We believe that states, county and local police should cease to help enforce all federal laws, because most of these laws are un-Constitutional and should not be enforced. We say don't enforce federal laws, because the feds don't want any help in enforcing federal immigration laws against illegal aliens. Either help with all laws or help with NO LAWS. Lattigo Smith

April 6,2012

There is no gall to a politician, any politician and here is a fine example:
The Obama administration is suing Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio for violating the constitutional right of illegal aliens. Politicians always bring up the Constitution when is suits them, while ignoring the Constitution about 99% of the time. This makes me want to throw-up - Bill Gibbons

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• What do Iran sanctions cost you? About 25 cents a gallon, experts say.

  While consumers may support sanctions on Iran to dissuade it from pursuing a nuclear weapon, a foreign trade advocate says, they should also be told how sanctions impact Americans.

  http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/0405/What-do-Iran-sanctions-cost-you-About-25-cents-a-gallon-experts-say

  By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / April 5, 2012

  Gas prices for regular unleaded are creeping close to $4.00 per gallon at Neal's Gas and Convenience in downtown Pittsboro, North Carolina on March 27, 2012.

  Ann Hermes/The Christian Science Monitor

     

  Washington

  Twenty-five cents a gallon – that’s about how much some international energy experts say the tough US sanctions on Iran’s oil industry are costing Americans at the pump.

  　

  Related stories

  　

  What sanctions? Top five countries buying oil from Iran.

  Is Iran's proposal to hold nuke talks in Syria, Iraq, or China brinksmanship?

  Attacking Iran: Did US just torpedo Israeli deal for a base in Azerbaijan?

  Oil prices: Can US, UK, and France drive them down?

  　

  As US consumers cope with gas prices that are approaching an average of $4 a gallon, some international trade experts say the cost of the sanctions the US imposes – as in the case of the Iran measures – is something political leaders should discuss more openly. Instead, they say, most politicians act as if sanctions affect only the country targeted – something these experts say isn’t true.

  “The approach is always that the costs are for them and the benefits are for us,” says Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a Washington lobbying organization that generally opposes economic sanctions. “The Iran case is interesting,” he adds, “because of the impact of sanctions on our energy sector.”

  What sanctions? Top five countries buying oil from Iran.

  Energy experts say it’s difficult to pinpoint precisely how much sanctions on Iran are costing consumers as they filter down to the gas pump. But Lucian Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a Washington nonprofit organization that studies energy economics, says it’s possible to make an estimate.

  The sanctions the US and other countries have slapped on Iran’s energy sector and on its central bank (aimed at curtailing its oil exports) are costing Iran about 300,000 barrels a day in exports, Mr. Pugliaresi estimates. When added to other factors affecting the international oil market, that decrease in exports may have added about $10 to the current price of a barrel for crude, he says.

  And that $10 increase translates roughly to about a 25-cent increase in the cost of a gallon of gas in the US, Pugliaresi says.

  Light sweet crude was trading at about $103 a barrel on Thursday.

  Of course the Iran sanctions – which President Obama has continued to ratchet up, including at the end of March when he decided to move forward with sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank he had signed into law in January – are designed to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear program with a weapons capability, a goal many consumers may agree with.

  But the NFTC’s Mr. Reinsch says consumers should be told what sanctions are going to cost.

  “It’s a legitimate argument to say the benefits of the aim of these sanctions – convincing Iran not to build nuclear weapons – outweigh the economic costs,” he says. “What is not acceptable is to pretend there are no costs, or to ignore them.”

  The Iran sanctions legislation that passed in January requires the president to consider the impact of moving forward on the central bank measures. Along with his decision in March to proceed with implementation, Mr. Obama issued a memo saying that after “carefully considering” factors including the state of the global economy, the availability of alternative oil supplies, and US and other countries’ strategic reserves, he had determined that conditions existed to move forward.

  Reinsch says his fire is aimed at the “hypocrisy” of members of Congress who press for ever-tougher sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, “but then turn around and complain about prices at the pump” as if there were no connection.

  Another factor critics of sanctions raise is whether or not they are having the intended impact. Economists and regional experts generally agree that the sanctions on Iran are having an impact on the country’s economy. But less certain, critics say, is whether or not that will translate into the Iranian regime backing down on its nuclear ambitions.

  In any case, Pugliaresi says consumers can take heart in the fact that the oil futures market seems to see the factors keeping crude oil prices up as temporary and moderating within a couple of years. Which means gas prices should be able to come back down – barring of course some other crisis in supply markets.

  What sanctions? Top five countries buying oil from Iran.

   

   

  Rise in justifiable homicides linked to weak gun control laws

  Guardian analysis finds 25% rise in justifiable homicides, and casts doubt on claim of a link to stand-your-ground laws alone

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/05/stand-your-ground-gun-control-data

   

  　

  Rising numbers of civilian justifiable homicides across the US are closely linked to states with both weak gun controls and stand-your-ground laws, according to a Guardian analysis of FBI and other data, which show a 25% increase in such killings since the controversial self-defense laws started being introduced around 2005.

  Stand-your-ground (SYG) measures, which have attracted increasing scrutiny since the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, allow citizens to use deadly force when they believe their life is in danger, without requiring them to retreat or try to escape the threat first.

  Florida was the first state to introduce an SYG law in 2005 and similar measures have now been adopted in some form by more than 20 states. Many were passed in 2006.

  The Trayvon Martin case has led to calls for the SYG laws to be reviewed or repealed.

  But the Guardian analysis shows that these measures alone cannot be statistically linked with the rise in justifiable homicides. However, in states with both SYG laws and the weakest gun controls – as defined by the Brady Campaign against gun violence – we found a statistical correlation with an increase in justifiable homicides.

  Across the US, such killings have risen sharply over the last five years, according to the data provided by the FBI and the Florida department of law enforcement. Between 2001 and 2005, there were 1,225 homicides classed as justifiable, compared to 1,528 in the period 2006-2010. By contrast, violent crime overall has been falling.

  Across the US, such killings have risen sharply over the last five years, according to the data provided by the FBI and Florida. Click to enlarge. Photograph: Guardian

  It is likely that the real number of killings could be higher. The data provided on a state-by-state basis to the FBI on justifiable homicide tends to be low and there are gaps in data.

  According to the FBI's crime reporting handbook, "Justifiable homicide, by definition, occurs in conjunction with other offenses". It reminds reporting agencies to "take care to ensure they do not classify a killing as justifiable or excusable solely on the claim of self-defense or on the action of a coroner, prosecutor, grand jury or court".

  Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign, said: "This research demonstrates a fundamental point. Stand-your-ground laws are dangerous on their own as a mentality. But when combined with weak gun laws they become a recipe for tragedy."

  He added: "Too much of the media focus has been on stand your ground alone. But we need to look at why Trayvon Martin is dead. Trayvon Martin is dead because George Zimmerman had a gun and that gun was put into his hands by the abominably low standards of guns laws in Florida. Zimmerman had a record of violence, but he was allowed to walk the streets with a loaded gun."

  Zimmerman, who admitted killing Martin but claimed self-defence under the law, had previously been charged with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer but the charges were dropped. He had also been accused of domestic violence in a case where he counter-accused his partner.

  Professor Dennis Kenney, of John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York and a former police sergeant in Florida, said the Guardian's findings made sense.

  He said: "When more and more people carry guns and in more places, there are going to be more shootings."

  Recent years have seen an increase "not just in the number of guns, but also in the places that people have the right to take guns", said Kenney.

  "Various states are trying to remove almost all restrictions, even in bars serving alcohol. There's a high probability in states like Florida that a large number of people around you are armed."

  Into that mix, the SYG laws remove any responsibility to diffuse a situation, he said, leading to a "wild west" system of justice.

  "Justified homicides by police are also up," said Kenney. "The police are shooting more people and citizens are shooting more people. We're evolving into an increasingly coarse society with no obligation to diffuse a situation and rapidly turn to force.

  "People are literally getting away with murder."

  The relatively low numbers of justifiable homicides per year in some states make it difficult to extend any analysis beyond the US-wide finding and between individual states.

  It is worth noting that the relatively low population sizes in places like Hawaii, Alaska and Delaware, which show comparatively large increases in justifiable homicides despite having no SYG laws, make them susceptible to large swings. The numbers in each five-year period for these states are single digits.

  In contrast, Florida, one of the states ranked worst for gun control laws by the Brady campaign, saw an almost tripling in the number of justifiable homicides between 2001 and 2005, when there were 66, to 2006 to 2010, when there were 180, according to data from Florida department of law enforcement. Florida's JH data was the only data included in the Guardian's analysis which did not come directly from the FBI.

  Florida gun legislation includes statutes that ban cities and counties from regulating firearms without the state's permission, prevent police from collecting data on firearm sales at pawnshops and forbids adoption agencies from considering gun ownership when looking at placing children, according to the San Fransico Chronicle.

  Some experts pointed out that the states with weak gun controls are likely to be the same ones where stand-your-ground laws have been introduced, due to the strong belief in the right to carry arms in those states. But this is not universally true.

  John Roman, senior fellow in justice policy at non-partisan think-tank The Urban Institute in Washington, DC, said: "The order of events is that we have states where lots of people own guns and believe in guns. They are more likely to pass stand-your-ground laws and weak gun controls.

  "Because the stand your ground law make it harder to prove that a homicide wasn't justified, the justified homicides go up."

  Roman, who has written about stand-your-ground laws, believes that the rise in SYG is likely to lead to more miscarriages of justice.

  "It changes where the burden of proof lies. In a state without a SYG law, in a shooting, the police arrest you and then the burden is on the prosecutor to prove it is not self-defence."

  "When stand your ground comes into it, the police cannot arrest you before a probable cause finding. The place where the fact finding occurs is moved from the court to the street.

  "When you undertake an investigation in a chaotic setting like a shooting you are more likely to make mistakes than in a setting like a trial. It is bad law because it moves the fact finding to the street. It provides a barrier to a prosecution without providing any benefits."

  But Gary Kleck, a criminologist at Florida State University, cautioned that any increase in justifiable homicides should not be taken as an actual increase in killings that might not otherwise have happened. Rather, he said, the rise could be down to a change in how police classify data.

  He argued that the tripling of Florida's civilian justifiable homicides was "implausible" and said that the reported jump from 33 in 2006 to 102 in 2007 "strongly suggests such a definitional change".

  Kleck said that one desired effect of SYG and the right to carry (RTC) laws was to deter violent criminals and reduce violent crime. In an email response to the Guardian's data, he pointed out that violent crimes had fallen.

  "In 2006, the rate of murders and non-negligent homicides (all the criminal homicides that the FBI counts) was 5.8 per 100,000 population; in 2010 (the most recent year for which data are available), the rate was 4.8 – a 17% decline in four years. The robbery rate also declined by an identical 17% over the same period, from 31.6 to 27.5."

  Kleck said: "The decline in crime that paralleled the enactment RTC and SYG laws cannot be considered proof of the effect of these laws. Indeed, I think RTC have no net effect on crime rates. My point, rather, is that these are the same kinds of correlations concerning CJH increases and enactment of these laws that your analysis has produced, and are equally ambiguous in their meaning, and equally relevant to a consideration of the effects of these types of laws."

   

  An Open Letter to Ron Paul

  by Justin Raimondo, April 06, 2012
  http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/04/05/an-open-letter-to-ron-paul/
  

  Dear Ron,

  A lot of my readers are big fans of yours: on those rare but pungent occasions when I have criticized you, I’ve gotten lots of "blowback" in the comments section and in emails sent directly to my inbox. Whenever I praised you, I’ve enjoyed a veritable avalanche of favorable feedback. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with non-libertarians who praise you to the skies. Many people beyond the narrow confines of the libertarian movement are watching your campaign with great interest, and rooting for you — especially those who are concerned about our foreign policy of perpetual war. A lot of these people are not actually registered Republicans – although some have registered just to be able to vote for you – and that appears to be part of the problem.

  You’ve captured the youth vote in practically every contest, while losing among the older set and among hardcore Republican voters. In short, the demographic you do best in winning over is the least likely to be able to vote in a closed Republican primary. I would estimate that roughly two thirds to three quarters of your constituency is outside the ranks of the GOP. In view of these realities, I have a question:

  What is the endgame?

  Yes, yes, I know, the campaign is educating people, building a movement, and it’s necessary to take the long view. Yet I also know I am not the only one wondering what will happen in the short term.

  There has been a lot of speculation, not only among your friends and admirers, but also in the media, about the prospect of a "deal." This is not based on anything you have said or done: every public statement coming directly from you has indicated quite the opposite. Listening to what you actually say in interviews, in response to questions about endorsing Mitt Romney, leads one to conclude it’s highly unlikely bordering on downright impossible.

  So what now?

  Look, we don’t endorse candidates here at Antiwar.com, for a number of reasons, but I can’t ignore the many emails I’ve gotten from my readers, who are wondering about the answer to that question.

  It’s been exciting, even for a non-participant like me, to watch as you mobilize thousands at rallies all across the country, cheering your call to dismantle the Empire and bring the troops home. You were the voice of the majority during the debates, calling for getting out of Afghanistan immediately – not in a year or two or three, not conditional on the generals’ diktat, but now, with no conditions or excuses. That’s a major reason why you have inspired many people to get involved who would never have considered supporting a Republican candidate for any office, let alone President of the United States.

  Yet, as the primaries wind down, and Romney gets closer to his seemingly inevitable victory, we are hearing, time and again, that certain individuals high up in your campaign are trying to make some sort of dubious deal. Business Insider reports:

  "Sources close to the campaign told Business Insider that, behind the scenes, there have been ongoing discussions between the two campaigns that appear to include, or at least be the precursor to, an eventual deal. ‘The courtship has been underway for a long time,’ a source who declined to be named, talking about internal campaign affairs told Business Insider. ‘They are smart enough to know that he [Paul] can’t win the nomination or get a Cabinet position … but Ron Paul has to go somewhere.’"

  I don’t believe this "source," Ron, not even for a minute: if there has been a "courtship," it’s been entirely one-sided, with the Romneyites suffering from a bad case of unrequited love. Just seeing the look on your face when asked by Bob Schieffer about an endorsement is enough to convince me of that — not that I needed all that much convincing.

  On the other hand, the last sentence in the quote above is completely accurate: after Tampa, you do have to go somewhere. And the movement you inspired wants to know where you are taking them: is it only as far as Tampa, or will you go all the way and launch a third party campaign?

  "You don’t have to be a math genius to know that it is going to be very hard for us to get to Tampa with 1,144 delegates," says your campaign manager, Jesse Benton. "Short of Dr. Paul being the nominee, there would be a substantial price for us to throw our support behind someone else."

  I don’t know what Benton considers "substantial," in this context, but I can’t imagine what the Romney camp could possibly offer you in exchange for an endorsement, and neither can the Business Insider: their piece lists a number of scenarios – the promise of a cabinet position for Rand Paul, a speaking slot in Tampa, concessions on the party platform – and then dismisses each and every one.

  If I were 76 years old, I know I wouldn’t be sprinting around the country making speeches and tirelessly spreading the message of liberty: I’d be sitting on my deck, taking it easy, watching somebody else cut my lawn. But you’re in much better shape than I am, and besides that I can see you’re clearly enjoying yourself – especially the crowds of young people who cheer you wherever you go.

  The fun doesn’t have to end in Tampa: if you decide to run an independent campaign for the White House – a strategy some of your supporters are already urging on you – your celebration of liberty and peace can continue right on up until November, and beyond. Because a third party candidacy will leave a legacy, a lasting monument to your campaign and the movement it created: a viable third party alternative to the twin parties of war and Big Government.

  Polls show you getting as much as 17 percent of the vote in a three-way race – and those are just the starting numbers. It’s a long way until November, and a lot can happen: another economic crash, another war, another federal power grab so egregious it makes the PATRIOT Act seem like a mild precursor.

  Republicans and conservatives argue that a third party campaign on your part would ensure President Obama’s reelection, a scenario I don’t think is all that credible. If Romney loses it will be because most people simply don’t like him, don’t trust him, and don’t want him anywhere near the Oval Office.

  Yet even if it’s true your third party run would cost Romney the election, then isn’t it clear the Republicans deserve to lose? In the face of overwhelming public opposition to their warmongering, the other three GOP presidential contenders have relentlessly advocated escalating our overseas commitments: all three have explicitly threatened to go to war with Iran. Far from listening to your warnings about the dangers inherent in such a position, it’s clear they have nothing but contempt for your foreign policy views. Nor have they made any significant concessions on the domestic front: they’re all big spenders, Big Government "conservatives," and if they ever got into office they would continue along the same path.

  In short, Republicans need to be taught a lesson, one they will never forget. By disdaining the substantial and growing libertarian wing of the GOP, and ignoring the desire for peace on the part of the larger public, they have earned nothing but defeat. You have said you are trying to save the Republican party, but it’s too late for that: what’s needed now is for someone to save the country from the GOP.

  Yes, the Democrats also pose a major threat to liberty and peace, but the Republicans, I would argue, pose a much deadlier menace because their leaders and much of their base are unabashed militarists and dogged opponents of the Constitution. When it comes to foreign policy and civil liberties, the Obama administration is just as bad if not worse, but the difference is rhetorical: the Republicans openly proclaim their intent to continue and escalate our policy of permanent warfare, and take great pride in their willingness to throw the Bill of Rights overboard in the name of an endless "war on terrorism." Obama, on the other hand, is careful to sugar-coat his authoritarianism and belligerent foreign policy in terms of "liberal" bromides and appeals to "pragmatism."

  The best thing that could happen would be for the GOP to split, with your supporters hiving off, leaving the GOP remnant to become a primarily southern-based regional party. This is their future, in any event, in spite of your energetic efforts to "save" them. Unfortunately – for them and for us – they don’t want to be saved.

  In looking at the Ron Paul web sites, of which there are several, and speaking with a number of activists, I’ve encountered the following argument against taking the third party route: the Paulians, they say, are in this for the very long term. They mean to take over the GOP at the local level, and eventually dominate it at the national level. One blog entry estimated it would take them 20 years or so to accomplish this goal.

  Twenty years? By that time, if we aren’t dead we’ll be wishing we were. If this country doesn’t change course soon, in 20 years we’ll be bankrupt and well into our senescence as a nation — a declining empire beset on every front, with the last tattered remnants of our Constitution thrown to the four winds. Indeed, we are almost at that point right now.

  Dr. Paul, I know I speak for many of my readers when I say you have accomplished what none of us thought was possible: you opened up the political debate in this country, not only in the GOP but more generally. Now you have the chance to take that achievement and build on it: not by telling your supporters they have to wait 20 years or more before they can hope to effect real change, but by forging ahead and taking the next logical step in our long, harrowing, and yet energizing journey to reclaim our country and our old republic.

  In this radio interview with WMAL, you come pretty close to saying you will consider going third party "when the votes are counted" – i.e. after the Tampa convention, at the end of August. Unfortunately, the Libertarian party national convention is being held in May. While running on the LP ticket is just one possibility, it seems like the most viable. In spite of there being several declared candidates, the LP nomination would be yours for the asking – but you have to ask for it. LP rules forbid nominating a candidate who hasn’t declared his intention to actively seek the nomination.

  The other viable alternative is running for the "Americans Elect" nomination. Yes, I know the whole "Americans Elect" operation seems dubious on the face of it, but they qualified for ballot status in 35 states and counting. The "Ron Paul Draft" is already the top-vote getter in the Americans Elect nomination process, which runs through early May, with more than double the number of votes of the nearest competitor.

  In fact, Americans Elect does not require candidates to accept their nomination until after they win their Internet primary (held in late June). Throughout May and June, you can expect your supporters to campaign for your nomination as the Americans Elect candidate, regardless of what you do right now.

  There is also the independent option, which means getting on the ballot in all fifty states via petition, like Ross Perot did – but that seems prohibitively expensive.

  Ron, I know you’re out there speaking to huge crowds – 10,000 at UCLA, even as I write – and how thrilled you must be by this kind of reception. And I know you’re remembering the time when those crowds amounted to a few dozen, at most – and I imagine how gratified you must feel. Finally, the pro-peace pro-liberty camp is making some progress – but it doesn’t have to end in Tampa. Please consider carrying the banner of peace and liberty all the way to November and beyond – because the future of the country, and the peace of the world, depends on it.

  Sincerely,
  Justin Raimondo
  April 5, 2012

   

  OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY GURU IS A NEOCON By: Justin Raimondo http://www.etherzone.com/2012/raim040212.shtml   On the eve of the President’s last State of the Union speech the White House let it be known that a recent essay by Robert Kagan in The New Republic, which excerpted his book, The World America Made, had been sent to his national security staff for their perusal. As the President told reporters beforehand, Kagan’s thesis – that America is not in decline and must maintain its hegemonic stature in the world, or all is lost – was a major theme of his peroration: “The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. From the coalitions we've built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we've led against hunger and disease; from the blows we've dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about.” Have no fear – the empire endures! That President Barack Obama, ostensibly a Democrat of the liberal variety, was touting the views of a neoconservative foreign policy maven whose work has been published in The Weekly Standard, should come as a surprise to exactly no one. The overarching bipartisan consensus in Washington in favor of global intervention ensures that foreign policy disputes are limited to “debates” over means rather than ends. In short, it isn’t a question of whether we ought to have an empire, but of how to best to maintain and expand it. Partisan differences over these matters are mainly stylistic and rhetorical, such as the phony division over “unilateralism” versus “multi-lateralism.” Not that these divisions aren’t real: they are. It’s just that, in the end, they don’t much matter, because whether there’s a liberal Democrat in the White House, or a neocon-manipulated Dauphin, the goal remains the same. That goal is global hegemony, energized by a vision of the US as the defender and best builder of an imaginary “world order.” In his essay, and subsequently published book, Kagan makes the case that, contrary to various prophets of doom, the US is not in decline relative to other nations, and that, in any case, the end of American hegemony will signal the demise of the “liberal international order.” In short, everything depends on us – on our ability to project military power and keep “order” overseas. Without Uncle Sam standing guard at the gates of civilization, the global order will decay and chaos will follow – a condition which will pose new and heretofore unimagined dangers not only to us but to the world. Kagan avers that the declinists are guilty of basing their case “on rather loose analysis,” on vague “impressions” of lost virtue and dissipated will. This is odd coming from an author whose own analysis contains nowhere within it even a single mention of the word “debt.” No wonder Obama liked it! While the “dismal” economy is noted, it is only in passing. Economics, it seems, is not Kagan’s strong suit. He bypasses the dismal science to emphasize other factors that, in his view, constitute the building blocks of a hegemonic power.“Measuring changes in a nation’s relative power is a tricky business,” he writes, “but there are some basic indicators”: “The size and the influence of its economy relative to that of other powers; the magnitude of military power compared with that of potential adversaries; the degree of political influence it wields in the international system—all of which make up what the Chinese call ‘comprehensive national power.’ And there is the matter of time. Judgments based on only a few years’ evidence are problematic. A great power’s decline is the product f fundamental changes in the international distribution of various frms of power that usually occur over longer stretches of time. Great powers rarely decline suddenly. A war may bring them down, but even that is usually a symptom, and a culmination, of a longer process.” The relative “size” of the economy, if such a concept has any real meaning, has nothing to do with the level of wealth and degree of productivity: for example, the African economy is huge, while Africans are relatively impoverished. Compare Singapore’s standard of living with Uzbekistan’s – or even the entire former Soviet Union. Again, economics is apparently not Kagan’s strong point – and neither is history. Because if the history of the last years of the twentieth century teaches us anything, it is that great empires – or, at least, empires thought to be “great” and nearly invulnerable – do fall suddenly, as the example of the Soviet Union demonstrates. The fall of some major financial empires in the crash of ’08 brings this lesson home, but then again Kagan, who minimizes economic power and upholds the primacy of the political, is blind (or indifferent) to such disasters.

  Then there is the question of military power, which Kagan defines as a matter of “magnitude.” However, in our shadow “war on terrorism” we have found our magnitude is as much of a burden as it is a plus. Nor has this vaunted magnitude stopped the enemy from penetrating our defenses and landing a major blow in our homeland, at the very epicenter of the imperial metropolis, on September 11, 2001. Oddly, mention of this signal event is also missing from the book excerpt Obama found so impressive.

  No debt, no 9/11 – no problem! Kagan’s screed was destined for the Oval Office bestseller list.

  Kagan’s conception of “power” is hostile to economics: that is, to the very idea that markets, rather than states, constitute the “liberal world order” he is so worried about maintaining. Yet he is compelled to confront it, if only to dismiss it:

  “Some of the arguments for America’s relative decline these days would be more potent if they had not appeared only in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. Just as one swallow does not make a spring, one recession, or even a severe economic crisis, need not mean the beginning of the end of a great power. The United States suffered deep and prolonged economic crises in the 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1970s. In each case, it rebounded in the following decade and actually ended up in a stronger position relative to other powers than before the crisis. The 1910s, the 1940s, and the 1980s were all high points of American global power and influence.”

  Why does invoking the specter of imminent bankruptcy make an argument for retrenchment less potent? This seems weirdly counterintuitive, but makes sense if you’ve read your Ayn Rand: her description of the intellectual “witch doctor” who valorizes physical power – that is, the power to inflict death and destruction – over the power of the mind, fits Kagan to a tee.

  Aside from this, however, Kagan fails to see the fatal pattern laid out so clearly in his own analysis. If an individual had suffered a number of prolonged crises – say, a series of strokes or heart attacks – over a relatively short period of time, one would say he or she has to either address the underlying causes, or else risk a rather sudden death. Now apply this analysis to our collective condition: the period from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st is but the blink of a historical eye, and yet in that time we have experienced not three (as Kagan would have it) but four major economic upheavals – surely a sign of some inner ailment, and a major one to boot.

  In Kagan’s world, however, none of this matters: only military and political power matters. And what of our vaunted power in this realm – is it really so overwhelming? True, we spend more than practically all the rest of the world combined on “defense,” and our network of military bases and client states rings the world several times over. Yet how many wars have we won lately? Iraq was a defeat no matter how you slice it: the country we “liberated” is today little more than an Iranian outpost, and very far from being the democratic republic envisioned by the neocons (and some “libertarians”). Afghanistan is an even clearer case of mission failure: our efforts to set up an American client state in that ungovernable corner of the world limn the Soviets’ futile crusade – and presage the kind of sudden collapse they suffered as a result.

  Of course it is not quite accurate to say the Afghan campaign brought down the Soviet empire, all by itself: other factors, such as the complete inability of the Soviet economic model to produce anything but junk and rampant social disintegration, defeated Lenin’s heirs. Yet the Afghan war was the precipitating political factor, an event that dealt a mortal blow to the Kremlin’s authority at home as well as its international reputation as a potent military power.

  Kagan and his fellow neocons are like those old Soviet hardliners who insisted, right up until the last minute, that the Red Army must not retreat from its “internationalist” duty in Afghanistan. They are like those “coup plotters” who tried – and failed – to rescue the old Soviet model even as it sunk beneath waves of its own making.

  America’s empire of debt is tottering and creaking and threatening to crash down on our heads even as I write. That Kagan is deaf to these ominous signs is neither surprising nor particularly relevant: it’s going to come crashing down anyway, while he and his deaf-and-dumb cohorts in the Beltway bubble continue to go about their business of building castles in the air as if nothing is happening.

  As Ron Paul continually points out, we’re broke, and the political class shows no signs of putting us on the road to solvency. Far from it: they seem determined to drive us over a cliff, spending and piling up debt to the point where the American dollar is losing value faster even than we are losing the war in Afghanistan.

  That this course is unsustainable is a fact of reality conveniently evaded by both Kagan and his admirer in the Oval Office. We are being defeated in world markets and in the wilds of Afghanistan: dragged down by the burden of empire, we have no chance to get back up off our knees.

  Of course, a militarist regime, one that cares only about its own power and the wealth and well-being of its sycophants, wants us on our knees, quaking in fear lest the “terrorists” get us – while the banksters, the crony-capitalists, the war profiteers, and the foreign lobbyists have their snouts firmly buried in the public trough. If economics doesn’t matter, and the elites can always grab their outsized share of the loot through political connections, then who cares about the increasing immiseration of the masses?

  Remember, it’s all about “national greatness,” beside which the fate of the ordinary individual pales. As far as our President is concerned, it’s all about his own greatness. After he beats the pants off of Romney, it will be all about his Legacy – and you can bet, given his enthusiasm for Kaganism, it will be a legacy well-lubricated with blood.

  Once Obama is unleashed, in his second term, we will see the true face of this President, whose tyrant’s temperament and imperious sense of mission will come to the fore, unabashed and militant. In which case, the rest of the world had better hope the economic collapse will come sooner rather than later – because the US army will be too busy keeping order on the home front to launch any new wars abroad.

  America’s 1989 – it can’t come soon enough. Out of the ruins of empire perhaps we can excavate some relics of our old republic. Out of the existential crisis of the nation, perhaps, the memory of the Founders’ dream will be recalled and reestablished. In any case, it is too late to avoid the crisis: the question now is how do we preserve the remnants of the old constitutional order and prevent the country from falling into Caesarism?

  
  
  "Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

  Mail this article to a friend(s) inwo clicks!

  Justin Raimondo is Editorial Director of AntiWar.Com. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

  Justin Raimondo may be contacted at egarris@antiwar.com

   

   

  A Nation Arms Itself — For What?

  Patrick J. Buchanan April 2nd, 2012

  http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2012/04/02/a-nation-arms-itself-for-what/

  　

  With the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer who was legally carrying a 9-millimeter handgun, the familiar wail has arisen from our cultural and media elite:

  America has too many guns!

  “Open carry” and “concealed carry” laws should be repealed.

  Florida’s “Stand-your-ground” law, replicated in two dozen states, threatens to turn America into the Tombstone of Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp. This is insane!

  The United Nations agrees. This year, the world body takes up the global control of firearms, including small arms in the hands of citizens.

  According to Sen. Rand Paul, the U.N. “Small Arms Treaty” will almost surely mandate tougher licensing requirements to own a gun, require the confiscation and destruction of unauthorized civilian firearms, call for a ban on the trade, sale and private ownership of semi-automatic weapons, and create an international gun registry.

  No more Colt .45s in the top drawer or M-1 rifles in the closet.

  Memo to the U.N.: Lots of luck.

  Forty-five Republican and 12 Democratic senators have declared their opposition to any such U.N. treaty, which means it is dead in the water the moment it is launched from Turtle Bay.

  For when it comes to Second Amendment rights, Middle America has spoken — at the ballot box and the gun store. And Congress, most state legislatures and the federal courts have all come down on the side of the Silent Majority.

  In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court struck down one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, assuring district citizens of their right to keep a gun in the home.

  U.S. Judge Benson E. Legg just struck down the section of Maryland’s gun law that left it to local authorities to decide if a citizen could carry a gun outside his house.

  Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, mentioned as a running mate for Mitt Romney, just signed a law striking down a 20-year ban that kept residents from buying more than one pistol per month. In Virginia’s legislature in 1993, McDonnell had voted in favor of the one-gun-per-month rule.

  The new law ignited New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who calls Virginia “the No. 1 out-of-state source of crime guns in New York and one of the top suppliers of crime guns nationally.”

  Two New York cops have been shot this year, one fatally, with guns from Virginia.

  But there is another side to the gun story, and University of Houston Professor Larry Bell relates it:

  “Law-abiding citizens in America used guns in self-defense 2.5 million times in 1993 (about 6,825 times per day), and actually shot and killed two and a half times as many criminals as police did (1,527 to 606). These self-defense shootings resulted in less than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2 percent versus 11 percent).”

  The figures tell the story. Along with rising incarceration rates, the proliferation of guns in the hands of the law-abiding has been a factor in the nation’s falling crime rate.

  And that proliferation has accelerated under President Obama.

  According to ammo.net, tax revenues from the sale of firearms and ammunition have gone up 48 percent since 2008, with Iowa, North Carolina and Utah registering revenue gains of over 100 percent.

  On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, there were 129,666 background checks of individuals seeking to buy a gun, the highest one-day search in history This exceeded by 32,000 the number of background checks by gun dealers on Black Friday 2010.

  Background searches in December broke the all-time monthly record set in November, as 1,534,414 inquiries were made to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System about prospective gun-buyers.
  Half a million inquiries came in the six days before Christmas.

  Why are Americans arming themselves?

  More and more citizens, says the National Rifle Association, fear that if or when they confront a threat to their family, lives or property, the police will not be there.

  Reports of home invasions and flash mobs have firmed up the market for firearms. After the 1992 Los Angeles riot, when Californians found themselves defenseless in homes and shops, gun sales soared.

  Others argue that a fear of new laws in an Obama second term, or even the possible confiscation of handguns, is driving sales.

  Gun-control organizations claim that gun ownership is actually declining, that fewer and fewer people are buying more and more of these guns.

  But the numbers seem to contradict the gun-controllers.

  A 2005 Gallup survey found that three in 10 Americans own a gun, that 40 percent had a gun in the house, that nearly half of all men own a gun, as do one in seven women. Two-thirds of all gun-owners gave as a reason they own a gun: protection against crime.

  America is an armed camp, with the South and Midwest the most heavily armed. Yet, still, Americans buy guns in the millions every year.

  Why? Whatever the answer, it is our business, not the U.N.’s.

  Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”

  Copyright 2012 Creators.com

   

   

 
April 2,2012
Israel Apologists Always Working To Hide Truth About High Seas Massacre
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=3518

By Victor Thorn

Created over a century ago and boasting more than 140,000 members, the prestigious U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) describes itself as a non-profit professional military association, “with no government support, that does not lobby for special interests.” Located on the grounds of the Naval Academy just outside of Annapolis, Md., the organization has been in operation since 1873 when it was first established by a group of naval officers who sought to further a legacy of “the knowledge of sea power, and to preserve our naval and maritime heritage.”

  In its mission statement, the organization’s goals are “to provide an independent forum to those who dare read, think, speak and write in order to advance the professional, literary and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to national defense.”

On the surface, such sentiments sound noble. But recently when the USNI was approached by Bart Van Ness, a lifetime member of AFP’s READERSHIP COUNCIL, to review the book What I Saw That Day: Israel’s June 8 1967 Holocaust of U.S. Servicemen Aboard the USS Liberty and Its Aftermath, the organization’s true allegiances were revealed.

What I Saw That Day by Phil Tourney is the provocative, no-holds-barred book that tells the truth about Israel’s bloody attack on the USS Liberty.

  What I Saw That Day by Phil Tourney is the provocative, no-holds-barred book that tells the truth about Israel’s bloody attack on the USS Liberty.

   

Once one begins examining USNI’s board of directors, an unsettling picture emerges. For instance, the honorary chairman of the board is none other than John Lehman, an infamous Project for the New American Century (PNAC) signatory and member of the trumped-up 9-11 Commission.

Lehman cut his teeth during the Nixon administration as a National Security Council senior staff aide to none other than Henry Kissinger. He also formed ties with another shady operator—Richard Perle—during his stint in the Navy. Lehman has also owned a company named Abington Corporation, and his partner was the so-called “Prince of Darkness” himself, Perle.

Dr. Michael Saba, an international relations consultant, wrote of this partnership in the Arab News on June 26, 2004. “In 1983, a mysterious package of materials in an unmarked envelope was allegedly delivered to New York Times investigative reporter Jeff Garth. The materials led to a major Times story about then-U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. The materials pointed out that Lehman had supposedly taken payments from an Israeli arms company while he was secretary of the Navy.”

Saba continued, “Perle, who was also a U.S. government official during this period in 1983, had also allegedly received money from the same Israeli arms company.”

British journalist Claudia Wright reiterated these charges. “Well known in Israeli military circles, [Lehman] sat on the board of a Philadelphia think tank run by American supporters of Israel, and operated a highly profitable defense consulting company with business ties to the Israeli arms industry,” wrote Mrs. Wright.

Lehman’s ties to Israel become even more sinister when we consider the infamous case of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian analyst who betrayed our country by stealing secrets and passing them along to our supposed ally. In his article, “9-11 and the Neo-Cons,” independent journalist Tom Wilson wrote: “When Pollard’s espionage was exposed, the following individuals were suspected by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger’s office of being Pollard’s co-conspirators: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and John Lehman.”

None of these revelations should surprise anyone because Lehman and his neocon colleagues have had a long history of traitorous behavior against the U.S. in favor of Israel. They have also been doing the Zionists’ dirty work for decades by pushing a pro-military agenda in the Middle East that advances war against Israel’s enemies.

Lehman has been in the thick of this since the early 1970s, yet somehow he was considered “independent” enough to be on the 9-11 Commission.

   

In the early 1990s Lehman joined the Committee on U.S. Interests in the Middle East. This organization’s purpose was to lobby for U.S. tax dollars for the nation of Israel. Its organizers were notorious pro-Israeli U.S. officials Perle, Douglas Feith and Elliott Abrams.

Lehman was also deputy director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, where he was closely associated with Paul Wolfowitz and Perle. He was also a member of PNAC, which has been described as the most influential warmongering group since the Committee on the Present Danger, another Lehman group.

PNAC, of course, achieved infamy by producing two particularly notorious letters: One was sent to President Bill Clinton, while the other went to President George W. Bush, 11 days after the 9-11 terror attacks. In each of these letters, the signatories—including Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz—urged the then-presidents to engage in one specific act—an acceleration of America’s plans to invade Iraq.

As we all know by now, the Bush neocon administration immediately embarked on these plans only hours after the 9-11 attacks.

Author of Book on 1967 Attack Fights Top-Level Censorship

By Victor Thorn

Despite receiving a cold shoulder from the Navy, State Department and Congress in regard to conducting an authentic investigation of Israel’s murderous 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, survivor Phil Tourney acknowledged a longtime ally.

“Ever since Willis Carto paid my way to speak at a conference in Washington sometime around 23 or 24 years ago, we’ve been friends,” said Tourney. “AFP and The Spotlight have been some of the only people to ever help us. They’ve always been—bar none—our strongest supporters.”

During a March 21 interview with this writer, Tourney described how he’s been brushed off for the past 30 years. Once, at a 2003 State Department conference that had cover-up artist Jay Cristol and three other Jewish individuals on its panel—as well as author James Bamford—Tourney rose to address the speakers during a question-and-answer session. But instead of hearing him out, the organizers cut off Tourney’s microphone. When other attendees objected, demanding, “Let him speak,” the conference abruptly ended.

“It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life,” Tourney confided. Fortunately, there did exist a silver lining, as Phil explained. “10 minutes before the conference began, Bamford received a faxed letter from Capt. Ward Boston, who said the naval investigation was a sham. In essence, Boston insisted that our crewmen were left out there to die in order to protect Israel.”

The 45-year news blackout extends all the way to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Tourney told AFP, “His father, John McCain Sr., demanded that Boston could not speak to any of the IDF pilots or torpedo captains.”

At this same conference, Tourney told of how the State Department’s Marc Susser repeatedly pushed the Board of Inquiry’s “mistaken identity” angle by claiming that Israel thought Liberty was actually an out-of-service Egyptian horse carrier, the El Quseir.

Of course, legitimate researchers have debunked this smokescreen long ago. Or, as Boston wrote in his October 2003 affidavit: “The evidence was clear. Both Adm. Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate attack to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.”

Despite the obstacles facing him, Tourney still refuses to quit. “I wrote to Colin Powell, but never heard back from him. This government right now is beholden to Israel, more than it’s ever been. The ADL and AIPAC are very demanding. They put a lot of pressure on Congress. Everyone is afraid to push back. At a USS Liberty Memorial Library ceremony, the Navy wouldn’t even send a color guard. A SWAT team had to protect the Liberty crewmen because they thought someone would kill them.”

Sadly, time is running out for these brave men.

