Foreign Policy
The “conservative” Romney-Ryan plan
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Given the big-spending, high-taxing, debt-soaking nature of the modern “conservative” movement, should we be surprised that this plan pleasantly pontificates as supporting “self-reliant, American capitalism” while simultaneously defining exactly what the modern conservative movement has become?
Supporting these red-tie wearing big government stooges out to drain the productive while reading from Teleprompter A instead of teleprompter B is an insult to most “conservative’s” intelligence.
Here are some fun facts from Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” Budget Plan:
1) Increases Federal Government Tax Collections from $2.444 Trillion to $4.601 Trillion, a $2.157 Trillion, 88% Federal Tax Collection Increase.
2) Increases Federal Government Spending from $3.624 Trillion to $4.888 Trillion. A $1.264 Trillion, 35% Increase Federal Government Spending.
3) ADDS $4 Trillion to the National Debt.
Please forgive me if I don’t commence clapping and cartwheeling at the stark differences between Romney and Obombya during our chance to “Save America” in this election.
Thanks to LP.org and Budget.House.Gov for the details.
The dark(er) side of our drone war
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Do you believe that our drone strikes are an ethical–or at least viable–way to eliminate terrorists that seek to harm by killing them faster than they can multiply?
If so, ok–I’ll respect that based upon an apparently objective process of arithmetic.
Terrorists – Dead Terrorists = Less Terrorists.
May I offer some other objective data points?
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism recently concluded that from June 2004 to September 2012, between 2562 and 3325 people were killed by drone strikes in Pakistan.
Of those, The BIJ estimates that 474-881 were civilians, and 176 were children; however given ease with which we can classify someone as a “militant” I am very skeptical of the low number of civilians in that quote.
What would you do if your friends, family members or loved ones were wrongly killed in a terrorist attack? Would you retaliate?
General David Petraeus’ former advisor describes the tendency of Muslims to do exactly that.
“Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement…” -David Kilcullen, fomer advisor to Gen David Petreaus.
Just how insane have we become?! What kind of propaganda have we fallen for? Why have we accepted it so WILLINGLY?!
Our military is destroying lives, ruining our credibility and stoking the fires of war relentlessly around the world by killing these innocent people and all we can think to say in response is, “Well, they shouldn’t be hangin’ around with no damn terrorists then!”
The number of high-level targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low—estimated at just 2%. - Peter Bergen & Megan Braun, CNN
The below mini-documentary Living Under Drones is a superb and heart-rendering piece of journalism from Professor James Cavallaro of Stanford Law School’s International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, and Professor Sarah Knuckey of the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law.
Their recently released report with the same title is available for free download here; it is shocking and an absolute must-read, must-spread far and wide piece of journalism.
This disaster of humanity is ours to end.
The Chinese conflict: monetary or military?
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary to The Treasury during Reagan’s Presidency, recently penned article “The Virtual Recovery” analyzes the potential for conflict between China and The US to ask a profound yet largely ignored question: What happens if/when our military posturing against China backfires and they dump a trillion dollars of our debt?
He also nails the virtual nature of our manipulated recovery and the government’s falsification of economic statistics to show we are in a far greater mess than the government leads on.
HOWEVER!! I know we will recover, we will survive, we will flourish; but society and economics may take a much different form than in the past. What does God have in mind for all of this? It’s tough to say, but it would appear there are great idol’s of the heart—among them money, power, and domination—being thrown down mightily today as Mystery Babylon is judged.
People lusting for those things may want to readjust their perceptions of what is good and desirable or face profound trouble and tribulation when these creations of man come crashing down.
If this sounds frightening, FEAR NOT! Be strong and courageous! And probably more importantly, be humble before The Creator of the Universe, repent for worshipping false idols, lusting for Earth’s virtual kingdom and if you feel led to do so, seek The Will of The Lord in your life and pray for wisdom and discernment to find out for yourself if it’s time for His Perfect Son, Jesus Christ—and the deep profound peace that comes along with Him—to come alive for you.
“As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.” Romans 14:11
This life is short and fleeting, breathe in the knowledge that we can’t control it and IF you feel led to, offer your desires as a willing sacrifice to have God’s Plans come alive in you and for you to see a far greater Kingdom manifest before you with liberty from the Earthly addictions we have willingly subjugated ourselves to in the past.
I don’t pretend to have any answers beyond that.
Ron Paul’s reaction to the last POTUS “foreign policy” debate
0Among many interesting topics, Ron and Lew Rockwell discuss Romney’s geography gaffe about Syria being Iran’s only route to the sea, the “No way, I’M more pro-war than you” contest between the candidates, and the hypocritical critique of China being a major currency manipulator while we are running The Federal Reserve?! EH??? As the cool kids now say, “SMH.”
Another CIA counter-terrorism expert cites “blowback” driving terrorism
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It’s a scary world and there are a lot of very angry people in it. To the people out there who want to protect America/Israel/Europe/wherever by bombing people in Iran/Afghanistan/Yemen/wherever, “I get it!” I really do. It’s scary as hell thinking about a nuke going off on a civilian population (unless it was in Japan and “it saved good Americans lives and ended WW2,” right?).
