A few years ago I spent the 3 hours necessary to watch a BBC documentary/mini-series called “The Power of Nightmares”. I found it fascinating as it explored the symbiotic relationship between American neo-conservatives and terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. You can watch the entire series online at archive.org. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this topic.
In it we learn that neo-conservatives philosophy is based on Machiavellianism. It’s the elitist mentality that neo-cons know what is good for all citizens and can morally (in their eyes) use all means necessary to reach that perceived good. We also learn that the roots of neo-conservatism come from the left.
Now that Usama bin Laden nightmare is dead the neo-conservatives need a new nightmare to justify the continued global war on terror. At first they tried to spread general fear about a retaliatory strike. This is a real and genuine fear; however, it isn’t quite enough for them. They need a face of terror–a single person. Initial indications are this new face of terror will be Usama’s 20 year old son Hamza. He already has a nickname, “The Crown Prince of Terror” as evidenced in this recent article from The Telegraph:
Hamza, thought to be the youngest of the Saudi-born warlord’s sons, has been described as the “crown prince of terror”. He featured on an extremist website to mark the third anniversary of the July 7 London bombings in which 52 people died. He read a poem called for “destruction” of America, Britain, France and Denmark.
Intelligence agencies believe he was being groomed as a possible future leader of al-Qaeda.
He was implicated in the assassination of moderate Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
Well, it didn’t take them very long did it? Hopefully it won’t take 10 years, billions of dollars, and countless lives, to find bin Laden 2.0. No doubt we will begin hearing about how the son is even more evil than the parent was.
In any case, I long for the day when our troops can come home from all over the world and we can expend our resources on true defense and better intelligence-gathering rather than the expensive nation-sitting we do now.
Ron Paul is on fire. That is my opinion of his performance in this first GOP debate. Of course, I’m biased. Feel free to make your own judgement after watching the entire debate below. There were a few stellar moments from Ron Paul, including his answer when asked about legalizing drugs, and his answer about being the “Founding Father” of the Tea Party movement regarding Michele Bachmann.
I don’t agree with a lot of what Herman Cain says, but I have to admit he has charisma that will give him a lot of support. Expect the other candidates to start attacking him if his poll numbers go up. I think they will.
Gary Johnson did very well with a few odd moments. If I’m looking at him through social-con or neo-con eyes voting for him would likely be impossible. He did come off as a very honest “make the hard choices” candidate. Sort of like Cain without the charisma.
Pawlenty seems to be channeling John McCain a bit too much and Santorum just comes off as angry. Both seem to be going after the George W. Bush voting block; however small that is these days.
Glory to Allah! Well it appears that Osama Bin Laden is dead. He was supposedly killed about a week ago via a bomb/missile. The neo-conservatives will now be scrambling to find a new evil-doer to keep them aimed toward their goals. I’m sure they will tell us very soon who the new face of terror will be. Or how about this instead…
…how about we get the hell out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and everywhere else and save some money we don’t have?
The most likely scenario will be that we will be told how we now need to be extremely alert due to the potential for retaliation so we’ll need to send more troops and spend more money on the never-ending war on a tactic.
More thoughts to come as more information is spoon-fed to us via an untrustworthy media.
Last week Donald Rumsfeld went on the Opie and Anthony radio show to promote his new book, “”. It was an odd interview to begin with. Opie and Anthony are not known for their hard-hitting political interviews, but rather, numerous fart and sex jokes. Comedian Louis C.K. was in studio during the interview, and decided to ask Donald Rumsfeld a humorous question. You can listen to the interview here:
Compare that interview with the rather hard-hitting tough journalistic interview Judge Andrew Napolitano did last night with The other Donald:
And here is the Judge after the interview, saying that Rumsfeld described the interview as the “toughest” he’s had. I’m thinking he wishes he’d rather be asked if he’s a lizard by Louis CK than be interviewed by the Judge again.
The great Robert Higgs makes the best argument yet against the idiotic neo-conservative “blame America” accusation in his latest commentary.
