Michael Scheuer is not one to mince words when it comes to his writing, speaking, or beliefs. This article demonstrates it perfectly. This is a must read.
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Maddow and the Obamas: Killers of hope, spurs of rebellion
The attacks by MSNBC’s extremist Rachel Maddow on Rand Paul clarify a good deal for me. Ms. Maddow’s position is based on a sort of warmed over version of the 1920s’ Bloomsbury ideology: effete, secular, socialist, pacifistic, elitist, and libertine. The ideology is shared by her fellow MSNBC extremists Olberman and Matthews and by Mr. Obama and his acolytes. Anyone disagreeing with her and them is not just wrong but perverse, racist, badly educated, antiquarian, and could only come from the scum of the earth. What passes for political thought and philosophy among MSNBC’s neo-Bloomsbury extremists and team Obama reminds one of cheeses and flowers — those that stink the most, last the longest.
But, to be honest, MSNBC’s extremists and the Obamaites are not much different from Republicans in being arrogant elitists who regard Americans as ignorant rubes who are unaware of what is best for themselves and their country. What do we hear from the Republicans: they talk anti-abortion, do-nothing; talk controlling borders, do nothing; talk debt reduction, spend more; talk energy self-sufficiency, kiss the Saudis’ butt; talk support for the troops, get more killed in useless wars; talk about America’s independence, and lap up humiliation from Israel and Mexico.
Ms. Maddow-of-Bloomsbury, then, represents both parties in the sense that they both are telling Americans: “Trust us. We know what is best for you. Vote for us, shut up, and go home and watch television.”
You may recall my post discussing the recently released Wikileaks video that shows the American military might in all of it’s brash non-glory [Watch it]. Well, it appears there were at least two true heroes-in-waiting there that day.
Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open-letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees.
Ethan Mccord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. Ethan was on the ground at the scene of the shooting, and is seen on the video rushing one of the injured children to a U.S. Vehicle; “When I saw those kids, all I could picture was my kids back home”. Ethan applied for mental health support following this incident and was denied by his commanding officer.
Josh Stieber was not at the scene of the shooting but says similar incidents happened throughout his 14-month tour; “The acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war.” Josh states that these casualties demonstrate the impact of U.S. military policy on both the civilians and the soldiers on the ground. [Read the rest here]
Why is this not front page news in every media outlet in America?
This letter reminds me of a video I put together during Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign of 2008 called “Troops Are Human”. I utilized a song by CC Carter called “Letter from Iraq”. You can watch it below.
I feel like I’ve become a bit of a collector, so to speak, of attacks on Ron Paul. There really haven’t been any new attacks on Ron Paul since 2007. The attackers all parrot one another while flapping around in a self-congratulatory, moronic bubble of intellectual laziness.
Let’s dig a little deeper and attempt to un-attack Ron Paul. Here is my collection.
The “guilt by association” attack:
This is probably the most commonly-used attack on Ron Paul. Paul was criticized for “accepting” a $500 donation during his campaign from a white supremacist. Of course, the Paul campaign didn’t find out about the donor until it came to light after the donation was made. He refused to return the donation. Instead he argued that it would be better to spend the money wisely in the name of freedom for all rather than returning $500 to a known white supremacist. Some see this as a cop-out. It could also be argued that it was Paul upholding freedom of speech found in the First Amendment. Yes, unfortunately for some, the First Amendment does protect all speech, not just agreeable speech.
People choose to support any given candidate for all kinds of odd reasons. It’s quite common for people to vote for the most likable candidate regardless of the candidate’s political views. I can’t fathom this reasoning (or lack thereof). There are probably some really “scum of the earth” type of people who voted for and supported Barack Obama and John McCain. The reality is that candidates cannot choose their supporters; therefore, they should not be condemned through them.
The recently released (via Wikileaks) disturbing video (included below) showing U.S. forces firing from an Apache helicopter killing several humans reveals more than the blatant horror found in warfare. It reveals something about America.
A camera was mistaken for an RPG and two Reuters reporters were mistakenly killed along with several others. I can understand how that could happen from a soldier trained to be hypersensitive to any kind of threat. It seems to me the “Law of the instrument” is in play here:
“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” – Abraham Maslow
Applying it to this atrocity it could be rephrased:
“It is tempting, if the only tool a soldier has is the desire to kill, to treat, every camera as if it were an RPG.“
Late in the video after discovering that two children were severely injured in the operation, one of the soldier’s ho-humly states, “It’s their fault for bringing kids to a battle.” Other than the loose interpretation of the word “battle”, I suppose the irony in the statement is lost on many.
This series addresses the War on Terror. While my stances on both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are very clear, in this piece I will propose what to do with Guantanamo Bay and its prisoners. In Part 1, I explained the history of Guantanamo for knowing its history is key to understanding what should be done with this military base. In this piece, I will dissect a recent editorial published in the local newspaper by the incumbent Congressman and then propose my solutions on how to handle Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Following this, no current discussion on terror would be complete without discussing the controversial body scanning and I will add my comments and solutions on airline safety. The last part will summarize border security and just how dangerous the war on terror is – not only to our soldiers who risk their lives everyday and avoiding financial ruin as a country, but also to our liberties as a free society.