I don’t blame you for wanting to defend our country and innocent people around the world by trying to attack our enemies before they attack us, it’s fight-or-flight; human nature.
However I do passionately advocate a balanced, objective view before deciding to sign and drive the “Kill ‘em all, let God sort them out!” train.
Here is yet another foreign policy expert detailing the incredible risks that policy poses and the counter-productive reality of our foreign policy.
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. -Albert Einstein
Drone attacks create terrorist safe havens, warns former CIA official via theguardian.co.uk
A former top terrorism official at the CIA has warned that President Barack Obama’s controversial drone programme is far too indiscriminate in hitting targets and could lead to such political instability that it creates terrorist safe havens.
Obama’s increased use of drones to attack suspected Islamic militants inPakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen has become one of the most controversial aspects of his national security policy. He has launched at least 275 strikes in Pakistan alone; a rate of attack that is far higher than his predecessor George W Bush.
Defenders of the policy say it provides a way of hitting high-profile targets, such as al-Qaida number two, Abu Yahya al-Libi. But critics say the definition of militant is used far too broadly and there are too many civilian casualties. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates up to 830 civilians, including many women and children, might have been killed by drone attacks in Pakistan, 138 in Yemen and 57 in Somalia. Hundreds more have been injured.
Now Robert Grenier, who headed the CIA’s counter-terrorism center from 2004 to 2006 and was previously a CIA station chief in Pakistan, has told the Guardian that the drone programme is targeted too broadly. “It [the drone program] needs to be targeted much more finely. We have been seduced by them and the unintended consequences of our actions are going to outweigh the intended consequences,” Grenier said in an interview.
Tom Woods articulates the counter-intuitive nature of war and propaganda
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Harvard and Columbia Ph.D. Tom Woods is as clear, concise and conscientious as ever in this brilliant critique.
His LibertyClassroom.com is a marquee source to discover the true roots of economic prosperity and history that strikes fear into the heart of every statist and allows the free spirit of man to create a far better society than any government could dream.
via LewRockwell.com
Twenty years ago, as I was completing my freshman year in college, I was a full-blown neoconservative. Except I didn’t know it. Having concluded that I was not a leftist, I simply decided by process of elimination that I must be a Rush Limbaughian.
Like most people, I was unaware that any alternative to those two choices existed, or that in some ways they were two sides of a common statist coin. In particular, I embraced a neoconservative foreign policy with gusto. The way to show you weren’t a commie was by supporting the U.S. military as it doled out summary justice to bad guys all over the world. And frankly, it was exciting to watch it all unfold on TV.
I never gave the human cost of war a second thought and became impatient with anyone who did. War was like a video game I could enjoy from the comfort of my home. Devastation and human suffering were quite beside the point: the righteous U.S. government was dispensing justice to the wicked, and that was that. What are you, a liberal?
The Persian Gulf War of 1991 was the first U.S. conflict of my college career. During the months-long U.S. military buildup in the Gulf known as Operation Desert Shield I eagerly promoted the mission to anyone foolish enough to listen.
When war came, it was swift and decisive. Very few American casualties were suffered, while the Iraqi forces were destroyed. Some 100,000 were burned alive by a chemical agent or buried alive in the desert while making a retreat.
Believe it or not, that actually bothered me, in spite of how voracious a consumer of war propaganda I was. No one defended Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, which he launched in response to that country’s slant oil drilling, but was the outcome of the Persian Gulf War not a terrible tragedy for the Iraqi people – virtually none of whom had had anything to do with Saddam Hussein’s fateful decision – all the same? A far poorer country than ours suddenly had a lot more widows and orphans, not to mention a great many civilian deaths to grieve over and much destruction to repair.
“Innocence of Muslims” proven innocent!!
1Come on folks, are we serious?! Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are losing their minds over a ridiculously bad video?! Despite the media’s desire to make this look like a spontaneous reaction to the video, that claim is FALSE!!!
Check out the excellent, articulate, Princeton-graduate Ben Swann spilling some beans.
Scroll down for the previously posted “The Arabs are Angry” for a little more detail and or ask the Lybian President who said the video theory is ridiculous.
“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” author John Perkins speaks on our intervention’s side effects
0Assassinating world leaders, corrupting state officials, manipulating global commerce are all detailed by this fascinating, repentant man. His book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” is an absolutle must read is you want to understand why so much of the world hates us so much.
The Arabs are angry…
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…but is it really just because of an indescribably awful movie?
Or is it because of blowback and the obvious consequences produced by the arrogant, violent, mostly unprovoked actions of our military that occupies The Middle East and the world at large?
Have there been plenty of crazy Arab attacks over “acts of Mohammed humiliation?” Absolutely. But we must remember the effects of our presence in the area; you certainly aren’t going to hear them in the media that seeks to rally us into a fervor to support yet another war.
Even good ol’ Noam Chomsky chimes in on the topic citing government documents to back up the theory.
Dr. Paul nails it in the vid below while Mr. Soetoro closes with his unique brand of handsome hubris: “We are the one indespensible nation in the world.” Wow.