“We’re getting older,” Tourney stressed, “and the government is just waiting for us to die off.”

The Man That Officially Codified the Lies

Following the 2003 release of his scurrilously deceptive book, The Liberty Incident, the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) added insult to injury by seeming to solely promote Jay Cristol’s version of events to the exclusion of all others. In the June 2003 issue of USNI’s official magazine, Proceedings, David C. Walsh endorsed many of Cristol’s dubious claims, such as the “mistaken identity” theory and how Israel’s attack—which he claims only lasted for 22 minutes—resulted from a mere “communications gaffe.”

Cristol—formerly a federal judge and a Naval Reserve captain—cleared Israel of any intent. Rather, Cristol asserted, due to the “fog of war,” both sides—Israel and the U.S.—must share blame for the incident.

In the aforementioned June 2003 article entitled “Friendless Fire,” Walsh wrote, “The author [Cristol] surmises that most survivors—some of whom openly criticize Israel’s domestic policies and its formidable Washington lobby—have a political ax to grind.”

Piling on even more venom, Walsh says of Cristol, “The judge is dubious of naysayers [who] rely on ‘conjecture, hearsay and plain wishful thinking,’ flawed or traumatized memories, and ‘various conspiracy theories.’”

Even former Secretary of State Dean Rusk said, “There was every reason to believe that the USS Liberty was identified, or at least her nationality determined, one hour before the attack.”

Cristol, USNI and Proceedings should be ashamed of themselves for continuing this cover-up, and the blood of every murdered, wounded or disfigured Liberty crewmember will forever be on their hands until they correct this miscarriage of justice—and that is the truth.

Cover-Up a Slap in the Face of All U.S. Vets

By Victor Thorn

An 80-year-old Maryland resident and lifetime AFP READERSHIP COUNCIL member, Bart Van Ness is an American patriot who still believes everyday citizens can make a difference. He also feels that all of us as individuals should stand up for what we believe is right, especially if an egregious crime has been committed against our fellow countrymen.

During a March 21 interview with AFP, Van Ness told this writer, “As long as I can physically do it, I’m going to keep fighting for America.”

As a 52-year Golden Life member of the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI), Van Ness has recently taken a courageous stance to expose the truth about what happened on June 8, 1967, when Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats assaulted the USS Liberty for nearly two hours, killing 34 and injuring 172. His efforts reveal that even when confronted with seemingly insurmountable odds, nothing can defeat persistence.

Van Ness described how, over the years, he had read possibly every book and watched every documentary produced on the Liberty attack. But after the Naval Institute published an article by arch-disinformation agent Jay Cristol in 2005, Bart wrote a letter to the editor asking USNI to consider covering Tito Howard’s film Attack on the Liberty. He never heard back from them.

Fast-forward to 2011, where Van Ness picks up the story.

“After I read Liberty survivor Phil Tourney’s book, What I Saw That Day, I sent a book review on July 13 to Proceedings, which is USNI’s official magazine,” said Van Ness.

Due to some purported miscommunication, Van Ness re-sent the review in September 2011, whereupon he spoke with Adm. Peter Daley, who is USNI’s CEO and a member of its board of directors.

At first, prospects seemed positive. Van Ness recalled: “Daley told me: ‘Let us answer John Adams’s call. Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.’”

Encouraged, on Jan. 11 Van Ness wrote a letter to Daley in regard to the Tourney book review.

“I feel very strongly that this should be published so people will not only be made aware of what happened [to the USS Liberty], but in memory of the 34 crew members killed and 172 wounded that day,” Van Ness said.

Two weeks later, on Jan. 24, editor Liese Dougherty responded, informing Van Ness that USNI had chosen not to use his review.

Taking time to cool off and approach this matter with a level head, on Feb. 14 Van Ness sent a letter to Daley informing him that he was giving up his 52-year Golden Life membership.

Van Ness told AFP: “The reason I resigned was because I lost respect for the Naval Institute. They don’t have any guts. Their cover-up is a slap in the face of every Liberty crewmember.”

When learning of USNI’s decision, author Tourney told Van Ness, “They not only insulted the Liberty, they insulted you, too.”

Still upset about the Naval Institute betraying their brethren, Van Ness said with conviction: “What they’re saying to me in so many words is, to hell with you. This stance reflects the arrogance, intellectual dishonesty, lack of integrity and hypocrisy of this organization. Why don’t they look at the facts?”

Refusing to surrender, Van Ness is now taking his campaign to the media, specifically AFP.

“I’d like every reader to contact CEO Peter Daley at the USNI’s address below and express their displeasure over their decision not to run a review of Phil Tourney’s book,” said Van Ness.

AFP fully stands behind Van Ness and his efforts to expose the protection racket that our government is running for Israeli murderers that deliberately attacked a U.S. Navy ship floating in international waters. Together, maybe all our voices can be heard.

Daley can be contacted at U.S. Naval Institute, 291 Wood Road, Annapolis, Md. 21402.

——

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of over 30 books.

Mercenary Secrets Revealed

March 30, 2012 dave
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=3509

By Keith Johnson

  Did U.S.-based mercenaries in Libya assist in the assassination of Col. Muammar Qadaffi, the former leader of Libya? Recently hacked emails obtained by Internet whistleblower Wikileaks and the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar not only suggest they did, but reveal that American hired guns may be operating in Syria as a covert arm of the U.S. government.

The emails in question were exchanged between James F. Smith, CEO of the private military contracting firm SCG International, and members of the global intelligence outfit known as Stratfor. In one exchange, Smith, who was formerly of Blackwater, claims he got “air cover” from North Carolina Republican Rep. Sue Myrick to engage Syrian opposition in Turkey on a fact-finding mission for Congress. Smith claims that the “true mission” for his team was to “help in regime change.”

According to Al-Akhbar, other emails reveal that “during his involvement with Stratfor, Smith. . .allegedly ‘took part’ in the killing of. . .Qadaffi.”

   

This AFP writer recently asked former National Security Agency consultant and investigative journalist Wayne Madsen if these emails could be relied upon as credible.

“Sounds very plausible from what I’ve heard from Syrian and Lebanese sources about covert U.S. support for Syrian opposition,” said Madsen. “Private military contractors [PMCs] are arranging covert support from assets in Libya, Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan and [the] Arab [Persian] Gulf, working in tandem with the Saudis and Qataris.”

     

Concerning the hit in Libya, Madsen states: “PMCs were playing both sides. Veritas Worldwide Security was involved in trying to rescue Qadaffi, while SCG had a role in his assassination.” In November 2011, two members of the private security firm Veritas were arrested in Mexico for attempting to smuggle Qadaffi’s son into a resort near Puerto Vallarta.

Others dispute the claim that SCG was involved in the murder of Qadaffi. Franklin Lamb, a Palestinian civil rights activist and journalist, was on the ground in Libya throughout the NATO assault and remained there for some time after Qadaffi’s death. This AFP writer recently asked Lamb if he believed PMCs were directly involved in Qadaffi’s assassination. “No,” said Lamb. “I spoke with the young man who shot him at point-blank range in Sirte, and it all happened spontaneously in the frenzy of the moment.”

If PMCs are operating in Libya, Syria or other parts of the Mideast and North Africa region, they are doing it under the radar, say many experts.

——
Keith Johnson is an independent journalist and the editor of “Revolt of theHYPERLINK "http://revoltoftheplebs.weebly.com/" \l "/" Plebs,” an alternative news website.

shareshare

 

Russia Draws Line in Sands of Syria

March 30, 2012 dave

By Richard Walker 

The presence of Russian Special Forces and military advisors in Syria is a further sign Moscow is drawing a line in the sand in the Middle East to let Israel, the United States and others in the West know it will not permit the overthrow of another government there.

Units of Russia’s special forces, Spetsnaz, left Sevastopol on Dec. 4, 2011, onboard the Black Sea fleet patrol ship Ladny, which linked up with the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and other vessels weeks later in the Mediterranean. On Jan. 8, 2012, they sailed into the Syrian port of Tartus, where Russia has a large naval facility. It was there that a U.S. spy satellite reportedly caught Spetsnaz military advisors and weapons being unloaded into Syria.

The Russian move should not have come as a surprise to Tel Aviv or Washington. Sooner or later, Russia was going to put its foot down after it became apparent Israel was close to dragging the U.S. into a war with Iran and had Washington’s backing for covert strategies to overthrow the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad. For some time, Israel and its backers on Capitol Hill have failed to recognize Russia has a strategic interest in the region and is never going to permit a reshaping of the map of the Middle East to suit Israel and the United States.

There are big issues at stake that the hawks in Tel Aviv and Washington ignore at their peril. Beginning with Iran, Russia sees it as a major energy source and a doorway to the Caucasus and the Caspian Basin. The Iranians fear if that doorway were to be closed by the creation of a pro-Zionist regime in Iran, Russia and China’s energy pathways would be in jeopardy.

To reinforce that point, on Jan. 12, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister, warned an attack on Iran would threaten Russia’s national security. A similar view was expressed in the past by Vladimir Putin, who was recently elected for the third time as Russian president and will take office on May 7, 2012.

The road from Teheran, in Russia’s view, also leads to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Russian leaders see a direct correlation between the determination of Israel and the West to change regimes in Iran and Syria as part of a plan to take control of the region and its energy resources, giving them power to redirect energy flows to the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. That prospect scares China even more than Russia.

Often missing from an analysis of Russian support for Syria is the realization by Moscow that Syria can be a major energy hub. That view is supported by the building of pipelines into Syria from Iraq and Egypt.

The greatest fear among Western oil giants is the prospect of Russia, with the support of Turkey, Iran, Syria, Greece, Iran and Iraq, creating an energy network incorporating the Mediterranean Sea, Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Persian Gulf. That could be prevented by Washington and Tel Aviv overthrowing the regimes in Iran and Syria and replacing them with pro-Zion governments. That would allow the West to cut off China’s energy/oil supplies and recalibrate energy/oil flow away from the Caucasus, limiting Russia’s energy/oil supply.

——
Richard Walker is the pen name of a former N.Y. news producer.

http://americanfreepress.net/?p=3515   

　

Drones Coming To A Sky Near You As Interest Surges

By MARCUS WOHLSEN 04/ 1/12 03:55 PM ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/01/drones-coming-to-a-sky-near-you_n_1395394.html 

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Sharp-eyed dog walkers along the San Francisco Bay waterfront may have spotted a strange-looking plane zipping overhead recently that that looked strikingly like the U.S. stealth drone captured by Iran in December.

A few key differences: The flying wing seen over Berkeley is a fraction of the size of the CIA's waylaid aircraft. And it's made of plastic foam. But in some ways it's just like a real spy plane.

The 4 1/2-foot-wide aircraft, built by software engineers Mark Harrison and Andreas Oesterer in their spare time, can fly itself to specified GPS coordinates and altitudes without any help from a pilot on the ground. A tiny video camera mounted on the front can send a live video feed to a set of goggles for the drone's view of the world below.

"It's just like flying without all the trouble of having to be up in the air," Harrison said.

Thousands of hobbyists are taking part in what has become a global do-it-yourself drone subculture, a pastime that's thriving as the Federal Aviation Administration seeks to make the skies friendlier to unmanned aircraft of all sizes.

The use of drones in the U.S. by law enforcement and other government agencies has privacy advocates on edge. At the same time, some DIY drone flyers believe the ease of sending cheap pilotless planes and choppers airborne gives citizens a powerful tool for keeping public servants on the ground honest.

Drones are the signature weapon of U.S. wars in the 21st century. Just as Humvees became a presence on U.S. highways in the 1990s after the first war with Iraq, interest in non-military uses of drones from policing to farming is rising.

Government agencies currently need FAA permission on a case-by-case basis to fly drones domestically. Commercial use is banned except for a small number of waivers for companies building experimental aircraft. But lawmakers have instructed the agency to allow civilian use of drones in U.S. airspace by September 2015. The FAA is expected to take the first step this year by proposing rules that would permit limited use of small commercial drones.

Whether a border patrol drone the size of a single-engine passenger plane or a four-rotor police "quadcopter" equipped with gear to intercept cell phone signals, the increasing ease of aerial surveillance seems destined to be put to a constitutional test over privacy.

T

"Our concern is with all of the drones," said Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Small aircraft are hard to see, and large drones can fly high enough to stay out of sight, she said. "I think they all pose different levels of privacy risk."

Lynch has sued the FAA for a list of the 300 waivers it has issued to allow drone use in the U.S. At the same time, she said drones in the hands of average citizens could have important uses.

Among the groups seeking to take advantage of the steep drop in price of drone technology are journalists who want to attach cameras to aircraft the size of small pizzas and that cost as much to buy – about $400 – as a one-hour helicopter rental for a photographer.

In the San Francisco Bay area, Occupy Wall Street activists built the so-called Occucopter designed to monitor police action against protesters from the sky.

In Idaho, wildlife biologists started using a drone for counting fish nets after a helicopter crash killed two colleagues and a pilot.

And researchers are developing techniques to use drones equipped with infrared sensors to detect patches of dry ground in orchards.

Hobbyists say drone prices have been driven down sharply even in the past two or three years mainly by the surge in popularity of smartphones. The chips smartphones use to determine whether they're being held vertically or horizontally or to locate themselves on a map are the same ones drones use to keep themselves flying straight, level and in the right direction.

The supply of such chips has spiked along with the use of smartphones, sending prices lower.

"Today if you have an iPhone or an Android, you basically have an autopilot in your pocket. You're just running the wrong app," said Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and founder of DIY Drones, an online community and company that sells drone kits and parts.

Anderson started DIY Drones in 2007 after spending the weekend building an electronic Lego robot and trying to fly a radio-controlled plane with his kids. The robot didn't impress the kids on its own, and the plane was hard to fly, Anderson said. So the family used the Legos to build a primitive autopilot and attached it to the plane. The kids thought it was cool for a few weeks, but Anderson became obsessed.

Anderson said safety is a top consideration of his group, and he supports strict observance of the FAA regulations developed in the 1970s to cover the amateur use of radio-controlled planes, which also apply to today's DIY drones. Those rules include restricting their altitude to 400 feet, requiring them to always be in view of their controller on the ground and prohibiting them from being flown over built-up areas.

That last rule reportedly led to trouble for some Los Angeles real estate agents, who were warned by police to stop using drones to take photos and video of homes for sale, according to the Los Angeles Times.

In Berkeley, Harrison and Oesterer spent more time tweaking wires and software than their drones spent in the air. Part of the reason was battery power: Their drones rely on the latest in lightweight laptop batteries to stay aloft but suck significantly more power. Still, both say would-be pilots don't need degrees in computer science or electrical engineering to send drones skyward.

Said Oesterer: "It's getting really close to plug-and-fly."

 

Israeli Experts Mum on Iran Attack to Support Bibi’s Bluff

by Gareth Porter, April 03, 2012

http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2012/04/02/Israeli-experts-mum-on-iran-attack-to-support-bibis-bluff/

 

TEL AVIV — A striking feature of the Israeli political landscape in recent months has been the absence of a serious debate among national security figures on the issue of the threat of war with Iran.

It is well-known that many prominent former military and intelligence officials believe an attack on Iran would be disastrous for Israel. After an initial blast at the idea of striking Iran by two former high-ranking officials last year, however, very little has been heard from such national security figures.

The reason for this silence on the part of the national security sector, just as the Israeli threat of war was escalating sharply, appears to be a widespread view among Israeli national security analysts that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threat to attack is a highly successful bluff.

Some critics of Netanyahu’s threat to go war against Iran have expressed concern about the failure of national security figures to speak out publicly against the policy. Former Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner, who now blogs for the independent 972mag.com, wrote last month that there are “crowds” of former military and intelligence officials who privately oppose an attack on Iran and could slow the“march to war” by speaking to the news media.

But he complained that “Israelis aren’t hearing their voices.”

Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad analyst and later head of the Jaffee Center for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, has noted the same problem. “Plenty of people are calling for public debate on the issue of striking Iran,” he told IPS in an interview. “But it isn’t happening.”

Former Mossad director Meir Dagan launched the first attack on Netanyahu’s policy by a former national security official last June, asserting that an attack on Iran would provoke a regional war and would ensure that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons.

Maj. Gen. Shlomo Gazit, who was chief of military intelligence in the 1970s, also dissociated himself with the policy, declaring, “An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear reactor will lead to the liquidation of Israel.”

Like Dagan, Gazit warned that it would cause Iran to immediately decide to become a nuclear power, and he added that it would increase international pressures for the abandonment of “the territories.”

Those shots across Netanyahu’s bow have not been followed, however, by similar criticisms by other former military and intelligence figures.

In fact, Gazit himself appeared to backtrack from his earlier harsh verdict on the option of attacking Iran in a recent television interview.

On Russia Today on March 12, Gazit did not voice any of his previous objections to the threatened Israeli strike against Iran. Instead he emphasized the readiness of Israel to carry out a strike, even without U.S. approval if necessary, played down the cost to Israel of an Iranian response, and said an Israeli strike would result in delaying the Iranian nuclear program by “two or three years at least.”

Gazit reaffirmed to IPS, however, that he has not changed his mind about the dangers to Israel attending a strike against Iran he had raised last June.

The publicly discussed reason for the absence of dissent from the national security sector is lack of information. Nathan Sharony, who heads the Council of Peace, with over 1,000 former high-ranking security officials with dovish views, told Derfner the reason ex–national security officials were not speaking up was that they lack the “solid information” necessary to do so.

Gazit gave IPS the same explanation for the failure of former officials to oppose a strike against Iran publicly.

But the main reasons for opposing war with Iran do not require access to inside information. The more compelling explanation for the silence of former military and intelligence officers is that they, like journalists and other policy analysts, think that Netanyahu is probably bluffing and they perceive the bluff as working.

Retired Brig. Gen. Uzi Rubin, the former head of Israel’s missile defense program, recalls being on a television program a few months ago with Ari Shavit, senior correspondent at Haaretz, on which Shavit declared, “Netanyahu is playing poker for all of us. We shouldn’t call out his cards.”

Shavit was suggesting that the success of the prime minister in the high-stakes poker game requires that influential Israelis not question his claims about Israel’s willingness and capability to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

That struck a Rubin as a significant factor in the politics surrounding Netanyahu’s policy. “People who think we shouldn’t attack Iran believe Netanyahu is playing poker,” said Rubin in an interview with IPS. “So they think they shouldn’t speak up.”

“Netanyahu speaks like he’s very convinced Iran has to be stopped by force,” said the former missile defense chief. “Does he mean it?” Rubin said he doesn’t know the answer.

Alpher agrees. He told IPS the reason high-profile expressions of dissent by Dagan and a few others have not provoked more lively debate on Iran policy among national security figures is that “they don’t want to spoil Bibi’s successful bluster.”

Netanyahu’s bluffing on Iran has “kept the international community on edge,”Alpher suggested, and thus achieved the latest round of sanctions and heavier pressure on Iran.

Both the poker metaphor and the view that he has been successful at it have been central elements in media coverage of Netanyahu’s policy in recent weeks.

While the prime minister was in Washington last month, Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, wrote that Netanyahu had “managed to convince the world that Israel is on the verge of a preemptive war” and that he is “playing poker and hiding his most important card — the IDF’s true capabilities to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations.”

Just last week, Benn’s colleague, Shavit, referred to the threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of 2012 that he and a handful of other journalists had heard from senior officials. Shavit acknowledged, however, that “we cannot exclude the possibility that senior Israeli officials briefing us are bluffing,” noting that the officials had a “vested interest” in exploiting such a threat.

One factor that may have fed the reluctance of some former military and intelligence officials to go public with criticism of the option of war against Iran is that Netanyahu has a reputation for being far less aggressive on Iran in practice than his rhetoric would indicate.

Benn told IPS there is a perception of Netanyahu as a “hesitant politician who would not dare to attack without American permission.”

A former national security official who did not wish to be identified told IPS that some people who have worked with Netanyahu have said he is less decisive than former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Iran, although he personally disagrees with that assessment.

The widespread impression among the Israeli national security elite and press corps that Netanyahu’s threat of war against Iran is a bluff does not guarantee that Netanyahu will not attack Iran. But it does help explain why there has not been a much bigger outcry against a war option that is widely regarded as irrational for Israel.

(Inter Press Service)  ___   

A

ination of political dissidents in the United States, evidenced by FBI Director Robert Mueller’s recent congressional testimony where he implied that the FBI is now authorized to murder American citizens in the United States without trial if the president or another official in D.C. believes they pose a threat to national security.

At a speech at Northwestern University recently, Attorney General Eric Holder told the audience that the president of the United States has powers “sufficient under the Constitution for the United States to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen.” In other words, in Holder's interpretation of the Constitution, the president can murder Americans with impunity.

Following up that speech, Mueller told a shocked congressional panel on March 7 that he wasn’t sure why Holder had made those remarks, but that his understanding of them was that Holder believed the FBI was authorized to assassinate American political dissidents without judicial process.

A Justice Department spokesman then elaborated, stating that an American can be assassinated if the following conditions are met: A person poses a “threat” to national security, broadly defined to include most       forms of dissent against the social-democratic system; capture is not feasible, in the opinion of the killers; and the killing adheres to the “laws of war.” Of course, the laws of war prohibit the murder of innocent civilians who have not taken up arms against a government and have merely spoken against that government.

These claims of the power to murder Americans follow the recently passed legislation authorizing federal agents to kidnap and imprison Americans without due process of law under the so-called National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

As Russian news outlet RT reported, after the Obama administration refused to comment on the extent it would use these new powers to murder political dissidents, under the NDAA “Americans know for certain that government allegations can get them in jail without a trial. Obama just needs to confirm or disconfirm that he can shoot them down in their own homes as well.”

As AFP has reported repeatedly, the “terrorist threat” the government faces is largely imaginary. The U.S. government has fabricated these incidents in order to provide a distraction and cover the government's failure in most areas of domestic policy. A recent study by the University of California at Berkley showed that all but three of the so-called "terror plots” that had occurred in the United States since 2001 we remanufactured by the FBI.      

Will Supreme Court Declare War on Whistleblowers

Supreme Court may decide the issue for you some day soon

By Pete Papaherakles http://americanfreepress.net/?p=3365

Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose leaked video clipping 2010 exposed the murder of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians by a U.S. attack helicopter, is one of six whistle-blowers charged by the Obama administration for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He is held in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas awaiting trial, most likely in August. If his case or any of the others ends up in the Supreme Court, as some expect will happen, a ruling in favor of the government would instantly criminalize all disclosures of classified information to the public.

The act has been used against whistle-blowers only three times before Obama took office.

Manning is accused of giving 700,000 hacked documents and video clips to whistle-blower website WikiLeaks. In the now notorious video clip of the helicopter killings, a Reuters reporter and his driver were also shown getting killed by the U.S. soldiers in an Apache helicopter.

Manning faces 22 charges under the Espionage Act including aiding the enemy, theft of public property or records and wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet. If convicted, he could get life in jail without parole.

The other six leakers who are currently awaiting trial have also worked for various government agencies. They include: ShamaiL eibowitz, a translator for the FBI; Thomas Drake, a whistle-blower for the NSA; Stephen Kim, who was with the State Department, and Jeffrey Sterling and John Kyriakou, who worked for the CIA.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which published the video clips allegedly provided by Manning, is expected to be the seventh person to be charged in a leak case under the Act

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in1971, was charged under the Espionage Act and faced 12 felony charges and 115years in prison. The Pentagon Papers was the informal name of the U.S. government’s secret encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War and the lead-up to it. Ellsberg eventually had the charges dropped due to government misconduct against him that included illegal wiretaps and burglarizing his psychiatrist's office, for which President Richard Nixon faced impeachment hearings.

“Everything that Richard Nixon did to me, for which he faced impeachment and prosecution, which led to his resignation, is now legal under the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the National Defense Authorization Act,” said Ellsberg in a recent interview with Chris Hedges of truthdig.com.

Although Ellsberg’s case was dismissed, this is not likely to happen today as the U.S. government seems headed into a police-state era.

In the upcoming election, perhaps it would be better for the government to change the title of president to “pharaoh” or "emperor,” and we, his humble servants, should address him as “your majesty.”

——

Peter Papaherakles, a U.S. citizen since 1986, was born in Greece. He is AFP’s outreach director. If you would like to see AFP speakers at your rally, contact Pete at 202-544-5977.

It’s a Landslide: Americans for Peace; Against Israeli War Aims

March 25, 2012 dave

According to pollster it’s a landslide: Americans oppose war against Iran

By Michael Collins Piper http://americanfreepress.net/?p=3367

Contrary to what propagandists for Israel in the controlled media would have you believe, most Americans would not support Israel if it attacks Iran. The results of a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press left supporters of Israel a little bit uneasy.

While Israel’s supporters loudly claim “most Americans” are firmly in Israel’s corner, Pew found to the contrary that 51% of Americans believe the U.S. should stay neutral in a conflict between Israel and Iran and that an additional 5% said the U.S. should oppose Israel outright. Fully 56% of Americans effectively stand against Israel’s war fever. In an election, that would be called a landslide.

Another 4% polled didn’t know where they stood. Only 39% would support Israel—and that’s about the percentage of the vote Barry Goldwater won in his historic lopsided loss in the 1964 election.

The poll found 65% of those between the ages of18 to 29—those who end up fighting the wars—overwhelmingly supported U.S. neutrality. 7% of them said the U.S. should oppose Israel.

Fully 71% of Republicans said the United States should support Israel. In stark contrast, only 31% of liberal Democrats would side with Israel, with 54% of them saying the U.S. should remain neutral.

These poll results demonstrate the bankruptcy of the modern-day GOP, which once stood in favor of traditional American on-intervention in foreign conflicts, a philosophy first laid down by George Washington in his Farewell Address.

What is additionally interesting about the poll is the manner in which it was reported—or not reported—by the major press.

First of all, although most Pew polls—especially on controversial issues—are generally given a modicum of publicity throughout the mass media, this poll was largely ignored by big media.

To the extent the media did mention the poll, those reports focused on the aspect of the poll finding that most Americans opposed Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, often ignoring altogether the point that the poll found, as noted above, that Americans did not believe the U.S. should support Israel’s agenda for war.

Despite public opposition to war, The New York Times reported March 19 that “in the standoff with Iran, it is the hawkish groups supporting military action that wield more money, political clout and high-profile names than do the advocates of a diplomatic solution. In all, pro-Israeli political action committees and donors affiliated with them have given more than $47 million directly to federal candidates since 2000,[and] they rank among the top contributors to a number of prominent Democrats and Republicans.”

——

Michael Collins Piper is an author, journalist, lecturer and radio show host. He has spoken in Russia, Malaysia, Iran, Abu Dhabi, Japan, Canada and the U.S. He is the author of Final Judgment, The New Jerusalem, The High Priests of War, Dirty Secrets, My First Days in the White House, The New Babylon, Share the Wealth, The Judas Goats, Target: Traficant and The Golem. You can order any of these books with a credit card by calling AFP/FAB toll free at 1-888-699-6397.

Get Ready for the Crackdowns

Get ready for the "Jack-booted Thugs at these events-Lattigo Smith

by Kelley B. Vlahos, March 27, 2012

http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2012/03/26/get-ready-for-the-crackdowns/

The show of paramilitary force at the national party conventions held since the 9/11 attacks has been nothing less than shocking, though the vast majority of America doesn’t know it because they weren’t there, or they simply don't care.

Still, since the Occupy movement has brought on new and creative crackdowns on Constitutionally-protected protest activity in towns and cities all over the country, you can bet that when it comes to security at this summer’s Republican and Democratic Party confabs, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Antiwar protesters nevertheless plan to join demonstrators of myriad stripes, many under the Occupy rubric, as they converge on three major events this spring and summer, beginning with the NATO summit in Chicago in May, the Republican National Convention in Tampain August, and the twin Democratic confab in early September.

Authorities are taking preemptive measures against planned demonstrations at these events on two fronts: one, mobilizing a massive militarized police and National Guard presence with the latest technology and weaponry, including street surveillance cameras, at least one fully armored SWAT vehicle with a turret, Tasers, tear gas and the like; and two, creating new municipal codes and laws to cordon-off public spaces from use, and establishing “security zones” that will limit the impact of Constitutionally-protected protests.

One actually had to be at the previous conventions to absorb the humiliation of American citizens lining up like cattle behind barbwire fences, the helicopters ever-circling overhead, the police —dressed in full-armor battle gear as if launching into urban operations in Ramadi —cordoning off and fully surrounding small city blocks in anticipation of a VIP’s arrival at a nearby hotel or restaurant (could it be Rep. John Boehner? Or Sen. Smiley Face? It didn’t matter). Urban soldiers stood at the ready as mothers with strollers and hapless tourists and conventioneers tried not to make eye contact just in case. No one wanted to be confused with a terrorist, or worse, a rabble-rouser.

And that was just the 2008 Republican convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. This was nothing compared to the party’s New York bash in2004. Still raw from the memory of 9/11, but narcissistic and cynical enough to hold what amounted to an enormously expensive private party, the Republicans made sure for one week the Big Apple was transformed into an armed camp,120,000protestersonone side of the checkpoints and the immense sweep of the local, state and federal security apparatus on the other. Some 1,800 were arrested over the course of the event, through most of the charges were eventually dropped.

Both the GOP convention and the Democratic event in Boston that year imposed so-called “free speech zones” on demonstrators. The Boston police actually put them in a pen, like capricious monkeys at the zoo, or prisoners in a camp. Activists took to calling it “Camp X-Ray,” an old moniker for the Guantanamo Bay prison facility.

Of course, then-President Bush loved to ensure his “fans "were safely ensconced in such spaces wherever he went during his reign tenure, his Secret Service and White House handlers poised to purge his audiences of any unwelcome dissidence. Everything in the name of “security” — from shutting down entire towns to tossing people out of presidential events because of their antiwar bumper stickers and T-shirts, no effort seemed too petty or too ludicrous.

It would be naive to think that Obama and his party are any different when it comes to public displays of dissent. In the latest and maybe the most underestimated move by Washington to insulate the establishment against upcoming protests, the Congress just passed and Obama signed an update to a federal law that makes it a crime to be in a United States Secret Service-imposed security zone. Critics calling it the “trespass law” say the new language penalizes individuals whether or not they are even aware they are acting illegally.

The old law(18USC § 1752) (emphasis mine):

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person or group of persons—

(1) willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting;

(2) willfully and knowingly to enter or remain in any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance;

(3) willfully, knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, to engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any building or grounds described in paragraph (1) or (2) when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

(4) willfully and knowingly to obstruct or impede ingress or egress to or from any building, grounds, or area described in paragraph (1) or (2); or

(5) willfully and knowingly to engage in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any building, grounds, or area described in paragraph (1) or (2). …

The new law (H.R 347) (.pdf)(emphasis mine):

‘‘(a) Whoever— ‘‘(1)knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building

or grounds without lawful authority to do so;‘‘(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the

orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

‘‘(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; or

‘‘(4)knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;

or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

We see here the word “willfully” is struck from the new law. Legal experts tell us that makes all the difference.

From Rep. Justin mash (R-MI), one of the only three members of the House and Senate who did not vote for the measure this month (Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Paul Broun — all Republicans! —were the others):

Current law makes it illegal to enter or remain in an area where certain government officials (more particularly, those with Secret Service protection) will be visiting temporarily if and only if the person knows it’s illegal to enter the restricted area but does so anyway. The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it’s illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect it’s illegal. (It expands the law by changing "willfully and knowingly "to just “knowingly” with respect to the mental state required to be charged with a crime.)

Punishment for violating the law can carry upwards of one year in jail or 10years if the individual is caught with a gun or "dangerous weapon,” or if his other actions result in significant bodily injury.”

Occupy protest in New York City

Experts who insist the tweaking of the language is significant have cited U.S. v. Bursey, the case of Brett Bursey, an Iraq War protester who was arrested by Secret Service in 2002 when he refused to leave a restricted area during a demonstration. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the prosecution did not prove that Bursey had “willfully” committed a crime under the statute:

…because, generally, “[m]ore is required "with respect to conduct performed willfully than conduct performed knowingly… (willfully) requires “more culpable” mens rea than knowing violation. As a general proposition, the statutory term "knowingly” requires the Government to prove only that the defendant had knowledge of the facts underlying the offense.

In other words, before H.R 347 was passed, in order to find an individual guilty of protesting in a restricted area, the government had to prove that the individual knew his or her activity in that space was illegal. Now, the government merely has to find that a person “knowingly” entered a restricted space, which does not address intent, just the individual’s mental state. All that matters is whether he or she “knew” they were there at the time and place in question, and were not impaired or unconscious of their actions in some way— a much lower standard for prosecution.

This could have serious consequences for demonstrators at the NATO Summit and the two conventions, as the usual labyrinth of security perimeters are thrown up not only around major venues (Chicago’s McCormick Place for the summit, Tampa Bay Times Forum and the Time Warner Arena in Charlotte), but around temporary spaces where protected individuals for these events are — like the numerous parties and fundraisers and other special events which typically accompany these things elsewhere in the host city. These protected individuals include, according to the law, “visiting heads of foreign states or foreign governments … other distinguished foreign visitors to the United States,” and “major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates.”

Protests outside the RNC Convention in St. Paul in 2008

When this new federal law is applied, the line between whether a sidewalk in front of a hotel where Prime Minister So-and-So is being feted by the So-and-So-American Leaders of America Club is a public or restricted space is suddenly a thin one, leaving a swell of demonstrators and journalists vulnerable to the dragnet of a "knowing” violation.

Of course, as writer Naomi Wolf — and many, many others —have found out the hard way, police often arrest demonstrators on sidewalks whether they have the law on their side or not. But this updated statute gives government a new opportunity to make federal trespassing charges stick, and raises the stakes for individuals seeking to flex their First Amendment rights. It’s hard to believe the dropping of “willfully” wasn’t a preemptive strike at protesters ahead of these potentially volatile events.

Meanwhile, the host cities are doing their best to marginalize the protest element too. Charlotte plans to put into place rules designating parade routes and “protest zones.” That was after passing an ordinance banning camping on public property and producing a list of items either banned or subject to searches in the established “security zone.” Tampa is a few steps behind but is nonetheless considering similar ordinances, according to recent reports.

In Chicago, activists are crying foul at a decision by the city to reject their permit for a parade during the NATO Summit. Subsequently, the groups reportedly rejected counterproposal by the city which would have given them an alternate parade route away from the convention center with “virtually no public visibility.”

“Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political speech is politically useless,” wrote Judge Andrew Napolitano, in a recent column about the new Secret Service law.

“The same may be said of the rights to associate and to petition. If peaceful public assembly and public expression of political demands on the government can be restricted to places where government officials cannot be confronted, then those rights, too, have been neutered.”

Of course the mainstream media is ever complicit in drawing a picture that makes these anti-free speech rules, not to mention the over-the-top security plans, appear justified. To hear the Cassandra's wailing about the safety of their cities from dirty hippie thugs, one would think there had been a pattern of riotous behavior at the last four national conventions —but there was not. In fact, violent instigation from the so-called "black bloc” types and other outbursts of physical destruction among demonstrators have always been a tiny percentage of the activity outside these events and largely denounced by activists overall.

Nonetheless, police have let loose flash bang grenades, tear gas, wielded batons and hauled off thousands to jail (only to let most go uncharged) in response to activity around the conventions that might have been annoying, loud and inconvenient, but largely non-violent, and in many cases, not prosecutable.

In St. Paul, they arrested 300antiwar protesters in one day, though a tiny fraction was ever convicted. Earlier that week, Democracy Now! Journalist Amy Goodman and her colleagues were “violently manhandled” and arrested for not dispersing from a demonstration they were covering for their Pacifica News program. The journals later sued the police department and won.

Before the September 2008 convention even began, SWAT teams arrested protesters staying in three homes on the outskirts of the St. Paul and Minneapolis, slapping them with terror-related charges linked to their alleged plans to protest the convention. Agents busted down doors and threw people down on the floor, terrifying housemates and neighbors. The terror charges were eventually dropped and the “RNC Eight "eventually pleaded guilty to a single “gross misdemeanor” and accepted probation, a far cry from the felonies they had been initially charged with.

Now, with $50 million in taxpayer money each, the cities of Tampa and Charlotte are ramping up big-time, tapping into their states’ National Guard and federal resources at the FBI, CIA, FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security to design and execute their elaborate security plans.

The Occupy movement has given them more excuse to hunker down, but according to Kevin Zeese, an organizer with the Occupy  DC movement, which has been dealing with the city’s own efforts to diminish the protests there, this will only embolden people to turn out and test the system.

“The only way to respond to the destruction of our rights is to exercise them; to show those in power that the people will not be intimidated by a lawless government that ignores the clear mandates of the Constitution,” he tells Antiwar.com.

“We have shown in the last six months that when the people are educated, organized and mobilized we can change the direction of the government. We have the power, we need the courage and confidence to use it.”

Twitter Vlahos @KelleyBVlahos

War on Iran?

It is too soon to reminisce about Iraq, let alone have a repeat

The Class of 2002 are beating the drums on Iran, failing to learn from awar that's not yet history. Well, it shows chutzpah

· Marina Hyde guardian.co.uk, Friday23 March 2012 16.30 EDT Article history

· http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/23/war-iran-iraq-repeat-disaster

The thing about a supertanker is that at least you can turn it round. It takes a while, by all accounts, but you have to think any such vessel has the turning circle of a London taxi compared with the US war machine, which – like its erstwhile willing passenger Tony Blair – appears to relish its lack of  a reverse gear.

Are we moving inexorably towards a strike on Iran? There is "a smell of fresh chum in the waters" again, as the rip-roaring journalist Matt Taibbi put it recently. This week, not a decade after the Iraq invasion, several former officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency accused its head of mishandling the Iranian crisis. They leveled charges of western bias, relying on dodgy intelligence, and sidelining skeptics.

This may sound vaguely familiar. In fact, the situation has all the charmless nostalgia of those I Love1982-style shows, which saw "expert" talking heads such as Vernon Kayand Kate Thornton reminisce about everything from deely-boppers to the Falklands with no modulation of tone.

As for the talking heads of the I Love Going to War in the Middle East series, they really are amazingly familiar. I say amazingly, as yet again I must implore you to marvel at the giddy pace of the internet age, where every hard-won bit of wisdom is almost instantly lost to amnesia. It used to take close to a generation for everyone to forget the learning of a bitter foreign policy lesson and to blunder into something that forced it to be learned again. It now takes about 10 minutes.

The near immediacy of it renders fusty the idea of history repeating itself as farce. It would be farce repeating itself as farce, were it not all so sensationally unfunny. The very idea that US hawks should seek to double down on their fiasco adventure in Iraq by aiming their sights on Iran should be deemed too far-fetched even for satire – instead, it gains daily traction in the most familiar of places. It's not just the same news outlets; it's the same faces.

With a handful of exceptions such as Dick Cheney, who is living off the fat of the last outing in the region, the Class of 2002 are back in business and beating the drums. All we're currently missing is Rupert Murdoch urging Tehran regime change on the basis the west could get its hands on Iran's oil, a rehash of his blithe 2003 assertion that war with Iraq was eminently desirables it would bring the price of oil down to $20 a barrel. That worked out well, you may recall. Crude prices soared, and are currently hovering around $105 barrel. But then what does it matter with people's goldfish-like memories?

Perhaps the closest analogy for these resurgent warmongers are the economists who failed to predict even the vaguest problems with the sub-prime mortgage market, let alone the global financial crisis. Yet somehow they still shamelessly populate the airwaves, spouting predictions and judgments, which unfathomably never end with the anchor saying: "Mmm. We're going to interrupt you to hear from a cauliflower, because you've got to think it knows more about this stuff than you." And so with the creatures of the US military-industrial complex, somehow able to pick themselves up from the what should have been career-ending humiliation and call for more of the same. They clearly possess some bizarre, Weeble-style self-righting mechanism, and at some level I suppose you have to admire the chutzpah.

