Archive for the Category » foreign aggression «

January 25th, 2010 | Author: akagaga

I don’t really like Pat Buchanan, and I don’t often agree with him, but I think he’s nailed it in a new post on CNSNews. He looked at the reasons that Arabs in the Mideast are at war with us.

It won’t be a popular post, and it will probably be categorized as “un-American,” but after a brief run-down on the Mideast, he concludes this way:

But as long as we take sides in their wars, those we fight and kill over there will come to kill us over here.

This is payback for our intervention. This is the price of empire. This is the cost of the long war.

Hard to argue with that.

Category: Iran, Iraq, Islam, Obama, foreign aggression, foreign policy, terrorism, war | One Comment

Ron Paul: Who Wants War?

December 08th, 2009 | Author: akagaga

by Ron Paul | Texas Straight Talk
December 7, 2009

If anyone still doubted that this administration’s foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week’s debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The President’s stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating war amount to little more than recycling all the false reasons we began the conflict. It is so discouraging to see this coming from our new leadership, when the people were hoping for peace. New polls show that 49 percent of the people favor minding our own business on the world stage, up from 30 percent in 2002. Perpetual war is not solving anything. Indeed continually seeking out monsters to destroy abroad only threatens our security here at home as international resentment against us builds. The people understand this and are becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard by the decision-makers. The leaders say some things the people want to hear, but change never comes.

One has to ask, if the people who elected these leaders so obviously do not want these wars, who does? Eisenhower warned of the increasing power and influence of the military industrial complex and it seems his worst fears have come true. He believed in a strong national defense, as do I, but warned that the building up of permanent military and weapons industries could prove dangerous if their influence got out of hand. After all, if you make your money on war, peace does you no good. With trillions of dollars at stake, there is tremendous incentive to keep the decision makers fearful of every threat in the world, real or imagined, present or future, no matter how ridiculous and far-fetched. The Bush Doctrine demonstrates how very successful the war lobby was philosophically with the last administration. And they are succeeding just as well with this one, in spite of having the so-called “peace candidate” in office.

We now find ourselves in another foreign policy quagmire with little hope of victory, and not even a definition of victory. Eisenhower said that only an alert and informed electorate could keep these war racketeering pressures at bay. He was right, and the key is for the people to ensure that their elected leaders follow the Constitution. The Constitution requires a declaration of war by Congress in order to legitimately go to war. Bypassing this critical step makes it far too easy to waste resources on nebulous and never-ending conflicts. Without clear goals, the conflicts last forever and drain the country of blood and treasure. The drafters of the Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war precisely because they feared allowing the executive unfettered discretion in military affairs. They understood that making it easy for leaders to wage foreign wars would threaten domestic liberties.

Responses to attacks on our soil should be swift and brief. Wars we fight should always be defensive, clearly defined and Constitutional. The Bush Doctrine of targeting potential enemies before they do anything to us is dangerously vague and easily abused. There is nothing left to win in Afghanistan and everything to lose. Today’s military actions are yet another futile exercise in nation building and have nothing to do with our nation’s security, or with 9/11. Most experts agree that Bin Laden and anyone remotely connected to 9/11 left Afghanistan long ago, but our troops remain. The pressures of the war racketeers need to be put in check before we are brought to our knees by them. Unfortunately, it will require a mighty effort by the people to get the leadership to finally listen.

Category: Obama, Ron Paul, foreign aggression, foreign policy, war | Leave a Comment

Noxious News Nosegay: hate crimes, war spending, and prosecutor’s immunity

November 05th, 2009 | Author: akagaga

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It hasn’t been a good news week for the equality of all. First, from Homeland Stupidity:

Prosecutors trying to put you in prison for a crime you didn’t commit can fabricate evidence, coerce witnesses into lying on the stand, and enjoy absolute immunity. They cannot go to prison. They cannot even be sued. They aren’t even likely to get so much as a reprimand from the bar association or from their bosses, even after publicly admitting to framing you.

It seems two teenagers were framed for and convicted of murder in 1977. In 2003, their convictions were overturned because the key witness had committed perjury at the behest of the prosecutors. But the Supreme Court was told yesterday in Pottawattamie County v. McGhee that the prosecutors shouldn’t be punished. HS summed it up well:

I’m not sure what’s more disturbing, the fact that prosecutors routinely get away with framing people or the fact that the government wants to keep it that way. The federal government, 27 states, and several intergovernmental associations all filed briefs in support of the prosecutors.

This is our justice system.

* * *

And we’ve all heard that Obama signed the so-call “hate crimes” bill last week, which results in more punishment for murdering someone because they’re gay than murdering someone because you wanted to steal their money. This doesn’t sound very equal to me. And, of course, the government now gets to determine our motive for murder, giving them more power to screw things up, à la Pottawattamie County v. McGhee above.

So how did this bill get passed after more than a decade of opposition? It was attached to the latest military spending spree of $680 billion, which was a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t proposition. According to Truthdig:

It was a clever piece of marketing. It blunted debate about new funding for war. And behind the closed doors of the caucus rooms, the Democratic leadership told Blue Dog Democrats, who are squeamish about defending gays or lesbians from hate crimes, that they could justify the vote as support for the war. They told liberal Democrats, who are squeamish about unlimited funding for war, that they could defend the vote as a step forward in the battle for civil rights. Gender equality groups, by selfishly narrowing their concern to themselves, participated in the dirty game.

