I must confess. This Ron Paul supporter suffered from a temporary bout of neo-conservatism after viewing that completely horrifying video of the young woman lying in the street bleeding to death in Iran over the weekend. I will not link to it because I don’t want to infect anyone else. My long lost compassionate conservatism gene made a return as I was filled with hatred and sadness. I thought, “Something must be done!. America needs to intervene!” A few hours and a reality check later I found myself back on firm Founding Father-style non-interventionist footing once again.
Some claim taking a non-interventionist approach on the Iran election aftermath is the height of hypocrisy from someone who claims to believe in liberty. Ron Paul is being criticized for his lone “Nay” vote on condemning the Iranian government’s heinous actions on it’s own people. On the surface it appears Obama is taking a similar non-interventionist approach for now, although there are some arguing the opposite may be true. Hopefully, Obama stands his ground (this time) against the interventionist opposition.
Those clamoring for intervention need to answer a few questions, but there is one question that trumps them all.
After backtracking on a previous promise to release photos of alleged prisoner abuse, a new report casts doubt on Obama’s honesty in stating the photos were “not particularly sensational“ – a justification for his change of heart. While the photos have not been released to the public, some journalists were given access to the classified photographs – and have begun to reveal what they saw. A report claims that the photos depict instances of torture, including rape of both male and female prisoners, in addition to other forms of sexual abuse, which occurred at Abu Ghraib and several other prisons in Iraq.
The Pentagon has already quickly denied the report’s accuracy, but with the government refusing to release the photos to the public they are also denying themselves any ability to fully refute the claims made against them – assuming the claims are false. I simply don’t understand how the Obama administration can, on the one hand, attempt to downplay what is depicted in the photographs, and on the other think it too dangerous to release them to the public.
While the stated fear is consistently that releasing the photographs may “inflame anti-American opinion, and … put our troops in greater danger,” isn’t the fact that torture and prisoner abuse took place really what will inflame opinion? Covering up what happened – and ineffectively at that – simply raises more questions and keeps the issue at the forefront. While Obama rightly states the abuse to be unacceptable, without an open process – without proper transperency – it creates and fosters a culture where abuse could spring up under the protection of the government not wanting to reveal what is essentially embarassing to them.
Until the photos are fully released, the continued spectre of what they may be hiding will do noone any good – nor will the slow, inevitable drip by drip reveal of details from people who have seen them. On this one, I agree with Martin Garbus at the Huffington Post – releasing all of the photos now and coming clean is the only way to begin the process of truly moving forward. But not only that, it’s the only course which would actually save lives, not merely veil an embarassing truth.
I hope to make this a regular occurrence each Friday here at Liberty Maven. If it ends up like some of our other regular occurrences it won’t be regular at all. We’ll try though.
This post will be a hodgepodge of random thoughts I’ve had over the past week (or so) that never made it into an “official” article.
The topic of torture has been in the news and I find it fascinating because there are so many levels of arguments to the debate. No one put it more succinctly than Shepard Smith on a recent episode of Freedom Watch. The main arguments can be highlighted with a series of questions:
I used to think everyone hounding me to “get on Twitter” was torture (wow, poor segue I know). Now that I’ve done so I wouldn’t say that I’m addicted necessarily, but I’ve certainly discovered a new world (in 140 characters or less or course). Most of our articles are automatically “tweeted” right when they are published. So feel free to follow me/us at @LibertyMaven and start using this social media tool to help spread the freedom message.
Speaking of Twitter (damn I’m good at these transitions), Rand Paul is on Twitter sending his followers updates about his potential Senate run. His father Ron is not. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if someone were to ask Ron Paul if he twitters, he’d answer, “No I exercise daily and am in very good health.”
In 2002, Ron Paul offered up using Letters of Marque and Reprisal for going after those terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. The Bush administration and Congress didn’t listen. Almost $1 trillion later Osama Bin Laden is still running around making propaganda videos like Michael Moore.
A couple days ago Ron Paul released a video suggesting the same method for dealing with the pirates looting and pillaging commercial ships off the coast of Somalia. Will Obama and Congress listen now? Yesterday the Pentagon released information indicating that they are toying with the idea of sending ground troops into Somalia, UN sanctioned of course.