But while the amnesia cycle contracts every time, the one thing that takes far longer than it used to isextricating ourselves from these wars. The Republican party seems to need themmore than ever, unified only when defining themselves against the so-called common enemy.

So here we go again. The airwaves and newswires teem with politicians and pundits shrieking and pointing atMahmoud Ahmadinejad's years-old exhortation to "wipe Israel off themap", even though this translation has been repeatedly debunked – a fact that conveniently never sticks with those seeking to make hay. And once again,their strident voices drown out the experts.

Consider the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, a man who might reasonably be assumed to be among the knowledgeable on the Iranian regime, who earlier this month took the wildly unusual step ofspeaking out about the absolute folly of any such strike. "Bombing Iran now is the stupidest idea I have ever heard,"ran his Fox News-ready quote – which received the lack of airplay you'd expecton the channel.

Similarly disregarded by armchair hawks was his insistence that Ahmadinejad is not the madman of expedient discourse, but rational. "Not exactly our rationale," he qualified, "but I thinkthat he is rational".

"We are going to ignite, at least from my point of view, a regional war," was his grim warning."And wars, you know how they start. You never know how you are endingit."

You don't. On the form book, you'd have a fiver on us being mired in hellish mess and untold carnage of ourown making for the bare minimum of a decade. But of course, our results couldgo down as well as up.

Twitter: @marinahyde

 

Ron Paul Upsets Santorum in Missouri Caucuses Buoyed By Huge Youth Turnout

by Hamdan Azhar

http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/azhar1.1.1.html

The final outcome of Missouri’s lengthy caucus process may not be known for months. Early results, however, indicate that Ron Paul may well walk away from the state with the most delegates. Yesterday, his supporters overwhelmed the largest pooled caucus – Jackson county, responsible for sending 179delegates to the state and congressional district conventions – winning over two-thirds of the available delegate slots. Mr. Paul also swept St. Louis, winning all of the city’s 36 delegates.

Missouri’s second and third largest caucuses, which convened last Saturday, reported similar results. In Greene county (111 delegates), Paul backers won nearly 60% of the delegate slots. In St. Charles (147 delegates), they so thoroughly dominated that the county GOP chair, allegedly a Santorum supporter, adjourned the meeting and called in the police to prevent the election from taking place.

In each of these counties, Paul supporters were outnumbered by Santorum supporters by at least 4-to-1*. Against these daunting odds, the Ron Paulers emerged victorious due to their unmatched grassroots organization and their ability to turn out the youth vote. In Greene county, party insiders said they had “never seen so many young people at a Republican caucus.”

Missouri’s results – a shot in the arm for the Paul campaign – have led many observers to conclude that Mr. Paul’s caucus strategy is working better than they had anticipated. His strong performance follows several events in recent weeks that suggest that Ron Paul supporters – energized by the message of limited government and fiscal conservatism – are quickly taking over the leadership of the Republican party at the state and local levels across the country.

Earlier this month, in Las Vegas, Paul supporters were elected to two-thirds of the board positions in the Clark County Republican Party after winning more county convention delegates than any other candidate at the caucuses –including Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, in Iowa, the state co-chair of the Paul campaign was elected as the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party in February. Last week, Paul supporters swept all the delegate slots in two of Seattle’s largest legislative district conventions.

Such accomplishments belie the mainstream media’s efforts to marginalize Ron Paul's candidacy. The Associated Press’s projections, for example, report the Texas congressman as being last in the delegate count. Election analysts, however, insist that those projections are driven by a failure to understand the rules governing delegate allocation in caucus states. Josh Putnam, election expert and professor of political science, agrees. The AP delegate count, he admits, is based on “a fantasy proportional allocation of delegates in the non-binding caucus states.”

Heading into the Missouri caucuses, the New York Times reported that Rick Santorum was "frantically wooing voters" in an attempt to secure a "second victory." Since then, the Times' caucus blog has maintained complete silence about Ron Paul's unexpectedly strong performance in the state.

With his likely victory in Missouri, Mr. Paul has shown once again that his campaign – fueled by the passion and determination of millions of grassroots supporters across the country – should not be written off too quickly. He has more than doubled his voter base since 2008, intends to compete aggressively in Texas and California, and continues to upend the establishment narrative at every turn. Regardless of who wins the Republican nomination, all available evidence suggests that the Ron Paul movement will continue to be significant force in American politics for decades to come.

*In Missouri’s Feb. 7 primary – meaningless, since it awarded zero delegates- the ratio of Santorum votes to Paul votes was 3.8 in Jackson county, 4.3 in St. Charles county, and 4.5 in Greene county. Ron Paul won the majority of the county-level delegates in Jackson and Greene counties, and is expected to do the same in St. Charles when it holds its rescheduled caucus on April 10.

Reprinted from Policy Mic with the author's permission.

March 27, 2012

Hamdan Azhar is a New York-based writer and statistician. His commentary, which has been featured in the Huffington Post and the Christian Science Monitor, engages critical issues involving foreign policy, civil liberties, and international affairs. To read more of his work, visit his website.

Copyright © 2012 Policy Mic

 

Defusing the Middle East Would Lower Gas Prices

 

by Sheldon Richman, March23, 2012

http://www.fff.org/comment/com1203u.asp

Republicans see rising oil and gasoline prices as an opportunity to score political point son President Obama. To be sure, Obama is partly responsible for the rise in world prices and could do something about it. The irony is that Republicans would emphatically oppose the one measure that would be most effective in easing the pressure on prices right now: defusing tension in the Middle East betaking the war threat against Iran off the table.

Tension in the Middle East tends to push prices up, because the threat of war puts this major oil region under a a darkening cloud of uncertainty. With Iran the tension is even greater because it is located on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, 21 nautical miles at its narrowest point. Roughly 20percent of the world’s oil moves through the strait, which is key for getting oil from the gulf countries to the rest of the world.

Iran has threatened to mine or close the strait in retaliation for an attack by Israel or the United States. The danger to oil tankers traversing the strait would shoot insurance prices through the roof, and the price of oil would follow as the supply diminished.

Since American and Israeli war talk directed at Iran is undoubtedly responsible for much of the recent pricewise, it stands to reason that ceasing that talk convincingly would take the pressure off and would allow prices to fall again.

So why aren’t the Republicans calling on Obama to extend an olive branch to Iran? The answer is simple: Republicans (excepting Ron Paul) place American imperial bullying ahead of everything else. They may talk about the virtue of free markets and private property, but clearly their priority is American hegemony, no matter the cost in taxpayer money and freedom.

They would rather risk cripplingly high gasoline and oil prices — not to mention crippling American military personnel and Iranian children — than pass up an opportunity to rattle their sabers in defense of the American empire and to show how fierce these chicken hawks are. (Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich spent no time in the military, much less in a war zone. Such politicians are often the most eager to send men and women to war.)

To hear them tell it, the very existence of the United States and Israel is at stake in the confrontation with Iran over its alleged nuclear-weapons program. Nonsense. American and Israeli intelligence say that the Iranian government has not decided to build a nuclear weapon. Every pound of uranium in Iran’s possession is under an International Atomic Energy Agency seal. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons years ago, and repeated this prohibitions as recently as February. Furthermore, no American or Israeli official seriously believes that Iran would use a nuclear warhead to attack, even if it did build one. Why not? A nuclear strike on Israel or the United States would summon devastating second strike that would destroy Iran and its government — and no one believes the Iranian regime is suicidal. Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, himself says survival is the regime’s top priority.

So why the loose war talk? Whydoes Obama menace Iran without provocation by declaring that “all options areon the table,” including “all elements of American power” (emphasisadded)? Why has he imposed harsh economic sanctions, which inflict pain on theIranian people and which constitute an act of war under international law?

The reason is that America’s top politicians, Republican and Democrat, are locked into the imperial mindset. In their view, this country — more precisely, the man who presides over the national government — is the policeman of the world. They embrace President George H.W. Bush’s decree from 1990: “What we say goes.” If the president doesn't like something, he reserves the authority to do something about it —militarily if “necessary.”

So they are willing to go to war, or to risk it in a deadly game of chicken, regardless of the cost in human lifeor economic growth.

More expensive gasoline for the rest of us is a small price to pay for their imperial ambitions.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va., author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Visit his blog Free Association at www.sheldonrichman.com.Send him email.

Israel Encircles Iran

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/israel-encircles-iran/

By Philip Giraldi | March 27, 2012

Israel is tightening the noose around Iran. The Israeli government has signed a secret agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to lease two former Soviet military airfields located close to the Iranian border. One of the facilities is being used as an intelligence collection site, with advanced Sigint capabilities and preparations underway for drone operations. The other base is being designated a search-and-rescue facility. It will eventually have helicopters that will presumably be dispatched to aid downed Israeli fliers if there is a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The base will also have limited refueling and recovery capabilities for planes too damaged to make the long flight back to Israel over Iraqi or Saudi airspace. The Azerbaijani bases are much closer to the prime Iranian nuclear targets at Natanz and Fordowthan are airfields in Israel itself. Recent Iranian government and media complaints about threatening Azerbaijani activities reflect official concern onthe part of Tehran over the new developments.

Tel Aviv is also increasing its presence in neighboring Georgia, which is serving as the conduit for equipment going to Azerbaijan, which is shipped through the Black Sea port of Poti. The Israelis control an airfield in Georgia that is being used for intelligence gathering and logistical support for the large Israeli private-contractor and military-adviser presence in the country. Israeli advisers are training the Georgian army in the use of largely U.S.-supplied military equipment and are effectively partners in the country's intelligence and security agencies. Drones operating over northwest Iran have been flying out of the Georgian base. John McCain’s 2008 claim when the country went to war with Russia that “we are all Georgians now” becomes a lot more comprehensible when one realizes that the drive to aid the country was largely about supporting Israel.

Israeli intelligence officers and military personnel in mufti are active in Iraqi Kurdistan as well, where they have been recruiting agents to collect information and carry out operations inside Iran. Many of the recruits are affiliated with Pajak, a U.S. State Department-listed terrorist organization. There are concerns within the U.S. intelligence community that the Israelis are playing fast and loose with their affiliation in what are known as false-flag operations, frequently representing themselves as American sin actions similar to those relating to Mossad’s efforts to recruit Jundallah militants in Western Europe. Israel also reportedly attempted to hide behind false flag in January when one of its drones that had been operating over Syria went down in Turkey. The Israeli Foreign Ministry initially denied any knowledge, suggesting that the device was American. But the Turks, who have U.S. drones flying from airbases in their own country, recognized that the drone was not of American manufacture, and the Israeli Embassy was forced to recant and eventually apologize. No apology was forthcoming to the United States. Back at home, the FBI is investigating persistent reports that Israeli intelligence officers operating in the U.S. are again pretending to be FBI or CIA to obtain the cooperation of Arab-Americans.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

Netanyahu's Machine

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/netanyahus-machine/

The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart, Times Books, 276 pages

By Scott McConnell | Marcy 26, 2012

The Crisis of Zionism opens with Peter Beinart watching a video on his computer sent by an Israeli friend. It depicts an incident on the occupied West Bank: Israeli military police arrest a Palestinian man for trying to siphon water from the pipes that feed an Israeli settlement, after he had made repeated efforts to secure permission. As he is taken away his five-year-old son, Khaled, cries plaintively after him, “Baba, Baba.”

For those familiar with the occupation, the context is clear. The settlers, with the legal rights of citizens of Israel, have privileged access to the aquifers in this arid land and use water at five times the rate of the Palestinians. This inequality is secured by Israeli military law, which governs the stateless inhabitants of this occupied territory.

Beinart describes the emotions the video set off in him:

As soon I began watching … I wished I had never turned it on. For most of my life, my reaction to accounts of Palestinian suffering has been rationalization, a search for reasons why the accounts are exaggerated or the suffering self-inflicted. … But in recent years, for reasons I can’t fully explain, I had been lowering my defenses, and Khaled’s cries left me staring in mute horror at my computer screen.

It is a powerful passage in a book filled with them, one that encapsulates and personalizes the inequity of the occupation, the apartheid-like legal distinctions between Jewish settlers and Palestinians, and the grotesque disparity between two people’s access to natural resources and civil and political rights. It captures with precision the rationalizing process of many American Jews, most of whom would decry such injustice were it to occur in America or elsewhere in the Western world. Finally it touches on the ineffable mystery of how sophisticated people change their minds—“I had been lowering my defenses”—a puzzle even for those at the top rungs of opinion journalism.

Peter Beinart is a young (early-40s) and precocious former editor of The New Republic and “liberal hawk” who had once been a prominent voice promoting the Iraq War. For several years now he has been recasting his views, first on American foreign policy and now on the questions of Israel and the Palestinians. He remains a liberal Zionist, committed to a Jewish state that practices the democratic values proclaimed at its founding: “complete equality of social and political rights for all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion.” He is aware that the plausible window for creating such an Israel—with a viable Palestinian state alongside it—is closing rapidly and maybe already shut.

The Crisis of Zionism is in part a meditation on the present "golden age of Jewish power,” a critique of the American Jewish establishment, and a less than optimistic view of the increasingly Orthodox religious attitudes that will replace it; in part a history and analysis of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactical success in undermining the Oslo accords and his shocking humbling of President Obama. While most of Beinart’s arguments are not novel, they are presented with unerring precision. His book is full of keen insights into the contradictions and self-deceptions of his former side. It would not surprise me if this book became a lodestar for American Jews and non-Jews alike who are finding Israel’s policies increasingly difficult to defend.

Beinart throughout blends themes of Judaism and Zionism: Israel and the attitudes of American Jews toward it are each the product of Jewish ideas, often contradictory ones. While this is in many ways obvious, it violates a quite useful, usually unspoken liberal taboo: the idea that Israel is a foreign state, it does not speak for American Jews. One can see the utility of this formulation for almost everyone. When radical anti-Zionists like the ex-Israeli Gilad Atzmon emphasize the inseparability of Israel from Jewfishes, they make a lot of people uncomfortable. Beinart is neither anti-Zionist nor radical, but he is playing on the same field: for him the debate about Israel is not simply between competing political choices but about competing moral attitudes withinJudaism.

While Jews have experienced an astonishing ascent in America in the past 70or so years, this rise has not, he argues, changed attitudes at the top of major Jewish organizations. There Jews are still eternal victims, the targets of primordial anti-Semitism. Jewish strength might be reveled in privately, but it is never publicly acknowledged, much less discussed. Soul-searching over how power can be used responsibly is more or less non-existent. The leading organizations are beholden to a relatively small number of rich elderly donors, Palm Beach retirees who write checks based on appeals about “Iran, anti-Semitism, and something bad someone said about Israel.” Anyone who criticizes Israel can be smeared as an anti-Semite.

Interestingly, Beinart points out that many Jews know such charges are more often than not ridiculous but rationalize them anyway. “Jews assume that gentiles, because they are powerful, can take it, and that Jews, because of our history of persecution, can play fast and loose in the Israeli government's defense.”

The Palm Beach retirees will pass on. But Orthodox Jews will increasingly move to the forefront of Jewish organizational life, and Beinart provides ample grounds for pessimism here: modern Orthodoxy is diverse and many-layered, but leading Orthodox institutions promote attitudes that are insular or simply racist—“the soul of the Jew and the non-Jew are made of different material, "says Yeshiva University’s Hershel Schecter, an influential Orthodox rabbi. So there is every possibility that Jewish organizational life in America will move in lockstep with an increasingly right-wing Israel. Beinart notes with alarm that Israeli high-school students are far more intolerant than their elders. Occupation—the practice of it, the justification of it—breeds racism.

The principal political beneficiary of such trends is Netanyahu, Israel's most powerful figure. Netanyahu grew up in the shadow of Vladimir Jabotinsky; his father Benzion was a close associate of the charismatic founder of Revisionist(right-wing) Zionism. Jabotinsky believed that Zionism must purge Jews of their "childish humanism” and the justice-seeking Judaism of the prophets and toughen them for struggle against the Arabs. Compromise with the Palestinians was unthinkable. As late as 2009, Netanyahu’s father told an interviewer that the Arabs ought to be encouraged to flee their land by denying them food, electricity, and access to education. His son’s primary political goal has been the prevention of a Palestinian state.

While some right-wing Israelis pine openly for ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, Netanyahu’s more limited vision is to sequester the remaining Palestinians in four disconnected cantons bisected by Israeli roads and checkpoints and deprived of any agricultural areas, a bantustan plan for 40percent of the territory. The settlers would keep the rest. When he first came to office in 1996 he exploited a loophole for military bases in the Oslo Accords and declared the entire Jordan River Valley a “military zone.”

As a young man Barack Obama had been influenced by several of Chicago's leading liberal Zionists, but as a presidential candidate he began to defer to the Jewish establishment. Even so, he retained his commitment to a two-state solution. (As Beinart relates, after Obama’s election a worried Netanyahu tried to open a secret channel to White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, an effortthat was rebuffed.) But Obama found he could not prod Tel Aviv into serious negotiations without facing massive political retaliation from the Israel lobby. In 2010 he asked Israel to stop building settlements on territory that would become part of a Palestinian state, if there were to be such a state, but he was forced to retreat.

A year later, when Obama stated that the 1967 borders should be the starting point for renewed two-state negotiations—an American position for more than a generation—Netanyahu delivered what Beinart describes as “one of the most extraordinary humiliations of a president by a foreign leader in American history.”Fresh from speaking at AIPAC’s annual conference, Netanyahu replied that there was no chance of Israel withdrawing to “indefensible lines.” Then Netanyahu went before a joint session of Congress. Each member of Congress had a single gallery pass to give out, and most gave theirs to their largest AIPAC donor. With the hall packed with supporters, Netanyahu received one thundering ovation after another. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who as head of the Democratic National Committee plays a key role in party fundraising, used arm motions to signal to her colleagues when to stand and applaud, and they rose and clapped at Netanyahu’s most controversial statements.

Concluding from this that America was unlikely to help, the Palestinian Authority tried to secure United Nations backing for a state within the 1967borders. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claimed before the General Assembly that he wanted not to delegitimize Israel but to coexist with it. Though this vision of a two-state settlement was more or less identical to his own, Obama ordered the State Department into a full-court press to thwart the Palestinian initiative. One State Department official, after lobbying 150 foreign diplomats against the Palestinian effort, told Beinart, “sometimes I feel I work for the Israeli government.” The liberal Zionist American president had been brought to heel.

Beinart’s detailed history of these episodes is the best reported and most incisive one in print. It should put to rest any notion that Israel’s current government has the slightest interest in allowing the Palestinians a state or that Obama can be counted on to move Israel towards fruitful negotiations.

The author probably has sufficient establishment ties to ensure his book a fair hearing. For months now Likud-camp Zionists have worried that Beinart has aimed a Walt and Mearsheimer-sized bombshell in their direction. In contrast to the two professors, Beinart, who is Jewish, may avoid having his arguments falsely represented and being smeared as having authored an anti-Semitic book.

Formidable as it is, however, The Crisis of Zionism is not without flaws. It may not be clear exactly at what point the relentless settlement project that all Israeli governments have encouraged will render the two-state solution a political impossibility. But if that point has already been reached, or is about to be, a plea for a democratic Jewish state, no matter how persuasive, is simply no longer relevant. One can understand Beinart’s reluctance to address this question, which could only complicate his argument, while nonetheless wishing he had tried.

The Crisis of Zionism also has a problem of agency. Though few writers are more clear-eyed about the hurdles American Jews face in changing the way their community relates to Israel, Beinart nonetheless writes as if they are the sole audience that matters for a serious argument about Zionism. Perhaps that is simply realism: it can seem that, apart from the Christian Zionists shepherded to support Netanyahu’s agenda, the Mideast opinions of American gentiles simply do not count. But can such a circumstance endure? America's engagement with the Middle East once centered on the construction of schools and universities, an outgrowth of the Protestant missionary presence in the region. The first generation of Western-educated Arabs often studied in such schools, so the American presence in the region was associated with science, the education of girls and women, a modernity untainted by colonialism—in short, a genuine program of liberation. A century later, the centerpiece is Israel, and America is best known in the region through such events as its anti-Palestinian vetoes in the Security Council, the fracturing of Iraq by war, and an entire Congress standing to applaud oppressive Israeli policies. One can trace this transformation to many sources, perhaps none more decisive than the slow, silent abdication of the Protestant establishment from its positions of power and responsibility.

Yet this landscape too is beginning to shift, and it has the potential to change more rapidly than Beinart acknowledges. Just as “the question of Palestine” resonates far beyond the borders of the Palestine Mandate, so in American politics its significance has begun to be felt beyond the confines of American Jewish opinion. If American Jews are to help forge a democratic and non-racist Israel, they are unlikely to succeed without allies. It would not be without irony were such allies to be found, among other venues, among the politically active Muslim students in the American universities and those mainline Protestants who are now, finally, finding their voice to say “Enough!”to America’s unconditional support for Israel.

Scott McConnell is a founding editor of The American Conservative.

March 27, 2012

Hamdan Azhar is a New York-based writer and statistician. His commentary,which has been featured in the Huffington Post and the ChristianScience Monitor, engages critical issues involving foreign policy, civilliberties, and international affairs. To read more of his work, visit his website.

Copyright © 2012 PolicyMic

Defusing theMiddle East Would Lower Gas Prices
bySheldon Richman, March23, 2012

http://www.fff.org/comment/com1203u.asp

Republicanssee rising oil and gasoline prices as an opportunity to score political pointson President Obama. To be sure, Obama is partly responsible for the rise inworld prices and could do something about it. The irony is that Republicanswould emphatically oppose the one measure that would be most effective ineasing the pressure on prices right now: defusing tension in the Middle East bytaking the war threat against Iran off the table.

Tension in the Middle East tendsto push prices up, because the threat of war puts this major oil region under adarkening cloud of uncertainty. With Iran the tension is even greater becauseit is located on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between the PersianGulf and the Gulf of Oman, 21 nautical miles at its narrowest point. Roughly 20percent of the world’s oil moves through the strait, which is key for gettingoil from the gulf countries to the rest of the world.

Iran has threatened to mine orclose the strait in retaliation for an attack by Israel or the United States.The danger to oil tankers traversing the strait would shoot insurance pricesthrough the roof, and the price of oil would follow as the supply diminished.

Since American and Israeli wartalk directed at Iran is undoubtedly responsible for much of the recent pricerise, it stands to reason that ceasing that talk convincingly would take thepressure off and would allow prices to fall again.

So why aren’t the Republicanscalling on Obama to extend an olive branch to Iran? The answer is simple:Republicans (excepting Ron Paul) place American imperial bullying ahead ofeverything else. They may talk about the virtue of free markets and private property,but clearly their priority is American hegemony, no matter the cost in taxpayermoney and freedom.

They would rather risk cripplinglyhigh gasoline and oil prices — not to mention crippling American militarypersonnel and Iranian children — than pass up an opportunity to rattle theirsabers in defense of the American empire and to show how fierce these chickenhawks are. (Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich spent no time in themilitary, much less in a war zone. Such politicians are often the most eager tosend men and women to war.)

To hear them tell it, the veryexistence of the United States and Israel is at stake in the confrontation withIran over its alleged nuclear-weapons program. Nonsense. American and Israeliintelligence say that the Iranian government has not decided to build a nuclearweapon. Every pound of uranium in Iran’s possession is under an InternationalAtomic Energy Agency seal. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons years ago, and repeated this prohibitionas recently as February. Furthermore, no American or Israeli official seriouslybelieves that Iran would use a nuclear warhead to attack, even if it did buildone. Why not? A nuclear strike on Israel or the United States would summon adevastating second strike that would destroy Iran and its government — and noone believes the Iranian regime is suicidal. Israel’s defense minister, EhudBarak, himself says survival is the regime’s top priority.

So why the loose war talk? Whydoes Obama menace Iran without provocation by declaring that “all options areon the table,” including “all elements of American power” (emphasisadded)? Why has he imposed harsh economic sanctions, which inflict pain on theIranian people and which constitute an act of war under international law?

The reason is that America’s toppoliticians, Republican and Democrat, are locked into the imperial mindset. Intheir view, this country — more precisely, the man who presides over thenational government — is the policeman of the world. They embrace PresidentGeorge H.W. Bush’s decree from 1990: “What we say goes.” If the presidentdoesn’t like something, he reserves the authority to do something about it —militarily if “necessary.”

So they are willing to go to war,or to risk it in a deadly game of chicken, regardless of the cost in human lifeor economic growth.

More expensive gasoline for therest of us is a small price to pay for their imperial ambitions.

Sheldon Richman is seniorfellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va., author of TetheredCitizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freemanmagazine. Visit his blog Free Association at www.sheldonrichman.com.Send him email.




IsraelEncircles Iran

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/israel-encircles-iran/



By Philip Giraldi | March 27, 2012

Israel is tightening the noose around Iran. The Israeli government hassigned a secret agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to lease two formerSoviet military airfields located close to the Iranian border. One of thefacilities is being used as an intelligence collection site, with advancedSigint capabilities and preparations underway for drone operations. The otherbase is being designated a search-and-rescue facility. It will eventually havehelicopters that will presumably be dispatched to aid downed Israeli fliers ifthere is a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The base will alsohave limited refueling and recovery capabilities for planes too damaged to makethe long flight back to Israel over Iraqi or Saudi airspace. The Azerbaijanibases are much closer to the prime Iranian nuclear targets at Natanz and Fordowthan are airfields in Israel itself. Recent Iranian government and mediacomplaints about threatening Azerbaijani activities reflect official concern onthe part of Tehran over the new developments.

Tel Aviv is also increasing its presence in neighboring Georgia, which isserving as the conduit for equipment going to Azerbaijan, which is shippedthrough the Black Sea port of Poti. The Israelis control an airfield in Georgiathat is being used for intelligence gathering and logistical support for thelarge Israeli private-contractor and military-adviser presence in the country.Israeli advisers are training the Georgian army in the use of largelyU.S.-supplied military equipment and are effectively partners in the country’sintelligence and security agencies. Drones operating over northwest Iran havebeen flying out of the Georgian base. John McCain’s 2008 claim when the countrywent to war with Russia that “we are all Georgians now” becomes a lot morecomprehensible when one realizes that the drive to aid the country was largelyabout supporting Israel.

Israeli intelligence officers and military personnel inmufti are active in Iraqi Kurdistan as well, where they have been recruitingagents to collect information and carry out operations inside Iran. Many of therecruits are affiliated with Pajak, a U.S. State Department-listed terroristorganization. There are concerns within the U.S. intelligence community thatthe Israelis are playing fast and loose with their affiliation in what areknown as false-flag operations, frequently representing themselves as Americansin actions similar to those relating to Mossad’s efforts to recruit Jundallahmilitants in Western Europe. Israel also reportedly attempted to hide behind afalse flag in January when one of its drones that had been operating over Syriawent down in Turkey. The Israeli Foreign Ministry initially denied any knowledge,suggesting that the device was American. But the Turks, who have U.S. dronesflying from airbases in their own country, recognized that the drone was not ofAmerican manufacture, and the Israeli Embassy was forced to recant andeventually apologize. No apology was forthcoming to the United States. Back athome, the FBI is investigating persistent reports that Israeli intelligenceofficers operating in the U.S. are again pretending to be FBI or CIA to obtainthe cooperation of Arab-Americans.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of theCouncil for the National Interest.

Netanyahu’sMachine

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/netanyahus-machine/



TheCrisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart, Times Books, 276 pages

By Scott McConnell | Marcy 26, 2012

The Crisis of Zionism opens with Peter Beinart watching a video onhis computer sent by an Israeli friend. It depicts an incident on the occupiedWest Bank: Israeli military police arrest a Palestinian man for trying tosiphon water from the pipes that feed an Israeli settlement, after he had maderepeated efforts to secure permission. As he is taken away his five-year-oldson, Khaled, cries plaintively after him, “Baba, Baba.”

For those familiar with the occupation, the context is clear. The settlers,with the legal rights of citizens of Israel, have privileged access to theaquifers in this arid land and use water at five times the rate of thePalestinians. This inequality is secured by Israeli military law, which governsthe stateless inhabitants of this occupied territory.

Beinart describes the emotions the video set off in him:

As soon I began watching … I wished I had never turned it on. For most of mylife, my reaction to accounts of Palestinian suffering has beenrationalization, a search for reasons why the accounts are exaggerated or thesuffering self-inflicted. … But in recent years, for reasons I can’t fullyexplain, I had been lowering my defenses, and Khaled’s cries left me staring inmute horror at my computer screen.

It is a powerful passage in a book filled with them, one that encapsulatesand personalizes the inequity of the occupation, the apartheid-like legaldistinctions between Jewish settlers and Palestinians, and the grotesquedisparity between two people’s access to natural resources and civil andpolitical rights. It captures with precision the rationalizing process of manyAmerican Jews, most of whom would decry such injustice were it to occur inAmerica or elsewhere in the Western world. Finally it touches on the ineffablemystery of how sophisticated people change their minds—“I had been lowering mydefenses”—a puzzle even for those at the top rungs of opinion journalism.

Peter Beinart is a young (early-40s) and precocious former editor of TheNew Republic and “liberal hawk” who had once been a prominent voicepromoting the Iraq War. For several years now he has been recasting his views,first on American foreign policy and now on the questions of Israel and thePalestinians. He remains a liberal Zionist, committed to a Jewish state thatpractices the democratic values proclaimed at its founding: “complete equalityof social and political rights for all its inhabitants, irrespective ofreligion.” He is aware that the plausible window for creating such anIsrael—with a viable Palestinian state alongside it—is closing rapidly and maybe already shut.

The Crisis of Zionism is in part a meditation on the present“golden age of Jewish power,” a critique of the American Jewish establishment,and a less than optimistic view of the increasingly Orthodox religiousattitudes that will replace it; in part a history and analysis of Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactical success in undermining the Oslo accordsand his shocking humbling of President Obama. While most of Beinart’s argumentsare not novel, they are presented with unerring precision. His book is full ofkeen insights into the contradictions and self-deceptions of his former side.It would not surprise me if this book became a lodestar for American Jews andnon-Jews alike who are finding Israel’s policies increasingly difficult todefend.

Beinart throughout blends themes of Judaism and Zionism: Israel and theattitudes of American Jews toward it are each the product of Jewish ideas,often contradictory ones. While this is in many ways obvious, it violates aquite useful, usually unspoken liberal taboo: the idea that Israel is a foreignstate, it does not speak for American Jews. One can see the utility of thisformulation for almost everyone. When radical anti-Zionists like the ex-IsraeliGilad Atzmon emphasize the inseparability of Israel from Jewishness, they makea lot of people uncomfortable. Beinart is neither anti-Zionist nor radical, buthe is playing on the same field: for him the debate about Israel is not simplybetween competing political choices but about competing moral attitudes withinJudaism.

While Jews have experienced an astonishing ascent in America in the past 70or so years, this rise has not, he argues, changed attitudes at the top ofmajor Jewish organizations. There Jews are still eternal victims, the targetsof primordial anti-Semitism. Jewish strength might be reveled in privately, butit is never publicly acknowledged, much less discussed. Soul-searching over howpower can be used responsibly is more or less non-existent. The leadingorganizations are beholden to a relatively small number of rich elderly donors,Palm Beach retirees who write checks based on appeals about “Iran,anti-Semitism, and something bad someone said about Israel.” Anyone whocriticizes Israel can be smeared as an anti-Semite.

Interestingly, Beinart points out that many Jews know such charges are moreoften than not ridiculous but rationalize them anyway. “Jews assume thatgentiles, because they are powerful, can take it, and that Jews, because of ourhistory of persecution, can play fast and loose in the Israeli government’sdefense.”

The Palm Beach retirees will pass on. But Orthodox Jews will increasinglymove to the forefront of Jewish organizational life, and Beinart provides amplegrounds for pessimism here: modern Orthodoxy is diverse and many-layered, butleading Orthodox institutions promote attitudes that are insular or simplyracist—“the soul of the Jew and the non-Jew are made of different material,”says Yeshiva University’s Hershel Schecter, an influential Orthodox rabbi. Sothere is every possibility that Jewish organizational life in America will movein lockstep with an increasingly right-wing Israel. Beinart notes with alarmthat Israeli high-school students are far more intolerant than their elders.Occupation—the practice of it, the justification of it—breeds racism.

The principal political beneficiary of such trends is Netanyahu, Israel’smost powerful figure. Netanyahu grew up in the shadow of Vladimir Jabotinsky;his father Benzion was a close associate of the charismatic founder of Revisionist(right-wing) Zionism. Jabotinsky believed that Zionism must purge Jews of their“childish humanism” and the justice-seeking Judaism of the prophets and toughenthem for struggle against the Arabs. Compromise with the Palestinians wasunthinkable. As late as 2009, Netanyahu’s father told an interviewer that theArabs ought to be encouraged to flee their land by denying them food,electricity, and access to education. His son’s primary political goal has beenthe prevention of a Palestinian state.

While some right-wing Israelis pine openly for ethnic cleansing of the WestBank, Netanyahu’s more limited vision is to sequester the remainingPalestinians in four disconnected cantons bisected by Israeli roads andcheckpoints and deprived of any agricultural areas, a bantustan plan for 40percent of the territory. The settlers would keep the rest. When he first cameto office in 1996 he exploited a loophole for military bases in the OsloAccords and declared the entire Jordan River Valley a “military zone.”

As a young man Barack Obama had been influenced by several of Chicago’sleading liberal Zionists, but as a presidential candidate he began to defer tothe Jewish establishment. Even so, he retained his commitment to a two-statesolution. (As Beinart relates, after Obama’s election a worried Netanyahu triedto open a secret channel to White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, an effortthat was rebuffed.) But Obama found he could not prod Tel Aviv into seriousnegotiations without facing massive political retaliation from the Israellobby. In 2010 he asked Israel to stop building settlements on territory thatwould become part of a Palestinian state, if there were to be such a state, buthe was forced to retreat.

A year later, when Obama stated that the 1967 borders should be the startingpoint for renewed two-state negotiations—an American position for more than ageneration—Netanyahu delivered what Beinart describes as “one of the mostextraordinary humiliations of a president by a foreign leader in American history.”Fresh from speaking at AIPAC’s annual conference, Netanyahu replied that therewas no chance of Israel withdrawing to “indefensible lines.” Then Netanyahuwent before a joint session of Congress. Each member of Congress had a singlegallery pass to give out, and most gave theirs to their largest AIPAC donor.With the hall packed with supporters, Netanyahu received one thundering ovationafter another. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who as head of theDemocratic National Committee plays a key role in party fundraising, used armmotions to signal to her colleagues when to stand and applaud, and they roseand clapped at Netanyahu’s most controversial statements.

Concluding from this that America was unlikely to help, the PalestinianAuthority tried to secure United Nations backing for a state within the 1967borders. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas claimed before the General Assemblythat he wanted not to delegitimize Israel but to coexist with it. Though thisvision of a two-state settlement was more or less identical to his own, Obamaordered the State Department into a full-court press to thwart the Palestinianinitiative. One State Department official, after lobbying 150 foreign diplomatsagainst the Palestinian effort, told Beinart, “sometimes I feel I work for theIsraeli government.” The liberal Zionist American president had been brought toheel.

Beinart’s detailed history of these episodes is the best reported and mostincisive one in print. It should put to rest any notion that Israel’s currentgovernment has the slightest interest in allowing the Palestinians a state orthat Obama can be counted on to move Israel towards fruitful negotiations.

The author probably has sufficient establishment ties to ensure his book afair hearing. For months now Likud-camp Zionists have worried that Beinart hasaimed a Walt and Mearsheimer-sized bombshell in their direction. In contrast tothe two professors, Beinart, who is Jewish, may avoid having his argumentsfalsely represented and being smeared as having authored an anti-Semitic book.

Formidable as it is, however, The Crisis of Zionism is not withoutflaws. It may not be clear exactly at what point the relentless settlementproject that all Israeli governments have encouraged will render the two-statesolution a political impossibility. But if that point has already been reached,or is about to be, a plea for a democratic Jewish state, no matter howpersuasive, is simply no longer relevant. One can understand Beinart’sreluctance to address this question, which could only complicate his argument,while nonetheless wishing he had tried.

The Crisis of Zionism also has a problem of agency. Though fewwriters are more clear-eyed about the hurdles American Jews face in changingthe way their community relates to Israel, Beinart nonetheless writes as ifthey are the sole audience that matters for a serious argument about Zionism.Perhaps that is simply realism: it can seem that, apart from the ChristianZionists shepherded to support Netanyahu’s agenda, the Mideast opinions ofAmerican gentiles simply do not count.But can such a circumstance endure?America’s engagement with the Middle East once centered on the construction ofschools and universities, an outgrowth of the Protestant missionary presence inthe region. The first generation of Western-educated Arabs often studied insuch schools, so the American presence in the region was associated withscience, the education of girls and women, a modernity untainted bycolonialism—in short, a genuine program of liberation. A century later, thecenterpiece is Israel, and America is best known in the region through suchevents as its anti-Palestinian vetoes in the Security Council, the fracturingof Iraq by war, and an entire Congress standing to applaud oppressive Israelipolicies. One can trace this transformation to many sources, perhaps none moredecisive than the slow, silent abdication of the Protestant establishment fromits positions of power and responsibility.

Yet this landscape too is beginning to shift, and it has the potential tochange more rapidly than Beinart acknowledges. Just as “the question ofPalestine” resonates far beyond the borders of the Palestine Mandate, so inAmerican politics its significance has begun to be felt beyond the confines ofAmerican Jewish opinion. If American Jews are to help forge a democratic andnon-racist Israel, they are unlikely to succeed without allies. It would not bewithout irony were such allies to be found, among other venues, among thepolitically active Muslim students in the American universities and thosemainline Protestants who are now, finally, finding their voice to say “Enough!”to America’s unconditional support for Israel.

Scott McConnell is a founding editor of The American Conservative.

