Bully Power Vs. Balance of Power: Russians in Syria

Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Russia

Al Arabiya News is reporting that “Russian special forces have arrived in the Syrian Mediterranean port city of Tartus.” The news agency’s website front-page features an image of western-looking soldiers under which this caption appears: “A Russian ship carrying a unit of ‘anti-terrorist marines’ is reportedly docked at the Syrian port city of Tartus.”

DEBKAfile, the “Israeli-based open source military intelligence website,” confirms the information, running it as «Breaking News.»:

A Russian ship carrying marines anchors at Tartus, Syria
DEBKAfile March 19, 2012, 6:00 PM (GMT+02:00)
Two Russian naval vessels have anchored at the Syrian port of Tartus, Russian Black Sea headquarters at Sevastopol reports. Their mission and identifies were not disclosed, excepting that one was carrying a unit of “anti-terrorist marines” and the other, a military tanker which joined “a Russian naval reconnaissance and surveillance ship already tied up in Tartus.”

In “Onward to Iran!” I commented that the US uses the world as its combat canvas, “a bully’s universe.” Essentially, the US operates upon the premise “that American men and matériel should be capable of reaching [and controlling] all corners of the world.”

Perhaps this intervention is a Russian attempt to restore a balance of powers, and thus prevent more Libyas, which the US and its NATO subsidiary used for regime-change practice.

Austrian Analysis Seeping In To Mainstream

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Media, Reason

You know the country’s commentariat has traveled some distance when PBS’s Paul Solman concedes that, given the role of the Federal Reserve (and, presumably, Fractional Reserve Banking) in the economy, it is “not a zero probability event here in America” that “the US could go the hyperinflation route of a Zimbabwe or Germany, freeze, face increasingly punitive interest rates and eventually require drastic overhauls.”

Solman, who still invests in Treasury, and is optimistic against all odds, also admits that “Since the Federal Reserve was created and got into the act in 1913, the U.S. dollar has lost somewhere between 94 percent and 99.7 percent of its value. (See MeasuringWorth.com for a range of conversion options: constant basket of goods, unskilled wage, etc.)”

But because Solman thinks that the debasing of the coin by the Fed also coincided with America’s becoming “the world’s dominant global economy,” he is not that concerned. That’s what happens when correlation is confused with causation.

The Republic has managed to thrive despite the Fed, not because of it.

Grunts: Gladiators in the Emperor’s Colosseum

Barack Obama, Bush, Crime, Foreign Policy, Military, The State

America’s military men are losing their minds, penned as they are like gladiators, condemned criminals, slaves and wild animals, in the Colosseum, destined to murder or die for the benefit of the craven Emperor and his comitatus.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the accused in the massacre of 16 civilians in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, is from Washington state, my state. According to a KiroTV.com, he is 38-years-old and has spent 11 years in the Army. FoxNews provides a better report, telling of a “very mild-mannered” father to children aged 3 and 4.

Bales had been on three tours of duty to Iraq since 2003, military officials say, before being dispatched to Afghanistan, and had lost part of one foot in a “battle-related injury.”

“He wasn’t thrilled about going on another deployment,” said John Henry Browne, a defense attorney from Seattle. “He was told he wasn’t going back, and then he was told he was going.”

UPDATED: No Surprise: Left-Libertarianism Prevails Among The Young

Affirmative Action, Education, Elections, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Multiculturalism, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, States' Rights

I’ve long since contended that establishment-endorsed libertarianism, touted on the Fox News and Business channels, is a left-libertarianism. Like neoconservatism, this “Libertarianism Lite” equates liberty with abstract propositions that—against all evidence, historic and other— purport to work when applied to every individual, Afghani, Israeli and Iraqi, provided he or she gets the proper (invariably American) instruction.

A libertarianism that refuses to recognize “Liberty’s Civilizational Dimension,” sadly, prevails among the young (leftism is, after all, second nature to youth).

Writes VDARE’s James Kirkpatrick:

Students for Liberty, forthrightly supports exterminating the American identity. It defends capitalism precisely on the grounds that it undermines conservatism and traditional values. Its campus coordinators enthusiastically champion the usual “civil rights” causes and are particularly obsessed with championing gay groups. They invite immigrants like Reason Magazine columnist Shikha Dalmia (email her) to punish us for letting her come here by lecturing their mostly white audiences on why their ideology requires more immigrants.
Needless to say, Students For Liberty avoids Politically Incorrect causes that may technically fall under the cause of “liberty.” A column posted on its website about an affirmative action bake sale by the College Republicans says the real root of racism is “statism.” [Don’t Just Bake, Strike the Root!, by James Padilioni, Jr., September 27, 2011] There’s even a defense of critical race theory, and needless to say, no mention of official multiculturalism and its reliance on state support. [The Law Perverted: A Libertarian Approach to Black History Month, February 1, 2012 by James Padilioni, Jr.]
Movements that supposedly champion the radical libertarian economist Murray Rothbard might want to look at what he actually said on the subject.

Note that, as a paleolibertarian, I do not give a tinker’s toss about gay marriage. It is NOT a libertarian issue (other than to stress that “whatever is not specified as a power of the federal government and is not prohibited to the states, is reserved to the states or the people“). However, it is incongruous to profess libertarianism, while supporting affirmative action, anti-private property Civil-Rights laws, and public education extended to all trespassers—these are policies that violate private property, which is the cornerstone of libertarianism.

MORE.

UPDATED: In reply to HBK on Facebook: The stand most libertarians take is that libertarianism is neither Right not Left; we are all supposed to uphold the non-aggression axiom (although left-libertarians, aka the Beltway think-tank type, were more likely to evince full-throated enthusiasm for Bush’s war than the Rightists; I came out against that war on Set. 19, 2002, and never again heard from Neal Boortz, who used to link to my stuff prior). There is something to the eschewing of Left and Right, but in my opinion, it is, for the most, a cop-out. Beltway lefties were also quite hostile to Ron Paul at the inception. Since the nation’s memory is non-existent, they now love him—talking about him gets them on TV.