Last week the Campaign For Liberty sponsored a a foreign policy debate between Bruce Fein and conservative radio talk show host Jeff Kuhner. Fein has recently released a book published by the Campaign for Liberty called “American Empire: Before the Fall“.
Please take some time to watch video of the debate embedded below. It truly demonstrates the dividing line between non-intervention and intervention. Both Fein and Kuhner provide excellent arguments, however I feel that Fein missed an opportunity to point out a serious flaw in Kuhner’s interventionist logic.
First, Kuhner does not dispute and therefore admits Fein’s assertion that the war on terror is a perpetual war. Later, Kuhner cites putting the Japanese in interment camps during WWII was a necessary and temporary evil. He argues that during times of war we must be willing to sacrifice some of our liberties so that we can be more free down the road once the fighting is over.
Fein could have jumped on this point by asking Kuhner the following question:
If we are in a perpetual war aren’t the civil liberties sacrifices we are making also permanent?
Equating the war on terror with WWII is like saying Coca-cola and orange soda taste the same. I bet Kuhner and his interventionist peers would be unhappy if they ordered a Coke and were brought orange soda instead.
RNC Chairman, Michael Steele, made some comments that riled his fellow neo-conservatives regarding the war in Afghanistan. It riled them so much that many of them are playing the part of the Red Queen in Tim Burton’s, “Alice in Wonderland”. They are yelling, “Off with his head!”
William Kristol and Redstate.com’s, Erick Erickson are among those calling for Steele’s resignation. Here is what Steele said that drew their ire:
“Keep in mind again, for our federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing,” Steele said. “This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
“It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan,” Steele said, referring to Obama’s insistence during the presidential campaign that the U.S. should be focused on Afghanistan instead of Iraq.
“Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”
First of all, these remarks seem quite benign to me, especially since Steele clearly does not want to bring the troops home. He just disagrees with the method by which the war is being fought. However, it also seems to me that he’s going a bit Ron Paul here. He did pick up a copy of Paul’s “End the Fed” at CPAC earlier this year. Perhaps that is what his fellow neo-conservatives hear in his words. We all know how much they despise the truth, er… I mean, Ron Paul.
Yes, it is true I’m a big fan of permitting terrorists to own guns. What?, you may ask. Apparently, that is the attack being used by some in our almighty government who hope to infringe upon our right to defend ourselves.
On Tuesday, as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Lieberman held a hearing to give Lautenberg and King the opportunity to promote their bills S.1317 and H.R.2159, to prohibit the possession of firearms by people on the FBI’s “terrorist watchlist,” and Lautenberg’s S. 2820, to maintain records of approved instant background check transactions for a minimum of 180 days. The watchlist bills further propose that a person seeking relief in court from these new restrictions would be prevented from examining and challenging “evidence” against him, and that the judge deciding whether the person had been watchlisted for good reason be limited to summaries and redacted versions of such “evidence.”
So we are to rely on our government to come up with a list of people who they decide is a terrorist or has terrorist “leanings”. Well, we already are relying on our government to do this, and like many things the government gets involved in, this too is a big fat failure.
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.
A few weeks ago at CPAC, a Friday panel was assembled to answer the question: “Does security trump freedom?” Among the panelists were Robert “Skip” Ash, who teaches a course on “national security law” at Regent University, and also serves at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) as their Senior Litigation Counsel for National Security Law. The deck was stacked beforehand: The ACLJ claims to be “focused on National Security issues and waging an effective and constitutional war on terrorism” (Constitutional? What Constitution?), and the debate moderator was Jay Sekulow, who serves as the organization’s Chief Counsel.
In his opening statements to the audience, Ash commented: “[The troops] also wonder why the President of the United States cannot bring himself to admit that the United States is in a long-term war with enemy jihadists, who seek to destroy us.” Several panelists, including the chief architect of the Patriot Act, went on to defend the Patriot Act as a set of wartime powers necessary to protecting freedom; as former Attorney General John Ashcroft had explained earlier in the day, “the purpose of security is to reinforce and enhance freedom.” Or, as George Orwell famously listed as a slogan of “the Party:” Freedom is Slavery.
To this, the short response is: If these “wartime powers” are so essential to maintain America’s national security and the freedoms of its citizens, why not declare a war? The heart of the matter, of course, runs much deeper. As Glenn Greenwald wrote in his New York Times bestseller, How Would A Patriot Act?, the goal is not to uphold or defend the Constitution at all, but rather to utilize fear to undermine it: Read More »
In case you missed it, Ron Paul had some time for his favorite pastime today, questioning the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke. Then later he enjoyed a relaxing speech on the House floor where he took the obviously crazy position that the U.S. government shouldn’t be assassinating Americans.
First, his opening speech and questioning of Bernanke.
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.
Day 2 is finished at CPAC 2010 and what an interesting day it was. Here’s a recap. It’s rather long.
We made our way to a panel discussion called “Saving Freedom: Defending the Constitution”. The panelists included Steve Bierfeldt of the Campaign For Liberty. Bierfeldt was the man who was detained by the TSA for carrying a “suspicious” amount of cash. He fought the TSA and they modified their policy. The discussion from all the panelists were interesting and educational.
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
” at CPAC earlier this year. Perhaps that is what his fellow neo-conservatives hear in his words. We all know how much they despise the truth, er… I mean, Ron Paul..jpg)
American citizens should question why exactly 
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