UPDATED: Putin Saves Us From Ourselves

Foreign Policy, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Ron Paul, Russia, The West, War

“Putin Saves Us From Ourselves” is my new column (front page on RT, the column was buried at the bottom of WND’s second page, where two-day-old columns go to die, so is unlikely to edify the few who might have been amenable to edification). Here’s an excerpt:

“He vetoed a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling on President Bashar Assad to step down. Such a resolution, he argued, would serve as a ruse for the US to do a Libya in Syria.

He made the case that the “Syrian crisis would be better resolved by Syrians themselves,” and that the West should confine itself to brokering a ceasefire in that country, and encouraging dialogue between the feuding factions.

And, “Six months ago,” by the Daily Star’s telling, he “vetoed an earlier draft resolution threatening Damascus with sanctions.”

He is Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president elect. And he has done nothing that Ron Paul, president of America’s libertarians, would not have done: work to avert another ill-conceived, idiotic American intervention in a country in which it has no business, advocate for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and oppose economic sanctions, which always and everywhere do more damage than good.

A just course of action is a just course of action irrespective of the actor.

The Sino-Russian alliance has been promoting the idea of an accord, involving “all the Syrians, the government and all opposition groups,” or so the Washington Post framed their side. NATO (nee the US) was champing at the bit to take the battle for Syria away from the Syrians and put it where they believe it belongs: the US military and its proxies.

Now, out of the blue, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is pretending that the United States and its Arab and European allies have always supported such a civilized solution in Syria, and were merely waiting on the Russians to get with the peace program. This is the same woman who came close to squatting on Gadhafi’s corpse, in honor of her country’s custom of peeing on its dead enemies.

Yes, one minute the Obama Administration and its UN and Arab-League lickspittles had been itching to oust Assad. The next, the same coalition was dusting Kofi Annan off and dispatching him, as a UN envoy, to mediate a resolution to Syria’s civil war.

What’s going on here? …

The complete column is “Putin Saves Us From Ourselves.”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper pr pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT and “Return To Reason” on WND.

UPDATE: So true, Stephen Hayes. This is why I keep at my readers to post their responses to what they read here far and wide; post them to where my columns are featured, at RT (a new audience), and WND (which buried this column on the second page, where 2-day-old columns are posted), on Amazon (where is your Cannibal review, Stephen?), and other forums. Here on BAB, you are preaching to the converted.

Is the Progressive West Perverse, Or What?

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democracy, Law, The West

Citing Tom Fleming, the post “In A Perverse Way, Afghan Justice Is Less Perverse” raised the perverse topic of restorative justice (which is, for the most, no justice at all) that has come to dominate Western criminal justice systems. Citing Imanuel Kant, Fleming wrote:

Judicial punishment can never be used solely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for society, but instead must in all cases be imposed on a person solely on the ground that he has committed a crime….woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it….

Not a day goes by when examples of this crookedness don’t present themselves. While French SWAT teams were taking days to bring to an end a stake-out at a Toulouse apartment building in southern France—they were waiting on the killer of three French paratroopers, a rabbi and three children to “surrender” or kill more innocent bystanders—a cabinet minister told RT that the purpose of democracy was to capture criminals alive, not kill them.

Given the ever-expanding remit of democracy, the French official is probably correct. All I know is that the purpose of a just government is to protect the lives and property of non-aggressors.

Next, on the grounds that “capital punishment is wrong in principle and should be abolished,” and that a worldly, wise authority should enforce this universal understanding—the perverse EU is threatening Belarus’ Lukashenka regime “with sanctions … listing 21 judges and top police officers who face travel bans and asset freezes in the EU.”

“Lukashenka had last week refused to pardon the two men, Dzmitry Kanavalau and Uladzislau Kavalyou, both aged 26, who were convicted last year for a number of offences, including a deadly attack on the Minsk metro,” in which 15 people were killed and over 200 injured.

It’s one thing to question the quality of justice and due process in Belarus, and advocate for judicial review of proceedings in the trial. But it is quite another to have demanded that the two men be pardoned (as Human Rights Watch has done)—they have since been executed for the massacre in the metro station of the Belarusian capital—no less, and the death penalty repealed, which is what these arrogant internationalists are demanding.

Minorites Against the Majority?

Government, Homeland Security, Racism, Terrorism, The State

It’s impossible to prove—more so because there is no will to prove it—but it’s hard not to view this sort of TSA pat-down, in this case, of a toddler in a cast (via LRC.COM), as devoid of the racial aspect. Racial profiling.

As was observed in “Congress: Call Off Your TSA Attack Dogs!”, “The TSA workforce manning crucial sections of the air terminals reflects the federal government’s legislated preference for minorities. Each one of these workers seems singularly intent on exacting revenge upon his or her perceived oppressors.”

In the TSA grope-a-thone, a preponderance of manifestly angry minorities face off against the submissive majority.

Can anybody find footage of TSA agents frisking black tots, or elderly and crippled black old ladies?

Who’s Killing Whose People Again?

Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Propaganda, War

Judging from America’s angels and demons foreign policy production, starring “the prototypical evil dictator who was killing his noble people,” one would never have predicted (NOT) this following development, in Syria, documented by Human Rights Watch:

“Armed opposition groups in Syria are committing atrocities. Abuses include kidnapping, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called shabeeha. Human Rights Watch has also received reports of executions by armed opposition groups of security force members and civilians.”

Remind me who is killing whose people again?