Category Archives: War

The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills

Ancient History, Foreign Policy, Just War, Military, The State, War

“The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Libertarian extraordinaire John Stossel asks the right questions. He doesn’t always arrive at the right answers.

The questions Mr. Stossel poses on his Fox-Business TV show, small mercies, have little to do with the mindless things that busy Big Media. For the last couple of weeks, for example, the impetus among the mindless has been to provide the priapic Anthony Wiener with the boost his worthless life and life’s work have clearly needed.

The sexting antics of this engorged organism—a New-York City mayoral candidate and once a Democratic congressman—have allowed Mainstream Media to carry out its mission: knocking down one straw man (Weiner) to conceal the catastrophes of another (Obama).

Back to Stossel. To the question of ‘Are We Rome?’ posed on the July 18 segment of his eponymous show, Mr. Stossel replied, ‘Not yet.’

Wrong.

Mr. Stossel takes comfort in the fact that ‘we don’t kill people for sport. When we go to war, misguided or not, we don’t conquer or plunder. And when we win, we usually leave.’

The popular host is utterly mistaken—just as he was wrong to summarily dismiss the the threat to liberty of the ‘National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls,’ to quote his nonchalant column.

Who is Stossel kidding? American assassins hunt down and kill very many innocents abroad by drone. Unmanned aerial U.S. ‘drones have killed thousands, many of them civilians,’ attests Gabor Rona of Human Rights First.

And talk about a Roman spectacle! Targeted killing is even a bit of a sport—so much so that the latter-day Rome has established a “new medal that honors drone pilots and computer experts” for their long-distance killing prowess. It was to be called ‘The Distinguished Warfare Medal.’

Rome’s rulers were not early as efficient as the US is at killing. Uncle Sam has industrialized and streamlined war-time slaughter. No longer do thousands of legionnaires lay siege to a city with attack catapults; one pilots flattens it with a single ‘daisy cutter’ (and few qualms). …”

The complete column is “The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills.” Read it on WND.

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‘Are We Rome?’ Was A Question Asked and Answered Long Ago

Ancient History, Government, Iraq, libertarianism, Military, Taxation, The State, War

To the hackneyed question, ‘Are We Rome?’, John Stossel replies, “Not yet.” He is completely wrong, just as he was wrong to dismiss the “National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls,” to quote.

Mr. Stossel takes comfort in the fact that “we don’t kill people for sport. When we go to war, misguided or not, we don’t conquer or plunder. And when we win, we usually leave.” (July 18, 2013)

Who is he kidding? The US hunts down and kills very many innocents abroad by drone. It’s a bit of a sport—so much so that decadent New Rome has even established a “new medal that honors drone pilots and computer experts” for their long-distance killing prowess.

Courtesy of Uncle Sam, war-time slaughter has just been industrialized, streamlined, made more efficient in our times.

Compare the demographic and economic indices of countries the US has invaded—for their own good, of course, but without their consent—before and after the “merciful” intervention. You’ll get a better idea of the carnage than John Stossel allows.

Libya is no longer. Ditto Iraq. Afghanistan is not doing much better since Rome set up camp there.

Read “Casualties of the Iraq War.”

Read “Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present).”

Read “Deaths caused by Coalition forces” in Libya.

Again, contrary to the Stossel assertion, the latter-day Rome has mechanized the warfare-state’s killing and has refined its propaganda wing to an art—so fine an art that John Stossel has bought it hook, line, and sinker.

No-one attempting to tackle the ‘Are We Rome?’ question should be allowed to get away with failing to mention Cullen Murphy’s book by that name. This is a question that was asked and answered already. Superbly.

A 2010 column I wrote highlighted “the unflattering parallels between the imperial rule of ancient Rome and that of modern America,” as illustrated in Murphy’s book, “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of Rome.”