Pentagon planners are preparing a variety of options for dealing with Somali pirates, and a United Nations resolution gives them the authority to conduct operations inside Somalia.
“The ultimate solution for piracy is on land,” said Vice Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the Combined Maritime Forces.
“Piracy around the world stems from activity where there is lawlessness, lack of governance, economic instability; things of that nature. And wherever you have that, you’re going to have criminal activity at sea,” he said at a Monday briefing.
The Defense Department could mean that they aim to send a small contingent of troops into Somalia to combat piracy. However, the third paragraph above suggests that Somalia needs some nation building in order to neutralize the threat of piracy which certainly indicates the use of more than a few American soldiers. This lunacy is more proof of the over-riding “empire mentality” we have when it comes to intervening in world affairs.
What is so morbidly hilarious about this is that in Ron Paul’s video (released less than 24 hours prior to this Pentagon story) he said he was concerned about further U.S. intervention and reminded everyone what happened the last time Clinton (and father Bush) tried to intervene in Somalia. How naive I was to react to Paul’s suggestion in the video with, “Our government would never go for that!” It’s beginning to look like Ron Paul was right (again). I should have known better. Analyzing the way our beloved government is handling the economy should be evidence enough that past failed tactics will be repeated again and again no matter how many times they’ve failed.
Now a somewhat lengthy article from Politico explores Ron Paul’s suggestion in depth. The article puts an almost universally positive spin on using Letters of Marque and Reprisal for combating piracy.
National security experts estimate that this week’s ship captain rescue by Navy SEALs cost tens of millions, although a Navy spokesman says the military cannot confirm the exact cost of the mission.
Instead, privateers would be incentivized to patrol the ocean looking for key targets — and money would be paid only to the contractor who completed the job.
“If we have 100 American wanna-be Rambos patrolling the seas, it’s probably a good way of getting the job done,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow and security expert Eli Lehrer. “Right now we have a Navy designed mostly to fight other navies. The weapons we have are all excellent, but they may not be the best ones to fight these kinds of pirates. The only cost under letters of marque would be some sort of bounty for the pirates.”
Do you think this time those in power will listen to Ron Paul or will we see yet another trillion dollars squandered with little benefit and more loss of life?
If the latest Rasmussen poll is any indication it seems we may be in for more costly interventions overseas. 72% of those polled said they support using military action against the pirates. To be clear I have little problem with the way the recent rescue was performed in order to save Captain Phillips. I do have a problem with escalating such actions into another excuse for nation building, occupation, and spreading democracy at the point of a gun.
I HOPE we lose no soldiers this year. I HOPE they come home safe. I HOPE Obama brings our troops home from Iraq. Some CHANGE this has been so far!
by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution Originally published Monday, March 30, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6233.html
Iraqis are still dying while under the oppression of 150,000 American soldiers, but there is some HOPE, even though there have been no withdrawals. Barack Obama promised in February that “By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” Up to 50,000 troops would remain under the agreement the Bush administration had to be left with no other option except to sign to leave by January, 2012, which nicely coincides with the start of Obama’s possible second term.
However, let’s look at what Obama said during his election campaign. On his “BARACK OBAMA: TURNING THE PAGE IN IRAQ” official campaign hand-out,Barack Obama promised he “would immediately begin [meaning January 2009] to pull out troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year [meaning December 2009].” In July 2008, he also announced that the Iraq combat mission would be over by May 2010. Now its September 2010. Nice work, slick. The pdf file that states this appears to have been deleted from barackobama.com, but I will email the pdf I downloaded to anyone.
Afghanis are still dying under the oppression of soon-to-be 60,000 American soldiers, and the 2009 YTD kill rate for soldiers slightly exceeds 2008’s totals. Barack Obama recently announced he would transfer 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. In July 2008, the Barackcuda announced he favored the transfer of 7,000 troops to Afghanistan. This is splitting hairs a bit, as Obama, despite his many pro-peace and antiwar followers, has always resolutely stated he would increase our presence in Afghanistan. He has always resolutely stated he would increase the size of our Armed Forces by 100,000 troops, which are 100,000 more mouths to feed and equipment to supply for the ever-declining “revenue base,” aka American taxpayer, to support.
