UPDATED: The Curse Of Col. Gadhafi (& The Neocons)

Britain, Canada, Europe, Foreign Policy, History, IMMIGRATION

“The Curse Of Col. Gadhafi” is the current column, now on the UK’s Libertarian Alliance Blog. An excerpt:

When they destabilized Libya and overthrew strongman Muammar Gadhafi in 2011 the U.S. and its Canadian and European allies unleashed a series of events that accounts for the steady flood into Europe of migrants from North Africa. There are, purportedly, “up to 1 million” poor, uneducated, possibly illiterate, predominantly male, and by necessity violence-prone individuals, poised to board rickety freighters in the Libyan ports of Tripoli and Zuwarah, and make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, to southern Italy. The 900 migrants who perished off the coast of Libya when their vessel capsized embarked in Zuwara.

Zuwara has always been “famous for people smuggling,” notes Richard Spencer, Middle East editor of The Telegraph. “The modern story of Zuwara and its trade in people,” says Spencer, whose newspaper has documented the genesis of the exodus well before the U.S. press awoke to it, “was a key part of the late Col. Muammar Gadhafi’s relationship with the European Union.”

The “indigenous, pre-Arab inhabitants of North Africa,” Berbers, as they are known in the West, have long since had a hand in human trafficking. As part of an agreement he made with Silvio Berlusconi’s government, “Col. Gaddafi had agreed to crack down on the trade in people.” For prior to the dissolution of Libya at the behest of Barack Obama’s Amazon women warriors—Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power—Libya had a navy. Under the same accord with the Berlusconi government (and for a pretty penny), Gadhafi’s admiralty stemmed the tide of migrants into Europe.

Here’s an interesting aside: Because he cracked down on their customary trade, the Zuwarans of Libya rose up against Gadhafi; the reason for this faction’s uprising, in 2011, was not the hunger for democracy, as John McCain and his BFF Lindsey Graham would have it. …

… Read the rest. “The Curse Of Col. Gadhafi” is the current column, now on the UK’s Libertarian Alliance Blog.

UPDATE (4/25): Sean Gabb goes to bat for truth against statists and assorted neoconservatives on the matter of the Anglo-American sphere warring with the world and overthrowing its dictators for “democracy” and more deaths.

Our detractor, on the UK’s Libertarian Alliance Blog, is the same commenter who thinks of Andrew Roberts, a court ‘historian” of the worse kind–as Rob Stove has pointed out—as a legitimate reference on the Boer war.

Sean’s defense:

I will say nothing in my own defence, But Ilana Mercer is a woman of strong and consistent moral principle. She has an impressive record of saying what she believes, and saying it very well. You are at perfect liberty to disagree with how she believes the libertarian case should be put. I only ask you once again to stop regarding any disagreement with what you believe as a sign of moral corruption. It does no credit to you, and makes argument less profitable than it ought to be.
Because your comments are never moderated, and are sometimes promoted to the front page, where they can be read by large number of people, you have the confidence to put a lot of effort into this blog. Please consider that the tolerance you enjoy is owed to others.

‘The Camp of the Saints’

Europe, IMMIGRATION, Race, The West

“The Camp of the Saints,” a prophetic novel by French writer Jean Raspail, in 1973, is the source of many a metaphor for the accelerated, “steady flood into Europe of migrants from North Africa” and its parallels in the US.

Diana West memorably made mention of the book in her June 13, 2014 column, to allude to the flood of South American kids across our southern border:

… the prophetic “Camp of the Saints” [is] the 1973 novel by French author Jean Raspail envisioning an apocalyptic “invasion” of Europe by successive boatloads of Third World nationals, which is today old news out of Spain, Italy and other nations.

At LRC.com, the “Charlie Hebdo” massacre was the trigger for this glut of adjectives (some of which I don’t understand). I like this part:

In one of the most divisive and controversial works of the 20th Century, Raspail chillingly predicted and prophesized forty two years ago precisely what is occurring and its suicidal consequences for the diseased remnants of that civilization. It is unquestionably the most powerful novel I have ever read. Insidious egalitarianism, destructive welfarism, aggressive multiculturalism, cultural Marxism, Third World invasions by the wretched of the earth, militaristic imperialism posing as humanitarian liberation, and …

Libtards, of course, say it’s racist to discuss this reality.

