with cluster bomblets; your vampiric urges will be sated. In Bush’s Baghdad, hospitals teamed with limbless kids successfully disarmed. The Rubio-Kasich-Bush bandidos will similarly oblige their supporters. Happy times are ahead for their acolytes. …

… Read the rest. “Making America Great Means Exposing ‘W’” can be read in full on WND (please Like, Tweet, and generally Share column on social media).

UPDATE I (2/19): READERS GET IT:

Hi Ilana,

I loved your article reminding all the deaf, dumb and blind, card-carrying Republicans that their asshole (excuse my French) summa cum laude remains, GW Bush.

Jeb, to even mention W’s name let alone appear with him campaigning, shows the guy has no sense of history. W’s Presidency was a total train wreck from his Supreme Court handed Presidency to his final months in office, when the wheels came off the American economy and financial system.

The Republicans running for President are dangerous war mongers with zero understanding of what the Federal Reserve has been allowed to do to this country and the irreversible, unfixable nature of the problem. Clinton and Sanders, it goes without saying, are also clueless!

Hope this finds you well!

All the best,

Barry Downs

UPDATE II: Writes Ron S:

Please accept my heart-felt gratitude for this article. I have been struggling with my own concept of objective reality and the contradictory BS I see all around me. I have long believed that G.W. Bush was not only a horrible president, he may have been the worst in American history. When he was received warmly in SC it made me wonder if I was missing something.

A small list of faux pas by our first semi-literate president:
1. 2 unnecessary wars, fought simultaneously on different fronts
2. approximately $3 trillion thrown to the winds
3. Claims of WMDs that don’t exist
4. violations of any number of international treaties, the Geneva Accords, the Nuremberg principles, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, etc. on war crimes.
5. Lies by his administration include “America does not torture”; “The war (Iraq) will last weeks or months, certainly not years”; “The insurgency is on its last legs; “We will be greeted as liberators”; “Deficits don’t matter”; and, of course, WMD.
6. Bush plunged the economy into a near world wide crisis by allowing the banksters and market thieves to operate with virtually no oversight, then passed the bill onto the people.
7. Bush granted a huge tax break to the 1% who didn’t need it.
8. Bush doubled the national debt.
9. He refused to control our borders.

One foolish man was enough to plunge the entire Middle East into chaos and plunge the West into confusion and disarray. God deliver us from another like him. We cannot afford such a fool in the office of the President of the United States..

The George Bush Rehabilitation Industry: A President’s Day Reminder

BAB's A List, Bush, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, Republicans, War, Welfare

Originally published on February 7, 2014, here is a Barely-A-Blog golden oldie:

BY MYRON PAULI

On President’s Day, I will say that I am not enamored with our current White House occupant, or with his recent predecessors. Barack Obama is a boring windbag egomaniac, mouthing a lot of leftist rhetorical garbage. However, in spite of the adulation of his supporters or the detraction of his political enemies, he is not some good or evil demigod, but rather just symbolic of the bloated corrupt corporate-socialist government.

His main opponents, Republicans (most but not all) might have one believe that on 19 January 2009, this government was a small peaceful government running a surplus and respectful of civil liberties presided over by James Monroe – until (eeek eeek) Obama the Space Alien took over. Bush and his legacies of leaving no children behind, warring in Iraq and Afghanistan, the TSA, the Patriot Act, prescription drug plans, and the bailouts – has been lost in the memory hole of amnesia. I find myself not necessarily “defending Obama,” but rather disgusted at the amnesiac hypocrisy of the Republican detractors.

So suppose that in 2016 some Republican wins – Christie, Jeb Bush, Ryan, or one of the so-called “Tea Party” Republicans. Do I expect the budget to be balanced? Do I think they will repeal previous Republican legacies like OSHA, EPA, TSA, DEA, HEW, Student Loans, Americans with Disabilities Act, Patriot Act, Leave No Child Behind, Prescription Drug Plan, and Drone Warfare? What was Reagan’s domestic legacy – repealing CETA and Nixon’s 55 mph speed limit?

Take the most important issue of world history – homosexuality…. Democrats would compel Boy Scouts to take gays and make Christians photograph and cater to gay weddings. Republicans in Virginia passed this: “This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage” – thus my will and medical directive might be invalid. Whatever happened to the right of people to create contracts? Democrats want to shove “Heather Has Two Mommies” in the school curricula while Republicans want to shove “Abstinence Education”. And where in this Kultur-Jihad is freedom of association, freedom of contract, and the authority of parents?

Another good example is health care. Democrats would have everyone compelled to pay for such wonderful medical procedures as drilling holes in developing babies, in utero, and to even require certain trained slaves called “health care providers” to partake in these procedures whether they want to or not. Republicans would have the taxpayers pay millions of dollars to resurrect a dead pregnant woman and keep her on machines for months for the 0.001% chance of creating a baby. Both parties believe they can play G-d with voters choosing between Dr. Mengele and Dr. Frankenstein.

Can we expect better in foreign policy, where our attitude towards foreign nations is either to bribe a country, bomb a country, overthrow a country, or occupy a country? Will either party stop bribing crowds to demonstrate in Kiev or dropping drones on weddings in Yemen? Republicans obsess about 4 dead in Benghazi while ignoring the hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, forgetting the 242 marines in Beirut, and upset that American forces left Indochina after our interference in a civil war wound up with over 4 million dead.

Do we expect better for civil liberties when Republicans are upset when individual states do not want to jail dope smokers? Do we expect Republicans who shout “kill Snowden” to be any better reforming the NSA, CIA, TSA, no knock SWAT team raids, or the Patriot Act (especially with the last two being their own creations?).

Will either party eliminate agribusiness farm subsidies, ethanol mandates, quantitative easing, Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, BATF, either DoE, HuD, mission to Mars, the F-35, troops in Italy, Ex-Im bank, trade ban with Cuba, DEA, Amtrak, federal student loans,…?????? Surely you jest! The irony of King Obama is that the expression that his opponents resemble the “pot calling the kettle black” is both figurative AND literal.

The rhetoric will change and the hot, putrid air will blow in the opposite direction.

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.