Bill Gibbons Inbox

Lattigo Smith <lattigo26@yahoo.com> Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 4:12 PM To: "gibb@azci.net" <gibb@azci.net> Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original March 15, 2012 For a few years I voted for the lesser of two evils. Then I discovered there was no such thing as lesser than two evils, because politicians of both political parties are evil and there is very little difference in the parties. I can say this, because both parties are supported and controlled by the same people; the SUPER RICH ZIONIST. With that is mind, let us look at the Republican Party candidates for president. Romney, Gingrich and Santorum are receiving all the favorable publicity and the most money. That is because either candidate will be acceptable by our unelected rulers, once they are nominated by the Republican Party. That alone should be enough to let you know that neither one can be trusted to do anything good for the people. That is: they will represent the men and women that paid for their election and the rest of us can go and suck a hind tit. Ron Paul is ignored by the media and does not receive any of the big money, because he is not accepted by the major media barons and the SUPER RICH ZIONIST, that is why Paul should be nominated and elected for president. He is the only one that can beat Obama, because he is the only one that is any different than Obama. The other three are Bush-Obama clones and will be a worse president than Obama - Bill Gibbons. Ron Paul’s Hour of Decision by Justin Raimondo, March 14, 2012 http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/13/ron-pauls-hour-of-decision/ Is Ron Paul running for president in the wrong party? The results of the GOP primaries, so far, would certainly seem to suggest that. Paul’s support draws heavily from two constituencies one doesn’t normally associate with the Republican party: young voters, who are overwhelmingly independents, and antiwar voters, who tend to be Democrats. He has carried the youth vote and garnered a significant proportion of independents in virtually every contest: more significantly, polls show him beating President Obama in the general election by winning a huge portion of the independent and youth votes. Combined with the anybody-but-Obama vote, Paul’s potential base of support in a two-way race defines the contours of a winning electoral coalition, one that could win him the White House, bring about a major political realignment – and upend the political Establishment in this country. The problem, for Paul, is that the GOP leadership is implacably opposed to his candidacy: never mind all that nonsense about a Romney-Paul “alliance,” which was just an invention of the “mainstream” media pushed by the Santorum campaign. After all, the Romneyites stole the Maine caucuses right out from under the Paul campaign, and are doing their best to repeat the same fraud in the rest of the caucus states. Some “alliance”! Three factors have kept Paul from being a real contender: not only the hostility of the leadership and the age demographics of the average Republican primary voter – which is well over 40 – but also the ideological factor. After a decade and more of neoconservative domination, not only of the party but of the conservative movement, the GOP is the War Party. For the Paul campaign, this is fatal. Ron has made his anti-interventionist views the linchpin of his campaign: he never fails to bring up the issue of war and peace, even when discussing some economic or social topic. That’s because he realizes – unlike some “libertarians” – the issue is central to the question of rolling back the power of government to rule our lives. While Paul regularly invokes the “Old Right” and the legacy of Robert A. Taft and the Taft Republicans, this tradition has been long forgotten by Republican voters – and deliberately buried and disdained by the party’s intellectuals, such as they are, who regularly rail against “isolationism” and hail FDR and Winston Churchill as their chosen icons. The result is that, after an initial spurt of success – starting out with a respectable showing in Iowa, and placing second in New Hampshire – the Paul campaign has fallen back to its 2008 levels, with Ron rarely breaking 10 percent. The response of the Paul campaign has been to hunker down and reassure its enthusiastic supporters – and they haven’t lost their enthusiasm, not by a long shot – that they have a strategy. That strategy is to concentrate on getting delegates, rather than winning “beauty contests,” i.e. primaries in which the results don’t determine who gets the delegates. In many states, the process of delegate selection is long and involved, with county, regional, and state-wide conventions being held to determine who gets to go to Tampa. Given the dedication of the Paulians, and their superior organizational skills, the idea is that Ron will get many more delegates than his vote totals in the primaries would indicate, through sheer perseverance. However, the process hasn’t always worked out that way. The Paulians, having devoted themselves to learning the arcane rules governing delegate selection, and playing by the book, often arrive at these conventions to find that the rule book has been thrown out by the party leadership. Huge fights have broken out at these shindigs, and the going has been pretty rough: when the party leaders arrive to find the hall packed with under-30 Paulians, all waving signs and wearing buttons, suddenly the rules are “revised,” and the Paulian playbook is no longer applicable. The Paul campaign started out with the odds stacked against it: the GOP leadership and the “mainstream” media both did everything they could to smear, discredit, and discount him and his supporters. This effort failed: Ron emerged from the pack, and went on to create what is arguably the most vital and alive movement this country has seen since the 1960s. However, the growth and development of the Paulian movement has now reached its limits within the confines of the GOP, like a potted plant whose roots can no longer be contained. Either the plant is put in the ground, or its roots will become so stunted that the plant will wither and die. In short, the Paulians must make a decision: either break free of the bonds of the GOP, or else face a future of dwindling political fortunes. Consider the two likeliest scenarios: 1) Romney gains the magic number of 1144 delegates before the Tampa convention, and is declared the winner: i.e. it’s a repeat of the McCain victory in 2008. And we all remember what happened in 2008: Ron was locked out of the convention, and the Paulians held their own well-attended convention down the street. Paul never endorsed McCain (perish the thought!), and the neocon-run McCain campaign managed to run their candidate – and the GOP – into the ground. Now, however, we are confronted with a quite different prospect: a brokered convention. With no candidate winning the magic number of delegates, the usual nominating convention-as-coronation scenario is thrown out the window, and what the mainstream media and party officials refer to as “chaos” reigns in Tampa. Translation: the convention will revert back to the way these events normally played out in the Good Old Days, before Big Money and Big Media turned them into political Kabuki theater, with the players and the outcome predetermined from the start. While this prospect is refreshing, and even exciting – as any disruption in our ritualized political process would be – it still doesn’t hold out much hope for the Paul campaign. The reason is because, short of Paul getting the nomination, there is nothing concrete to be gained from a brokered convention. With Romney in the lead, delegate-wise, a brokered convention will center on efforts by the Not-Romneys to put together a coalition capable of grabbing the nomination away from Mitt. Yet the Paulians are highly unlikely to be a part of this Not-Romney coalition – unless, of course, they ditch their principles and their whole rationale for launching the campaign to begin with. For this would mean voting for an anti-libertarian schmuck, i.e. either Santorum or Gingrich. That, I believe, is never going to happen: if it did, the Paulian movement would immediately implode, given the enormity of the sell-out. There is, on the other hand, another possibility, and that is allying with the Romneyites against the Santorum and Gingrich camps. Yet, again, we are faced with the question of what concrete rewards the Paulians could expect to gain from such a dark alliance. In my view, a realistic answer to that question is: exactly nothing. In the view of some Paul campaign officials, however, the answer is not so clear, as this televised interview with campaign manager Jesse Benton demonstrates. Ignore the typically biased and obnoxious demeanor of the interviewer, and focus on Benton’s answers toward the end, when he says a brokered convention could yield all sorts of rewards for the Paul campaign, such as “a cabinet position,” changes in the party platform — and even “the vice-presidency”! It’s hard to decide whether this kind of speculation is delusional or just a way of reassuring Paul’s supporters that there’s a good reason to keep sending in the campaign contributions and pinning their hopes on making a splash in Tampa. As we all know, however, a stone makes a splash before it sinks to the bottom of the pond…. The idea that Romney is going to offer the vice-presidential nomination to Ron – or his son, Rand, freshly elected to the Senate from Kentucky – is a pipe dream. The party leadership would never allow it, the convention might well rebel (as a way of expressing conservative discontent with the candidate), and – in my opinion – Romney would never offer it in the first place. As for changes in the party platform [.pdf] – so what? No one pays attention to these documents, not even the candidates, who are not bound by them. A cabinet position would be a paltry prize indeed, and accepting such a deal – handing the nomination to Romney in exchange for, say, making Nick Gillespie the drug czar – or, more likely, making Rand Paul Transportation Secretary – would be a humiliating end to what started out as a noble crusade. In each case, the price the Paul campaign would have to pay for such ill-gotten “gains” would be so high that the result would be the effective end of the Paulian movement: that’s because the price would be supporting the nominee, i.e. Mitt Romney, with a personal endorsement from Ron. I, for one, can’t imagine him doing that: whenever he’s asked if he would consider supporting the eventual nominee, Paul gives every indication that the answer is no. He explains why in this interview, in which he emphasizes the Republicans’ warmongering as a major reason not to endorse any of them. Viewed objectively, and with the long-range goals of the Paulians in mind, there is only one road forward for the movement: the third party route. Running on a third party ticket would give Paul access to the votes of his natural constituency: the young independents disgusted with both parties who yearn for real change – i.e. a revolution – in Washington. It would give the Old Right remnant in the GOP, which Paul has reawakened from its long sleep, a place to go in November, while also making room for independents, antiwar voters, civil libertarians, disillusioned Obamaites, and other constituencies unlikely to be caught dead voting in a Republican primary. Polls indicate Paul would get anywhere from 18 percent to 21 percent running as a third party candidate, and the percentage seem to be climbing as the actual election draws nearer. These same polls indicate he would draw two-thirds of his votes from the Republican column, but I don’t think these “drill-down” analyses hold much water: what they leave out is non-voters, new voters, and – most important of all – future events. If the US starts bombing Iran before election day, or, say, we have another economic meltdown, as we did in the winter of 2008, then all bets are off – and the prospect of a Paul victory becomes more than mere wishful thinking. A Paul third party candidacy would not only open up a prospect that, right now, seems highly unlikely if not impossible – i.e. Ron Paul sitting in the Oval Office – it would also place significant constraints on the other candidates, including President Obama. Faced only with a warmongering Republican, Obama can pretty much do whatever he likes when it comes to provoking, sanctioning, and threatening Iran: after all, antiwar voters have nowhere else to go. With Paul in the race, however, Obama is going to have to be very careful not to lose his left-ish antiwar constituency, which has so far stuck with him as the lesser to the two evils. If and when Obama makes his move against Iran, Paul’s third party campaign will be right there, scarfing up votes from the President’s disillusioned and angry former supporters. Indeed, the ultimate effect of a Paulian third party ticket could well be preventing the outbreak of a major war in the Middle East. This, it seems to me, is a factor the Paul campaign is going to have to weigh in the balance as it considers its options. In terms of the Paulians’ own principles – especially their characteristic opposition to wars of aggression on moral grounds – this is a powerful argument for launching a third party campaign. We don’t endorse candidates here at Antiwar.com, and for a very good reason: we’re a journalistic enterprise, not a political organization, and we don’t take orders from any party central committee or faction. Nor do we give a blank check to any politician – no, not even Ron Paul. There can be little doubt, however, that the Paul campaign has had a tremendous effect on the antiwar movement in this country, with several longtime peace campaigners taking up Paul’s cause. He has become a symbol of the anti-interventionist impulse in modern American politics, and his political fate is bound up to a large extent with the fate of the antiwar movement – and the prospects for peace in the 21st century. He has moved the discourse forward, challenging the premises of the interventionists at every turn and upholding a consistent vision of a republic that respects the sovereignty of all and seeks to lead by example rather than by force. If his voice is stilled after the Tampa convention, American voters will be left with a “choice” of an outright warmonger in Republican clothing versus our somewhat less overtly belligerent albeit no less interventionist sitting President, whose foreign policy record is worse than his predecessor’s. Ron Paul’s last hurrah cannot – must not — be a “deal” made in Tampa, and I’d be willing to bet the ranch no such deal will be forthcoming. Speaking as a political analyst, and not a partisan, I would venture to say the Paulian movement will peter out and come to nothing if it stays locked within a Republican straitjacket. Liberated from their partisan constraints, Paul’s supporters will be spared the Long March through the GOP apparatus, and instead of wasting their time running for county central committee they’ll be freed up to make the case for peace directly to the American people. What course the Paul campaign takes in the next few weeks will determine the nature of his political legacy. If it ends in Tampa, then the fate of the Paulian movement will be reflected in this bit of verse from the poet Robinson Jeffers, whose fierce “isolationism” caused him to be exiled from polite “liberal” circles in the run up to World War II: “While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire “And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens, “I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.” Paul has often been asked if he’d run as a third party candidate, and he always gives the same ambiguous answer – and that was necessary, at the time, and proper. However, the moment is fast approaching when ambiguity on this matter becomes increasingly counterproductive, as far as advancing the cause of peace and liberty is concerned. In politics, timing is everything. Before the movement he created passes the apex of its influence in the GOP and begins to lose its relevance, the candidate and the campaign must stop at this crossroads and contemplate their ultimate direction. The hour of decision has arrived. NOTES IN THE MARGIN I would note, for my readers’ information, that this decision cannot wait until the Tampa convention this summer: the most likely vehicle for a Paul third party run, the Libertarian Party, holds its nominating convention at the beginning of May. While it seems likely the LP nomination is Paul’s if he seeks it, the reality is that Paul’s hour of decision will arrive a lot sooner than late August, when the Tampa convention is scheduled to take place. An alternative would be to run on the Constitution Party ticket, which has ballot status in many states: however, the baggage this particular political formation carries may well be a burden the Paulians will wind up wishing they didn’t have to carry. There’s always the course of launching an independent ticket from scratch, but that would be costly and prone to disruption by Republican operatives. Remember how the Democrats followed the Naderites from state to state, mounting harassing lawsuits and keeping Nader off the ballot in several instances? The GOP would no doubt launch a similar operation directed at Paul. For more on this subject, including my take on how Sen. Rand Paul’s political future plays into all this, see my recent column in Chronicles magazine.   How To Win America for Ron Paul and the Cause of Freedom in 2012 Reviewed by Becky Akers Recently by Becky Akers: The 'Show Me' States http://lewrockwell.com/akers/akers181.html By Allan Stevo. CreateSpace, 2012. [$3.99 Kindle, $12.68 paperback – but that’s negotiable: "At the author's request, in order to increase the distribution of this title, the price of this edition has been set lower than usual for a text of this nature." Likewise, Thomas Paine devoted his profits from Common Sense to General George Washington’s hungry, cash-strapped troops. I didn’t want to read, let alone review, this book. It’s about the nuts and bolts – in fact, one chapter even bears that title – of political campaigning. Specifically, campaigning for Ron Paul so that he wins the Republican primary. But I’m an anarchist, with no faith in politics or the State and indeed, an intense hatred of both. Author Allan Stevo describes folks like me perfectly on page 38: we "generally dismiss the role of government as a circus and a waste of time and energy." We love liberty with every fiber of our being; some of us, including me, even find political theory and philosophy fascinating. But the down-and-dirty, how-to-win machinations? No thanks. They exemplify everything we loathe about the State, its lies and manipulations. By page 13, Allan Stevo had transformed my reluctance to raving enthusiasm. Indeed, I’d go so far as to insist that this is one of the most important texts friends of freedom can read in the next few months. And it is incredibly empowering, too, because Mr. Stevo’s central idea is that our efforts, not those of the official Ron Paul Campaign or even of the good doctor himself, let alone the corporate media (or lack thereof), will crown him victor at the Republican Convention this August. And that, in Mr. Stevo’s opinion, is more essential than Dr. Paul’s ultimately winning the presidential election. Why? Because "America is a place where neighbors rarely speak openly about politics, and when they do, it is usually only to repeat media sound bites. An Obama/Paul race will change that. Two differing ideologies will Clash [sic]. One for greater individual freedom. The other for more government. This competition of ideas will not occur with other Republican candidates, since they are ideologically aligned with President Obama when it comes to the power of the individual over the power of the state." [p. 2] Mr. Stevo believes the echoes of Dr. Paul’s debate with Obummer will reverberate for decades: "These two men will face off and provide America with two different choices for what the future holds. America will have the opportunity to decisively choose which of those paths [to – sic] take. Never in my life have I been able to experience America the way America will look come autumn of 2012 as economic conditions worsen and Americans look to two very different philosophies to explain the cause and correction of the nation’s problems." [p. 2-3] But given the mainstream’s studiously ignoring or venomously savaging Dr. Paul, how can he win the Republican nomination? Mr. Stevo provides the answer – a relatively obvious and simple but explosively brilliant one – from his experience as both a worker on campaigns and as a candidate himself (he ran for the US House of Representatives in Illinois’ tenth district during 2005). He advocates "reaching across the aisle" to Democratic friends via "social media" and asking them to register as Republicans – I know: ugh! But it’s only for the primary – then vote for the only guy in either party firmly and consistently working against the Amerikan Empire. After all, he points out, "Ron Paul is the lone pro-peace vote for president and his party affiliation doesn’t change that fact." [p.13] (Besides, voting for Dr. P will infuriate the "real" Republicans, the Newts and Mitts and neocons and fascists, which is a fine goal in itself.) Ergo, he suggests "writ[ing your Democratic] … Facebook friends to try to open up dialogues of understanding, and ultimately asking them to register Republican in order to vote for Ron Paul. I hope you will write your friends through email or any other social network you use. These people are what I will refer to as your ‘social precinct’…" Mr. Stevo theorizes that "social precincts" are far more valuable and viable than the geographic precincts they are superseding, especially for Ron Paul’s internet-savvy fans. He discusses the use of precincts in Chicago, whose politics he has studied and in which he’s participated for over 20 years, and shows how our "social," online ones trump them: "What Americans today are lacking in relationships with their neighbors, they are making up for in relationships online at a distance," he writes [p 40]. And you can very effectively "work" this precinct for liberty, following the three-part strategy he outlines in his book: Step I. Communicate with your friend. Step II. Get a promise from him to vote for Ron Paul. Step III. Make sure he gets out to vote for Ron Paul.* *The third step is twofold: A. See to it that your friend is registered properly in his state to vote for Ron Paul. B. See to it that your friend gets out to the polling place or caucusing location to vote for Ron Paul on election day. Intriguingly, Mr. Stevo contrasts the influence each of us wields over friends and family with his efforts on phone-banks during various campaigns. Though he invested dozens of hours calling strangers and asking them to vote for Dr. P, he wonders if any of them actually did; he compares that with his proven success in requesting friends do so and urges us to follow suit. (This isn’t an either/or proposition; as he explains later, we should milk our "social precincts" fully and then volunteer our efforts on the larger campaign.) It’s no wonder Mr. Stevo convinces so many of his friends to pull the lever for peace and liberty: he’s conciliatory and diplomatic. His attitude, even towards those with whom he disagrees, is collaborative: Both I and my socialist, Big-Government Democratic friends crave peace, and Ron Paul is the only candidate we can count on to give it to us. Therefore, I am presenting my buddy with something he very much wants – he just doesn’t realize it’s out there. Or if he does, no one has yet given him the opportunity to to vote for it. So I am not a pest, I am a chum explaining how together we can achieve what we want. Effective spokesmen for liberty and its champion, Dr. P, don’t argue with friends who reject our message. We simply move on to those who agree and welcome it. Mr. Stevo also recommends wisely using the limited hours until June 26 (the date of Utah’s primary, the last before the convention). He cautions against wasting time on the pursuits so many of us erroneously rate "important," such as participating in online polls or commenting on websites denouncing Dr. Paul. These don’t guarantee any votes, he points out: our efforts are better spent educating our "social precincts." You’ve got to love an author so devoted to liberty’s ascension that he pleads on page 74 (out of 215), "…please stop reading this book now. Please put it down, and get to work." [Original emphasis.] I didn’t obey and lay the book aside because of its easy, friendly style and charm (despite the many typos plaguing such a hastily written and published manuscript). Still, I breezed through the whole thing in a few hours. You can, too. I strongly echo one reviewer’s advice on Amazon: not only should you immediately read Mr. Stevo’s book, you should "Buy several copies, distribute them amongst your friends!" March 14, 2012 Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about the American Revolution. Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given. The 0% Doctrine Obama breaks new ground when it comes to war with Iran by Tom Engelhardt, March 12, 2012 http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2012/03/11/the-0-doctrine/ When I was young, the Philadelphia Bulletin ran cartoon ads that usually featured a man in trouble — dangling by his fingers, say, from an outdoor clock. There would always be people all around him, but far too engrossed in the daily paper to notice. The tagline was: “In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads the Bulletin.” Those ads came to mind recently when President Obama commented forcefully on war, American-style, in ways that were remarkably radical. Although he was trying to ward off a threatened Israeli preemptive air strike against Iran, his comments should have shocked Americans — but just about nobody noticed. I don’t mean, of course, that nobody noticed the president’s statements. Quite the contrary: they were headlined, chewed over in the press and by pundits. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich attacked them. Fox News highlighted their restraint. (“Obama calls for containing Iran, says ‘too much loose talk of war.’”) The Huffington Post highlighted the support for Israel they represented. (“Obama Defends Policies Toward Israel, Fends Off Partisan Critiques.”) Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu pushed back against them in a potentially deadly U.S.-Israeli dance that might bring new chaos to the Middle East. But somehow, amid all the headlines, commentary, and analysis, few seemed to notice just what had really changed in our world. The president had offered a new definition of “aggression”against this country and a new war doctrine to go with it. He would, he insisted, take the U.S. to war not to stop another nation from attacking us or even threatening to do so, but simply to stop it from building a nuclear weapon — and he would act even if that country were incapable of targeting the United States. That should have been news. Consider the most startling of his statements: just before the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, the president gave a 45-minute Oval Office interview to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. A prominent pro-Israeli writer, Goldberg had produced an article in the September issue of that magazine headlined “The Point of No Return.” In it, based on interviews with “roughly 40 current and past Israeli decision makers about a military strike,” he had given an Israeli air attack on Iran a 50% chance of happening by this July. From the recent interview, here are Obama’s key lines: I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say. Later, he added this chilling note: “I think it’s fair to say that the last three years, I’ve shown myself pretty clearly willing, when I believe it is in the core national interest of the United States, to direct military actions, even when they entail enormous risks.” The next day, in a speech meant to stop “loose talk about war” in front of a powerful pro-Israeli lobbying outfit, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the president offered an even stronger formula, worth quoting at length. Speaking of seeing the consequences of his decisions to use force “in the eyes of those I meet who’ve come back gravely wounded,” he said: And for this reason, as part of my solemn obligation to the American people, I will only use force when the time and circumstances demand it…. We all prefer to resolve this issue diplomatically. Having said that, Iran’s leaders should have no doubt about the resolve of the United States — just as they should not doubt Israel’s sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs. I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power … and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency. Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I have made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests. An American president couldn’t come closer to saying that, should American intelligence conclude the Iranians were building a nuclear weapon, we would attack. The next day, again addressing an AIPAC audience, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta set the president’s commitment in stone: “No greater threat exists to Israel, to the entire region, and indeed to the United States, than a nuclear-armed Iran…. Military action is the last alternative if all else fails, but make no mistake: When all else fails, we will act.” The Power of Precedents To understand what’s truly new here, it’s necessary to back up a few years. After all, precedent is a powerful thing, and these statements do have a single precedent in the atomic age (though not one the president would profess to admire): the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. After all, one clearly stated reason for the invasion was Saddam Hussein’s supposed nuclear program as well as one to produce biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). In a series of speeches starting in August 2002, President George W. Bush publicly accused the Iraqi dictator of having an active nuclear program. His vice president hit the news and public-affairs talk-show circuit with a set of similar accusations, and his secretary of state spoke of the danger of mushroom clouds rising over American cities. (“We do know that [Saddam] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon…. [W]e don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”) At the same time, the Bush administration made an effort — now long forgotten — to convince Congress that the United States was in actual danger of an Iraqi WMD attack, possibly from anthrax, in the immediate future. President Bush suggested publicly that, with unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), Saddam might have the ability to spray East Coast cities with chemical or biological weapons. And Congress was given fear-inducing classified private briefings on this. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, for example, claimed that he voted for the administration’s resolution authorizing force in Iraq because “I was told not only that [Saddam had weapons of mass destruction] and that he had the means to deliver them through unmanned aerial vehicles, but that he had the capability of transporting those UAVs outside of Iraq and threatening the homeland here in America, specifically by putting them on ships off the eastern seaboard.” Driving the need to produce evidence, however fantastic or fabricated, of a possible threat to the U.S. was a radical new twist on war-making 101. In the days after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney proposed that even a 1% chance of an attack on the United States, especially involving weapons of mass destruction, must be dealt with as if it were a certainty. Journalist Ron Suskind dubbed it “the one percent doctrine.” It may have been the rashest formula for “preventive” or “aggressive”war offered in the modern era. Of course, the fact that Saddam’s Iraq had no nuclear program, no biological or chemical weapons, no functioning drones, and no way of reaching the East Coast of the United States proved strike three for critics of the Bush administration. Missed was what was truly new in the invasion: not just the 1% doctrine itself, but the idea — a first on planet Earth — of going to war over the possibility that another country might be in possession of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. Until then, such a concept hadn’t been in the strategic vocabulary. Quite the opposite: in the Cold War years, nuclear weapons were thought of as “deterrence” or, in the case of the two massively nuclear-armed superpowers of that era, “mutually assured destruction” (with its fabulously grim acronym, MAD). Those weapons, that is, were considered guarantors, however counterintuitively, against an outbreak of war. Their possession was a kind of grisly assurance that your opponent wouldn’t attack you, lest you both be destroyed. In that spirit, between the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the Iraqi invasion of March 2003, seven countries — the Soviet Union, England, France, China, Israel (though its large nuclear arsenal remains unacknowledged), India, and Pakistan — all went nuclear without anybody suggesting that they be attacked simply for possessing such weapons. An eighth country — white-ruled South Africa — actually assembled six nuclear weapons, and later became the only country to de-nuclearize itself. South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, and Brazil all had incipient nuclear programs, though none produced weapons. Japan is today considered to be at a point the Iranians have not yet reached: “breakout capacity,”or the ability to build a nuclear weapon relatively quickly if a decision to do so were made. In 2006, North Korea set off its first nuclear test and, within years, had become the ninth active nuclear power. In other words, in 2003, the idea that the possession of nuclear weapons or simply of an “active” nuclear program that might one day produce such weapons was a casus belli represented something new. And when it became clear that Saddam had no nuclear program, no weapons of mass destruction at all, that explanation for American war-making, for what Jonathan Schell once dubbed “disarmament wars” — so visibly fraudulent — seemed to disappear into the dustbin of history. War and the Presidential “I” Until now, that is. Whether he meant to or not, in his latest version of Iran war policy President Obama has built on the Bush precedent. His represents, however, an even more extreme version, which should perhaps be labeled the 0% Doctrine. In holding off an Israeli strike that may itself be nothing but a bluff, he has defined a future Iranian decision to build a nuclear weapon as a new form of aggression against the United States. We would, as the president explained to Jeffrey Goldberg, be committing our military power against Iran not to prevent an attack on the U.S. itself, but a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. And by the way, note that he didn’t say, “We don’t bluff.” His formulation was: “I don’t bluff.” And that “I” should not be ignored. The Bush administration promoted a cult of presidential power, of (as they called it at the time) a “unitary executive.” No one in the White House uses such a term these days, any more than they use the term “Global War on Terror,” but if both terms have disappeared, the phenomena they named have only intensified. The Global War on Terror, with its burgeoning secret military, the elite special operations forces, and its growing drone air force, controlled in part by the CIA, should be thought of as the president’s private war. In addition, as legal scholar Jonathan Turley wrote recently, when it comes to drone assassinations (or “targeted killings” as they are now more politely known), Attorney General Eric Holder has just claimed for the president the “authority to kill any American if he unilaterally determines them to be a threat to the nation.”In doing so, added Turley, “Obama has replaced the constitutional protections afforded to citizens with a ‘trust me’ pledge.” With terror in its crosshairs, war, in other words, is increasingly becoming the president’s private preserve and strikes on the enemy, however defined, a matter of his own private judgment. It is no longer a matter of “we,” but of a presidential “I”when it comes to unleashing attacks in what has become a global free-fire zone for those drones and special-ops forces. War, in other words, is increasingly lodged in the Oval Office and a commander-in-chief executive. As the Libyan intervention suggested, like the American people, Congress is, at best, an afterthought — even though this Congress would rubber-stamp a presidential act of war against Iran without a second thought. The irony is that the president has propounded a war-making policy of unprecedented extremity at a moment when there is no evidence that the Iranians are pursuing a bomb — not yet at least. The “supreme leader” of their theocratic state has termed the possession of nuclear weapons “a grave sin” and U.S. national intelligence estimates have repeatedly concluded that the Iranians are not, in fact, moving to build nuclear weapons. If, however — and it’s a giant if — Iran actually got the bomb, if a 10th country joined the nuclear club (with others to follow), it would be bad news, and the world would be a worse place for it, but not necessarily that greatly changed. What could change the world in a radical way, however, is the 0% doctrine — and the trend more generally to make war the personal prerogative of an American president, while ceding to the U.S. military what was once the province and power of diplomacy. Copyright 2012 Tom Engelhardt The Resistance Rises: Restoring the 'Castle Doctrine' by William Norman Grigg Recently by William Norman Grigg: 'Officer Safety' Uber Alles: The Coercion Cartel's Prime Directive http://lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w249.html As the lower house of the Indiana State Legislature approved Senate Bill 1 on March 1, Representative Linda Lawson lamented that if it were passed the measure would signal that it’s "open season on law enforcement." "You have men and women in your community who are willing to die for you, willing to die for your family," insisted Lawson, who – as a former police officer herself – spoke on behalf of 15,000 members of the police union. The only suitable way to display proper gratitude to the heroic paladins of public order, according to Lawson, is to protect their purported authority to invade your home and kill you with impunity – a privilege that would be undermined by SB 1. The text of SB 1 states that its legislative purpose "is to protect citizens from unlawful entry into their homes by law enforcement officers or persons pretending to be law enforcement officers. Both citizens and law enforcement officers benefit from clear guidance about the parameters of lawful home entry, which will reduce the potential for violence and respect the privacy and property of citizens." To that end, the bill recognizes that an individual "may use force … to prevent or terminate a law enforcement officer’s unlawful entry." Although Lawson’s hunting metaphor was probably used because it was a convenient cliché, it contains a deeper significance that should not be ignored: Like the rest of the State’s exalted brotherhood of coercion, she assumes that the privacy of the individual’s home falls within the police officer’s natural habitat. SB1 is not an innovation; it simply restores an explicit understanding of Indiana’s "castle doctrine," which was subverted last year in the Indiana State Supreme Court’s Barnes v. State ruling. As a wire service report observed at the time, that ruling effectively nullified the core protections contained in the Fourth Amendment and the equivalent provision in the Indiana constitution, as well as protections and immunities recognized by "common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215." The 3–2 decision last May 12 held that Indiana residents have no right to obstruct unlawful police incursions into their homes. As summarized by a legislative report last November, the incident that gave rise to the Barnes ruling occurred four years earlier, when police were summoned to the home of Richard Barnes and his wife by a 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance. Barnes was in the parking lot arguing with his girlfriend when the police arrived. She had already thrown a duffel bag of his belongings outside the apartment, and told him to "take the rest of his stuff." As Barnes re-entered the apartment to do so, the police attempted to follow him inside. Barnes quite properly told the police to stay out, and enforced that lawful order by shoving a police officer who disobeyed. Barnes was charged with Battery on a Police Officer, Resisting Law Enforcement, Disorderly Conduct, and Interfering with the Reporting of a Crime. The judge rejected a proposed jury instruction that Barnes had the right to resist unlawful police entry, and he was convicted on the second and third charges. The Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court committed a reversible error by rejecting that jury instruction. The state, frantic appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld Barnes’s conviction. "We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," wrote Justice Steven David. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest." Although the "risks" to a police officer in such an encounter are vanishingly small, we shouldn’t forget that at all times, and in all places, "officer safety" is the controlling priority. "It's not surprising that [the court] would say there's no right to beat the hell out of the officer," commented Professor Ivan Bodensteiner of Valparaiso University School of Law. When a cop invades a home without legal authority, he is acting as a criminal, rather than a peace officer. SB 1 recognizes that principle by focusing on the act of illegal entry, rather than the identity of the aggressor. The measure allows for forcible entry only when the officer has a valid warrant or legitimate probable cause; is in pursuit of a criminal suspect; or is acting with the consent or on the invitation of an adult resident. In other words: It would restore the status quo ante Barnes, which – in nullifying the Fourth Amendment – actually issued a hunting license to the police. Last June, 71 members of the state legislature filed a petition with the Supreme Court protesting the Barnes decision and demanding that it be revisited. In September, the Court issued a ruling reiterating the claim that "the Castle Doctrine is not a defense to the crime of battery or other violent acts on a police officer," and recognizing that the state legislature had the authority to create statutory defenses against that supposed crime. "Our laws, our statutes, our Constitution, and the value of our country [were built] on one premise, and that was to defend our citizens against the government –not defend our government against our citizens," noted State Senator Mike Young of Indianapolis, author of SB 1. "The [Barnes] ruling was a ruling that defended the government against the citizens." Rep. Jud McMillin of Dearborn, who wrote the house version of the bill, added: "The distinction here is not between police officers and citizens. The distinction to be made here is between what is lawful and what is unlawful. In a society where we value our freedoms, we cannot have a bright-line test that tells people when they cannot exercise their freedoms."* Such talk is intolerable to those employed by Indiana’s affiliate of the Homeland Security State, who insist that public policy must preserve the privileges of the powerful, rather that the rights of the individual. "We believe people have the right to be secure in their homes," testified Hendricks County Sheriff Dave Galloway, uttering a sentence pregnant with the invalidating conjunction "but" – which, of course, followed immediately. "But the people who hear about this law are going to think it’s okay to kill a law enforcement officer. What you and I think is `reasonable’ isn’t the same as somebody high on meth. They’re going to shoot first, and ask questions later." A far greater and more common danger is that posed by police officers who are high on the most lethal of all narcotics – power. The official position of the Indiana Fraternal Order of Police is that any use of coercive force by the State’s costumed enforcers is self-validating. "Our position is there is never an opportunity to resist law enforcement," insisted Bill Owensby, president of the Indianapolis FOP. A great deal is revealed in Owensby’s choice of adverb: "Never" would apply to situations in which police officers commit unambiguous crimes against person and property. Among the most prominent critics of SB 1 are rent-seeking activists and social engineers attached to the state’s domestic violence industry, who insist that the measure would impede the ability of police to respond to situations involving spousal abuse. Under the "no-resistance" doctrine, however, a police officer can commit domestic violence and then charge the victim with a crime if she resists. As was illustrated by the case of Jerry Cunningham, the former assistant chief of the Danville, Indiana Police Department, police and prosecutors are eager to extenuate crimes of domestic violence when perpetrated by a member of their hyper-violent sodality. In October 2010, Cunningham – who was in the middle of a divorce – tracked his estranged wife to another man’s home. After tearing down the screen door, Cunningham began what was described as an "altercation" in which he slapped his wife and slugged her paramour. A neighbor called 911 to report the incident, but made the mistake of identifying Cunningham as a police officer. As a result, rather than being "cuffed and stuffed" by a SWAT team, Cunningham received the personal attention of Chief Keith Gill, who displayed unaccustomed daintiness in bringing in his underling. Rather than booking him immediately into the jail, Gill took Cunningham to his home "to find out what’s going on – call for help, call for some counseling," the Chief later recounted. After being placed on paid vacation (which was hastily redefined as "medical leave" in order to keep him on the payroll after the police merit board ruled that he be suspended without pay), Cunningham faced three charges, including a felonious unlawful home entry. He was eventually found guilty only of one count of misdemeanor battery. He was given a 363-day suspended jail sentence and slapped with a fine of $1. He was also permitted to keep his job, albeit with a reduction in rank to patrolman – a position in which, under the Barnes ruling, he would be permitted to invade homes at will and shoot anyone who resists his criminal aggression. Cunningham was not the only domestic abuser on the payroll of the Danville PD, nor was he even the most violent offender; that distinction belongs to Officer Chris Gill, the Chief’s son. According to his ex-wife Teresa, Officer Gill repeatedly beat her, throwing her against the wall of their home and even threatening to murder her in the presence of their child. An investigation of Officer Gill conducted by Policeabuse.com – a group composed of retired police officers, private investigators, and court-qualified expert witnesses on police practices -- revealed a long history of official misconduct and criminal behavior by the gypsy cop. Gill had been cashiered by police departments in Paris and Atwood, Illinois, before his father made room for him on the Danville PD. Sheltered behind the impregnable barricade of nepotism, Gill continues to prowl the streets of Danville despite protection orders granted to his ex-wife and ex-in-laws – and a pending criminal trial on domestic abuse charges. As her marriage with the officer disintegrated, Teresa Gill placed their daughter with her mother and father, Joyce and Robert Abernathy. In March 2010, while Officer Gill was still on the payroll of the Paris, Illinois PD, he used his position to remove the child from the Abertnathys’ home: He filed a false police report claiming that Teresa had threatened to kill that child. As he collected the child from her grandparents, Gill lifted his coat to display his gun and badge in a vulgar display of murderous intent. During an April 2010 child visitation, Gill assaulted both Teresa and their son, which resulted in Teresa filing felony domestic battery charges against him. Gill, who stands to lose his job if he is convicted, has repeatedly barraged his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her parents with threats of lethal violence – while reveling in his sense of privilege as a member of the Brotherhood in Blue. "I’m gonna do whatever it takes to f**k up your life," Gill promised in a June 22, 2010 text message to Teresa. "I am a cop, they won’t believe you. Have them drop [the charges] and I will stop… Nice try Whore." During legislative hearings about the Barnes ruling, Leo Blackwell, President of Indiana’s Fraternal Order of Police insisted that "legal disputes about the right of entry should be decided by the courts, not on the doorstep." Under the supported by Blackwell’s police union, Gill could invade his estranged wife’s home without a warrant or probable cause – and then arrest and charge her with a crime if she proved to be insufficiently submissive. Sure, this would eventually get straightened out by the courts – assuming that Teresa and her children survive the initial encounter. "The FOP will not compromise when it comes to officer safety," declared Blackwell in a recent legislative alert to union members. SB 1 "is terrible for law enforcement and could result in the loss of life (maybe yours) if passed." According to the union, it is "never" permissible to resist a police officer – even when the sacred cause of preserving "officer safety"means leaving a battered and terrorized woman entirely defenseless because the terrorist is carrying a badge. * It should be acknowledged that Rep. McMillin's zeal for uniform application of the law has its limits: He withdrew a measure proposing drug tests for welfare recipients after it was amended to include legislators. For McMillin, apparently, some tax-consumers are more equal than others. Reprinted with permission from Pro Libertate. March 12, 2012William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program. Copyright © 2012 William Norman Grigg No Paul = No Vote in November by Ron Holland Previously by Ron Holland: The Secret Media War of 2012 http://lewrockwell.com/holland/holland60.1.html "I would also say of Ron Paul – he doesn't need to win. In his view he is winning already. This is an ideological point he is making. But here's why it's electorally significant – a lot of people, I mean 41 percent in Virginia, only two people on the ballot, still a lot of people voted for Ron Paul. A lot of those voters are portable. They're not Republican – they're not dedicated Republican voters." ~ Tucker Carlson, Editor, The Daily Caller It is time for a groundswell of Ron Paul supporters to quietly, respectfully but firmly make their position clear to the mainstream media and the GOP establishment. Simply put, "No Paul on the ticket means no vote for the GOP in November". The Ron Paul Campaign has the GOP establishment stuck between a rock and a hard place even though they have not won a single state in the primaries to date. Every Paul supporter knows the underhanded tactics used by the Republican leadership at the state and national level as well as the organized smear and news blackout campaign carried out by the mainstream media. Making Nice For the November Election As we move into the last months of the GOP presidential nomination campaign, most of the establishment media are now "making nice" with Ron Paul and his supporters. He actually gets questions during the debates, some press coverage and the other candidates seem friendly. The reason is simple. The Republican Party desperately needs the votes of Ron Paul supporters in order to win in November against Obama. Obviously Virginia Heffernan didn’t get the memo in her typical anti-Paul elitists drivel titled Ron Paul’s Pointless Internet Presidency posted on Yahoo earlier in the week but now this is the exception rather than standard procedure for the press. The word has gone out to be nice and respectful to Ron Paul so they can get our votes in November. Too Little To Late The Republican establishment has obviously done its homework with focus groups, polling etc. and here is their situation. Although they have successfully held back the Ron Paul campaign to date from threatening to win the GOP presidential nomination, in the dirty tricks process they have ostracized the substantial Paul voting constituency even more from the GOP than before. Paul supporters are far more than portable as suggested by Tucker Carlson, rather they are toxic toward the GOP elites and very few will now support any of the establishment candidates after the abusive treatment given to Ron Paul as well as the crude attacks against Paul supporters. I well understand these feelings of resentment, as I am a Ron Paul supporter. There is no way I will vote for either Romney, Santorum or Gingrich although I certainly prefer their fake rhetoric to the Obama propaganda. If Ron Paul isn’t the Republican nominee for president, then the establishment nominee desperately needs the votes of his supporters in order to beat Obama in the fall general election. The establishment knows the Gingrich and Santorum voters in the GOP Presidential primary will eventually vote for Mitt Romney in November if he wins the Republican presidential nomination at the GOP convention beginning on August 27th, 2012. They also know and fear that most Ron Paul supporters will not vote for the nominee and will likely stay away from the polls in droves thus hurting the other Republican candidates for the House and Senate as well for state and local elections. Basically 15% of the GOP primary voters will sit out the 2012 November election and this almost guarantees the re-election of Barack Obama. I Don’t Really Care If the Democrats or Republicans Win in November? My answer is regardless of whether Romney or Obama wins the general election despite all the anti-Obama rhetoric by the Republican establishment, little will change on major issues. Romney’s campaign promises are identical to all other presidential campaign promises, much to do about nothing. Neither Bush nor Obama kept their campaign promises and neither will Romney. Course of Action First, we redouble our efforts in voting and funding the Ron Paul Campaign up through the final primary and caucus. Second, in editorials, articles or discussions with the press or GOP leadership always stress and emphasize your plans to stay at home on election day, if a Ron or Rand Paul is not on the ticket. Third, at the Republican National Convention when the presidential nomination is handed to Romney assuming he wins, we continue to stress "NO PAUL = NO VOTE IN NOVEMBER". Finally, then we wait at the convention for the personal phone call from Mitt Romney following private preliminary discussions where Rand Paul is asked to be the Vice Presidential candidate on a Romney/Paul ticket after assurances Ron Paul will be nominated for an appropriate cabinet level appointment such as Secretary of the Treasury or Defense. Ron Paul deserves some family time off following the years of campaigning and educating the American people about liberty. He has done more to advance the cause of limited government, liberty and free-markets than any American since the time of the American Revolution. Mitt Romney has spent the last 7 years running for President of the United States so obviously he really wants to win. Romney and his advisors must know without the 15% plus of GOP voters supporting Ron Paul who unlike Gingrich and Santorum will sit the election out, that he cannot defeat Barack Obama without our support. His only option is to put a "Paul" on the ticket. Although a Vice President Rand Paul is a great tactical victory, this is only a battle in a long war for the restoration of liberty and legitimate Constitutional government to the United States. When I was a young man in the military during the 1970’s, I well remember the antiwar crowds shouting "Hell no, we won’t go" in opposition to the Vietnam War. Today, 40 plus years later, I’m a grandfather and maybe older and wiser but still willing to more respectfully tell the same power elites running this country and both political parties, "Hell no, I won’t go" again but this time it is to the polls in November unless there is a Paul on the ticket. Will you join me? March 12, 2012 Ron Holland [send him mail] is a contributor to the Mountain Vision Newsletter, the Daily Bell and CEO of Biologix Hair Inc. based in Toronto, Canada. Copyright © 2012 Ron Holland Surviving the Death of the Constitution (Ad) March 07, 2012 dave http://americanfreepress.net/?p=2253 It’s a terrible thing to fear your government. For the past 65 years, we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking that our government is a benign entity which only has the best interests of its citizens at heart. After all, our government is all about freedom, civil liberties, justice, and constitutional rights… right? We’ve turned a blind eye to Washington’s increasing isolation from the rest of the governed. We’ve ignored Congresses that have enacted laws from which those very members were exempt. We’ve immersed ourselves in mindless games and Hollywood drivel while presidents have signed executive order after executive order, consolidating power within centralized bureaucracies in ways our forefathers never imagined. And when our judicial branch issues verdicts and rulings so out of the mainstream of society and against the Constitution, we simply shrug our shoulders and cluck disapprovingly to ourselves. After all, what can we do? That complacency has created a monster that has come back around, reared its ugly head, and has bitten us on our collective rear ends. On December 31st, 2011, President Barack Obama “reluctantly” signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act into law. He said in the signing statement (that has no legal validity, but is just a statement of intent) that although the Act does give him the authority to detain American citizens indefinitely, without charge, his administration “will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” In essence, the Bill of Rights died on December 31st, 2011, and no one mourned its passing. The American citizenry, as a whole, are acting like dumb sheep, not even so much as bleating as we’re led away to the slaughter. Benjamin Franklin, responding to a woman who asked him what type government the Framers had devised, said, “A Republic, madam, if you are able to keep it.” I guess we weren’t smart enough to hold onto the best civil government devised by man. The American people might as well get their Gitmo gear together because it’s going to be a long train ride to Guantanamo Bay, especially if you’re for limited government, limited taxation, believe in the Constitution, are an abortion opponent, a Christian, a Ron Paul supporter, or even a returning war veteran. After all, aren’t those the people that Homeland Security has identified as terrorist threats instead of the actual perpetrators of terrorism? Suddenly those FEMA detention camps don’t seem like such an off-the-wall theory, do they? The events after Hurricane Katrina, where law enforcement confiscated legally held weapons from homeowners and instituted martial law, seems more of a roadmap of things to come than an aberration, doesn’t it? For months now we’ve been being trained to respond obediently to any unconstitutional act by Big Brother through the auspices of the TSA as they expand their iron fist past airport security to actual traffic stops on state highways. Your state governments are inviting this federal thuggery in, and we the citizens sit with hands folded, unwilling to ...