William Grigg has posted a poignant analysis of the whole sorry situation titled Blood on Their Hands, complete with photos of the results. Here’s an excerpt:

The difference between this measure and its predecessors is this: The leading elements of the “hate industry” — those sanctimonious scolds who make a handsome living tutoring the rest of us in the ways of “tolerance” — are now directly implicated in the avoidable mass murder of innocent people in the Near East.

For the squalid collection of pressure groups that promoted passage of the hate crimes measure, — the so-called Anti-Defamation League, the self-styled Human Rights Campaign, the fraudulently named Southern Poverty Law Center, et. al. — this is an entirely acceptable arrangement. Their fund-raising will prosper; their stature in Washington will continue to grow; their influence over law enforcement will expand; most importantly, the power of the state to persecute their political enemies will be significantly enhanced.

Oh, sure — the political trade-off behind this “victory” means that poor brown people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq will suffer violent death in their homes, streets, and houses of worship, cultivating understandable anti-American hatred that will yield a bloody harvest of terrorism and unending war.

Category: Declaration of Independence, Noxious News Nosegay, abuse of power, compromise, foreign aggression, homosexuality, justice, news, politics, war | Leave a Comment

Soldier’s Brain Injuries a Good Thing – All 360,000 of Them

March 06th, 2009 | Author: akagaga

We all know the benefit of wearing shoes that are too small: it feels so good when you take them off.

Using this same logic in all apparent sincerity, Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, the head of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, said that the research and other work being done by the military on brain injuries from Iraq will eventually benefit the civilian world. Whether the injuries occur while people ride bicycles, play football, skateboard or ski, “we know that this is an issue across the country.”

It must be a good thing, then, that they have so much research material. The latest estimate is that upwards of 360,000 Iraq veterans have suffered brain injuries. (That’s the entire population of Wichita, Kansas, folks.) Given the 10-20% incident rate, who knows how many more suitable subjects will come out of Afghanistan? Why, the research possibilities are breathtaking.

Maybe we should re-classify all our military spending as medical research. People wouldn’t be so apt to complain then.

Category: Iraq, foreign aggression, war | 2 Comments

American Arrogance

December 05th, 2008 | Author: akagaga

Paul Craig Roberts has posted a piece at Antiwar.com that I wish I had written. I present it complete, prefaced only with the words of John Quincy Adams, that we would have done well to heed:

[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution
by Paul Craig Roberts

“In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
Justice Louis Brandeis

Is Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai attack in India? No.

Is India’s repression of its Muslim minority responsible? No.

Is the United States government responsible? Yes.

The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposing the Shah; from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia; from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games; from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims; from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban; from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians; from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages; from the assault of American culture on Muslim values; from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet; from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.

As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America’s example is lawlessness. America’s brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself – a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution.

By illegal, uncivilized and undiplomatic behavior, the US has stirred Muslim peoples from their long slumber as serfs of Western colonial powers. Some Muslims have had all that they can take, and their fury drives them to rouse a billion of their fellows to throw off the yoke of foreign hegemony.

The arrogant incompetence of American governments brought this conflict to the American people and inflicted it upon the world. By destabilizing Pakistan, the US lost a puppet and created an opportunity for Muslim revolutionaries to exploit. By enraging India against Pakistan, the Mumbai attack has created new problems for Pakistan that will focus that government’s attention away from combating Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. If the US picks up the slack, it will have invaded yet another country and become trapped in a larger quagmire.

Having fomented terrorism, the American government now pretends to be the innocent victim, just as Israelis, having brought about terrorism by driving Palestinians from their homes and villages, pretend to be innocent victims.

Today European members of NATO, an outdated organization formed to defend Western Europe against Soviet invasion, are sacrificing the lives of their soldiers fighting the American Empire’s war in Afghanistan. If America continues to have its way, Europeans will soon be dying in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iran.

The American government, which preaches “freedom and democracy” has in the 21st century gone to great extremes to stamp out the US Constitution and the civil liberties that it guarantees. The US government has repudiated the Geneva Conventions and the prohibitions in US statutory law against torture. The US government has set aside habeas corpus, the ancient legal principle guaranteed by the US Constitution that prohibits governments from holding people in prisons without presenting charges. The US government has broken the laws of other nations by kidnapping foreign citizens and transporting them to other lands to be tortured.

These massive crimes have been justified in the name of the “war on terror.” In truth, America’s crimes foment revolution.

It was the US government that created the “war on terror,” which has been used to murder and dispossess millions of Iraqis and Afghans, to imprison US citizens as if they were medieval serfs, and to squander three trillion dollars for the sole purpose of enriching Halliburton and the military-security complex.

Investigative journalist John Pilger has shown that the so-called “moral superiority of the West” is a hoax designed to shield from view the self-seeking West’s crimes against humanity.

Obama promised change from this destructive behavior, but how does change arise when the most arrogant woman on earth is appointed Secretary of State and the rest of the new government is staffed with tried-and-true Likudniks and servants of the military-security complex?

The change over which Obama will preside will have no American victories. The change will come from America as a failed state, from the dollar dethroned as reserve currency, from America repudiated by its allies and paid puppets, from massive unemployment for which there is no solution, from hyperinflation that produces anarchy.

The day might arrive when Washington is faced with revolution at home as well as abroad.