The federal payroll in Washington Murphy pegs at 360,000 (BO: Before Obama), calling this estimate a “convenient deceit,” as an “even larger number of people in the Washington area — about 400,000 — work for private companies that are doing government work.” Add to the above a quarter million people who live in the vicinity and feed off the government directly or indirectly; the lawyers and lobbyist, the wonks and accountants, the reporters and caterers and limousine drivers and panegyrists, and all the aides and associates whose job it is to functions as someone else’s brain.”
Don’t forget that the D.C. hood is home to your favorite oh-so gritty media personalities, who gather inside or near the Bubble to reap “the benefits of being at the center of the Imperium.” Back to their role model, Rome:
The biggest component of [Rome’s] prodigious intake was something called the annona, an in-kind tax levied by Rome on everyplace else, and collected in the form of grain, which was used to provide free bread for most of Rome’s inhabitants. … Eventually, the annona was expanded beyond grain to include olive oil and wine. If you think of the annona as tax revenue, which it was, then the revenue not only accomplished its stated purpose of feeding the city; it also supported large swaths of private-sector activity, from shipping to baking to crime. Some of this activity was encouraged with tax breaks and grants of citizenship. There was great wealth to be had off government contracts. … the annona remained [the Empire’s] essential lifeline, preserved at all costs.
“All life in Washington today derives ultimately from the capitals’ own version of Rome’s annona — the continuous infusion not of grain and olive oil but of tax revenue and borrowed money. Instead of ships and barges there are banks, 10,000 of them designated for this purpose, which funnel the nations’ tax payments to the city. This ‘never-ending flow of revenue creates a broad level of affluence that has no real counterpart anywhere in America.” Says Murphy: “Washington simply doesn’t look like the rest of America.” But its residents “fail to view this as bizarre.”

Beware The Country Of ‘Absurdistan’

Constitution, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, History, Liberty, Natural Law, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Reason, Republicans, States' Rights, War

My good friend professor Thomas DiLorenzo is on fire today, at LRC.Com, decrying the actions of the “Biggest Bully in the World.” The strictly anti-bullying US government—its overweening, unconstitutional reach extends to educating kids about bullying, or, as Tom puts it, “putting YOUR money where THEIR mouths are by funding all kinds of anti-bullying programs in schools”—is intercepting airplanes not its own, and bullying sovereign governments, all in an attempt to corner a heroic, powerless young man called Edward Snowden.

Then, “National Neocon Review” has been working overtime to justify the crimes of mass murderer Abe Lincoln. But Tom DiLorenzo will have none of it. He smacks that lot down good and proper with foolproof arguments from natural law and logic:

… Studying and writing about Lincoln and the “Civil War” is not, as National Neocon Review implies, the same as attending a football game where one roots for one team or the other. It is about discovering the truth. Criticizing Lincoln does not make one a supporter of the Confederate government any more than criticizing FDR makes one a supporter of the Nazi government. We are supposed to believe that because the Confederate government suspended habeas corpus it is simply irrelevant that the Lincoln regime was a constitutional nightmare. We are supposed to believe the cartoonish Harry Jaffa, says National Neocon Review, when he says that Lincoln never did a single thing that was unconstitutional, contrary to reality and the writings of several generations of scholars who preceded Jaffa. This is reminiscent of the canned response to Lincoln critics by the last generation of Lincoln cultists: Lincoln wasn’t as bad as Hitler or Stalin, they frequently pointed out. So shut up.

MORE.

McCain’s Murderous Muhammadans Behead Syrian Catholic Priest

Christianity, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Jihad, John McCain, Literature, Middle East, War, Welfare

Today came terribly sad news. John McCain’s murderous Muhammadans beheaded a Syrian Catholic priest, to the cheers of local villagers, children too.

The senior Republican senator from Arizona recently crossed enemy lines to cavort with these Syrian rebels, the type of chaps who lunch on enemy lungs. He, Lindsey Graham—another senior Republican Senator—and many of their Demopublican colleagues can’t wait to supply the noble savages of the world with rations, their exotic tastes and murderous proclivities be damned. The US Constitution these politicians have spent a lifetime trashing.

Those who know “McMussolini” know that the only time John McCain will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn’t led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

Oh, he’ll also wrestle a crocodile for an illegal alien. Or, rather, get his beefy dumbo of a daughter, Meghan McCain, to do the wrestling for him.

The complaint McCain and his posse level against Obama for not becoming as entangled in Syria as they would have liked is remarkably sophisticated (NOT): Had Obama intervened in Syria earlier, they assert without proof, we’d be dealing with the purest of rebels, and not with the McCain mongrels, who’ve been diluted by Jihadis.

Rubbish.

A quip by a character in one of the great Oscar Wilde’s plays (not to be confused with wonderful Oscar-Wood) comes to mind. “She thought that because he was stupid he’d be kindly, whereas kindliness requires intelligence and imagination.” I paraphrase Wilde, but this applies in spades to McCain, a career Republican malevolent fool, who took to Fox News Sunday with his buddy Chuck Schumer to promote more war (in Syria) and more welfare (the Oink-Filled Immigration Omnibus).

For Christians, rule by Alawite minority is by far the more civilized of the options facing them in this country. This, unfortunately, is the reality. But does the US ever learn from the Anglo-American calamity in Iraq or Afghanistan? In the words of Frederick Douglass, “To ask the question is to answer it.”

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