Bill Gibbons Inbox

Lattigo Smith <lattigo26@yahoo.com> Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 2:52 PM To: "gibb@azci.net" <gibb@azci.net> Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original March 13, 2012 Be sure and read the article WHY MISSOURI HAS NOE Illegal aliens Dear Bill I'm forwarding this email from my dad to you just in case you didn't have a chanceto read it. He's committed to fighting for delegates and spreading the message of liberty all the way to the convention. I promise to doing everything I can to help him. I hope you'll commit to supporting his effort to carry on. Please take a few moments to read my dad's email and sign your Carry On Pledge. After you sign the pledge, please chip in our most generous contribution so he can have the resources to continue our movement. For Liberty, Rand Paul Dear Bill, The mainstream media got the Super Tuesday story wrong. Very wrong. Again. I'm sure you heard them gleefully talk about which establishment candidate "won" which primary or caucus Tuesday night, if you were even watching. Most Americans thankfully had more sense and switched on something else. The fact is, just like in many of the earlier contests, very few delegates to the Republican National Convention were decided on Tuesday. Most will be decided several weeks, or even months, from now at District and State conventions - conventions where our local delegates will have a big say in who goes to Tampa. In fact, while I didn't win any state's straw polls, my team expects me to win a plurality of delegates in at least three states, as well as outright majorities in two more of the states that have already started their process. Of course, the media totally ignores this story - as they have consistently ignored our message, our passion, and our grassroots army. Even more lost in the shuffle is that no candidate for President has even made it one-third of the way toward the number of delegates needed to win the nomination. And for that reason I am determined to proudly battle on, picking up more delegates and skewering the pretensions and historical rewrites of ALL the establishment candidates – Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich. And I will continue to proudly speak up for liberty, respecting the Constitution in domestic and foreign policy, and returning to a limited government that acts and spends within its means. And I will continue to do so as long as you will stand with me. So what does all of that mean? It means this race is FAR from over. In fact, you could argue it is just getting started. With the decisive number of delegates still to be awarded between now and June, and with our activists swarming local and county delegate selections, you and I will surely end up with an army of delegates... IF we don't give up now. I know it can be tempting to hear and believe the reports of how we can't win. Even worse, you can listen to the professional political class tell you that ideas, the grassroots, and the future do not matter. They rarely say it directly, but their message to you and me from Day One has been - if you cannot win it all this year, you shouldn't even try. It can be tempting to question whether or not all the hard work is worth it. Well, I know it is. That's why I'm flying thousands of hours and crisscrossing the country. That's why I am leaving my family and home for weeks on end - to fight for the future of our movement and our country. I am vowing to you today that I will keep fighting. I will fight in every convention and every place where delegates will be selected. I will fight until there is a clear winner - not because the media says that’s the end, but because the nomination has been clinched. And by my calculations, that may never actually happen. Even if one candidate starts to rack up a clear advantage, it is unlikely he will have all the delegates needed to win on the first ballot. And if that is the case, then the hundreds of delegates who support our ideals and my campaign (many of whom may be bound to another candidate for the first ballot or two but then free to vote their conscience), will be unleashed. And they will hold the key to deciding the nominees for President and Vice President, as well as what the platform and policies of the Republican Party will be. These things – and, even more, the long-term standing of the liberty movement - are worth fighting for, even when we are tired and feel like quitting. But I cannot do it alone. Will you join me over these next few weeks and months in pressing our battle forward? If so, I MUST have your continued support today, tomorrow, and in the coming weeks. You can show your support by signing the CARRY ON Pledge HERE. I really urge you to take the pledge, as without your support my efforts won't make enough of a difference. And then, frankly, there’s something else I must ask you to do. I ask you to again make a contribution, even if it is a smaller contribution of $25 or $50 to my campaign. As you know, we run a debt-free campaign, and we pushed our resources to do all we could on Super Tuesday. Your pledge and your contribution are critical to keeping this campaign running for the upcoming fights in other states, as well as finishing our strong efforts in key caucus states that are already underway. As I'm sure you know, this won't be the only time I’ll ask. There will be more emails. More money bombs. More state and local conventions and elections where we must – and will – fight for delegates. I hope you'll come to my aid every time you possibly can. Our message is too important. Think of the issues that are dominating the political debate right now. *** How and when to BALANCE THE BUDGET. I am the only candidate with a plan to balance the federal budget and end our debt crisis in one term; ***Fighting for Individual Liberty, including restoring andprotecting the Bill of Rights by topping the Patriot Act and the Indefinite Detention of American citizens; ***Auditing the out-of-control Federal Reserve; *** Stopping the continuing bleeding in our housing market by ending Fannie and Freddie; ***Ending all government bailouts. These are OUR issues. And NONE of them were part of the discussion by the other Republican candidates in2008. Nearly ALL of the candidates now are trying to sound like us! That tells you our message is breaking through. We are winning on many fronts. And we must carry the message through the rest of this campaign. So will you join me? Will you sign the CARRY ON Pledge and send your most generous contribution today to help me carry this fight forward? I don't believe the media. YOU shouldn't either. This fight goes on as long as you andI are in it together. For Liberty, WHY MISSOURI HAS NO ILLEGAL ALIENS~! ! ! Interesting: Missouri 's approach to the problem of illegal immigration appears to be more advanced, sophisticated, strict and effective than anything to date. So, why doesn't Missouri receive attention? Answer: There are no Mexican illegals in Missouri to demonstrate. The "Show Me" state has once again showed us how it should be done. There needs to be more publicity and exposure regarding what Missouri has done. Let's pass this article around. In 2007, Missouri placed on the ballot a proposed state constitutional amendment designating English as the official language of Missouri . In November, 2008, nearly 90% voting in favor! Thus English became the official language for ALL governmental activity in Missouri . No individual has the right to demand government services in a language OTHER than English. In 2008 a measure was passed that required the Missouri Highway Patrol and other law enforcement officials to verify the immigration status of any person arrested, and inform federal authorities if the person is found to be in Missouri illegally. Missouri law enforcement offices receive specific training with respect to enforcement of federal immigration laws. In Missouri illegal immigrants do NOT have access to taxpayers benefits such as food stamps and health care through Missouri HealthNET. In 2009 a measure was passed that ensures Missouri 's public institutions of higher education do NOT award financial aid to individuals who are illegally in the United States . In Missouri all post-secondary institutions of higher education to annually certify to the Missouri Dept. of Higher Education that they have NOT knowingly awarded financial aid to students who are unlawfully present in the United States . Missouri has been far more proactive in addressing this horrific problem. Missouri has made it clear that illegal immigrants are NOT welcome in the state and they will certainly NOT receive public benefits at the expense of Missouri taxpayers! ------------------------------ See, article in "The Ozarks Sentinel" Editorial Opinion - Nita Jane Ayres, May 13, 2010 ----------------------------------------------------------- Missouri Voters Enact English-Only Law Posted on: 2008-11-11 00:07:43 WASHINGTON , Nov 05, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved H.J. Res. 7 yesterday [a constitutional amendment], strengthening the state's official English law. The measure passed with more than 85 percent of the vote, as 2.4 million Missourians cast ballots in favor of the measure. The approved measure makes English the official language of all official proceedings in Missouri , including the discussion of public business and roll call votes.... .http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Missouri-Voters-Strengthen-States-Official/story.aspx?guid=%7BC064AA5A-118E-4EA5-879C-79B7028AED03} ; INTERESTING IS IT NOT!!! IF MISSOURIE CAN DO IT YOUR STATE CAN ALSO DO IT, GET ON THE STICK AND DO IT!!!!! Thank youCarolyn Slimowicz for submitting this article. Tony Passaro Who Are the ‘Terrorists’? The pattern of American atrocities in wartime by Justin Raimondo, March 12, 2012 http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/11/who-are-the-terrorists/ In the early morning hours of March 11, a US soldier assigned to “special ops” in Afghanistan, stationed near Kandahar, went into a local village and gunned down 16 people – including nine women and three children. At least three others were wounded. He went from house to house, in the predawn darkness, systematically murdering people while they slept in their beds: he then doused them with a flammable liquid and set them ablaze. What is it about American troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan? From Abu Ghraib [.pdf] to the Mahmudiyah killings to the Hamdania murder of a crippled old man to the horrors of the Haditha massacre, it’s been one atrocity after another (see here, here, and here). More recently it was the “rogue” team of killers that murdered Afghan civilians in the Maywand district for sport. Then it was US troops urinating on corpses, followed shortly afterward by the Koran-burning incident, the second such example of American contempt for the people they are supposed to be “liberating.” Now we have this, which – we’re told – is the result of a US soldier having a “breakdown.” Was it a breakdown, or merely the logical extension of the soldier’s training and inclination, that caused him to go on a murderous rampage? That hardly a month goes by without some kind of atrocity being committed should tell us something. What it tells me is that America is a depraved nation, a country where the very worst-of-the-worst flock to join the military, free to kill and maim and rape to their heart’s content. And Rachel Maddow wants to give these guys a “welcome home” “victory” parade? Of course she does: even the “liberals” in our country are corrupted by the ugliness that pervades the national consciousness and poisons everything we do. “Honor the troops” is a given on the left as well as the right, because the above-mentioned atrocities are just “isolated incidents,” examples of soldiers who had “breakdowns” and went “rogue.” Their actions have nothing to do with our mission [.pdf], our mentality, or our decadent culture, which glorifies violence and disdains foreigners – especially if they’re Muslims. Oh no: these are all anomalies, there’s nothing to see here so please move along … I’m not buying it. There is something wrong – very wrong – here: a trend, a significant uptick in the savagery that is part and parcel of every war. During World War II, American atrocities were relatively few and far between, although no less reprehensible. As the American presence abroad grew more substantial, however, and the cold war heated up, such incidents increased in number, and took on a more horrific – and systematic – character. In Korea, American troops massacred hundreds of Korean civilians at No Gun Ri, and stood aside while their South Korean allies did the same at Kwangju. During the Vietnam war, vast areas under Viet Cong control were deemed a “freefire zone,” and entire villages were wiped out by US troops. The My Lai massacre revealed how American policy had ended in an orgy of brutality, and support for the war plummeted to new lows. Embarked once again on an international crusade to save the world, our demons are unleashed – and they are more bloodthirsty and sadistic than ever. Why is that? To begin with, American culture is more violent and sadistic than ever. When it comes to mass entertainment and the level of acceptable violence, there appears to be no limit: how else could a movie like Kill Bill or Natural Born Killers even get made, let alone generate millions in profits? In a healthy society, such films would be marginal: in America, they are hailed as great “art” and go on to become box office hits. Rome had its gladiatorial contests; we have Hollywood to excite our bloodlust. Secondly, the state of perpetual war in which we find ourselves, a decade after 9/11, has led to increased multiple deployments for our professional soldiers: from Iraq to Afghanistan to wherever our crazy foreign policy takes them, US military personnel are shipped from one trouble spot to another with dizzying speed and little regard for their mental equilibrium. This has resulted in a record number of suicides and dismissals from the armed services on mental health grounds. In addition, criminal activities in the ranks are on the upswing, with gang members actively seeking to be deployed to combat areas: they consider it on the job training. It makes sense that, as publicity about US atrocities abroad is circulated, the most brutal and sadistic members of society will be attracted to the military: you know, like child molesters are drawn to the Boy Scouts or necrophiliacs consider working in a morgue a dream job. So you want to kill people and collect their bones as “trophies”? Well, then, son, the US Army is the place for you! Thirdly, the craziness spreading through the ranks is a function of the policy, which – consciously or not – encourages and even rewards brutality. In spite of all the BS about “winning hearts and minds” which is part of the “new” counterinsurgency doctrine of the US military, the reality is that American troops are occupiers surrounded by a hostile populace which hates them and wants to see them gone. Soldiers returning from the front tell us how they feel surrounded by enemies on every side, and that’s because it’s true: they are surrounded on every side by people who hate them and want to see them dead. No wonder some go crazy and start killing people randomly. This will go on as long as our crazed foreign policy continues to target nation after nation for “liberation,” occupation, and “democratization.” By the time we get around to attacking Iran, our homicidal maniacs in uniform will be so hopped up that we’ll be getting atrocity reports shortly after the first American soldier sets foot on Persian soil. A major factor in the increasing level of criminality in our armed forces has got to be the apparent immunity of our political elites from the rule of law. In spite of the boasting of former Vice President Dick Cheney that he personally approved and authorized torture, the Obama administration has refused to indict him – even though he has violated US law. Others who participated – the lawyers who justified it, the officers who covered it up – have been granted similar immunity. In short, these guys are getting away with it – so why shouldn’t the grunts? When the rule of law is relaxed so that the elites can literally get away with murder, why should anyone expect their underlings to be on their best behavior? A fish rots from the head down. I have the sinking feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of this American horror show, while – under the pretext of “fighting terrorism” – we act out our sadistic fantasies all over the world. As these outrages against human decency and morality provoke worldwide revulsion at the perpetrators, perhaps one day we’ll go looking for “terrorists” in the vicinity of a mirror – and see ourselves for what we’ve become. NOTES IN THE MARGIN I hope my readers will forgive me for this late “thank you” to all of you who contributed to our recent fundraising drive. I have to say this was, by far, the most harrowing fundraising experience we’ve ever had. I’m still in a state of shock, even though it’s over: I never want to have to go through that again, but I fear I will. They say the economy is improving, but let me tell you: the nonprofits are the first to see their economic health go south in a downturn, and if the recession is over – or about to end – it sure doesn’t look like it from my perspective. In any case, one way to avoid these quarterly appeals is for Antiwar.com to build up a sizable group of monthly contributors, who stretch out their donations over a twelve-month period and give us a regular and reliable source of income for the year. This option is available online, and all you have to do is go here to exercise it. The conspiracy that prompted Breitbart's pushback against America's enemies By Wes Vernon http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/120312 You may have heard the late Andrew Breitbart was initially alerted to the Democrat/media complex when that collaboration smeared Clarence Thomas as it fought to block the latter's Supreme Court confirmation in 1991. There is, of course, more to Breitbart's venture into battle against those who would trash his country. Though l'affaire Thomas was the spark that awakened Breitbart from the leftist environment in which he had been raised, his instinct then was to learn how the slash and burn alliance had gained so powerful an influence in our society. Some larger force — perhaps historical — was behind this. His "sixth sense" prompted him to start digging for the machine's roots or "back story." He just knew the Orwellian scenario (where dark is light and light is dark) could not have emerged overnight. Breitbart's scholarly research on that very question emerges right in the middle of his memoirs. The inquiring mind from the Hollywood Hills discovered a gold mine of background as to how America's enemies had taken dead aim at his country and had worked for decades to destroy it. The pivotal chapter In his 2011 best-seller Righteous Indignation, Andrew Breitbart (who recently met his untimely death at age 43) traces the story of how communism came to America. Rivers of ink have been dispensed to document the many facets and subplots in the drama of the concerted 24/7 campaign to bring Western Civilization to its knees. Those essential investigations of the forces who intend to do us in continue even now in the early 21st century. Meanwhile, Breitbart has offered an abbreviated explanation that is about as concise as one can find with regard to the attack on America. Beyond brute force The conspiracy — in its metaphoric dimensions — represents nothing so much as a giant mowing machine, never deviating from its decades-old goal of smashing America's constitutional, cultural, economic, and political infrastructure. The take-down of America from within has been sought through more than one avenue, but arguably none so pivotal as the Frankfurt School. Breitbart focuses on that phenomenon in his 21-page chapter Breakthrough. The author/activist discovered the long-term Marxist crusade to tear-down the United States did not end (as many Americans assumed) when the Berlin Wall came down. Aside from the Soviet empire and the 100 million people killed at the hands of Communist brutality, Marxism has always had its cultural warriors. Nothing impedes their advance so much as the United States of America. Our enemies long ago concluded that bringing the U.S. to its knees would involve control of the culture — the everyday lives, and the everyday thoughts, of the citizens. Breitbart saw those forces at work as a student at Tulane University — what he calls a cultural fascisti. What he saw was campus thought control: elites who decided "what was okay to think and what to write, what words meant, and who was allowed to say them. There were (and are) tribunals without oversight, as kids have been thrown out of college for uttering the wrong sentiments." But Tulane was a mere microcosm. Cultural Marxism was (and is) pervasive in the mainstream media, Hollywood, education (K-higher ed), and straight on into the government. America did not simply wake up in the mid-sixties and suddenly embrace the rebellious counter-culture that would define the era. No, those seeds had been planted decades earlier. "Progressives" Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, according to Breitbart, were early U.S. progenitors of the Hegelian theory that drove the early 20th century's so-called "progressive movement." George Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel was a German philosopher who provided the dialectic argumentation for Karl Marx's utopianism — i.e., that human nature could be changed only by destroying the surrounding society. Of the people no more As Breitbart informs us, Wilson "frowned on democracy," and "rejected the idea of government by the people," which he believed should be "replaced by elites who knew better than the masses." Or, as he intoned, "Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals." The Frankfurt school Fortunately for America at the time, Wilson and progressivism in general were exceedingly unpopular by the time the former Princeton professor mercifully ended his White House tenure. But for the Marxists — not to worry. Some European Marxist imports would ultimately make their way into our society. The Brown socialists (Nazis) and the Red socialists (Communists) had battled each other on the streets of Germany during the twenties. When one of these two strains of socialism gained power, the other would have to flee. But that gets us ahead of our story: Changing society Prior to the Nazi takeover, Felix Weil, a young radical Marxist from Frankfurt, Germany, organized the Institute for Social Research, quickly dubbed the Frankfurt School. (Breitbart defines the group as "really a precursor to [Obama ally] John Podesta's Center for American Progress.") The central theme of the "school" was that tearing down society was a pre-condition for the eventual victory of global Marxism; that capitalism had rendered man "weak," which in turn explained why socialism had not come into existence already. (Remember, this was late twenties Europe and North America). Further the Frankfurt School taught that Judeo-Christian morality must be rejected; that "a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without annihilation of the solid values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries"; and that "critical theory" reflected the school's curriculum. Breitbart says Frankfurt School philosopher Max Horkheimer coined the term "critical theory." Its meaning would "embody the whole corrupt philosophy whose mission was to destroy society and culture...." In fact, Breitbart says "critical theory," as he was taught at Tulane, was "quite literally, a theory of criticizing everyone and everything everywhere." We might add here that "critical theory" was also taught at Mercer Island High School in Washington State when President Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham attended it. Instapundit informs us the curriculum included 1 — "rejection of societal norms; 2 — attacks on Christianity, the traditional family; and 3 — [assigning the] readings of Karl Marx." That Washington State high school also was "a hotbed of pro-Marxist radical teachers," and had been cited in testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Frankfurt school moves to U.S. After the Brown socialists took over Germany, the Red socialists at the Frankfurt School had to get out of there. And they had nowhere to go except the United States. Breitbart goes on: "We welcomed the Frankfurt School. We accepted them with open arms. They took full advantage. They walked right into our cultural institutions, and as they started to put in place their leadership, their language and their lexicon, too many chose to ignore them. And the most dangerous thing you can do with a driven leftist clique is to ignore it." The tentacles spread Upon arriving on our shores, Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and other Frankfurt School icons initially took up new quarters in Southern California, where they "were disturbed by consumer culture and the Gospel of relentless cheeriness." As Breitbart opines, "These Marxists were here trying to destroy the best lifestyle man has ever created. If I could go back in a time machine...I would kick these malcontents in their shins." Ultimately in New York, Columbia University's Sociology Department was dying and only too willing to take in new blood. "They liked what they saw in the Frankfurt School." In fact, "It was a marriage made in hell" (also BTW, a marriage arranged in part by commentator Edward R. Murrow). Again, quoting Breitbart: "With their tentacles affixed to the institutions of American higher education, the Frankfurt School philosophy began eking its way into every crevice of American culture. Horkheimer's 'critical theory' became a staple of Philosophy, History, and English courses across the country." Herbert Marcuse Andrew Breitbart identifies Herbert Marcuse as the most significant of what he defined as these "deranged soul[s]" striving to deconstruct the good life." Marcuse, a "major contributor to the Frankfurt School," was the founder of what came to be known in the sixties as the "New Left." Herbert Marcuse, a former student of future Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger, "longed for the moment 'when the spiritual strength of the West fails and its joints crack, when the moribund semblance of culture caves in and drags all forces into confusion and lets them suffocate in madness." After becoming a U.S. citizen, Marcuse's employment record included a stint for FDR in the Office of War Information (OWI) — a government-backed effort that also included Owen Lattimore, a key figure in steering U.S. policy toward aiding the Communists' takeover of China, a regime whose leaders today threaten us with military might, steal our weapons secrets through industrial and government espionage, and hold a massive debt over our heads in case we get any bright ideas about sassing them back. Marcuse served in the pre-CIA OSS (a hotbed of communist infiltrators), and in the State Department where he worked to prevent the U.S. from pushing post-war Germany away from socialism. He taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis, and finally the University of California, San Diego. Today's buzzwords no accident Much of the intellectual poison in our society is traceable to Herbert Marcuse's mission to dismantle American society by using "diversity," and "multiculturalism," as "crowbars to pry the structure apart piece by piece." He saw a part of his mission as to encourage black opposition to whites (way beyond the civil rights agenda, with its theme equality for all). In fact, Marcuse whipped up all "victim groups" in opposition to society in general. If you were a happy American who loved his country, you were part of the problem. One of his rallying cries was "Marx, Mao, and Marcuse." In his Breakthrough chapter, Breitbart goes on to trace the Frankfurt School influence to Saul Alinsky, the "community organizer so influential with Barack Obama." We will deal with that next. This column has in the past cited the literal hotbed of subversion that is the Frankfurt School. See "The plot against America exposed" (Nov. 27, 2006), where we discuss the book Cry Havoc written (practically on his death bed) by the late Ralph de Toledano, a true giant in the annals of Washington journalism. © Wes Vernon http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/120312 WND EXCLUSIVE onstitutional analyst: Detention now legal Controversial federal provision gives president undefined authority http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/constitutional-analyst-detention-now-legal/ A retired attorney who has taught constitutional law and now is an author and radio host says America is duplicating with the new National Defense Authorization Act mistakes that landed hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans in Wyoming and Colorado internment camps during World War II. The issue has been making headlines for several weeks because of the interpretation held by many critics that the law allows Barack Obama as the president to determine when someone, even an American citizen, would be taken into custody and held under the law of war – that is, without trial, hearing, charges or due process. The issue became a focal point in just the last few days when lawmakers in Virginia approved by 96-4 and 37-1 votes a state plan that simply would not allow the federal provision to be used within state borders. The analysis is from Michael Connelly, who did the evaluation for the United States Justice Foundation, which advocates for civil and religious rights and liberties. “The problem is that when the language is carefully read, it becomes clear that this does not exempt U.S. citizens from being detained without due process, but only says that it is not required,” Connelly notes. “The decision of whether an American citizen can be detained indefinitely, without being formally charged, or tried, is, therefore, left in the hands of one person, the president of the United States. “Giving the president of the United States, or anyone else, this kind of authority over American citizens was something that the framers of the U. S. Constitution, and, specifically, the Bill of Rights, were trying to prohibit. Yet it appears that this law is doing what the founders of our country feared,” he continued. “One of the problems is that it has been done before. U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were interred by the U.S. government after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The detention was the result of executive orders issued by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt.” The point raised by Connelly was one that the Virginia lawmakers considered when deliberating the issue of the NDAA for 2012, which was signed by Obama Dec. 31, 2011. Among its sections is 1021, “which purports to authorize the president of the United States to use the armed forces of the United States to detain American citizens who the president suspects are or have been substantial supports of al-Qaida, the Taliban, or associated forces, and to hold such citizens indefinitely,” according to an analysis of the federal law. “In short, Section 1021 authorizes the president to dispose of American citizens suspected of supporting ‘terrorism’ according to the laws of war, as if the United States soil was a battlefield and her citizens enemy combatants, not entitled to the protections of the Bill of Rights, including the rights to trial by jury, representation by counsel, confrontation of witnesses, and due process of law administered by impartial judges,” the analysis said. The state law specifically aims to prevent “any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a United States citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.” The bill advanced after a large contingent of Japanese-Americans weighed in. Critics say the plan allows the president to detain American citizens without charges or court hearings. Floyd Mori, chief of the Japanese American Citizens League, sent a letter to legislators. “As many of you know, during World War II the Japanese American community was targeted as ‘suspected enemy aliens’ and by authority of Presidential Executive Order 9066, over 110,000 people were rounded up and put into concentration camps at 10 desolate locations under the notion that they could be suspect,” he told the lawmakers in Virginia. “This period of indefinite detention lasted until the war ended, and there was no due process as guaranteed by the Constitution. A congressional commission later, through a number of public hearings, found that this was an unjustified act of the government due to war hysteria, racism, and poor government leadership at the time. The government was ordered by an act of Congress to apologize and provide redress in order to learn a lesson that this should never again happen. If there were more who stood up to this injustice, much heartache and economic loss could have been avoided and this apology would not have been needed,” he said. “Today we face a similar situation. The so-called ‘War on Terror’ has led to the same kind of hysteria and racist actions by government. I can also say that we have lacked the political leadership to identify that this kind of forced indefinite detention is a repeat of what happened during WWII,” he said. “The state of Virginia has the opportunity to stand up to an unjust application of congressional authority. The American people need somebody to stand up against this injustice. HB 1160 is a tool that does just that; it stands up for the American people by respecting the basic principles of the Constitution.” Connelly, a U.S. Army veteran who has authored “Riders in the Sky: The Ghosts and Legends of Philmont Scout Ranch”, “The Mortarmen,” “Amayehli: A Story of America” and the newly released “America’s Livliest Ghosts,” also is founder of the Constitutional Law Alliance. Not only does the new law appear to contradict court opinions over the years that the detention of Japanese-Americans was not constitutional, “the new law also appears to repeal, or at least modify, the Posse Comitatus Act, that was passed in 1878 at the end of post Civil War reconstruction. That law is designated as 18 USC 1385, and it prohibits the states of the union, and local governments, from using members of the U.S. Army for law enforcement purposes. It was later amended to include the Air Force, and the Marines, and the Navy are under the same prohibitions, by order of the U. S. Department of Defense,” Connelly said.. “If the critics of NDAA are correct, and members of the United States military can make arrests of U.S. citizens in the United States, then it appears that the intent of the Posse Comitatus law is negated.” He said, “The language in the bill appears to be deliberately vague and confusing, and many members of Congress seem to be unaware of what they were actually voting for. However, that does not lessen the impact of a law that gives the president extraordinary powers to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.” Another analysis of the issue, by Michael Hammond for the Gun Owners of America, said the impact on Americans is evident. “Let’s assume you’re a member of the Michigan Militia. That’s all it would take,” Hammond wrote. “Because you once hobnobbed with Timothy McVeigh, an argument could be made that you could be arrested and held indefinitely, without due process, an attorney, or constitutional rights.” He notes anyone who “knowingly or unknowingly aided or harbored a 9/11 culprit in any way” could be targeted. He raised some awkward questions, including, “Is blowing up a federal building a ‘belligerent act’? If so, are militia members who associated with Timothy McVeigh all ‘covered persons’ – even if they didn’t understand his intentions? What about a gun dealer who sold him a gun?” Another question, he wrote, would be, “Is Barack Obama ‘substantially support[ing] … the Taliban’ if he releases prisoners from Guantanamo in order to get them to the negotiating table?” Virginia’s plan has been forwarded to the governor but already has been given a veto-proof support from lawmakers. The Tenth Amendment Center, which is monitoring developments on the issue, reported, “Even President Obama had questions about the bill, when he promised the American people that he would not use the unrestrained powers it granted him – but why should we trust any president with such powers?” Outside opinions on exactly what the law allows vary widely. Commentator Chuck Baldwin, who himself has been the target of smears by the Department of Homeland Security-related apparatus, explained the law, “for all intents and purposes, completely nullifies a good portion of the Bill of Rights, turns the United States into a war zone, and places U.S. citizens under military rule.” “When signing the NDAA into law, Obama issued a signing statement that in essence said, ‘I have the power to detain Americans … but I won’t,” Baldwin wrote. Baldwin was vilified by an anti-terror campaign in Missouri several years ago when authorities there described suspicious characters as those who might have supported him or other third-party candidates during a presidential election. A state agency, and later the Department of Homeland Security, offered warnings that returning veterans, those who oppose abortion and others who advocate conservative issues could pose a danger to the nation. Others have pooh-poohed the concerns about the apprehension of Americans. Wayne Bowen, a professor at Southeast Missouri State University not far from where state officials had issued that warning about Baldwin, said, “The NDAA not only does not empower the U.S. military to detain American citizens indefinitely, it specifically prohibits this. “The NDAA confirms as U.S. law the practice that foreign terrorists … will be held indefinitely by the U.S. military. Indeed, this is a far more generous policy than allowed under international law,” he wrote. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee noted that during the first few weeks of 2012, at least six jurisdictions have enacted local resolutions opposing the military detention provisions of the NDAA. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is working with the Tenth Amendment Center as well as Demand Progress on a campaign to make people aware of the situation. Among the states that have begun addressing the issue, along with Virginia, are Arizona, Rhode Island, Maryland, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Washington. Local jurisdictions include Macomb, N.Y.; Fairfax, Calif.; New Shoreham, R.I.; and several locations in Colorado. Related offer: The instruction manual on how to restore America to what it once was: “Taking America Back.” This package also includes the “Tea Party at Sea.” Should the US Go to War for Israel? 10Mar12 by James M. Wall http://wallwritings.me/2012/03/10/should-the-us-go-to-war-for-israel/ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the annual AIPAC conference earlier this week. He also held a private meeting with US President Barack Obama. In his AIPAC speech, Netanyahu evoked the Holocaust as the source of Israel’s special privileged status that permits Netanyahu to do whatever he decides to do to “control Israel’s fate”. That, of course, includes bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. Netanyahu drew a parallel between the exchange of letters between the US War department and the World Jewish Congress in 1944. The Wall Street Journal described the scene at the AIPAC conference: Netanyahu got out copies of two letters he said he keeps in his desk, between the World Jewish Congress and the War Department in 1944, when the WJC called on the United States to bomb the extermination camp at Auschwitz, and the War Department refused. The refusal included the argument that attacking the camp might unleash even more “vindictive” behavior. “Think about that,” Netanyahu said. “Even more vindictive than the Holocaust!” During his meeting with Obama, Netanyahu elaborated further: “Israel must reserve the right to defend itself. After all, that’s the very purpose of the Jewish state, to restore to the Jewish people control over our destiny. That’s why my supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains master of its fate.” In a blog, the British Economist responded: News flash: Israel is not master of its fate. It’s not terribly surprising that a country with less than 8 million inhabitants is not master of its fate. Switzerland, Sweden, Serbia and Portugal are not masters of their fates. These days, many countries with populations of 100 million or more can hardly be said to be masters of their fates. Britain and China aren’t masters of their fates, and even the world’s overwhelmingly largest economy, the United States, isn’t really master of its fate. What gives this leader of a foreign nation the license to speak in Washington with such confidence that he expects the US to join him in an attack on Iran, a nation that poses absolutely no threat to the US or its citizens? Indeed, US intelligence agencies report that they have found no reason to believe that Iran poses an immediate threat to Israel. So why should the US go to war for Israel over an issue that poses no more immediate danger to Israel than Iraq’s non-existent WMDs threatened its neighbors? That non-existent threat led to a disastrous and costly war for the US, a war that was strongly encouraged by Israel and its US allies in Congress. Why is there even any serious discussion with a foreign nation over what the US should do regarding an attack against yet another Muslim nation that has made no threats against us? There are two reasons why; first, there is the US Congress, and second, there is AIPAC. After Obama delivered his required speech to AIPAC, the Wall Street Journal reported: Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, said the speech was “a step in the right direction,” but ”we need to make sure that this president is also going to stand by Israel and not allow his administration to somehow speak contrary to what our ally thinks is in its best interest.” No one in the US administration shall speak contrary to what our ally thinks is its best interest? Where would Rep. Cantor hear such a thing? Surely not in a Tea Party rally where loyalty to God and country are paramount. We must look to AIPAC as the source of Rep. Cantor’s courage to denigrate the President of the United States. President George Washington warned the new American nation in his 1796 farewell address that a “passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils”. He explained why: “Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” The US has usually managed to adhere to Washington’s advice, until, that is, AIPAC was established. On the Anti-War website, Grant Smith described how, in 1948, AIPAC began to seize control of US foreign policy. Recently declassified FBI files reveal how Israeli government officials first orchestrated public relations and policies through the US lobby. Counter-espionage investigations of proto-AIPAC’s first coordinating meetings with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of Mossad provide a timely and useful framework for understanding how AIPAC continues to localize and market Israeli government policies in America. Although AIPAC claims it rose “from a small pro-Israel public affairs boutique in the 1950s,” its true origin can be traced to Oct. 16, 1948. This is the date AIPAC’s founder Isaiah L. Kenen and four others established the Israel Office of Information under Israel’s UN mission. It was later moved under the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. AIPAC controls the US Congress through its network of Political Action Committees that follow AIPAC’s instructions on which candidates to politically and financially support, and which candidates to jettison. The incumbent Israeli Prime Minister travels to Washington to personally lobby members of Congress. He also hosts visiting congressional delegations on their regular trips to Israel. An annual address to AIPAC is an essential part of that lobbying campaign. This year, Prime Minister Netanyahu had Iran at the top of his agenda. He wants, and he fully expects, President Obama and the Congress to support Israel in its military assault against Iran’s nuclear installations. There is no guarantee that Iran is even close to developing a nuclear capability, but in Netanyahu’s mind, even the possibility that Iran might one day develop an operational nuclear arms capability is sufficient cause for Israel, backed by the US, to destroy Iranian nuclear sites. In short, the prime minister is ready for war against Iran, and he expects the US to fall in line behind him. The irony of this arrogance is that Israel may well be at its lowest point of support from the world community. David Remnick describes the extent to which Israel has become isolated from the world community. He writes in a Talk of the Town essay in the February issue of the New Yorker: Israel has reached an impasse. An intensifying conflict of values has put its democratic nature under tremendous stress. When the government speaks daily about the existential threat from Iran, and urges an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it ignores the existential threat that looms within. . . . The political corrosion begins, of course, with the occupation of the Palestinian territories–the subjugation of Palestinian men, women and children–tht has lasted for forty years. Peter Beinart, in a forthcoming and passionately urged polemic, The Crisis of Zionism, is just the latest critic to point out that a profoundly anti-democratic, even racist, political culture has become endemic among much of the Jewish population in the West Bank, and threatens Israel proper. . . . In 1980, twelve thousand Jews lived in the West Bank, “east of democracy,” Beinart writes; now they number more than three hundred thouand, and inlude Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s wildly zenophobic Foreign Minister. . . . To [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, the proper kind of ally is exemplified by AIPAC and Sheldon Adelson–the long-time casino tycoon and recent bankroller of Newt Gingrich–who owns a newspaper in Israel devoted to supporting him. Remnick correctly takes note of the degree to which support for Israel affects the current US presidential campaign. We know pretty much all we need to know about Netanyahu’s feelings toward Obama. The Prime Minister orders the President about like he might order a lowly member of his Israeli cabinet. He would be very happy to see the White House back in Republican hands. No doubt, he is following the Republican presidential nomination fight as it unfolds state by state. He cannot be unhappy over the strong link between the Republican candidates and the Christian evangelical conservatives, a segment of the American population already safely ensconced within the Republican base. The latest victory for the pro-Israel/Christian evangelical base came this weekend when Republican Candidate Rick Santorum won, as reported by The Wichita Eagle, an impressive caucus victory, two to one, over Mitt Romney. Santorum won with the strong support of that state’s governor, Sam Brownback, a former two-two term member of the US Senate. Governor Brownback is both a conservative evangelical Christian, and a strong supporter of Israel. Salon describes Kansas as “ground zero for the takeover of the GOP by Christian-infused movement conservatism and the extinction of middle-of-the-road Republicanism.” Southern primaries Tuesday in Alabama and Mississippi should go to either Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, a political development that will force Romney to veer even deeper into the ”Christian-infused movement conservatism”pro-Israel zealotry of his Republican base. Israel’s media campaign about Iran as a threat was examined by Sheera Frenkel of McClatchy Newspapers. Among her conclusions: Israeli officials acknowledge that the widespread acceptance in the West that Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon isn’t based just on the findings of Israeli intelligence operatives, but relies in no small part on a steady media campaign that the Israelis have undertaken to persuade the world that Iran is bent on building a nuclear warhead. “The intelligence was half the battle in convincing the world,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry official told McClatchy, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the inner workings of Israel’s outreach on the topic. “The other half was Israel’s persistent approach and attitude that this was not something the world could continue to ignore.” The official had recently returned from a trip to Washington and marveled at how the topic has become a major one in the United States. “U.S. politicians were falling over each other to talk about Iran,” he said. “In some ways, that is a huge success for Israel.” If the US is led by Israel to participate in another war in the Middle East, these McClatchy findings suggest that this war could be one of the biggest sales promotion successes in modern political history. As Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, in another context, “Think about that.” The picture at top is of Prime Minister Netanyahu holding letters exchanged between the World Jewish Congress and the US War Department in 1944. The picture is by Cliff Owen, of the Associated Press. Pravda asks: What happened to American media? Accuses U.S. press of 'deliberately hiding evidence' of Obama's 'fraud' http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/pravda-asks-what-happened-to-american-media/ It’s a twist of irony: The Russian news website Pravda has published an accusation that the American media is “tame,” afraid to publish news and is “deliberately hiding the evidence published on the internet about [President Obama's] defrauding of the American public and the deliberate evisceration of the Constitution of the United States.” In a March 7 Pravda column, “Arizona sheriff finds Obama presidential qualifications forged,” Dianna Cotter, a senior at American Military University, blasts America’s mainstream media for their virtual silence about Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s six-month investigation into the controversy surrounding Obama’s birth certificate and his constitutional eligibility for office. NOTE: In case you missed the news conference of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,” you can view it here. “A singularly remarkable event has taken place in the United States of America,” Cotter wrote. “This event occurred in Arizona on March 1st and was an earth shattering revelation. … Yet, in the five days since [Arpaio's] revelations there has been little in the way of serious reporting on the findings he presented in his presser. With 6 short videos, the Sheriff and his team presented a devastating case, one the tame US press is apparently unable to report.” Cotter recalls Obama April 27, 2011, press conference in which he “walked into the White House Press room with a Cheshire cat like grin and a ‘Long Form Birth Certificate’ from the State of Hawaii in hand.” Speaking from the podium, Obama declared, “We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.” “Quite the barb from a man holding a forged document,” Cotter wrote. “That’s right, forged. She notes that the investigation also uncovered an allegedly forged Selective Service Card for Obama. “Forged documents are being used to qualify a President of the United States for the office he holds,” she contends. “Or is usurped the more accurate term? “The silence from the main stream media in the US is deafening. It almost seems as if the press is terrified to even think the question, let alone ask it: Is the President a criminal? The press in Arpaio’s audience were certainly asking him to state precisely that, yet nowhere has the question been asked of the White House by the press. Instead the American Press is aggressively protecting the presumed President of the United States, pushing the fraud upon both America and the world, supporting a man who may well have usurped the office.” She asks, “What has been the response from the Obama era press? “Silence. “Silence so loud it can be felt.” Cotter lays out detailed evidence of a widespread cover-up and concludes: The American Press is deliberately hiding the evidence published on the internet about this defrauding of the American public and the deliberate evisceration of the Constitution of the United States. It is hiding Barack Obama’s Fraud as it has been revealed by a Sheriff in Arizona. The silence of the American press would be unbelievable if it weren’t so blatantly obvious. It is nearly as egregious as the audacity of Obama’s fraud itself. NAPOLITANO: Can the president kill you? Elimination of al-Awlaki was more Stalinesque than Jeffersonian By Andrew P. Napolitano - The Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/8/can-the-president-kill-you/ Thursday, March 8, 2012 Illustration by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times Can the president kill an American simply because that person is dangerous and his arrest would be impractical? Can the president be judge, jury and executioner of an American in a foreign ountry because he thinks that would keep America safe? Can Congress authorize the president to do that? Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. attempted to justify presidential killing in a speech at Northwestern University law school. In it, he recognized the requirement of the Fifth Amendment for due process. He argued that the president may substitute the traditionally understood due process - a public jury trial - with the president’s own novel version of it; that would be a secret deliberation about killing. Without mentioning the name of the American the president recently ordered killed, Mr. Holder suggested that the president’s careful consideration of the case of New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki constituted a form of due process. Mr. Holder argued that the act of reviewing al-Awlaki’s alleged crimes, what he was doing in Yemen and the imminent danger he posed provided al-Awlaki with a substituted form of due process. He did not mention how this substitution applied to al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son and a family friend, who also were executed by CIA drones. He also did not address the absence of any support in the Constitution or Supreme Court case law for his novel theory. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states that the government may not take the life, liberty or property of any person without due process. The components of due process are too numerous to address here, but the essence of due process i ...