Higgs writes:
In discourse about public affairs, words matter much more than most people appreciate. We live immersed in language so twisted and abused, in part by the design of interested parties and in part by the sloth of inattentive speakers and listeners, that we often fail to notice or object to linguistic miscarriages that pass for intelligent expression. The examples are legion, but here I have in mind a particular turn of phrase that American conservatives, especially neocons, have employed in recent years as a counterstrike against critics of U.S. foreign and defense policy: They describe such critics as “blaming America” or sometimes as “blaming America first” for attacks against this country or its citizens abroad.
Thus, for example, those who fault U.S. Middle East policies for creating the conditions that caused Muslim fanatics to attack Americans, both at home and overseas, are said to be blaming America for what the policy’s defenders’ take to be the unprovoked acts of terrorists bent on imposing Sharia on the United States, destroying this country’s freedoms, or attaining another such farfetched objective.
Applications to earlier events and policies include use of the expression to fend off the arguments and evidence of those who maintain that the Roosevelt administration waged economic warfare in 1940-41 to provoke a Japanese attack that would justify and lead directly to full-fledged U.S. engagement in World War II; and use of the expression against those who argue that the Truman administration bore at least partial responsibility for the onset of the Cold War. People accused of blaming America are commonly called “America haters.”
Although this riposte to criticism is the rhetorical tactic of first resort for the more simple-minded, flag-waving species of self-anointed patriots, it is by no means their exclusive property. Neocons writing in such elevated outlets as the New York Times and the Washington Post have not been bashful about smearing their critics as people who “blame America.” I noticed this linguistic resort most recently in a commentary by an intelligent, reasonable economist and was shocked that he would embrace this trope while suggesting that “pacifists” and others who criticize U.S. foreign and defense policies are unrealistically imagining that international disputes and warfare can somehow be eliminated from human affairs.
In my view, replying to policy critics by accusing them of “blaming America” is worse than linguistically crude and ideologically twisted; it is stupid.
Editor’s Note: After a long hiatus, we’ve just received another article submission from Richard Deekbag. His previous submission was posted here in an effort to represent a perspective opposite of Liberty Maven’s typical material. You can read that previous article, Why Ron Paul is wrong on every damn thing!, here. This new submission is being posted for the same reason. Remember, he’s an anti-Ron Paul neocon who runs the following website (we apologize for the length of the URL):
What a joke! All these idiots complaining about their junk being touched by the TSA. I say we should just stand there and take it like real men. I say, “If it’s for national security then TOUCH MY JUNK, PLEASE!!” It’s the patriotic thing to do. If you opt-out of the junk-touching then the terrorists win, pure and simple. If you opt-out of the junk-touching then you hate America!!
I do think there is room for the TSA to improve this process though. It appears that all females get to be felt up by female TSA agents and all males get to be fondled by male TSA agents. This is a discriminatory practice. The TSA should ask the traveler if he or she is a homosexual. If the answer is affirmative then the traveler should be appropriately touched by a member of the opposite sex.
Yes, all touching in the name of national security is appropriate. Other than that small change I applaud the great work of the TSA over the past few weeks. The skies are infinitely safer and there can be no one who says they aren’t friendlier with this policy in place. In fact, they just published a children’s book to help children adapt to the new policy. Here’s is the cover:
They say, “To cook a frog, don’t toss it into boiling water, put it into cool water and turn the heat up slowly”.
Our government would tell us that for the right (they call it a privilege) to fly on a commercial flight, we must submit either to a dose of radiation and provide a naked rendering of our body or submit to a government groping. . . or both. Either option, would be considered a crime if committed without a claimed “government authority”. The history of airline/airport security for the past forty years clearly shows that security is not the goal
Although airline hijackings have existed since, at least, the 1930′s, they didn’t “come into vogue” until the 1960′s with demands from hijackers to be taken to Cuba or some other political venue or for the payment of a ransom. This changed in 1970 when three airliners were hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft were forced to fly to Jordan where the passengers were ultimately released and the aircraft were destroyed. Today, this would be classified as a major “terrorist” event. In reality, they were political hijackings, which occurred only because they were allowed to occur. In 1970, as today, the existing security measures did not address the problem nor were they meant to correct the problem. At best, they were (and are) all theater meant to provide a sense of security.