Vice President Biden was said to have warned against a military quagmire in Afghanistan, but let’s just hope that he is wrong. A little known fact is that the Vietnam War only had 401 US war deaths under Kennedy and Johnson during its first 5 years, which does seem somewhat comparable to Afghanistan’s, see below. However, in all fairness, many Americans had very little idea what was going on in Vietnam, and no major offensives were started until year 6.
This week’s episode of Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano is in the bag. This week Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Peter Schiff, Campaign For Liberty President John Tate, Tracy Byrnes (from FBN), and John Stossel joined the Judge for more discussion on liberty.
They discussed Obama’s plan for education, the endless bailouts, and more. John Stossel joined the show during the final minutes via telephone and discussed his upcoming special on 20/20 Friday night at 10pm EST called “Bailouts, Big Spending, and Bull.”
Ron Paul was on for the first 15 minutes or so. John Tate joined during the last half hour. Please spread the playlist below around the net. And be sure to join the Facebook “Fans of Freedom Watch” group if you haven’t already.
Watch what many are calling the liberty power hour below. All 6 parts should play in succession via the playlist here.
The first major event during Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign was a disagreement on foreign policy between he and Rudy Giuliani. At that time, foreign policy was the major issue of the campaign. I’ve always maintained that the only issue anyone would care about come election day would be the economy. Everything we do is based on the economy. It is always the number one issue. Of course, no one really cares much about it when the perception is that it is doing well.
Now that it is not doing well at all, foreign policy is almost an afterthought. Ron Paul has always tied the two “issues” together. Austrian economics teaches us to look at the entire picture and the long term implications of human action. Ron Paul rightly links our wasteful overseas spending to the economic problems we are facing at home. Yesterday he released another of his weekly columns on his Congressional web site. In it he focuses on America’s foreign policy of intervention and calls upon us to truly think about how we would react if another country’s soldiers were patrolling the streets of our country.
This, in my view, is his strongest argument for a non-interventionist foreign policy. It is the oldest argument in the book, the golden rule argument: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And, as always, in the end he ties it back in to our precarious economic condition. With Obama continuing the Bush foreign policy we are merely prolonging the inevitable and worsening the pain.
“Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe” or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their strategic interests.”
Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up check points on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.”
What decade am I describing: The United State has chosen an impoverished, agrarian region halfway around the world to demonize and to pound into submission with its most advanced weaponry. The central governments of the region have never attacked the U.S., but we are told that militants in the area hate us and will harm us if allowed to. The U.S. strikes kill a certain number of politicized militants, along with hundreds of civilians, including, in large numbers, women and children.
The weak central governments within whose borders we operate have no ability to stay in power on their own, but are dependent on U.S. manipulation to hold up their political “leaders,” who routinely invite the U.S. to continue its assistance against their “insurgent” forces. Our President announces that in addition to the mechanized attacks on civilian areas of the region, he is significantly increasing U.S. ground forces, with a resultant rise in American troop deaths a certainty.
Have I describe the late 60’s and early 70’s, or today? Hard to tell, unless I add one more fact: The American public, including, in its entirety, the left, is entirely silent on the intervention. That makes it easy, doesn’t it? The period of time in question is right now. The target of our intervention is the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the President is Obama.
It’s been a long time since we’ve posted a grassroots video for Ron Paul here at Liberty Maven. A new video has been released that needs to be spread far and wide.
The creator takes Ron Paul’s recent “What If” speech to Congress and tunes it up a bit. I have to admit watching Ron Paul deliver the speech on CSPAN is inspiring for someone like me, but I’m pretty sure non-Paulites have a tendency to zone out while Paul is talking.
This video changes that. It is mesmerizing and enhances Paul’s speech to the point that you really take in the meaning of his words. I thought Paul’s speech was pretty good when I first heard it, but after watching this I think it could be one of Paul’s best speeches ever.
Well, enough of my own yammering. Just watch it below and spread it around.
Ron Paul was interviewed yesterday on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton. Horton’s interviews are always interesting and that is especially true when his guest is Ron Paul.
They discuss the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Obama has promised 17,000 more troops and is expected to ok at least 10,000 more in the coming months. Questions are beginning to be asked… will Afghanistan be Obama’s Iraq, Vietnam, or worse?
As the escalation mounts we will likely see the antiwar left’s support of Obama wane completely if it hasn’t already. This proves yet again that Obama’s foreign policy is no different than Bush’s. Only the locale has changed.
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