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Nuclear Hypocrisy http://www.fff.org/comment/com1202p.asp
byLaurence M. Vance, February22, 2012



Republicanpresidential candidates and officials in the U.S. government from the presidenton down have turned up the rhetoric against Iran.



In his State of the Union address,Barack Obama stated, “America is determined to prevent Iran fromgetting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achievethat goal.”



Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated that “it is the policy of thisadministration that Iran cannot be permitted to have a nuclear weapon and nooption has ever been taken off the table.”



U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner maintains that the Obama administration “isabsolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”



During a recent campaign stop inCleveland, Newt Gingrich warned about the dangers to Cleveland, Columbus,Cincinnati, and New York from an Iranian nuclear strike. Said Gingrich,“Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3,100 Americans were killed. Nowimagine an attack where you add two zeros. And it’s 300,000 dead. Maybe a halfmillion wounded. This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. That’s whyI think it’s important that we have the strongest possible national security.”



Meanwhile, while campaigning inMissouri, Rick Santorum warned Missourians about Iran: “Once they have anuclear weapon, let me assure you, you will not be safe, even here in Missouri.These are folks who have been and are at war with us since 1979. This is acountry that has killed more troops in Afghanistan and Iraq than the Iraqis andAfghans.” (Funny that the Reagan administration facilitated the sale of arms toIran in 1985 and 1986 — when we were supposedly at war. And funny that Santorumsaid 1979 instead of 1953 — the year that the United States overthrew thedemocratically elected government of Iran and installed an authoritarian puppetin the shah.)



Mitt Romney has said that if you elect him, “Iran will not havea nuclear weapon” because “a nuclear-armed Iran is not only a threat to Israel,it is a threat to the entire world.” If sanctions fail to halt Iran’s nuclearambitions, “there’s nothing else we could do besides take military action.”



The charge has been made thatTehran’s UN-inspected nuclear power program is a front for the development ofnuclear weapons to target Israel and the United States.



There are several things thatnegate that charge that the Republican presidential candidates seem to havemissed.



U.S. intelligence reports in 2007and 2010 came up with no evidence that Iran is currently attemptingto build or acquire nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency andUN inspectors have confirmed it. The chief of Israel’s Mossad, Tamir Pardo, “doesn’t think a nuclear Iran is an existentialthreat to Israel.” James Clapper, the U.S. director of National Intelligence,recently told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “We assess Iran iskeeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developingvarious nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons,should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventuallydecide to build nuclear weapons.” According to Pentagon spokesman GeorgeLittle, “We have no indication that the Iranians have made a decision todevelop a nuclear weapon.”



But whether or not Iran isdeveloping nuclear weapons, and whether or not Iran develops nuclear weapons inthe future, there are seven ways in which the U.S. government is guilty ofnuclear hypocrisy.



First, it is the United Statesthat helped Iran to start its nuclear program. In 1967, under DwightEisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program, the United States sold the government of Iran a 5-megawatt, light-water-typeresearch reactor. In 1978, Jimmy Carter made a deal with the shah of Iran tosend up to eight U.S.-made light-water reactors to Iran, but the deal fellthrough after the Iranian revolution of 1979. A recently declassified 1974Defense Department memorandumnotes that should the shah fall from power, “domestic dissidents or foreignterrorists might easily be able to seize any special nuclear materials storedin Iran for use in bombs.” The memo concludes that “an aggressive successor tothe Shah might consider nuclear weapons the final item needed to establishIran’s complete military dominance of the region.”



Second, by a vote of 4 to 1, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently approved licenses tobuild two new nuclear reactors in Georgia at an existing nuclear site. The applicationswere submitted seven years ago. That was the first time in more than 30 yearsthat the U.S. government has approved the construction of new nuclear reactors.The reactors that began operation in the last decades received their initiallicenses before 1978. With all the talk about clean energy, green energy,climate change, and the pollution from coal-fired power plants, it is strangethat the U.S. government has stifled the construction of new nuclear reactorsfor peaceful use.



Third, besides the United States,the countries of Russia, China, France, Israel, and Great Britain, and, to alesser extent, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, have nuclear weapons. Why arethese countries not considered to be more of a threat to the United States thanIran? Especially Pakistan, which is very unstable, seeing that it borders onAfghanistan. And what about Russia and China? Director of National IntelligenceJamesClapper just stated in his Worldwide Threat Assessment that “Russia andChina are aggressive and successful purveyors of economic espionage against theUnited States.” The controversy regarding Iran is less about nuclear weaponsand more about the “sea of oil” that Iran sits on and the struggle for hegemonyin the Middle East.



Fourth, of the 195 countries inthe world, 189 of them — including Iran — are signers of the NuclearNon-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea signed and then withdrew; India,Pakistan, and Israel never signed; and the new countries of Kosovo (2008) andSouth Sudan (2011) have not signed yet. Non-nuclear signatories of the treatyagree “not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclearweapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons orexplosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwiseacquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek orreceive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclearexplosive devices.” Article IV of the treaty allows countries to developnuclear energy for peaceful purposes: “Nothing in this Treaty shall beinterpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treatyto develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposeswithout discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of thisTreaty.” Why doesn’t the United States pressure India, Pakistan, Israel, andNorth Korea to sign and abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty insteadof condemning Iran — a signer that hasn’t manufactured, acquired, or receivedany nuclear weapons?



Fifth, Iran is surrounded by U.S. militarybases. There is a new U.S. specialoperations team known as Joint Special Operations Task Force–GulfCooperation Council at work near Iran, and the U.S. military has aircraft carrier battle groups near Iran’s shores. Yet theUnited States and Iran signed the AlgiersAccords in 1981 to end the hostage crisis. The first point,“Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs,” reads, “The United States pledges thatit is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene,directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”If words have any meaning, that would have to preclude investigating Iran’snuclear program.



Sixth, who is the United States tosay that a country should or shouldn’t have nuclear weapons? When did all theother countries of the world appoint the United States to be the world’spoliceman, inspector, and guardian? As much as officials in the U.S. governmentmay not like it, even if Iran had nuclear weapons that would still not give theUnited States the right to do anything about it beyond diplomacy. The UnitedStates has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads that are a threat to the entire planet.Every country in the world — not just Iran — would be justified in obtainingnuclear weapons to protect itself against the country that was the first todevelop nuclear weapons, the country that has the largest stockpile of nuclearweapons, and the only country to ever use nuclear weapons in battle — theUnited States.



That brings us to my last point.There is only one country in the world that had a secret program — the ManhattanProject — to develop nuclear weapons for offensive purposes and then usedthem. On August 6, 1945, “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima. Three dayslater, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki. Perhaps 200,000 people died, most ofthem Japanese civilians, some of them Korean conscripts, and a few of themAllied POWs. But wasn’t dropping atomic bombs on Japan necessary to end WorldWar II? First of all, World War II was an unnecessarywar. Second, World War II needs to be rethought.Third, thanks to the recently published book bythe former president Herbert Hoover titled Freedom Betrayed: HerbertHoover’s History of the Second World War, it has now once again beenconfirmed that Franklin Roosevelt lied about keeping America out of war even ashe took one deliberate step after another to take it into war. And fourth, noit wasn’t, at least according to then-General DwightEisenhower, who said, “The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’tnecessary to hit them with that awful thing.”



Is Iran “guilty” of secretlydeveloping a nuclear weapon? Perhaps. But one thing is certain — the UnitedStates is guilty of nuclear hypocrisy and there is nothing secret about it.



LaurenceM. Vance is a policy advisor for the Future of Freedom Foundation and theauthor of The Revolution That Wasn’t. Visit his website: www.vancepublications.com. Send himemail.




The'Show Me' States



by Becky Akers http://lewrockwell.com/akers/akers179.html



Recently by Becky Akers: Presenting PreCheck:Fascist and Furious














You might think the New York Police Department, with its notoriety forabusing civilians and alist of scandals so long it requires its own page in Wikipedia, would avoidfurnishing us with yet another reason to despise it.



But no. Like many such forces across the country, the NYPD has grownincreasingly fond of strip-searches – and not just of suspected criminals. Copswant to denude all of us, all the time, even when we’re merely walking down thestreet, minding our own business.



The NYPD’s Commissioner, Ray Kelly, recently confessed this stunningambition during a speech at the New York City Police Foundation. He "saidthe department was working with the Defense Department to develop gun-scantechnology ‘capable of detecting concealed firearms,’" theNew York Times reported.



The Defense Department? OK, New York City’s host of bureaucrats couldvery well collaborate with Al Qaeda, given how badly they gum up the works. Butotherwise, does the NYPD really need to sic the Pentagon on the taxpayers whofoot its bills?



Uniformed thugs who expect us to divulge everything suddenly turn shy whenwe demand the same regarding their mechanical Peeping Toms. We know virtuallynothing about Tom except his real name: Terahertz Imaging Detection. The photothe Times ran with its article shows something akin to thermal imaging i.e.,the subject’s waist glows green thanks to a pistol stuck in his belt.



But this isn’t the only gizmo the NYPD and other cops nationwide focus onus. They’ve also unleashed another, more invasive technology: "whole-bodyimaging," or, as the perverts at the Transportation SecurityAdministration (TSA) now prefer to call it, "advanced imagingtechnology."



You’re far too familiar with these scanners. They’re the ones at the airportthat expose us while also irradiating us – theones that the European Union banned out of "health and privacyconcerns" and that have spawned such groups here as wewon’tfly.com.



What you may not realize is that police nationwide have been wielding theseoffensive contraptions against the folks they supposedly "serve andprotect" for several years now. In September 2010, forbes.com revealed thedeployment of "morethan 500 backscatter X-ray scanners mounted in vans that can bedriven" around neighborhoods nationwide, "snoop[ing]" intowhatever rouses a cop’s curiosity. "…the company says law enforcementagencies have … been using them domestically... ‘This product is now the largest-sellingcargo and vehicle inspection system ever,’ says Joseph Reiss, AS&E's vicepresident of marketing. … The New York Police Department confirmed that it usesthe technology but wouldn't divulge specifics."



Enough to make you stay home except for those trips to the gym, isn’t it?



Not surprisingly, cops love these gadgets. And while the New York Timescheerily pretends they’ll only violate the Second Amendment with them, we allknow the boots on the ground will also aim their X-ray vision at the wannabe actresson her way to an audition. Expect AS&E to profit from hundreds of millionsof our taxes over the next few years.



But there’s an advantage to the ogling from Your City’s Finest, one we’veseen with the TSA: punish law-abiding folks as though they’re crooks, and theylearn to loathe you. TSAnow ranks with the IRS as the federal agency Americans most hate; there’sno reason that electronic strip-searches will be any more popular on theavenues than they are in airports. Americans’ inordinate and craven love forcops may finally end.



Cops’ excuse for virtually strip-searching us is the same as the TSA’s: wehave to thwart the bad guys. And the police-state’s apologists are fine withthat, claiming that if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.They seem oblivious to the fact that dragnets don’t punish only thieves andrapists but violate us, too.



And they chill all sorts of things we value highly, such as free discourse.Are you liable to mount your soapbox and declaim against Obamacare when youknow the van parked across the street is filming you au naturel?



What about travel and socializing? Some flyers figure voyeurism is the pricethey pay for a break on the Caribbean’s sunny beaches – but is a mere tripacross town for dinner with friends worth flashing your junk?



Meanwhile, virtually everything the TSA finds on passengers is innocuous,embarrassing, and of no relevance whatever to terrorism. Cops’ gawking willproduce similar results.



For example, searches have snagged passengers carrying more cash than OurRulers prefer. Stowing a generous wad in your pocket doesn’t break any laws.But the TSA "detains" such victims, forcing them to justify their stashand grossly inconveniencing them – or worse. In 2009, SteveBierfeldt of the Campaign for Liberty taped his interrogation and bullying atthe TSA’s hands when he tried to fly home with $4700 from a politicalfundraiser.



Imagine cops who are still leering over your scan accosting you in front offriends and family, ordering you to assume the position, and then quizzing youon where you got your $600 and what you intend to do with it before finally,grudgingly releasing you.



Often it’s not money that triggers a physical frisking but a medical deviceor a prosthetic limb. The TSA is infamous for tormenting invalids when its"whole-body imagers" pick up "anomalies." Cops willlikewise investigate anything unusual their contraptions reveal, despoticallyshaming tens of millions.



The TSA has annihilated freedom for a decade now; police departments havedone so for almost 150 years, since their introduction here in the 1850’s. It’spast time we rid ourselves of both enemies.



February 25, 2012



Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about theAmerican Revolution.



Copyright © 2012 byLewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted,provided full credit is given.







Smear Machine Ready to Sling Mud Against All Who Won’t Bow to Israel



February 18, 2012 dave http://americanfreepress.net/?p=2858



By Michael Collins Piper



A leading critic of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) ispurveying smears of “anti-Semitism” against some influential liberal groups byunfavorably comparing their stance to the nationalist, America-first point ofview expressed by The Spotlight, the predecessor of AMERICAN FREEPRESS.



The liberal groups—which are closely associatedwith the Obama administration—are perceived, like the president and Paul, to beinsufficiently supportive of Israel. Washington insiders see this as the latesteffort by the Israeli lobby to undermine Obama’s already shaky support amongJewish voters.



A key propagandist involved in the affair isJames Kirchik who won widespread media favor for authoring a hit piece on Paul,accusing him of purveying racism and anti-Semitism in Paul’s privatelypublished newsletter—and, yes, attempting to “link” Paul to The Spotlight,among other supposedly horrible things.





One of a select few in the media whose writingsappear in both the “liberal” New Republic and the “conservative” WeeklyStandard—which, despite differences on domestic issues are otherwisevigorous advocates for Israel (and both of which published Kirchick’s attackson Paul)—Kirchick used the forum of Israel’s daily Ha’aretz to slinghis latest mud.



Describing The Spotlight as “one of themost notorious newspapers ever published in America,” and “for many years thecountry’s premier hate rag,” Kirchick complained that The Spotlightcharged there were high-ranking political figures who, in The Spotlight’sestimation, placed “Israel first.” Now, to Kirchick’s dismay, he claims suchliberal groups as the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Media Matters forAmerica (MMA) are echoing such terminology, which, he says, “is an indicationof just how deep the rhetoric of the far right has seeped into the discourse ofthe mainstream left.”



In fact, what this means is that people on boththe traditional “right” and “left” are getting fed up with inordinate Israelilobby influence on American foreign policy.



The items in controversy were not even publishedor endorsed by CAP, but, instead, appeared on the private Internet accounts oftwo CAP staffers. Yet supporters of Israel cite these items in an effort tosmear CAP, and, by extension, the Obama White House.



One of the CAP staffers referred to “Israelfirsters”—and he has since left the CAP staff. The second “controversial” itemdescribed a member of the Senate as more loyal to the American Israel PublicAffairs Committee (AIPAC)—the lobby for Israel—than to his own constituents.Associates of CAP and MMA were also slammed for openly discussing the clout ofJewish campaign contributions in the American political process, as though suchdiscussion was beyond the pale.



The attacks on the liberal groups originated withJosh Block—a former AIPAC functionary—who packaged an assembly of CAP-connectedwritings, calling them an “outrageous vilification of pro-Israel Americans.”



The fact that CAP is—as The Washington Posthas noted—“closely aligned with the White House” and “an idea generator forObama’s Washington” is being repeatedly bandied about, to the point that it isnow “complicating the president’s reelection outreach to some Jewish voters,”reflecting what another influential Washington daily, Politico, hascalled “Obama’s Jewish problem.” That problem is that key Jewish groups andleaders view the president to be insufficiently supportive of Israel, and theirviews are reverberating in the American Jewish community at large.



While—responding to the attacks—CAP declared theprivate writings of its staffers to be “inappropriate” and rushed to assert itsown support for Israel, the Post noted that “the critics are notmollified.” The Post cited Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the SimonWiesenthal Center, who said “the language is corrosive and unacceptable” andAbraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, who said the statements were“anti-Semitic and borderline anti-Semitic,” adding that the ADL was concerned“this . . . think tank . . . does influence the administration.”



The Post said the controversy “could addfriction to the already tense relationship between Obama and many pro-IsraelJews,” which, of course, was reflected in the recent call by a prominent figurein the Atlanta Jewish community for Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, toassassinate the president.



On Dec. 7, 2011, The Washington Timesreported that Doris Wise Montrose—the president of the Children of JewishHolocaust Survivors—charged that there was an “ongoing campaign by the WhiteHouse to undermine Israel.” At the same time, Morton Klein, the president ofthe Zionist Organization of America, alleged evidence of “the hostility of theadministration to Jews in Israel and its misplaced sympathy for Muslims andradical Muslims.”



——
Michael Collins Piper is an author, journalist, lecturer and radio showhost. He has spoken in Russia, Malaysia, Iran, Abu Dhabi, Japan, Canada and theU.S. He is the author of Final Judgment, The New Jerusalem, The High Priests of War, Dirty Secrets, My First Days in the White House, The New Babylon, Share the Wealth, The Judas Goats, Target: Traficant and The Golem. You can order any of these bookswith a credit card by calling AFP/FAB toll free at 1-888-699-6397.







A Democrat Police State?




Posted by editor on Feb 11, 2012

|http://www.davidduke.com/?p=25661



By Jeff Davis. Ever wonder what the Democratswould do if they legalize 20 million illegal aliens, get them voting and areable to seize perpetual power? An article from Blueridgenow reports: “Charlottewill have new laws that give police more power to stop and search people whenthe Democratic National Convention comes to town later this year.



The new rules approved by the Charlotte CityCouncil in a 10-1 vote Monday night also outlaw camping on city property, achange forcing Occupy Charlotte protesters from the lawn at old City Hall.”



Of course. I mean, we can’t have “Occupy theDemocrat Convention” now, can we? Some of those spoiled brats in the OccupyMovement might not get the message. Some of them might suddenly have a littlelight bulb come on over their heads and remember who actually has had the powerfor the past three years.



The Blueridgenow article goes on: “The vote wasmet with shouts of ‘Shame!’ from a packed council chamber. No arrests werereported.”



“Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say they aretrying to ensure they have enough power to keep people and property safe asthey expect large protests that have become common at political conventions.People won’t be allowed to carry backpacks, satchels or coolers if police thinkthey are being used to carry weapons.”



It amuses me that the lefties claim to stand forfreedom of speech and conscience. One might ask the people of Cuba, China andNorth Korea if that’s the case or the Stalinist police state that went beyondwhat even George Orwell could predict. Does anyone remember the police riotingand cracking heads in Chicago back in 1968 at the Republican convention. Oops!It was the Democrat convention, wasn’t it? And Mayor Daley was a Democrat.These lefties have short memories.



We need to remember what happens when the Leftgets absolute power. We need to make sure that those 20 million illegal aliensNEVER get citizenship or you can kiss your property, bank account and freedomgood bye.







Against McCain’s InterventionistPolicy



by Michael S. Rozeff



http://lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff381.html



Recently by Michael S. Rozeff: Obama Leading Americato War














John McCain (R-AZ) is still a senator and still ready, on principle, tocommit U.S. forces and American wealth to any conflict. In this case, it's inSyria. McCain's reason is not national security. It's to help victims andthwart genocide. He made this crystal clear in hisremarks of March 19, 2003 on the eve of the U.S. attack on Iraq:



"The United States of America has involved itself in the effort todisarm Saddam Hussein, and now freedom for the Iraqi people, with the sameprinciples that motivated the United States of America in most of the conflictswe have been involved in, most recently Kosovo and Bosnia, and in which, inboth of those cases, the United States national security was not at risk, butwhat was at risk was our advocacy and willingness to serve and sacrifice onbehalf of people who are the victims of oppression and genocide."



The U.S. should not work on the "principles" that McCainadvocates. It should not introduce its own force into civil conflictsthroughout the world. This has numerous bad effects. It directly heightens theviolence of the resistance forces in the affected country. It induces the elitethat runs that country into ratcheting up its own violence in order to repressthe rebellion and maintain its own control. It immediately makes the U.S. intoa political player in the politics of this foreign land. This has its own setof negatives that include upsetting the neighboring states in the region,creating long-lasting enmities, risking failure, causing more civilian deaths,tying down U.S. resources for extended periods of time, loss of flexibility,delaying the reconciliation of the domestic parties or the resolution of theirdifferences, and possibly choosing the wrong side so that the new outcomes areworse than the old.



John McCain doesn't admit that the McCain policy in Iraq was a disaster forthe Iraqi people. He does not mention the 105,000 to 115,000 civilian Iraqideaths. He does not reveal that the U.S. supported the Kosovo Liberation Armyagainst the Serbian rule and that this led into the violent Serbian repression,so that the U.S. by injecting itself into a civil war exacerbated it andencouraged ethnic cleansing. McCain doesn’t see all the things that went wrongin Afghanistan. He doesn’t see all the things that can and do go wrong. His"principles" are not a sufficient basis for his policy ofintervention.



McCain’s assessment of war in Iraq recognized that American lives would belost. He didn’t acknowledge how many American lives would not be lost but ruinedor badly diminished. He completely failed to recognize the loss of Iraqi livesthat was about to occur:



"The mission our military is about to embark on is fraught with danger,and it means the loss of brave young American lives. But I also believe itoffers the opportunity for a new day for the Iraqi people."



Arming and aiding any group in Syria that is rebelling against the existinggovernment is likely to heighten the violence and heighten the government's useof force to maintain its power. McCain's suggestion will probably make thingsworse and lead to more death and destruction.



Constitution lovers will wonder where in the U.S. constitution there is amandate for the U.S. to choose a side in every civil conflict of every state inthe world because people are being killed. There isn’t any. No such mandateexists. The U.S. was not created for that purpose.



Pragmatically, the U.S. doesn’t go into every such conflict. It cannot bedone. The U.S. could not go into Chechnya or Sri Lanka or dozens of otherregions. In practice, the U.S. doesn’t follow McCain’s ideas. However, it stillintervenes for other reasons, and those interventions have the same bad effectsas interventions done for McCain’s principles.



McCain justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq by pointing to Saddam Hussein’skillings:



"...there is one thing I am sure of, that we will find the Iraqi peoplehave been the victims of an incredible level of brutalization, terror, murder,and every other kind of disgraceful and distasteful oppression on the part ofSaddam Hussein's regime."



Yes, those who run states quite often overtly murder, brutalize, andterrorize the people under their control. They also do so covertly in otherways. Most people who pay taxes are afraid of being punished if they don’t. Howare Americans to assess morally the state-led murders in other countries inorder to judge action by the U.S., that is, the government people of the U.S.?My view of this is that what each of us does is our own responsibility. Whatthe U.S. government people do is their responsibility. The leaders who run theU.S. should answer for what they do.



Thus, first, under this moral theory, if U.S. leaders decide to enforce therights of Iraqis, they have to be prepared to answer for any invasion of rightsthat they perpetrate in the course of their deeds. If they kill Iraqis, theyshould answer for it. If they destroy Iraqi property, they should answer forit. They also have to be prepared not to invade the rights of those whom theyaccuse of crimes. There should be trials and evidential procedures. To march inwith guns and kill is wholesale violation of rights. Second, even before U.S.leaders decide to enter another country to end the alleged oppression beingcaused by its leaders, the U.S. leaders have to answer for their own right toforce resources out of unwilling Americans in order to conduct this endeavor.This they disallow and cannot do, so that their supposed Good Samaritanism hasa foundation of sand at its root. The whole process is tainted. Third, what iseven worse is that those who run states quite often actively support regimessuch as Saddam Hussein’s. Between 1982 and 1990, the U.S.supported Saddam Hussein’s regime. For this reason too, the U.S. has nomoral ground to stand on at all attacking Iraq as it did, even though SaddamHussein killed his own citizens.



My conclusion is that McCain’s principle of state action to remedy perceivedevils within other states can’t be relied on as a moral principle thatrationalizes the use of a state’s armed intervention into another country.



The existing system of states, bad as it is, can be made worse. This systemcannot legally handle the unilateral injection by the U.S. or any power, majoror minor, into the internal workings of states that are experiencing civilconflicts. If the U.S. can do it, so can Russia, Brazil, China, France, Libyaand any other country. If this idea is followed out, the world will be engulfedin heightened conflicts and wars. The use of force to attack another nationwill become a "justifiable" thing under the pretext of coming to theaid of some rebellious element in that nation. One nation can always supplysupport to rebellious elements in another country and stir up civil conflict towhich it then responds by introducing its armed forces.



I conclude that McCain’s principle of introducing force in other lands inorder to counteract force cannot be relied upon as a universal legal principle.This principle of his can’t be generalized without introducing even more mayheminto the international order.



McCain’s idea relies on the unstated assumption that the U.S. is a"good guy". It assumes also that the U.S. knows the bad guys when itsees them overseas. It assumes that it can get rid of the bad guys withouthurting the good guys. It assumes that the end result will be better than notintervening at all. None of these assumptions are necessarily true. And, asnoted above, if the U.S. thinks of itself as the good guy that can justifiablyput down the bad guys, so can other countries.



The system of states has produced only one international body (the UN) withthe authority to intervene, and then only under legal guidelines that thestates have agreed upon. This arrangement is unsatisfactory, no doubt, butunilateral U.S. intervention is worse, because it implies that any state canintervene anywhere.



The unilateral U.S. attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been evenworse than intervening in foreign civil conflicts because in those cases therewas not even the excuse of an ongoing civil war. The U.S. (and other NATOstates) went in and created the subsequent civil violence. It opened the doorto strife and civil violence among the peoples in those countries. It openedthe door to terrorist bombings.



Even without consideration of international law, there are all the pragmaticnegatives noted earlier of attempting to discern justice from afar, introducingU.S. force into civil conflicts, and making the U.S. a party to ongoing violentconfrontations. There are very large negatives in cases like Iraq where McCainand the warmongers would attack because they discern oppression or genocide.



On genocide, McCain had this to say:



"We did not go into Bosnia because Mr. Milosevic had weapons of massdestruction. We did not go into Kosovo because ethnic Albanians or others weresomehow a threat to the security of the United States. We entered into thoseconflicts because we could not stand by and watch innocent men, women, andchildren being slaughtered, raped, and ‘ethnically cleansed.’ We found a newphrase for our lexicon: ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Ethnic cleansing is a phrase whichhas incredible implications."



Genocide bothers any right-thinking person. Genocide is simply horrible. Asbad as it is, that does not mean that we should reach for simple answers likeintervening with U.S. forces. That is because the unwise use of force or otherpolitical measures can make a genocide worse or even bring it about. The U.S. bombing campaign in Cambodiabetween 1969 and 1973 led to Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979 and theCambodian genocide. Plus the U.S. encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot.Western policies toward Germany and toward Jewishimmigration contributed to Hitler’s Final Solution.



We have to ask why there is a genocide in the first place. Before there is agenocide, certain conditions may tend to occur. Let us understand what they maybe. We need to understand genocides in order to prevent them.



On this score, RudolphJ. Rummel has done a great deal of good work. He has documented death bygovernment. He has written "power kills, absolute power killsabsolutely."



Government people kill their own citizens for reasons. There are alwaysrationales, such as racial extermination, ethnic extermination, removal ofpolitical resistance, removal of classes of people like landowners, removal ofgenetically inferior, removal of diseased, removal of corrupt elements, removalof religious groups, and on and on and on. Even when government people do notkill but imprison, the government people do so for reasons such as stoppingdrug use. There are, in fact, all too many motives for using power to oppressothers. As Rummel suggests, it’s the power of the government people that is thenecessary condition for its imposition – for whatever reasons the governmentpeople imagine to be "right" or "good".



What is sufficient to trigger the amplified use of power in genocide is lessclear. There is fruitful study that is being done to further our understandingof death by government. For example, there is "State-Sponsored MassMurder: The Onset and Severity of Genocides and Politicides" by MatthewKrain.



Krain emphasizes that genocides frequently occur where there is civilconflict or war. When civil resistance to the use of power by government peopleoccur, the elites in government can make concessions to defuse civil resistanceor they can use force. Where they use force, the result can be genocide of thepeople they govern if and when the conflict escalates. Unlike Rummel whoemphasizes the concentration of power, Krain points to the opening up of"political opportunities". For example, there is a shift in power, aswhen Lenin was disabled and Stalin’s rise to power began. Lenin’s persecutionswere amplified. The U.S. war in 1861-1865 provides a further example of the useof terror that is closer to home. Sherman’s march is hard to imagine withoutthat civil conflict having been in place.



If widespread resistance to the U.S. government were to occur today, itwould be met first by a combination of concessions and force. If theconcessions didn't quell active dissent and resistance, more force would beused. Under even worse circumstances, the government would resort to wholesalekilling, arrests, and genocide. It could happen here. It can happen anywherewhere there is an armed government force that loses the support or the grudgingacceptance of large segments of the population.



Oppression is what states do. It owes to the existence of states themselvesand to government people with power. Consequently, it is natural to findresistance in the population to the unjust uses of force by the governmentpeople. There are at least four situations that can lead to genocide. One isthat government people take hold of the power who have an agenda that calls forexterminating certain groups of people. Second is that resistance to a regimebecomes more widespread and the regime ramps up its use of power to stemresistance and maintain control. Third is that some states are so unstable orare so oppressive or contain such diffuse elements that their leaders employviolence against the people on a more or less continual basis. Fourth is thatgovernment people break down the controls that hem them in and augment theirpower.



Both LindseyGraham and John McCain have urged the U.S. to aid efforts to bring down thepresident of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. Both these senators want to arm theopposition. Both are interventionists.



It is highly doubtful that either one of them really knows what’s going onin Syria. Neither knows what arming various elements may lead to on the part ofthose now fighting one another. Neither one can assure anyone that armingrebels won’t backfire and lead Assad to respond with even greater force. Theycannot assure anyone that one U.S. step won’t lead to more and more such stepsor to counter-steps from Iran and Russia. They cannot assure anyone that whatthey recommend won’t mean more civilian deaths, injuries and refugees.



Neither of these two senators comprehends that the U.S. has no authority forsuch interventions, and that their supposed justifications are flimsy. They areopening the door to the interventions of other states all over the world.



Both men are mistaken. Graham is thinking of Iran and national security. Hesays



"Breaking Syria apart from Iran could be as important to containing anuclear Iran as sanctions. If the Syrian regime is replaced with another formof government that doesn’t tie its future to the Iranians, the world is abetter place."



Graham wants to remake Middle Eastern societies and politics, for no soundreason relating to Americans at large that I can ascertain.



McCain’s motive is humanitarian:



"People that are being massacred deserve to have the ability to defendthemselves."



McCain’s application of this thought is as mistaken as Graham’s applicationof national security. Yes, persons being massacred are worthy of having arms todefend themselves, if they choose to. But that does not mean that anyone else mustsupply them with arms, and it does not mean that the U.S. government has amoral obligation to do so, or that the U.S. government has any right on behalfof all Americans to do so.



I urge Senator McCain to create a voluntary organization to send arms tothose he wishes to, and to be prepared to answer for the killing that they dowith those arms.



People who rebel against government people have the moral high ground, butthe means by which they rebel are also important. Rebels who use arms have tobe prepared to face the retaliatory might of the government people’s power. Itis their responsibility to arrange their military and politicalcampaigns against their oppressors. They do not have a moral call option on anyand all Americans to join in their fights with weapons via the might of theU.S. government.















Our concentratedfocus on Paul-related news was initially disconcerting to my daughter, aColumbia College sophomore. Over Thanksgiving break she complained of feelingdisplaced by a new baby in the family and sought help from Yahoo! Answers:"My family is obsessed with politics! They're driving me nuts. What can Ido?" (Ironically, the best answer came from someone with the oppositeproblem who offered to trade parents.) When I forwarded her Walter Block’sarticle "I Hate Ron Paul," she replied that not only should I joinRon Paul Anonymous, but she would need to begin a co-dependency group for thosewhose loved ones suffered from the same addiction. By semester’s end, however,she was relating Ron Paul to her Contemporary Civilization course readings,especially John Locke on the government’s role to protect the natural rights ofliberty and property. When upon her return home after exams she started playingRon Paul songs on YouTube and phone banking, I knew she was a Ronvert! She evensucceeded in convincing her grandmother to vote for the first time since the1960s. In the space of one semester, Ron Paul had become our champion.



Over winter breakthe three of us spent many hours gathered around the laptop on the kitchencounter as we followed news gleaned from the Internet. We asked ourselves howPresident Obama could have so quietly signed the Anti-Counterfeiting TradeAgreement (global internet censorship treaty, known as the "eviltwin" of SOPA) and National Defense Authorization Act (indefinite militarydetention of American citizens without due process bill). In light of theseexecutive actions, Vico’s remarks on ancient Rome’s fall into dictatorship hada particularly eerie ring. "By pursuing their own private interests,"he wrote in the New Science, "free peoples let themselves be seduced bythe powerful into subjecting their own public freedom to the ambition ofothers." While "a few vainly discoursed on the benefits ofliberty," the rest went from "indifference" to "ignoranceof the state as of something foreign to them." Not surprisingly,Congressman Paul not only spoke out on behalf of our liberties, but tookaction. The first thing he did upon returning to the House in the New Year,apart from voting against yet another rise in the debt ceiling, was tointroduce an amendment repealing the unconstitutional section of the NDAA.



Yet looking at thepolls and grassroots support for Dr. Paul, there are decidedly more than just afew individuals determined to restore America now. During a rally speech in NewHampshire last month, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., noted how Ron Paul is galvanizingpeople to study political philosophy and learn about monetary policy becausethe movement is ultimately not about the man, but rather the message. The crowdknew what he was talking about and so did we! We had long since devoured Paul’sThe Revolution: A Manifesto, and were delving into Murray Rothbard’s monumentalMan, Economy, and State. Realizing that regardless of our profession we cannotafford to ignore the economic issues that affect us all, we are aiming to getup to speed on the Austrian School this semester thanks to daily on-linearticles and publications from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. And although Icould never have predicted such a consequence five months ago when I joined myson to watch that fateful primary debate, this spring break the three of uswill be setting out on a fifteen-hour road trip to Auburn, Alabama for theMises Institute’s annual Austrian Scholars Conference. There is no turning backon this journey of discovery, and we are thrilled to be in such great company.