Each of these hijackings could have been prevented – at minimal cost, without government involvement and without the sacrifice of personal liberties. Simple: lock and reinforce the cockpit door. Although, we’ve all been herded through metal detectors, emptied our pockets and had our bags x-rayed, nobody thought to “lock the door” for more than thirty years; until after 9/11.
Today, Ron Paul, released the following regarding Obama’s speech last night.
And of course, he’s spot on as usual. Note that the picture associated with this post was not released by Ron Paul as part of the press release.
“The President’s announcement that all U.S. combat troops have left Iraq is no more believable than the ‘Mission Accomplished’ declaration was in 2003.
“Once again, we are being told the mission has been accomplished and our brave men and women are coming back home. Though the people are hopeful they remain skeptical, and rightfully so.
“The biggest problem is that success in Iraq is undefinable since the mission was never defined. The reasons given for the invasion were based on misinformation. Now, the war has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and this has contributed significantly to our economic woes.
“Forty-four hundred Americans are dead, thirty thousand severely wounded, and more than a hundred thousand are suffering from serious health problems related to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. This alone should tell us that it was not worth the investment and the needless sacrifice of our young people and the taxpayers.
“It is deceitful to imply we will avoid hostilities with this new policy. We still have to contend with:
the 50,000 troops carrying weapons remain in Iraq
the 100,000 contractors that remain with more expected to go to Iraq
the 9,000 special ops personnel trained in assassinations that remain in Iraq
a huge embassy, bigger than the Vatican, that will remain
Dozens of military bases that will stay
Al Qaeda organizations that did not exist before the war
Muqtada al Sadr, a strong nationalist who has gained much political power
The fact that Iran benefits tremendously with the Shiites now in power in Iraq and is a close ally of al Sadr
“Osama bin Laden wins by ‘proving’ that America has an agenda of occupation in the Middle East. And, we continue to walk into his trap and hand him up his best recruitment tool in his efforts to incite hatred and terrorism against the United States.
“What’s worse, President Obama made it clear last night that the troops and resources leaving Iraq will not come home to defend our country or ease our economic woes. They will instead be diverted to Afghanistan, perhaps also Pakistan and, I fear, even Iran.
“From my viewpoint we are the losers in this fool’s errand of endless war. Tragically, this new policy is not one of peace but merely a charade that will severely undermine our national security and continue us down the path to bankruptcy—a threat that we best not long ignore.”
To paraphrase what I heard in Barack Obama’s speech earlier tonight…
- We’re bringing our combat troops home from Iraq… and sending them to risk death in other no-win wars.
- But we’re gonna keep about 50,000 troops in Iraq to… do what they’ve already been doing since around 2005… nation-building.
- Sometime in 2011 we will remove all U.S. military troops from Iraq (yeah right) but we will leave behind a private “force” to continue our nation-building there.
- Though George W. Bush was a patriot and we may have disagreed on a bit of foreign policy minutia we are in large agreement that we must continue breeding hatred for all things America by shifting our focus toward different faux-monsters to destroy in far away lands.
- Yes, like George W. Bush, I have trouble going to sleep at night because there are terrorist monsters under America’s bed. I don’t care if you can’t see them when you turn on the light and look. They are there! I swear!
- We spent far too much money on the Iraq War so we must bring it home and spend it on entitlement programs then borrow perhaps another trillion or so to copy our Iraq effort in Afghanistan and who knows maybe we’ll do the same in Iran or Pakistan a bit later. This will be sure to help our economy here at home.
- God Bless America because we need all the help we can get with me as your president.
- You should have all voted for Ron Paul. Let’s hope you get another chance in 2012.
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That about sums up what I heard from President Barack Obama tonight. The non-paraphrased version is available too. I assure you there is not much different than my condensed version except for maybe that last Ron Paul bit.
Liberty Maven
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