Readers should be aware that the incumbent, Congressman Dent, in my congressional race sits on Homeland Security and is a rabid supporter of the Bush and Obama administrations’ War on Terror. While I do not question his motives to protect the American people, I do very much oppose his actions and ineffective solutions. Our country’s leaders have not only plunged our nation into expensive, preemptive, and unjust wars for the past decade, but have embarked on a vast extension of a modern-day police state. It is the duty of every citizen to question whether these new restraints over our lives are, in fact, beneficial. I view the infringement of civil liberties that are protected by our Constitution as not only illegal but unnecessary and immoral.
The original source has been moved to the Morning Call archives here, but a modified version is available on Politico. In quotation marks are quotes from the Congressman, followed by my comments explaining my logic.
Dennis Kucinich had his day on the House floor today. The debate on his doomed bill to demand that Obama remove our troops from Afghanistan was full of the usual suspects making their usual arguments. I can’t help but wonder, if George Bush were still president, would there have been more than 60 votes of support from Democrats?
Ron Paul took his five minutes to continue his lifelong demonstration called, “How to follow the Constitution”.
Ron Paul used his five minutes during yesterday’s markup of a bill to recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to showcase his foreign policy philosophy of neutrality and non-intervention.
Paul shines when he has more than a couple minutes to represent his position, especially on foreign policy. He makes a point to emphasize his philosophy is not one of isolation from the world, but one where we don’t stick our nose where it doesn’t belong.
I’ve seen many people incredulous that Ron Paul could somehow win the CPAC 2010 straw poll. I’ve seen it on Twitter, emails, blogs, and comments on blogs. I’ve read that people call him “crazy” or “liberal”. I even witnessed someone say they would vote for Hitler if he was running against Ron Paul. Yeah, and Ron Paul is the crazy one.
So if you believe Ron Paul is crazy on foreign policy I ask you to watch the following videos and learn why it’s quite possible Ron Paul is actually the sane and constitutional one on foreign policy.
If you don’t have 90 minutes to spare to watch both videos in their entirety then go to 16:55 of the 2nd video and just watch Jacob Hornberger’s speech. If you do have 90 minutes then please watch both parts in their entirety. This video is from last Saturday afternoon at CPAC 2010 from a panel discussion called, “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism”.
The panel is made up of:
Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer.
Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency.
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general from 1981 to 1982 under President Ronald Reagan.
Neo-conservatives like to use the expression “cut and run” when describing the Ron Paul-style non-interventionist desire to pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and close our many bases in other countries. If we embraced the “cut and run” strategy instead of the “surge” strategy we would already be well on our way to winning the so-called “War on Terror”. I use the words “on our way” to emphasize that such a war can never be won in the classic sense. There can only be varying levels of success.
The idea would be to trade in America’s my-gun-is-bigger-than-yours foreign policy for a more constitution-oriented, defense-focused effort. Sure, it would permit the terrorists to openly claim victory. So what? This is the kind of victory that, in the end, helps reduce terrorism. Once victorious, what is their recruiting incentive?
I know what you’re thinking: “But they hate us because we are free! They’ll just continue what they are doing!”
“They hate us because we are free” is the neo-conservative equivalent of the “truther” claim that “9/11 was an inside job”. Just because it becomes a convenient narrative for pundits on either side doesn’t necessarily make it true.
The frigid winters in mountainous Afghanistan usually pass by with few combat deaths due to less mobility and less activity in the weather. Each summer, the casualty rate has spiked. However, this January was an exception with over the deaths of 30 American soldiers and 9 more to date in February. These totals, along with the arrival of close to 40,000 more NATO and US troops, suggest a bloody summer is ahead in Afghanistan. Last year was a record-setting year for soldier deaths at 317 and the totals so far are about twice as high as the 2009 winter.
American citizens should question why exactly Nobel “Peace” Prize winner Barack Obama, the neoconservative chicken-hawk wing of the Republican Party (that is, most of them), and the interventionist war hawks in the Democratic Party (that is, most of them) are continuing to expend American blood and treasure on a meaningless war. HR 2647, the latest military spending bill of $680 billion for FY2010 was approved 389-22 in October by Congress.
As I have outlined in my platform, the Afghanistan and Pakistan Wars are unconstitutional and thereby illegal. These wars are unjust, preemptive wars of aggression that do not effectively address Al-Qaeda nor the real reasons America was attacked in the first place. Namely, this is our insistence to place over 761 military bases in 150 of the world’s 194 countries. No other country seeks to station their troops on foreign soil as we have. Americans certainly would not put up with the stationing of Chinese or Russian troops on our soil, so we should expect foreigners to feel no different.
Liberty Maven
Readers should be aware that the incumbent, Congressman Dent, in my congressional race sits on Homeland Security and is a rabid supporter of the Bush and Obama administrations’ War on Terror. While I do not question his motives to protect the American people, I do very much oppose his actions and ineffective solutions. Our country’s leaders have not only plunged our nation into expensive, preemptive, and unjust wars for the past decade, but have embarked on a vast extension of a modern-day police state. It is the duty of every citizen to question whether these new restraints over our lives are, in fact, beneficial. I view the infringement of civil liberties that are protected by our Constitution as not only illegal but unnecessary and immoral. .jpg)
American citizens should question why exactly 
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