Our favorite FrankCapra classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, had a happy ending, but it wasonly a film. Will Ron Paul garner enough support to disappoint the Republicanestablishment’s predetermined nominee despite systematic mediamisrepresentation? Will the good doctor be given a chance to cure our woes comeNovember? In my opinion, given the pro-war, pro-bankster, anti-libertydirection adopted by both parties, our collective future as a free nation may dependon it. As Ron Paul wrote in "We’ve Been Neo-Conned": "Let it notbe said that no one cared, that no one objected once it's realized that ourliberties and wealth are in jeopardy."



A shorter versionof this essay recently appeared in the Columbia Spectator.



February 24, 2012



Jo Ann Cavallo isan associate professor of Italian at Columbia University and the Italianliterature editor of The Literary Encyclopedia. Her latest book manuscript, The World Beyond Europe in the Romance Epicsof Boiardo and Ariosto, received the 2011 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione PublicationAward for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies.



Copyright © 2012 byLewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted,provided full credit is given.







Taking the Republicans Seriously



It's not possible



by Justin Raimondo,



February 24, 2012 http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/02/23/the-santorum-threat/



I was hoping never to have to write about the Santorumsurge, yet I knew, in my hearts of hearts, it was meant to be. After all,the more Newt Gingrich talked–and talked,and talked–the more likely even Republican primary voters were to be repulsed by the vastnessof his self-regard.It was inevitable that the Gingrich bubble would burst, and the next logicalplace for the thoroughly neoconized – that is, lobotomized — conservative“mainstream” to go is certainlynot Ron Paul.



Santorum inherited those voters by default. For these people, theIraq war never happened, or, if it did, it occurred in an alternateuniverse where the Iraqis pelted us with rose petals upon our arrival,instead of a hail of bullets, just like RichardPerle and the gang said they would. They have learnednothing since the Bush era: frozen in time, they are the party’s zombies,cheering the slogans of a long discredited cause. Santorum and Romney arecompeting for theRepublican undead vote, with the latter doing his best to prove his pro-warcredentials. The military option in Iran, said Romney during what was billed asthe final debate, is not just “on the table – it’s in ourhand.” Well, not quite yet, Mitt: you haven’t got your finger on the triggerjust yet. And god willing you never will.



Yet Santorum manages to out-warmongereven this, boasting that he went up against George W. Bush in pushing“crippling sanctions” on Iran, and pointing to his campaign to fund Iranianexile groups – money he claims has been cut by the evil Obamaites, who are morethan glad to fund the MuslimBrotherhood in Egypt and Libya. Santorum scores extra points for implicitlypandering to the Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim meme: although we probably won’t seehim signing on to the theory that Obama is the lovechild of Malcolm X, that part of Santorum’s debate performance was a dogwhistle aimed in the direction of outright loons.



Like Michele Bachmann, whose penchant for making up “facts” may have hadsomething to do with her campaign’s early demise, Santorum just doesn’t knowwhat he’s talkingabout:



“When I was born, less than 10 percent of the federal budget wasentitlement spending. It’s now 60 percent of the budget.

”Some people have suggested that defense spending is the problem. When I wasborn, defense spending was 60 percent of the budget. It’s now 17 percent. Ifyou think defense spending is the problem, then you need a remedial math classto go back to.”



In 1958, when Santorum was born, defense spending was 38percent of the total budget: it’s now 58 percent if youcount the interest on the military spending portion of total federal outlaysand the costs of past wars, including veterans’ benefits and medical care. The“official” figure is 20 percent, so the Senator doesn’t even get that right. Iunderstand what launching a presidential campaign on a shoestring entails, butif he’s going to make this one of his talking points, couldn’t he at least do afew minutes of pre-debate Googling?



It was amateur hour on the debate stage in Arizona on Wednesday night, andSantorum was far from alone is playing loose with the facts. Both Romney andSantorum have taken up this Hezbollah-in-Latin-Americatheme, a campaign talking point that stands right up there with the most farout of LaurieMylroie’s fantasies and the Nigeruranium forgeries in terms of credibility. Yet that hasn’t stopped theneoconservatives from pushing this idea for years, with little or no realevidence to back it up: indeed, the lack of evidence provides plenty of spacefor pure speculation, which is what they’re best at. You can be sure that whensome right-wing “anti-terrorist” expert pontificates before a congressionalcommittee, they’re bound to bring up the alleged “Hezbollah training camp” thatsupposedly exists on MargaritaIsland, a small, balmy island off Venezuela’s north coast. With itslow-growing vegetation, small size, and paths well-worn by the inhabitants,Margarita Island is as unlikely a place for a terrorist training camp as, say,Fire Island. It would be discovered five minutes after being set up: the soundof shots would echo through the inlets and coves like thunderclaps. As MicheleSalcedo putit in the Florida Sun-Sentinel:



“Recently, Gen. James T. Hill, the commander of the U.S. SouthernCommand, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that ‘radicalIslamic groups associated with Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Gamaat and others’ are‘operating out of ….. locales, like Margarita Island off Venezuela.’



“Hill has never visited the island.



“The net fishermen, small-business owners, bank presidents and governmentofficials who call Margarita Island home say Hill is all wrong. They would likehim to take a drive around the island and through the peninsula to see whatthey already know.



“Strangers would have a hard time hiding here. The rough, low-growingvegetation offers no cover. Munitions explosions would echo off the mountainsand amplify off the water. The coves and inlets are as familiar to the peoplewho live here as the creases in their weather-worn faces. A dozen flights wingto and from Caracas each day, giving passengers on board a birds-eye view ofthe peninsula.”



The Romney-Santorum theme of a looming Latin American jihadist threat is anarrative that defies refutation for the simple reason that there is zeroevidence to support it. When one boils down these reports, such as one issuedby the AmericanEnterprise Institute, the most one can say is that Hezbollah’s fundraisingactivities are international in scope and include contributions from some sourcesin Latin America. This is a very far cry from setting up operational centersand “terrorist training camps,” but that doesn’t deter the authors of thisparticular narrative, who aren’t interested in evidence, only inscaremongering. In short, the whole thing is a complete fabrication, on thesame level as the Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim meme. All of which makes it hard totake the two leading Republican candidates seriously.



The complete lack of any thoughtfulness should be worrying to those fewRepublicans left who care about such things. “The world is more dangerous,”says Romney. “It is not safer.” Yes, after a decade of constant warfare, after invading and occupyingtwo Muslim countries and striking from Somalia to Pakistan,we are definitely much less safe – but whose fault is that? Romney wouldescalate the very policies responsible for increasing the danger to allAmericans.



On the question of regime change in Syria, Romneyand Santorumare in total agreement, declaring we ought to arm the rebels, along with Turkeyand the Saudis. Why this wouldn’t turn into anotherLibya, neither bothered to say, although I wouldn’t want to be the one whostarted the Santorum-is-a-secret-Muslim meme, now would I?



The foreign policy portion of this debate underscored the fundamentalunseriousness of the leading Republican candidates. Their fundamentaldishonesty – are we really going to abjure any cuts in the military even if itmeans bankruptcy?– imbues these debates with an air of childishness: one feels as if one hasbeen teleported back in time, to one’s high school election for classpresident. As the only adult onstage, RonPaul shone in comparison.

The problem is that we’ve become a nation of babies: total narcissists whobelieve the world not only revolves around us, but that the laws of economicsand of common sense itself are subject to our whims. In such a world, one canindeed have an empire and a welfare state and never have to worry when thebills come due – because, after all, babies don’t pay bills, do they?

This was Paul’slament Wednesday night, when he said, in a tired voice: well I’ve tried themoral argument, and all the other arguments, and I haven’t gotten anywhere, somaybe the economic argument will work. I’m paraphrasing Paul, but in essence hesaid: “We’re broke, and we can’t afford all these wars.”



I’m afraid not even the economic argument will work on these “free market”Republicans. The reason it won’t work is because the Republican party iscommitted to permanent warfare as a matter of high principle, one that trumpseconomics, and everything else, including the laws of morality. Paul invokesthe spirit of Robert A.Taft, but that strain of Republicanism is long since dissipated intopolitical insignificance – although the Paul campaign may be a harbinger of itsrevival, Paul’s showing in the primaries hasn’t yet demonstrated that.

Polls show a goodpart of Paul’s support – which we can translate, for our purposes, intosupport for anti-interventionism – comes from independents, young people, andswing voters leaning Democrat. In short, it comes from precisely those voterswho will be deciding the next election – not from Republican base voters, whoseforeign policy views are frozen in time and impervious to rational argument.

Speaking of being impervious to rational argument, I see the Santorum campis floatingthe rumor that Romney is offering Paul the vice presidential slot in returnfor an “alliance.” This is much like the Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim rumor in thatit cannot be refuted – because there’s nothing to refute. As I’ve pointedout before, Paul has attacked Romney often and hard: there’s nothing tothis “alliance” other than the overworked imaginationof one Washington Post reporter and, now, Team Santorum. We’re evenhearing it may be RandPaul, Ron’s son and the freshly-elected Senator from Kentucky, who’s up forthe vice presidency. Since this possibility is contingent on Ron and/or Randactually, you know, endorsing Romney, such a scenario seems highlyunlikely, to put it mildly.

What’s funny is that the Santorum camp – and the political reporters pushingthis non-story so strenuously – are utterly clueless about what drives the Paulcampaign. It’s been so long since they’ve seen an honest politician at the headof a principled movement that they can’t even understand the concept.Ideologically, the Paulians are light years removed from all the othercandidates, and no amount of cajoling – or bribes – will bring them into thefold. No, not even the prospect of Rand Paul a heartbeat away from thepresidency, which isn’t going to happen in any event.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

Our fundraising drive has picked upsomewhat, but we’re still struggling. Thank the gods for those who have pledgedmatching funds – up to $28,000. But that’s only if we can match theirincredibly generous donation with lots of smaller contributions from you, ourfaithful readers. So please, help us keep the War Party at bay at this crucialtime, when war with Iran is in the headlines and the Usual Suspects are bayingfor blood. Your contribution is 100 percent tax-deductible, so if you’relooking for a way to deny the War Machine some of your cash, then this is theway to do it. It’s easy, it’s legal, andit’s fun!

Those matching funds are all that stand between Antiwar.com and extinction,and that’s no exaggeration. So please, consider the value you’re getting withthe best, most comprehensive, most timely web site devoted entirely to foreignaffairs and the folly of US intervention overseas – and make your contribution today.

There are five articles today

Lattigo Smith <lattigo26@yahoo.com> Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 4:09 PM To: "gibb@azci.net" <gibb@azci.net> Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original There are four good articles today Down With the Presidency by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. www.lewrockwwell.com The modern institution of the presidency is the primary political evil Americans face, and the cause of nearly all our woes. It squanders the national wealth and starts unjust wars against foreign peoples that have never done us any harm. It wrecks our families, tramples on our rights, invades our communities, and spies on our bank accounts. It skews the culture toward decadence and trash. It tells lie after lie. Teachers used to tell school kids that anyone can be president. This is like saying anyone can go to Hell. It's not an inspiration; it's a threat. The presidency – by which I mean the executive State – is the sum total of American tyranny. The other branches of government, including the presidentially appointed Supreme Court, are mere adjuncts. The presidency insists on complete devotion and humble submission to its dictates, even while it steals the products of our labor and drives us into economic ruin. It centralizes all power unto itself, and crowds out all competing centers of power in society, including the church, the family, business, charity, and the community. I'll go further. The US presidency is the world's leading evil. It is the chief mischief-maker in every part of the globe, the leading wrecker of nations, the usurer behind Third-World debt, the bailer-out of corrupt governments, the hand in many dictatorial gloves, the sponsor and sustainer of the New World Order, of wars, interstate and civil, of famine and disease. To see the evils caused by the presidency, look no further than Iraq or Serbia, where the lives of innocents were snuffed out in pointless wars, where bombing was designed to destroy civilian infrastructure and cause disease, and where women, children, and the aged have been denied essential food and medicine because of a cruel embargo. Look at the human toll taken by the presidency, from Dresden and Hiroshima to Waco and Ruby Ridge, and you see a prime practitioner of murder by government. Today, the president is called the leader of the world's only superpower, the "world's indispensable nation," which is reason enough to have him deposed. A world with any superpower at all is a world where no freedoms are safe. But by invoking this title, the presidency attempts to keep our attention focused on foreign affairs. It is a diversionary tactic designed to keep us from noticing the oppressive rule it imposes right here in the United States. As the presidency assumes ever more power unto itself, it becomes less and less accountable and more and more tyrannical. These days, when we say the federal government, what we really mean is the presidency. When we say, national priorities, we really mean what the presidency wants. When we say national culture, we mean what the presidency funds and imposes. The presidency is presumed to be the embodiment of Rousseau's general will, with far more power than any monarch or head of state in pre-modern societies. The US presidency is the apex of the world's biggest and most powerful government and of the most expansive empire in world history. As such, the presidency represents the opposite of freedom. It is what stands between us and our goal of restoring our ancient rights. And let me be clear: I'm not talking about any particular inhabitant of the White House. I'm talking about the institution itself, and the millions of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who are its acolytes. Look through the US government manual, which breaks down the federal establishment into its three branches. What you actually see is the presidential trunk, its Supreme Court stick, and its Congressional twig. Practically everything we think of as federal – save the Library of Congress – operates under the aegis of the executive. This is why the governing elites – and especially the foreign policy elites – are so intent on maintaining public respect for the office, and why they seek to give it the aura of holiness. For example, after Watergate, they briefly panicked and worried that they had gone too far. They might have discredited the democratic autocracy. And to some extent they did. But the elites were not stupid; they were careful to insist that the Watergate controversy was not about the presidency as such, but only about Nixon the man. That's why it became necessary to separate the two. How? By keeping the focus on Nixon, making a devil out of him, and reveling in the details of his personal life, his difficulties with his mother, his supposed pathologies, etc. Of course, this didn't entirely work. Americans took from Watergate the lesson that presidents will lie to you. This should be the first lesson of any civics course, of course, and the first rule of thumb in understanding the affairs of government. But notice that after Nixon died, he too was elevated to godlike status. None other than Bill Clinton served as high priest of the cult of president-worship on that occasion. He did everything but sacrifice a white bull at the temple of the White House. The presidency recovered most of its sacramental character during the Reagan years. How wonderful, for the sake of our liberties, that Clinton has revived the great American tradition of scorning tyrants. In some ways, he is the best president a freedom lover can hope for. Of course, someday, Clinton too will ascend to the clouds, and enter the pantheon of the great leaders of the free world. The libraries are filled with shelf after shelf of treatises on the American presidency. Save yourself some time, and don't bother with them. Virtually all tell the same hagiographic story. Whether written by liberals or conservatives, they serve up the identical Whiggish pap: the history of the presidency is the story of a great and glorious institution. It was opposed early on, and viciously so, by the anti-federalists, and later, even more viciously, by Southern Confederates. But it has been heroically championed by every respectable person since the beginning of the republic. The office of the presidency, the conventional wisdom continues, has changed not at all in substance, but has grown in stature, responsibility, and importance, to fulfill its unique mission on earth. As the duties of the office have grown, so has the greatness of the men who inhabit it. Each stands on the shoulders of his forerunners, and, inspired by their vision and decisiveness, goes on to make his own contribution to the ever-expanding magisterium of presidential laws, executive orders, and national security findings. When there is a low ebb in the accumulation of power, it is seen as the fault of the individual and not the office. Thus the so-called postage-stamp presidents between Lincoln and Wilson are to be faulted for not following the glorious example set by Abe. They had a vast reservoir of power, but were mysteriously reluctant to use it. Fortunately that situation was resolved, by Wilson especially, and we moved onward and upward into the light of the present day. And every one of these books ends with the same conclusion: the US presidency has served us well. The hagiographers do admit one failing of the American presidency. It is almost too big an office for one man, and too much a burden to bear. The American people have come to expect too much from the president. We are unrealistic to think that one man can do it all. But that's all the more reason to respect and worship the man who agrees to take it on, and why all enlightened people must cut him some slack. The analogy that comes to mind is the official history of the popes. In its infancy, the papacy was less formal, but its power and position were never in question. As the years went on and doctrine developed, so too did the burdens of office. Each pope inherited the wisdom of his forbears, and led the Church into fulfilling its mission more effectively. But let's be clear about this. The church has never claimed that the papacy was the product of human effort; its spiritual character is a consequence of a divine, not human, act. And even the official history admits the struggles with anti-popes and Borgia popes. Catholics believe the institution was founded by Christ, and is guided by the Holy Spirit, but the pope can only invoke that guidance in the most narrow and rare circumstances. Otherwise, he is all too fallible. And that is why, although allegedly an absolute monarch, he is actually bound by the rule of law. The presidency is seemingly bound by law, but in practice it can do just about anything it pleases. It can order up troops anywhere in the world, just as Clinton bragged in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. It can plow up a religious community in Texas and bury its members because they got on somebody's nerves at the Justice Department. It can tap our phones, read our mail, watch our bank accounts, and tell us what we can and cannot eat, drink, and smoke. The presidency can break up businesses, shut down airlines, void drilling leases, bribe foreign heads of state or arrest them and try them in kangaroo courts, nationalize land, engage in germ warfare, firebomb crops in Colombia, overthrow any government anywhere, erect tariffs, round up and discredit any public or private assembly it chooses, grab our guns, tax our incomes and our inheritances, steal our land, centrally plan the national and world economy, and impose embargoes on anything anytime. No prince or pope ever had this ability. But leave all that aside and consider this nightmare. The presidency has the power to bring about a nuclear holocaust with the push of a button. On his own initiative, the president can destroy the human race. One man can wipe out life on earth. Talk about playing God. This is a grotesque evil. And the White House claims it is not a tyranny? If the power to destroy the entire world isn't tyrannical, I don't know what is. Why do we put up with this? Why do we allow it? Why isn't this power immediately stripped from him? What prevents fundamental challenge to this monstrous power is precisely the quasi-religious trappings of the presidency, which we again had to suffer through last January. One man who saw the religious significance of the presidency, and denounced it in 1973, was – surprisingly enough – Michael Novak. His study, Choosing Our King: Powerful Symbols in Presidential Politics, is one of the few dissenting books on the subject. It was reissued last year as – not surprisingly – Choosing Our Presidents: Symbols of Political Leadership, with a new introduction repudiating the best parts of the book. Of course, none of the conventional bilge accords with reality. The US president is the worst outgrowth of a badly flawed Constitution, imposed in a sort of coup against the Articles of Confederation. Even from the beginning, the presidency was accorded too much power. Indeed, an honest history would have to admit that the presidency has always been an instrument of oppression, from the Whisky Rebellion to the War on Tobacco. The presidency has systematically stolen the liberty won through the secession from Britain. From Jackson and Lincoln to McKinley and Roosevelt Junior, from Wilson and FDR to Truman and Kennedy, from Nixon and Reagan to Bush and Clinton, it has been the means by which our rights to liberty, property, and self-government have been suppressed. I can count on one hand the actions of presidents that actually favored the true American cause, meaning liberty. The overwhelming history of the presidency is a tale of overthrown rights and liberties, and the erection of despotism in their stead. Each president has tended to be worse than the last, especially in this century. Lately, in terms of the powers they assumed and the dictates they imposed, Kennedy was worse than Eisenhower, Johnson was worse than Kennedy, Nixon was worse than Johnson, Carter was worse than Nixon, and Reagan – who doubled the national budget and permanently entrenched the warfare State – was worse than Carter. The same is true of Bush and Clinton. Every budget is bigger and the powers exercised more egregious. Each new brutal action breaks another taboo and establishes a new precedent that gives the next occupant of the White House more leeway. Looking back through American history, we can see the few exceptions to this rule. Washington wrote an eloquent farewell address, laying out the proper American trade and foreign policy. Jefferson's revolution of 1800 was a great thing. But was it really a freer country after his term than before? That's a tough case to make. Andrew Jackson abolished the central bank, but his real legacy was democratic centralism and weakened states' rights. Andrew Johnson loosened the military dictatorship fastened on the South after it was conquered. But it is not hard to make the country freer when it had become totalitarian under the previous president's rule. Of course, Lincoln's bloody autocracy survives as the model of presidential leadership. James Buchanan made a great statement on behalf of the right of revolution. Grant restored the gold standard. Harding denounced US imperialism in Haiti. But overall, my favorite president is William Henry Harrison. He keeled over shortly after his inauguration. There have been four huge surveys taken of historians' views on the presidents: in 1948, in 1962, in 1970, and in 1983. Historians were asked to rank presidents as Great, Near Great, Average, Below Average, and Failure. In every case, number one is Lincoln, the mass murderer and military dictator who is the real father of the present nation. His term was a model of every despot's dream: spending money without Congressional approval, declaring martial law, arbitrarily arresting thousands and holding them without trial, suppressing free speech and the free press, handing out lucrative war contracts to his cronies, raising taxes, inflating the currency, and killing hundreds of thousands for the crime of desiring self-government. These are just the sort of actions historians love. The number-two winner in these competitions is FDR. Moreover, Wilson and Jackson are always in the top five. The bottom two in every case are Grant and Harding. None bothered to rate William Henry Harrison. What does greatness in the presidency mean? It means waging war, crushing liberties, imposing socialism, issuing dictates, browbeating and ignoring Congress, appointing despotic judges, expanding the domestic and global empire, and generally trying his best to be an all-round enemy of freedom. It means saying with Lincoln, "I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy." The key to winning the respect of historians is to do these things. All aspirants to this vile office know this. It's what they seek. They long for crisis and power, to be bullies in the pulpit, to be the dictators they are in their hearts. They want, at all costs, to avoid the fate of being another "postage-stamp president." Madison said no man with power deserves to be trusted. Neither should we trust any man who seeks the power that the presidency offers. Accordingly, it is all well and good that conservatives have worked to discredit the current occupant of the White House. Call him a cheat and a double-dealer if you want. Call him a tyrant too. But we must go further. The answer to restoring republican freedom has nothing to do with replacing Clinton with Lott or Kemp or Forbes or Buchanan. The structure of the presidency, and the religious aura that surrounds it, must be destroyed. The man is merely a passing occupant of the Holy Chair of St. Abraham. It is the chair itself that must be reduced to kindling. It was never the intention of the majority of framers to create the mess we have, of course. After the war for independence, the Articles of Confederation had no chief executive. Its decisions were made by a five-member Confederation. The Confederation had no power to tax. All its decisions required the agreement of 9 of the 13 states. That is the way it should be. Most of the delegates to the unfortunate Philadelphia convention hated executive power. They had severely restricted the governors of their states after their bitter experience with the colonial governors. The new governors had no veto, and no power over the legislatures. Forrest McDonald reports that one-quarter of the delegates to the convention wanted a plural executive, based loosely on the Articles model. But those who planned the convention – including Morris, Washington, and Hamilton – wanted a single, strong executive, and they out-maneuvered the various strains of anti-federalists. But listen to how they did it. The people of the several states and their representatives were suspicious that Hamilton wanted to create a monarchy. Now, there's much mythology surrounding this point. It's not that the anti-federalists and the popular will opposed some guy strutting around in a crown. It was not monarchy as such they opposed, but the power the king exercised. When they said they didn't want a monarch, they meant they didn't want a King George, they didn't want a tyrant, a despot, an autocrat, an executive. It was the despotic end they feared, and not the royal means. Indeed, formally, the Constitution gives few powers to the president, and few duties, most of them subject to approval by the legislature. The most important provision regarding the presidency is that the holder of the office can be impeached. It was to be a threat constantly hanging over his head. It was, most framers thought, to be threatened often and used against any president who dared gather more power unto himself than the Constitution prescribed. In one famous outburst, Hamilton was forced to defend himself against the charge that the new office of the presidency was a monarchy in disguise. He explained the difference between a monarch and a president. But as you listen to this, think about the present executive. Ask yourself whether he resembles the thing Hamilton claimed to have created in the office of the presidency, or whether we have the tyrant he claimed to be repudiating. Among other points, Hamilton said in "Federalist 69": The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction . . . removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected. . . . The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. . . . [The power] of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies – all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature. . . . The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur. The king of Great Britain is the sole and absolute representative of the nation in all foreign transactions. He can of his own accord make treaties of peace, commerce, alliance, and of every other description. . . . The President is to nominate and, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors and other public ministers. . . . The king of Great Britain is emphatically and truly styled the fountain of honor. He not only appoints to all offices, but can create offices. He can confer titles of nobility at pleasure . . . and . . . [even] make denizens of aliens. . . . [The President] can prescribe no rules concerning the commerce or currency of the nation; [the king] is in several respects the arbiter of commerce, and in this capacity can establish markets and fairs, can regulate weights and measures, can lay embargoes for a limited time, can coin money. . . . What answer shall we give to those who would persuade us that things so unlike resemble each other? Well, we can debate all day whether Hamilton was naïve about the imperial office he was in fact creating, or whether he was a despicable liar. But the fact remains that in his writings, despite his reputation as a backer of the exalted presidency, he is by today's standards a Congressional supremacist. For that matter, and in comparison with today's presidency, so was the British king. Most historians agree that there would have been no presidency apart from George Washington, who was trusted by the people as a true gentleman, and was presumed to understand what the American revolution was all about. But he got off track by attempting to suppress the Whisky Rebellion, although he at least acknowledged that his actions went beyond the strict letter of the Constitution. But though the presidency quickly spun out of control, at its antebellum worst it had nothing in common with today's executive State. In those days, you could live your life and never even notice that the presidency existed. You had no contact with it. Most people couldn't vote anyway, thank goodness, and you didn't have to, but certain rights and freedoms were guaranteed regardless of whoever took hold of this – by today's standards – largely ceremonial position. The presidency couldn't tax you, draft you, or regulate your trade. It couldn't inflate your money, steal your kids, or impose itself on your community. From the standpoint of the average American, the presidency was almost invisible. Listen to what de Tocqueville observed in 1831: The President is . . . the executor of the laws; but he does not really cooperate in making them, since the refusal of his assent does not prevent their passage. He is not, therefore, a part of the sovereign power, but only its agent. . . . The president is placed beside the legislature like an inferior and dependent power. . . . The office of president of the United States is temporary, limited, and subordinate. . . . [W]hen he is at the head of government, he has but little power, little wealth, and little glory to share among his friends; and his influence in the state is too small for the success or the ruin of a faction to depend upon his elevation to power. . . . The influence which the President exercises on public business is no doubt feeble and indirect. Thirty years later, all this would be destroyed by Lincoln, who fundamentally changed the nature of the government, as even his apologists admit. He became a Caesar, in complete contradiction to most of the framers' intentions. As Acton said, he abolished the primary contribution that America had made to the world, the principle of federalism. But that is an old story. Less well known is how Wilson revived Lincoln's dictatorial predilections, and added to them an even more millennial cast. Moreover, this was his intention before he was elected. In 1908, while still president of Princeton, he wrote a small book entitled the President of the United States. It was a paean to the imperial presidency, and might as well have been the bible of every president who followed him. He went beyond Lincoln, who praised the exercise of power. Wilson longed for a Presidential Messiah to deliver the human race. There can be no successful government, without leadership or without the intimate, almost instinctive, coordination of the organs of life and action. . . . We have grown more and more from generation to generation to look to the President as the unifying force in our complex system. . . . To do so is not inconsistent with the actual provisions of the Constitution; it is only inconsistent with a very mechanical theory of its meaning and intention. The president must be a man who understands his own day and the needs of the country, and who has the personality and the initiative to enforce his views both upon the people and upon Congress. . . . He is not so much part of its organization as its vital link of connection with the thinking nation . . . he is also the political leader of the nation. . . . The nation as a whole has chosen him. . . . Let him once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him. His position takes the imagination of the country. He is the representative of no constituency, but of the whole people . . . the country never feels the zest of action so much as when its President is of such insight and caliber. Its instinct is for unified action, and it craves a single leader. . . . The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit . . . he is the only spokesman of the whole people. [Finally, Presidents should regard] themselves as less and less executive officers and more and more directors of affairs and leaders of the nation – men of counsel and of the sort of action that makes for enlightenment. This is not a theory of the presidency. It is the hope for a new messiah. That indeed is what the presidency has come to. But any man who accepts this view is not a free man. He is not a man who understands what constitutes civilized life. The man who accepts what Wilson calls for is an apostle of the total State and a defender of collectivism and despotism. Conservatives used to understand this. In the last century, all the great political philosophers – men like John Randolph and John Taylor and John C. Calhoun – did. In this century, the right was born in reaction to the imperial presidency. Men like Albert Jay Nock, Garet Garrett, John T. Flynn, and Felix Morley called the FDR presidency what it was: a US version of the dictatorships that arose in Russia and Germany, and a profound evil draining away the very life of the nation. They understood that FDR had brought both the Congress and the Supreme Court under his control, for purposes of power, national socialism, and war. He shredded what was left of the Constitution, and set the stage for all the consolidation that followed. Later presidents were free to nationalize the public schools, administer the economy according to the dictates of crackpot Keynesian economists, tell us who we must and who we must not associate with, nationalize the police function, and run an egalitarian regime that extols nondiscrimination as the sole moral tenet, when it is clearly not a moral tenet at all. Later conservatives like James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, and Robert Nisbet, understood this point too. Yet who do modern conservatives extol? Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. Reagan spoke of them as gods and models, and so did Bush and Gingrich. In the 1980s, we were told that Congress was the imperial branch of government because Tip O'Neill had a few questions about Reagan's tax-and-spend military buildup, and his strategy for fostering global warfare while managing world affairs through the CIA. All this was bolstered by books by Harvey Mansfield, Terry Eastland, and dozens of other neoconservatives who pretended to provide some justification for presidential supremacy and its exercise of global rule. More recently even Pat Buchanan repeated the "Ask not . . . " admonition of John F. Kennedy, that we should live to serve the central government and its organizing principle, the presidency. What the neocon logic comes down to is this: The US has a moral responsibility to run the world. But the citizens are too stupid to understand this. That's why we can't use democratic institutions like Congress in this ambition. We must use the executive power of the presidency. It must have total control over foreign affairs, and never bow to Congressional carping. Once this point is conceded, the game is over. The demands of a centralized and all-powerful presidency and its interventionist foreign policy are ideologically reinforcing. One needs the other. If the presidency is supreme in global affairs, it will be supreme in domestic affairs. If it is supreme at home, there will be no states' rights, no absolute property rights, no true liberty from government oppression. The continued centralization of government in the presidency represents the end of America and its civilization. A key part of the theory of presidential supremacy in foreign affairs is the idea that politics stops at the water's edge. If you believe that, you have given up everything. It means that foreign affairs will continue to be the last refuge of an omnipotent scoundrel. If a president can count on the fact that he won't be criticized so long as he is running a war, he will run more of them. So long as he is running wars, government at home cannot be cut. As Felix Morley said, "Politics can stop at the water's edge only when policies stop at the water's edge." Sadly, the Congress for the most part cares nothing about foreign policy. In that, it reflects the attitude of the American voter. The exception is the handful of Congressmen who do speak about foreign issues, usually at the behest of the State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon, and the increasingly global FBI. Such men are mere adjuncts of presidential power. In fact, it is the obligation of every patriot not only to denounce a president's actions at home, but to question, harass, and seek to rein in the presidency when it has sent troops abroad. That is when the watchful eye of the citizenry is most important. If we hold our tongues under some mistaken notion of patriotism, we surrender what remains of our freedoms. Yet during the Gulf War, even those who had courageously opposed this intervention in advance mouthed the old clichés about politics and the water's edge and "supporting the troops" when the presidency started massacring Iraqis. Will the same happen when the troops are sent to China, a country without a single aircraft carrier, in retaliation for some trumped-up incident in the tradition of the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin? If there is ever a time to get behind a president, it is when he withdraws from the world, stops wars, and brings the troops home. If there is ever a time to trip him up, question his leadership, and denounce his usurpations, it is when he does the opposite. A bipartisan foreign policy is a Napoleonic foreign policy, and the opposite of that prescribed by Washington in his farewell address. In the midst of America's war against Britain in 1812, John Randolph wrote an open letter to his Virginia constituents, pleading with them not to support the war, and promising them he would not, for he knew where war led: to presidential dictatorship: "If you and your posterity are to become hewers of wood and drawers of water to the modern Pharaoh, it shall not be for the want of my best exertions to rescue you from cruel and abject bondage." Sixty years ago all conservatives would have agreed with him. But the neoconservative onslaught has purged conservatives of their instinctive suspicions of presidential power. By the time 1994 had come around, conservatives had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the theory that Congress was out of control, and that the executive branch needed more power. The leadership of the 104th Congress – dominated to a man by neocons and presidential supremacists – bamboozled the freshmen into pushing for three executive-enhancing measures. In one of the Congress's first actions, it made itself subject to the oppressive civil rights and labor laws that the Executive enforced against the rest of the nation. This was incredibly stupid. The Congress was exempted from these for a reason. It prevented the Executive from using its own regulatory agencies to lord it over Congress. By making itself subject to these laws, Congress willingly submitted itself to implicit and explicit domination by the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, and the EEOC. It imposed quotas and political correctness on itself, while any dissenters from the presidential line suddenly faced the threat of investigation and prosecution by those they were attempting to rein in. The imposition of these laws against Congress is a clear violation of the separation of powers. But it would not be the last time that this Congress made this mistake. It also passed the line-item veto, another violation of the separation of powers. The theory was that the president would strike out pork, pork being defined as property taken by taxation and redistributed to special interests. But since pork is the entirety of the federal government's $1.7 trillion budget, this has given the president wide latitude over Congress. It takes away from Congress the right to control the purse strings. Also part of the Contract with America was term limits for Congress. This would represent a severe diminution of Congressional power with respect to the presidency. After all, it would not mean term limits for the permanent bureaucracy or for federal judges, but only for the one branch the people can actually control. Thank goodness the self-interest of the politicians themselves prevented it from coming into being. After that initial burst of energy, this Congress surrendered everything to the Clinton White House: control of the budget, control of foreign affairs, and control of the Federal Reserve, and the FBI. The Justice Department operates practically without oversight, as does the Treasury, HUD, Transportation, Commerce, EPA, the SEC, the FTC, and the FDA. Congress has given in on point after point, eventually even granting the presidency most of what it demanded in health-care reform, including mandated equal coverage of the mentally ill. Chalk it up to long-term planning. They came into office pledging to curb government, but are as infatuated with the presidency as Clinton himself. After all, they hope their party will regain the office. Then the Republicans had the audacity to ask in bewilderment: why did the president beat Dole? What did we do wrong? The real question is what have they done right? James Burnham said that the legislature is useless unless it is curbing the presidency. By that measure, this Congress has been worthless. It deserves to lose its majority. And its party deserves to lose the presidency, whose powers they are so anxious to grab for themselves. The best moments in the 104th Congress were when a few freshmen talked quietly of impeachment. Indeed it is their responsibility to talk loudly, openly, and constantly of impeachment. Today's presidency is by definition in violation of the Constitution. Talk of impeachment ought to become routine. So should ridicule and humiliation. For if we care about liberty, the plebiscitary dictatorship must be reined in or tossed out. John Randolph had only been a Senator for a few days when he gave an extraordinary speech denouncing John Quincy Adams. "It is my duty," said Randolph, "to leave nothing undone that I may lawfully do, to pull down this administration. . . . They who, from indifference, or with their eyes open, persist in hugging the traitor to their bosom, deserve to be insulted . . . deserve to be slaves, with no other music to soothe them but the clank of the chains which they have put on themselves and given to their offspring." John Randolph said this in 1826. This was a time, writes de Tocqueville, when the presidency was almost invisible. If we cannot say this and more today, when the presidency is dictator to the world, we are not authentic conservatives and libertarians. Indeed, we are not free men. This speech was delivered near the imperial capital on October 6, 1996, at the John Randolph Club. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. See his books. Copyright © 2004 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given. U.S. hostages abroad and high gas prices at home -- it's Jimmy Carter redux By Alan Caruba www.renewamerica.com A lot of things that a President cannot control can gravely affect his chances of being reelected. In 1979, the combination of an oil embargo and the Iranians taking U.S. diplomats hostage ended any hope of a second term for Jimmy Carter. As this is written, there are 19 U.S. citizens being held hostage in Egypt, but you are hearing little to nothing about that in the mainstream media. The economy is going to affect President Obama's odds of being reelected this year and Americans who are notorious for gaging the impact of inflation by watching the cost of gasoline at the pump rise are going to blame Obama. An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and a possible conflict will drive prices through the roof. When Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.61.Averaging $3.50 at present, the price of a gallon of gas is predicted to rise to $4 and even $5 by summertime. If the U.S. was not dependent on imported oil, we could control our own fate, but for decades every effort possible has been made to drive up the cost of automobiles and gasoline, led by environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, two notorious anti-energy foes, in combination with the Environmental Protection Agency. Little wonder they are in a full war against the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada or that the Obama administration has been trying to convince Americans it favors opening access to existing and new oil reserves. Dan Kish, vice president of the American Energy Alliance, recently took note of the political maneuverings over the American Energy and Infrastructure Act of 2012, saying "At the end of the day, the American people don't care whether federal lands are opened in one large piece of legislation or in separate smaller pieces." "The bottom line is that the Federal government currently leases approximately 2.4 percent of the land owned by U.S. citizens, while lands equaling ten times the State of Texas are kept off limits by Federal regulators. With reports coming out that gasoline could approach five dollars a gallon by this summer, we cannot wait any longer to begin tapping these resources." If the Obama administration really wanted to create jobs and improve the economy, it would "lift the embargo on American energy," said Kish, "and open our onshore and offshore resources for robust exploration and development." "The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the nation has six times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia" In 2010, while oil, natural gas and coal accounted for 78 percent of U.S. energy production, its producers received 11 percent of all federal energy subsidies. By contrast, subsidies to the wind industry increased 10-fold, from $467 million in 2007 to $4.9 billion in 2010. Closer to the pump for Americans was the deal the Obama administration struck with thirteen auto manufacturers in July 2011 to boost new car fuel economy standards from 35.5 miles per gallon (mpg) in 2016 to 54.5 mpg in 2025. The claim made was that it would save Americans $1.7 trillion over the lifetime of vehicles and $8,000 per vehicle by 2025. Higher gas prices as the result of increased costs of imported oil and higher automobile prices that will result from this deal will cancel out any alleged savings. Who wants to be fooled again by this administration? And what business is it of the federal government how much mileage an auto gets? The U.S. government has been messing around with the fuel economy program — believe it or not — for forty years. The result was the rise in sales of Japanese auto companies and European imports while Detroit saw General Motors and Chrysler come so close to collapse they had to be bailed out with billions of taxpayer dollars. The culprit has been the Corporate Average Fuel Economy program and Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute calls it "a case study of unintended consequences. If the fuel-saving technologies requisite to meet the new standards are such a great bargain, why do we need a law forcing automakers to adopt them?" Good question! Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation crowed that "Today's announcement is the latest in a series of executive actions the Obama administration is taking to strengthen the economy and move the country forward because we can't wait for Congressional Republicans to act." That's right, they blamed by-passing Congress and the deal on Republicans! Meanwhile, the only thing CAFE standards accomplish is an increase in the cost of automobiles and a decrease in the safety of their occupants as cars are forced to be lighter and more vulnerable in a crash. In a February 2nd opinion published in The Wall Street Journal, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell welcomed news that Congress might finally be moving in the direction to permit Americans benefit from access to their own oil. Opening the Artic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to oil exploration and production would have obvious benefits. "This legislation opens 400,000 acres of the ANWR coastal plain's 1.5 million acres" that represent "less than three percent of ANWR's 19 million total acres." The other way Americans have been forced to pay more at the pump have been the mandates for the mix of ethanol in every gallon of gasoline. Why? Because its advocates claimed that this would reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but in fact ethanol increases CO2 emissions while at the same time reducing the mileage of every gallon of gasoline. And there is absolutely no scientific justification for reducing CO2 emissions because the mandate is based on the totally debunked global warming hoax. The cost of building new oil refineries in America was increased exponentially by the Clean Air Act of 1970. There have been no new refineries since 1976. There are currently 149 refineries in the U.S. Requiring them to make different blends for different regions of the nation has done little more than to drive up the cost at the pump. The taxes on gasoline have been a bonanza for the federal government and the states. The good news is that two new refineries are being developed, one in Yuma, Arizona, and one in Union County, South Dakota. The bad news is that Sunoco Inc has just announced it will continue to exit the refining business due to the lack of profitability. In business for 117 years, Sunoco has been gradually shifting out of refining, reducing its capacity 43 percent since 2009. Come November, if drivers of cars are shelling out $5 a gallon at the pump, a lot of voters are going to be very unhappy. If our citizens are still being held hostage in Egypt they will be even less happy. © Alan Caruba Why Assad Has Survived by Taki Theodoracopulos Taki's Magazine As I watched last week's Western posturing after the Russo-Chinese veto of the UN Security Council's resolution against Syria, Captain Renault of Casablanca fame kept coming to mind. Like the good captain, who was shocked to discover gambling was taking place at Rick's Café (while pocketing his winnings), I was shocked that Uncle Sam's Secretary of State and her British equivalent were so upset that the big bad Russkis and the tricky Fu Manchus could veto a resolution against the world's worst man ever, Bashar al-Assad. Following the veto, ominous warnings were issued against the Syrian strongman by the fierce-looking William Hague-a Mister Clean lookalike who is reputed to have worn diapers until he was 16-and echoed by Hillary the Great, the only woman to have ever been cuckolded by Monica Lewinsky. The reason for my shock was simple. Uncle Sam has been vetoing UN Security Council resolutions against Israel since the latter's inception. And Israel has been bombing, strafing, and killing unarmed Palestinian protesters regularly and efficiently since then, too. So why is a Russian veto suddenly so objectionable? According to anti-Assad informants and the media which is excluded from Syria, more than 5,000 Syrian protesters have died in the last eleven months. I don't have any figures in front of me, but I'd hate to list the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that Israel has sent to Kingdom Come these last 64 years. Why does the US refer to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank as "terrorists," whereas they call the Syrians who oppose Assad "freedom fighters" or "protesters"? Can someone out there explain the difference to me? Don't bother. I know it. Anyone who is against Likud and the illegal settlements is a terrorist or a terror apologist (and if they happen to be Jewish, they are self-hating Jews). If the good Captain Renault was around last week he would have been doubly shocked that such beacons of democracy as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are screaming for Assad's head. The so-called Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal-I do not accept phony Saudi titles except those of Camel Driver in Chief, etc.-said, "It is not a quality of Arab leaders to kill their people." Since when? Only eleven months ago the Saudis poured their tanks and half-tracks into Bahrain to protect another phony king, one who rules in favor of a rich Sunni minority and enjoys lording it over the impoverished Shiite majority. Read the rest of the article February 20, 2012 Copyright © 2012 Taki's Magazine Global Gangster by Andrew Bacevich and Tom Engelhardt, February 20, 2012 www.antiwar.com If all goes as planned, it will be the happiest of wartimes in the U.S.A. Only the best of news, the killing of the baddest of the evildoers, will ever filter back to our world. After all, American war is heading for the “shadows” in a big way. As news articles have recently made clear, the tip of the Obama administration’s global spear will increasingly be shaped from the ever-growingranks of U.S. special operations forces. They are so secretive that they don’t like their operatives to be named, so covert that they instruct their members, as Spencer Ackerman of Wired’s Danger Room blog notes,“not to write down important information, lest it be vulnerable to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.” By now, they are also a force that, in any meaningful sense, is unaccountable for its actions. Although the special-ops crew (66,000 people in all) exist on our tax dollars, we’re really not supposed to know anything about what they’re doing — unless, of course, they choose the publicity venue themselves, whether in Pakistan knocking off Osama bin Laden or parachuting onto Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard to promote Act of Valor. In case you somehow missed the ads, that’s the new film about “real terrorist threats based on true stories starring actual Navy SEALs.” (No names in the credits, please!) Of course, those elite SEAL teams are Johnnies-come-lately when compared to their no less secretive “teammates” in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia — our ever-increasing armada of drones. Those robotic warriors of the air (or at least their fantasy doppelgangers) were, of course, pre-celebrated — after a fashion — in the Terminator movies. In Washington’s global battle zones, what’s calledour “traditional combat role” — think big invasions, occupations, counterinsurgency — is going, going, gone with the wind, even evidently in Afghanistan by 2013. War American-style is instead being inherited by secretive teams of men and machines, both hunter-killers who specialize in assassination operations, and both of whom, as presented to Americans, just couldn’t be sexier. And we’ll all be just so happy — as a recent poll indicates we are — with our robotic warriors and their shadowy special ops teammates, if with nothing else in our fraying world. They present such an alluring image of the no-pain, all-gain battlefield and are undoubtedly a relief for many Americans, distinctly tired — so the polls also tell us — of wars that aren’t covert and don’t work. So who even notices that, as Andrew Bacevich, bestselling author and (most recently) editor of The Short American Century: A Postmortem, points out, we’re being plunged into a real-life war novel that has no plot and no end. How postmodern! How disastrous, if only we have the patience to wait! (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses the changing face of the Global War on Terror, click here, or download it to your iPod here.) Tom Scoring the Global War on Terror From liberation to assassination in three quick rounds by Andrew Bacevich With the United States now well into the second decade of what the Pentagon has styled an “era of persistent conflict,” the war formerly known as the global war on terrorism(unofficial acronym WFKATGWOT) appears increasingly fragmented and diffuse. Without achieving victory, yet unwilling to acknowledge failure, the United States military has withdrawn from Iraq. It is trying to leave Afghanistan, where events seem equally unlikely to yield a happy outcome. Elsewhere — in Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia, for example —U.S. forces are busily opening up new fronts. Published reports that the United States is establishing“a constellation of secret drone bases” in or near the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula suggest that the scope of operations will only widen further. In a front-page story, The New York Times described plansfor “thickening” the global presence of U.S. special operations forces. Rushed Navy plans to convert an aging amphibious landing ship into an “afloat forward staging base” — a mobile launch platform for either commando raids or minesweeping operationsin the Persian Gulf — only reinforces the point. Yet as some fronts close down and others open up, the war’s narrative has become increasingly difficult to discern. How much farther until we reach the WFKATGWOT’s equivalent of Berlin? What exactly is the WFKATGWOT’s equivalent of Berlin? In fact, is there a storyline here at all? Viewed close-up, the “war” appears to have lost form and shape. Yet by taking a couple of steps back, important patterns begin to appear. What follows is a preliminary attempt to score the WFKATGWOT, dividing the conflict into a bout of three rounds. Although there may be several additional rounds still to come, here’s what we’ve suffered through thus far. The Rumsfeld Era Round 1: Liberation. More than any other figure — more than any general, even more than the president himself — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dominated the war’s early stages. Appearing for a time to be a larger-than-life figure — the “Secretary at War” in the eyes of an adoring (if fickle) neocon fan club — Rumsfeld dedicated himself to the proposition that, in battle, speed holds the key to victory. He threw his considerable weight behind a high-tech American version of blitzkrieg. U.S. forces, he regularly insisted, were smarter and more agile than any adversary. To employ them in ways that took advantage of those qualities was to guarantee victory. The journalistic term adopted to describe this concept was “shock and awe.” No one believed more passionately in “shock and awe” than Rumsfeld himself. The design of Operation Enduring Freedom, launched in October 2001, and of Operation Iraqi Freedom, begun in March 2003, reflected this belief. In each instance, the campaign got off to a promising start, with U.S. troops landing some swift and impressive blows. In neither case, however, were they able to finish off their opponent or even, in reality, sort out just who their opponent might be. Unfortunately for Rumsfeld, the “terrorists” refused to play by his rulebook and U.S. forces proved to be less smart and agile than their technological edge — and their public relations machine — suggested would be the case. Indeed, when harassed by minor insurgencies and scattered bands of jihadis, they proved surprisingly slow to figure out what hit them. In Afghanistan, Rumsfeld let victory slip through his grasp. In Iraq, his mismanagement of the campaign brought the United States face-to-face with outright defeat. Rumsfeld’s boss had hoped to liberate (and, of course, dominate) the Islamic world through a series of short, quick thrusts. What Bush got instead were two different versions of a long, hard slog. By the end of 2006, “shock and awe” was kaput. Trailing well behind the rest of the country and its armed forces, the president eventually lost confidence in his defense secretary’s approach. As a result, Rumsfeld lost his job. Round one came to an end, the Americans, rather embarrassingly, having lost it on points. The Petraeus Era Round 2: Pacification. Enter Gen. David Petraeus. More than any other figure, in or out of uniform, Petraeus dominated the WFKATGWOT’s second phase. Round two opened with lowered expectations. Gone was the heady talk of liberation. Gone, too, were predictions of lightning victories. The United States was now willing to settle for much less while still claiming success. Petraeus offered a formula for restoring a semblance of order to countries reduced to chaos as a result of round one. Order might permit the United States to extricate itself while maintaining some semblance of having met its policy objectives. This became the operative definition of victory. The formal name for the formula that Petraeus devised was counterinsurgency, or COIN. Rather than trying to defeat the enemy, COIN sought to facilitate the emergence of a viable and stable nation-state. This was the stated aim of the “surge” in Iraq ordered by President George W. Bush at the end of 2006. With Petraeus presiding, violence in that country did decline precipitously. Whether the relationship was causal or coincidentalremains the subject of controversy. Still, Petraeus’s apparent success persuaded some observers that counterinsurgency on a global scale —GCOIN, they called it — should now form the basis for U.S. national security strategy. Here, they argued, was an approach that could definitively extract the United States from the WFKATGWOT, while offering victory of a sort. Rather than employing “shock and awe” to liberate the Islamic world, U.S. forces would apply counterinsurgency doctrine to pacify it. The task of demonstrating the validity of COIN beyond Iraq fell to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, appointed with much fanfare in 2009 to command U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Press reports celebrated McChrystal as another Petraeus, the ideal candidate to replicate the achievements already credited to “King David.” McChrystal’s ascendancy came at a moment when a cult of generalship gripped Washington. Rather than technology being the determinant of success as Rumsfeld had believed, the key was to put the right guy in charge and then let him run with things. Political figures on both sides of the aisle fell all over themselves declaring McChrystal the right guy for Afghanistan. Pundits of all stripes joined the chorus. Once installed in Kabul, the general surveyed the situation and, to no one’s surprise, announcedthat “success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign.”Implementing that campaign would necessitate an Afghan “surge” mirroring the one that had seemingly turned Iraq around. In December 2009, albeit with little evident enthusiasm, President Barack Obama acceded to his commander’s request (or ultimatum). The U.S. troop commitment to Afghanistan rapidly increased. Here things began to come undone. Progress toward reducing the insurgency or improving the capacity of Afghan security forces was — by even the most generous evaluation — negligible. McChrystal made promises — like meeting basic Afghan needs with “government in a box, ready to roll in” — that he proved utterly incapable of keeping. Relations with the government of President Hamid Karzai remained strained. Those with neighboring Pakistan, not good to begin with, only worsened. Both governments expressed deep resentment at what they viewed as high-handed American behavior that killed or maimed noncombatants with disturbing frequency. To make matters worse, despite all the hype, McChrystal turned out to be miscast — manifestly the wrong guy for the job. Notably, he proved unable to grasp the need for projecting even some pretense of respect for the principle of civilian control back in Washington. By the summer of 2010, he was out — and Petraeus was back in. In Washington (if not in Kabul), Petraeus’s oversized reputation quelled the sense that with McChrystal’s flame-out Afghanistan might be a lost cause. Surely, the most celebrated soldier of his generation would repeat his Iraq magic, affirming his own greatness and the continued viability of COIN. Alas, this was not to be. Conditions in Afghanistan during Petraeus’s tenure in command improved — if that’s even the word — only modestly. The ongoing war met just about anyone’s definition of a quagmire. With considerable understatement, a 2011 National Intelligence Estimate called ita “stalemate.” Soon, talk of a “comprehensive counterinsurgency”faded. With the bar defining success slipping ever lower, passing off the fight to Afghan security forces and hightailing it for home became the publicly announced war aim. That job remained unfinished when Petraeus himself headed for home, leaving the army to become CIA director. Although Petraeus was still held in high esteem, his departure from active duty left the cult of generalship looking more than a little the worse for wear. By the time Gen. John Allen succeeded Petraeus — thereby became the eighth U.S. officer appointed to preside over the ongoing Afghan War — no one believed that simply putting the right guy in charge was going to produce magic. On that inclusive note, round two of the WFKATGWOT ended. The Vickers Era Round 3: Assassination. Unlike Donald Rumsfeld or David Petraeus, Michael Vickershas not achieved celebrity status. Yet more than anyone else in or out of uniform, Vickers, who carries the title undersecretary of defense for intelligence, deserves recognition as the emblematic figure of the WFKATGWOT’s round three. His low-key, low-profile persona meshes perfectly with this latest evolution in the war’s character. Few people outside of Washington know who he is, which is fitting indeed since he presides over a war that few people outside of Washington are paying much attention to any longer. With the retirement of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Vickers is the senior remaining holdover from George W. Bush’s Pentagon. His background is nothing if not eclectic. He previously served in U.S. Army Special Forces and as a CIA operative. In that guise, he played a leading role in supporting the Afghan mujahedeen in their war against Soviet occupiers in the 1980s. Subsequently, he worked in a Washington think tank and earned a Ph.D. in strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University (dissertation title: “The Structure of Military Revolutions”). Even during the Bush era, Vickers never subscribed to expectations that the United States could liberate or pacify the Islamic world. His preferred approach to the WFKATGWOT has been simplicity itself. “I just want to kill those guys,” he says — “those guys” referring to members of al-Qaeda. Kill the people who want to kill Americans and don’t stop until they are all dead: this defines the Vickers strategy, which over the course of the Obama presidency has supplanted COIN as the latest variant of U.S. strategy. The Vickers approach means acting aggressively to eliminate would-be killers wherever they might be found, employing whatever means are necessary. Vickers “tends to think like a gangster,” one admirer comments. “He can understand trends then change the rules of the game so they are advantageous for your side.” Round three of the WFKATGWOT is all about bending, breaking, and reinventing rules in ways thought to be advantageous to the United States. Much as COIN supplanted “shock and awe,” a broad-gauged program of targeted assassination has now displaced COIN as the prevailing expression of the American way of war. The United States is finished with the business of sending large land armies to invade and occupy countries on the Eurasian mainland. Robert Gates, when still secretary of defense, made the definitive statement on that subject. The United States is now in the business of using missile-armed drones and special operations forcesto eliminate anyone (not excluding U.S. citizens) the president of the United States decides has become an intolerable annoyance. Under President Obama, such attacks have proliferated. This is America’s new MO. Paraphrasing a warning issued by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Washington Post dispatch succinctly summarizedwhat it implied: “The United States reserved the right to attack anyone who it determined posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, anywhere in the world.” Furthermore, acting on behalf of the United States, the president exercises this supposed right without warning, without regard to claims of national sovereignty, without congressional authorization, and without consulting anyone other than Michael Vickers and a few other members of the national security apparatus. The role allotted to the American people is to applaud, if and when notified that a successful assassination has occurred. And applaud we do, for example, when a daring raid by members in SEAL Team Six secretly enter Pakistan to dispatch Osama bin Laden with two neatly placed kill shots. Vengeance long deferred making it unnecessary to consider what second-order political complications might ensue. How round three will end is difficult to forecast. The best we can say is that it’s unlikely to end anytime soon or particularly well. As Israel has discovered, once targeted assassination becomes your policy, the list of targets has a way of growing ever longer. So what tentative judgments can we offer regarding the ongoing WFKATGWOT? Operationally, a war launched by the conventionally minded has progressively fallen under the purview of those who inhabit what Dick Cheney once called “the dark side,” with implications that few seem willing to explore. Strategically, a war informed at the outset by utopian expectations continues today with no concretely stated expectations whatsoever, the forward momentum of events displacing serious consideration of purpose. Politically, a war that once occupied center stage in national politics has now slipped to the periphery, the American people moving on to other concerns and entertainments, with legal and moral questions raised by the war left dangling in midair. Is this progress? Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author most recently of Washington Rules: The American Path to Permanent War and the editor of the new book The Short American Century: A Postmortem, just out from Harvard University Press. To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses the changing face of the Global War on Terror, click here, or download it to your iPod here. Copyright 2012 Andrew Bacevich Quick Reply To: Lattigo Smith <lattigo26@yahoo.com> Include quoted text with reply