Ted Cruz And The Loretta Lynch Confirmation

Conservatism, Drug War, Elections, Law, Republicans, Uncategorized

Claiming that the cloture vote was “the only one that mattered,” the staff of Ted Cruz excused the senator’s conspicuous absence from the Senate’s final vote, today, to confirm Loretta Lynch for attorney general. Cruz was probably “en route to Texas” for a fundraiser.

Who am I to argue with Ted Cruz on Constitutional matters? He’s a superb scholar on that front. It is, however, fair to point out that Cruz’ failure to register a vote on this final and ghastly nomination was unseemly.

Eric Holder’s only redeeming feature as attorney general was that he put a crimp in the War on Drugs and in “mass incarceration.”

Lynch was actually a drug prosecutor. The other thing Lynch had no shame in doing was shaking down banks: she extracted a “US$7 billion settlement” from Citigroup.

“The Senate later voted 56-43 to confirm Lynch. Cruz was the only member of the chamber not to vote.” (Politico)

‘Whoring and Warring In the Military: What’s New?’

Military, Morality, The State

“Former CIA Director David Petraeus has been sentenced to two years probation and handed a $100,000 fine for leaking classified information to his biographer and former mistress.” (FoxNews)

What exactly did Petraeus do? Here’s the chronology in “Whoring and Warring In the Military: What’s New?”

There’s David Petraeus, former CIA director, formerly a four-star general who cultivated his own celebrity. There’s his mistress-cum-stalker, the bombastic, narcissistic Paula Broadwell, who despite—or, rather, because of—her pockmarked character has been propelled to prominence by the country’s elites. There’s Petraeus’ even skankier BFF (Best Friends Forever), Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, and her dysfunctional twin. Primped like street walkers, the twins can be seen in pictures, flanking their BFF and his ungroomed, graying wife, Holly Petraeus.

The fawning press takes the position that this—the flotsam and jetsam of American society—is indeed an aristocracy of talent and merit. Broadwell, they tell us, was soul-mate and intellectual companion to our grandiose general. Their mating was a meeting of minds. Woe is me!

In the tradition of this “meritocracy” is U.S. Marine General John Allen. Mentored by Petraeus, Allen is the top American commander in Afghanistan, and candidate for supreme commander of NATO. Allen and Kelley were caught in flagrante. As a shrinking segment of America toiled to support these ponces in-style, the two had been exchanging 20,000 to 30,000 steamy, pixelated pages over the course of two years.

On behalf of the twin sister of the Tampa tease, Allen and his mentor Petraeus went so far as to join forces and intervene in a (no doubt sordid) child-custody dispute, heard in the District of Columbia Superior Court.

Petraeus’s paramour blew her cover as the lover some months back. The pushy, dumbbell-obsessed lightweight is said to have threatened the cheap-looking BFF (Kelly). One source dismissed the threat as a mere “cat fight”; the other hyped it as a “stay away from my guy, or else” broadside. (And the difference between these “barbed” observations?)

Described by ABC’s Brian Ross as a “name-dropping, social-climbing, bored socialite, who ingratiated herself to the brass through parties and favors,” the Tampa tease’s grating self-importance played out on a 911 call, in which she demands protection from the media. “‘Cause I’m an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability” she told the dispatcher in Kim-Kardashian twang.

Why appeal to the rights of private property, when you enjoy the prerogatives of celebrity?

As for Broadwell’s romp through elite institutions stateside and abroad: A graduate of West Point, Broadwell holds degrees from and a research associate’s position at Harvard. She was made a poster girl for “Inspired Women Magazine.” By invitation of our country’s cognoscenti, Broadwell took her groupie tour to C-SPAN’s Book TV, and on the speaker’s circuit. (Bristol Palin is there too, commanding between $15,000 and $30,000 a pop.)

Richly revealing is the Ph.D. in “Petraeus” on which Broadwell is “working.” Broadwell’s “thesis” tells you all you need to know about intellectual life in the West. This Anatomy-of-a-Leader dissertation was green-lighted by the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, no less, where Broadwell was accepted as a Ph.D. candidate.”

Read the rest.