Dear Bill,



Tonight you saw duelingexamples of how much the establishment is scared of Ron Paul and his message ofliberty.



Ron Paul will win the mostdelegates out of Maine tonight.



In fact, he will probably evenwin the “beauty contest” Straw Poll the media has already called for MittRomney – even before all the votes have been tallied.



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You see, in Maine today,you and I saw a perfect example of just how much the establishment fears RonPaul.



In Washington County –where Ron Paul was incredibly strong – the caucus was delayed until next weekjust so the votes wouldn’t be reported by the national media today.



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The GIRL SCOUTS had an eventtoday in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled!



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This is an outrage. Perhaps you heard about it on the mainstreamnews tonight?



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The Pentagon’sLie Machine



Militarywhistleblower exposes a campaign of deception



by Justin Raimondo, February 15, 2012



The publication of Lt. Col.Daniel L. Davis’s piecein the Armed Forces Journal, followed up by an interviewin the New York Times and the posting of a longer piece[.pdf] by Rolling Stone, is a remarkable event in the sense that rarelyhas a more comprehensive debunking of official lies been written by an insider.Col. Davis has served in both the Iraq and Afghan campaigns, and recently wason a tour that took him to a number of Afghan outposts. His reports relate, innumbing detail, the complete disparity between the officialpronouncements of our militaryspokespersons and the grim truth of what he saw on the ground inAfghanistan.



As our generals testifybeforeCongress [.pdf] that our efforts in Afghanistan are bearing fruit, that the“surge” worked both in Iraq and Afghanistan, that our training the Afghansecurity forces is succeeding, and that we are on the road to “victory,” Col.Davis turns this Panglossian scenario on its head. The reality, he says, isthat the “surge,” in both cases, failed – in Iraq, because the additionaltroops had nothingto do with the internalsplit in the insurgency that caused it to temporarily abate, and inAfghanistan because casualtieswent up in direct proportion to the increase in troops – without anycorresponding gain on the battlefield. As for the vauntedAfghan security forces, which are being hailed as reliable guarantors andlegatees of a hard-won US “victory,” Col. Davis draws a portrait of them asinvariably having their backs to the enemy – that is, when they aren’tcollaborating with them, calling “mini-truces” via radio while US soldiers takethe brunt of the fighting.



Davis’s charge: that themilitary high command, in conjunction with our political leaders, engaged in acampaign of systematic deception designed to depict our failed attempts toconquer and colonize Iraq and Afghanistan as glorious victories, when, inreality, the exact opposite is the case. He gives a series of stunningexamples, debunking lie after lie, finally asking:



“One of the key questionsmost readers must be asking about this point in the report, is how could suchan extensive, pervasive, and long-running series of deceptive statements havegone unnoticed by virtually the entire country?”



Glad you asked. The reason issimple: the media has become an adjunct to the military’s “informationoperations,” i.e. psychological and propaganda operations, which are notjust directed at the foreign “enemy,” but also at the enemy on the home front,i.e. the American people, who, if they knew the truth, would pull the plug onthe whole operation. Col. Davis puts it more politely:



“There are a number ofreasons, but perhaps none bigger than the role played by the major media inthis country. This is not an issue where“the liberal media” of the majornetworks failed, or‘the right-wing conservatives’ of Fox News, nor any otherspecific network. Rather, it was a cumulative failure of our nation’s majormedia in every category: network news, cable news, magazines and majornewspapers.”



Davis reports thatjournalists who fail to follow the Pentagon line are simply excluded fromhaving any access. In order to report what is actually occurring on thebattlefield – and compete in the news business – reporters must interact withmilitary leaders, but that interaction, relates Col. Davis, comes at a price –the integration of the media into the Pentagon’s lie machine. He illustrateshis point with the reportissued by the Department of Defense Inspector General on Donald Rumsfeld’sclearly illegalproject to use retired officers as propagandists to build support for theIraq war. The Pentagon coordinated the effort with the “mainstream” news media,planting their agents on allthe major news outlets. The media portrayed these infiltrators as“experts,” treated them like real journalists, and gave them a platform fromwhich to pontificate as if they were objective observers. As Davis puts it:



“A Pentagon media outreachprogram – ostensibly to ‘educate’ the public– only uses spokesmen who arewilling to speak the bullet points provided by the Secretary of Defense, and ifthose spokesmen don’t act as‘team players’ and say what the Pentagon wants,they are dropped. For their part, the networks only want men and women to speakas experts if they have that top-level access. All of this begs the question:what sort of objectivity and honest analysis did the American public get fromwatching the major media outlets during this period?”



The answer is that theAmerican public got what they will continue to get: a completely false pictureof our various wars of conquest[.pdf]. In spite of the Inspector General’s detailed narrative of a consistentattempt by the Pentagon to commandeer the American media and wield it as aweapon of war, the Inspector General nonetheless concluded these activities“complied with regulations and directives” and were therefore okay. Move along,nothing to see here….



How could our media havemissed what is arguably the most important story of the decade – the utterfailure of our best efforts to subjugate the Iraqi and Afghan peoples? Col.Davis indicts the American news media for its passive complicity in a campaignof systematic deception:



“So long as our country’stop TV and print media continue to avoid challenging power for fear of losingaccess, there is every reason to expect many senior Defense Department leaderswill continue to play this game of denial of access in order to effectcompliant reports. As I’ve shown throughout this report, there is ample opensource information and reports all over the internet that would allow anyindividual– or reporter – to find the truth and report it. But heretofore fewhave.”



It’s significant that hecounterposes the internet to the “mainstream” media: there can be little doubtwe’ve been doing a far better job of reporting the Iraq and Afghan wars thanour corporate competitors in the world of Dead Tree Journalism and televised talking bobble-heads. That aside, however, the questionarises: is the military deliberately lying to us, or are the generals just soclose to the battlefield – and so self-interested – that they can’t beobjective and somehow saw a glorious victory where there was only historicdefeat?



As a libertarian, I assumethe former, but I can see why the rest of you might need a bit more empiricalevidence, which Col. Davis helpfully provides.



In the modern parlance ofwar, “information operations” are on the same level as strictly militaryoperations, and this brings into focus the ominous implications of theprecedent set by Rumsfeld’s media blitz. Davis cites an Army manual [.pdf] oninformation operations (IO):



“’IO becomes a corecompetency. The importance of dominating the information spectrum explains theobjective of transforming IO into a core military competency on a par with air,ground, maritime and special operations.’ It is a remarkable development tosuggest that using information in combat is on par with ground and air forces.Three years later the Department of Defense published an unclassified doctrinalmanual that provided further clarity on Secretary Rumsfeld’s informationfocus.”



That unclassified documentemphasizes the “integrated employment of electronic warfare (EW), computernetwork operations (CNO), psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception(MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC), in concert with specified supportingand related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarialhuman and automated decision making while protecting our own.”



The new counterinsurgencydoctrine of the Pentagon dictates that “Information Operations” must be a partof every military campaign, as essential as having a supply of ammunition. Theyaim to win “hearts and minds” – but whose hearts and whose minds?



“Since it is so crucial forthe Joint Force to ‘fully integrate” IO into every aspect of militaryoperations,” Davis continues, “it is important to understand what some of theseinputs specifically require. Two are of particular import: military deceptionand psychological operations:



“Military Deception isdefined as ‘(JP 3-14.3) being those actions executed to deliberately mislead adversarydecision makers as to friendly military capabilities, intentions, andoperations, thereby causing the adversary to take specific actions (orinactions) that will contribute to the accomplishment of the friendly mission’and PSYOP as‘(JP3-53) planned operations to convey selected information andindicators to foreign audiences to influence the emotions, motives, objectivereasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations,groups, and individuals.”



The clear implication ofRumsfeld’s media infiltration program is that these “adversary decision makers”aren’t necessarily foreign enemy combatants, either Iraqi insurgents or Talibanfighters. Davis quotes from an article[.pdf] by Col. Richard B. Leap in a compendium of essays by Public Affairs (PA)officers that points to the real identity of these unnamed “adversaries”:



“Many PA practitionersbelieve their only role is to inform the domestic and international publicswith accurate, truthful information and provide access to government andmilitary officials and operations to confirm what is reported. All should agreethat PA must always present truthful, credible information, however, if PublicDiplomacy and open PSYOP only target foreign audiences, then who besides PA cancounter the enemy’s or the media’s shaping of US domestic opinion?”



It is strictly illegal for the USmilitary to aim its propaganda arm at the American public, but in this age of atruly globalized media the line between foreign and domestic is easily blurred.Technology has rendered that prohibition irrelevant and entirely nonfunctional.The Smith-MundtAct is apparently just as much a dead letter as our Constitution.



Col. Leap bemoans thedramatic drop in US support for the Iraq war, noting that Pew polled support at61 percent in 2003 “compared with only 13 percent” three years later. Hissolution:



“Public Affairsorganizations must devise new means and methods to better‘frame’ issues fordomestic and international audiences on policy successes while countering enemydisinformation in order to reverse these trends.



“Further, the USGovernment must clarify the roles, responsibilities, authorities andrelationships between Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy and Information Operationsto not only influence foreign target audiences, but to safeguard US nationalwill. A failure to do so may result in strategic defeats in the future.”



In Col. Leap’s opinion, thegoal of the Public Affairs officer in the service of the US military is not todefend the country – it’s to safeguard the NationalWill. The will to do what? Why, whatever the Pentagon and the politicalleadership desires. These are the movers and shapers of the National Will: therest of us, including the media, are mere instruments in their capable hands.



As for those of us who arenot, we’re presumably disseminators of “enemydisinformation,” different from the Taliban only in that we operate on thedomestic scene and not in the mountains of Afghanistan. No wonder Antiwar.comhas the FBI breathingdown our necks.



Reading Col. Davis’s paper, Iwas struck with the enormity of what we here at Antiwar.com are up against: aUS government-financed and coordinated propaganda campaign with effectively limitlessresources. I knew this in theory, but seeing it right there on the printedpage, especially Col. Leap’s definition of his job description, is sobering.How can we possibly succeed, I thought, when we have to fight this?



The answer was apparent assoon as I had formulated the question: they need all their resourcesjust to keep the truth from the American people. We, on the other hand, onlyneed our voice– and the means to make itheard.



There’s just one way to makesure that voice is never stilled, and that’s by becoming a financial contributor: the War Party hasthe US Treasury at its disposal, but we only have you. They have your taxdollars, but we only have our readers and supporters who voluntarily donate tomake sure there’s a counterpoint to the war propaganda spouted by governmentofficials and their media shills. Sure, we’re outgunned and out-manned, but wedon’t need to equal or even approach their level of expenditure. We just need abare-bones operation that “lives off the land,” so to speak, like a classicguerrilla operation – because we have the truth on our side.



This is the biggest weapon inour arsenal, but we need some kind of platform on which to launch it: andthat’s what Antiwar.com is all about. For sixteen years, we’ve presented avital counterpoint to the Pentagon’s media sock-puppets on a daily basis,debunking the lies of the War Party as soon as they’re uttered. We can’tcontinue to do it, however, unless we start seeing some better results from our current fundraising campaign. We don’tneed a lot: we have a very small staff, and they do the work of twice theirnumber. Yet we do need a bare minimum in order to survive as a viable,frequently-updated (at least daily) alternative to the badly-compromised“mainstream” media in the increasingly important realm of internationalaffairs.



So please, I’m asking my regularreaders – and those who may have dropped in just now – to contribute to thefundraiser. As the US gets ready to do to Iran what it did to Iraq, and theCol. Leaps of this world ramp up the Pentagon’s propaganda machine, we needyour support more than ever. Make yourtax-deductible donation today.







New DHS Report: If You Love"Individual Liberty" Or If You "Believe In ConspiracyTheories" You Are A Potential Terrorist



http://endoftheamericandream.com/



Do you love America? Are you against a one world economy and a one worldgovernment? Do you deeply love individual liberty? Do you believe in conspiracytheories? If you answered any of those questions affirmatively, then you are apotential terrorist according to a brand new Department of Homeland Securityreport that was just released in January 2012. The report is entitled "HotSpots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008",and it was produced by the "National Consortium for the Study of Terrorismand Responses to Terrorism" for the Department of Homeland Security. Asyou will see detailed later on in this article, the most shocking part of thisreport is when it discusses the "ideological motivations" ofpotential terrorists. The report shamelessly attempts to portray red-bloodedAmericans that love liberty and that love their country as the enemy. Once upona time, deeply patriotic Americans were considered to be the backbone ofAmerica, but today they are considered to be potential terrorists.



And this report is yet another example of how the definition of"terrorism" has changed. A decade ago, the entire focus of the"war on terror" was on radical Muslims and we were told that we hadto send our boys and girls to the other side of the world to defeat them.



Well, in this new report there is barely any mention of Islam atall. Instead, the report identifies patriots, conspiracy theorists, evangelicalChristians, anti-abortion activists, survivalists and those that are againstglobalism as the real threats.



The focus of the "war on terror" has fundamentallyshifted. The "enemy" is now those that love freedom and those thatlove America.



According to the new DHS report, the followingare some of the beliefs and ideologies of American terrorists....



-"fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal andinternational in orientation)"



-"anti-global"



-"suspicious of centralized federal authority"



-"reverent of individual liberty"



-"believe in conspiracy theories"



-"a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life”is under attack"



-"a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either byparticipating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism"



-"impose strict religious tenets or laws on society(fundamentalists)"



-"insert religion into the political sphere"



-"those who seek to politicize religion"



-"supported political movements for autonomy"



-"anti-abortion"



-"anti-Catholic"



-"anti-nuclear"



All of the above are direct quotes from the report.



Do any of those beliefs apply to you?



Does your own government now believe that you are a potentialterrorist?



There seems to be a concerted effort to demonize certain groups ofpeople in this country. In the past, those that loved America, those that lovedGod, and those that loved freedom were considered to be role models. Now theyare considered to be dangers.



The funny thing is that according to the report, terrorism in theUnited States has actually been declining over the past several decades. Onpage 13 of the new DHS report, you will find a chart that shows that the numberof "terrorist attacks" in the United States has decreased steadily since1970.



And on page 18 of the report, we find that"extreme left-wing" groups such as radical communists wereresponsible for 5 timesmore terror attacks in the U.S. between 1970 and 2008 than all"extreme right-wing" groups and religious groups combined.



The truth is that the vast majority of Americans that arepatriotic, religious or that believe in conspiracy theories are very peacefuland only want the best for this country.



But the mainstream media is making it seem like there is anepidemic of "anti-government extremists" that needs to be dealt with.



For example, the following comes from a recent USA Today articleentitled "FBI: Morelocals seek help with anti-government extremists"....



The FBI is beinginundated with calls from local government officials asking for assistance indealing with anti-government extremists, officials said.



And as I wrote about the other day, the FBI has broadened the definitionof "suspicious activity" so much that literally anyone could fallunder it.



In 2012, the following activities are considered to be"suspicious" by the FBI....



-shielding your computer screen from others



-paying with cash



-acting "nervous"



-using multiple cell phones



-requesting a specific room at a hotel



-traveling with a large amount of luggage



-refusing maid service at a hotel



-staying in your room for too long



-changing your appearance



In fact, if you see any of these things you are supposed tocontact the feds right away.



Was the federal government ever this paranoid during the days ofMcCarthyism?



If America is going to have any kind of a future, we are going toneed people who deeply love liberty and who deeply love this country.



Unfortunately, there are many in the federal government that hatethe beliefs that this nation was founded upon.



Our founding fathers were fiercely nationalistic, suspicious ofcentralized authority and were reverent of individual liberty. So according tothe Department of Homeland Security, they would very clearly fit the definitionof potential terrorists.



How did America ever get so far off track?



If nobody challenges this kind of propaganda, we will go down thedark road of totalitarianism that so many other societies have gone down in thepast.



It is a good thing to love your country.



It is a good thing to love individual liberty.



It is a good thing to question the government.



Unfortunately, what the federal government wants today is blindfaith and blind obedience. If the federal government tells us that patriotism,religion and nationalism are bad, we are just supposed to go along with it.



According to the Department of Homeland Security, the idealAmerican would be someone that embraces centralized authority, someone that is"universal and international in orientation", someone that believesin the idea of a one world government, someone that is anti-religion, someonethat is pro-genocide, someone that believes that nobody should ever questionleadership, and someone that has disdain for individual liberty.



Where could we ever find someone like that?



Wait, I've got it!



obra Commander, the ideal American for the 21st century....



THE PHONY RIGHTWING



ByKelleigh Nelson
February 12, 2012
NewsWithViews.com



Rick Santorum, Part 2



"I believe there aremore instances of abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silentencroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations..." -JamesMadison



Many of you who read myarticles and write me wonderful letters and even take the time to send me giftshave actually become wonderful cyber friends. Because so many of you haverequested these articles on the GOP candidates, I've had to dredge throughtheir backgrounds and their voting records for documentation. It has not been aneasy task, and I'm always relieved when I'm finished with writing about anotherone of these traitorous leaders. In the previous article on Santorum, theresearch was on his somewhat hypocritical pro-life stance. In this articlewe'll be looking at his voting record and fiscal policies. The articles on RickSantorum will be three parts.



Rick Santorum has the dubiousdistinction of being one of the most corrupt politicians in America, and one of the mostcorrupt senators in his brief so-called ‘representation’ of Pennsylvania–when he didn’t even live there. His rhetoric may be that ofa conservative, but research shows he's closer to the communist Santorum clan in Italy than they or we know.Perhaps the acorn hasn't fallen far from the tree.



No Child Left Behind



January, 2012 marks the10-year anniversary of the day Bush signed NCLB into law in Hamilton, Ohio. Byhis side were the leaders of the education committees in Congress, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, the bipartisanship duo that made thishorrible Act possible. Rick Santorum voted for and strongly supportedlegislation that doubled the size of the Department of Education and he was abig supporter of NCLB who joined with Kennedy to push passage of this Act.



This legislation, whichpassed 381-41 in the House and 87-10 in the Senate in January 2002, isaccompanied by the largest dollar increase ever in federal education aid.Education Week, 1/9/02, describes the No Child Left Behind Act as follows:"The mega-measure is accompanied by the largest dollar increase ever infederal education aid. The Department of Education's overall budget will riseby $6.7 billion in fiscal 2002, to nearly $49 billion." The legislation,although pretending to terminate the highly controversial Goals 2000 and theSchool-To-Work (STW) legislation passed in the nineties under President Clintonand initiated in the eighties under Presidents Reagan and Bush, Sr., actuallycontinues the totalitarian agenda because all states have implemented therequirements of Goals 2000 and STW.



On her websiteCharlotte Thompson Iserbyt , the brilliant education researcher and formerSenior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, has a wonderful article exposing the truth about this horrid legislation. Aquote from it states:



Although Pres. Bush,according to a Washington Times article by Bill Sammon, 1/9/02, said in regardto the education bill he signed that "Parents will have more informationabout the schools and more say in how their children are educated . . . fromthis day forward, all students will have a better chance to learn, to excel andto live out their dreams." Pardon me, but this is a plain lie, and a lieembraced by Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy and others (like Rick Santorum JohnBoehner) supporting this legislation as well. How can parents have a say in howtheir children are educated when the federal government is mandatingtesting of children's attitudes and values? (Sixty percent of the test items onNational Assessment of Educational Progress - NAEP are attitudinal.) Bush's mandate for testing will ofcourse call for a mandated federal curriculum since one can't test what onehasn't taught. What tiny bit of local control remained prior to thislegislation will be swept away. School superintendents and good teachers arealready complaining about having lost control. Even the New York Times hasproblems with Leave No Child Behind. It bragged that the more than 1000-pagegiant education bill will "dramatically extend the federal role in publiceducation" and, indeed, is "a breathtaking intrusion of the federalgovernment on states' control of education."



Rick didn't stop there, he voted to increase Federal funding for teacher testing,and to increase spending for the Department of Education by $3.1billion.



Second Amendment



Senator Santorum has a mixedrecord on the second amendment. He claims he's staunchly pro-second amendment.However, in the 90s, he voted to support the Lautenberg Gun Ban, which strippedfor life, law-abiding gun owners of their Second Amendment rights, simplybecause they spanked their children or did nothing more than grab a spouseswrist.



He voted for a bill in 1999disguised as an attempt to increase penalties on drug traffickers with guns…but it also included a provision to require federal background checks at gunshows. And then he voted with gun-controlling Democrats Dianne Feinstein,Barbara Boxer, and Frank Lautenberg to mandate locks on handguns in 2005. (SAmdt 3230 Gun Lock Requirement Amendment)



Worst of all, RickSantorum has a storied history of bailing out anti-gun Republicans facingreelection. Santorumcame to anti-gun Arlen Specter’s defense in 2004 when he was down in the pollsagainst pro-gun Republican Pat Toomey. Specter won and continued to push forgun control during his years in the Senate.



Santorum also flip-floppedhere by voting FOR Title: Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill and then he votedagainst S1805 – Firearms Manufacturers Protection Bill. In 2004, SenatorSantorum voted for legislation to require child locks on all weapons. That samelegislation contained the Gun Free School Zone Act. That legislation made itillegal to be in possession of a firearm on school grounds.



Senator Santorum hasrepeatedly supported Project Exile. Project Exile was a federal program startedin Richmond, Virginia in 1997. Theproject was designed to shift the prosecution of illegal technical gunpossession offenses from state courts to federal court,where they carried a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prisonunder the federal Gun Control Act of 1968.



Santorum Voted to require pawn shops to do background checks onpeople who pawn a gun. Voted twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a securestorage or safety device. Voted for a Federal ban on possession of “assault weapons”by those under 18. Voted for Federal funding for anti-gun education programsin schools. Voted for anti-gun juvenile justice bill. Sounds to me likeRick Santorum made a lot of unconstitutional deals.




Advertisement



Fiscal Responsibility



Rick Santorum voted fivetimes to raise the debt ceiling adding trillions to the debt and stated,"I am no longer a deficit hawk, I had to spend the surpluses." (TheHill, 2/5/03). While in office, Santorum voted to spend taxpayer money to fightAIDS globally, to help underprivileged children in third world countries, topay off debts owed to the US by other nations and to combat politicalinstability in Sudan. Where is any of this allowed in our constitution?



On Welfare alone he voted to allow welfare to a minor who had a child out ofwedlock and who resided with an adult who was on welfare within the previoustwo year. Santorum voted against both food stamp and Medicaid Reform, and voted for $2 billion for low income heating assistance.



He voted to increase welfareprograms such as Healthy Start. Such social-welfare spending projects are nottypically associated with the concept of Republican conservatism, or at leastthey didn't used to be. He also strongly supported the largest hike in welfareentitlement spending in history (prior to Obamacare) – Medicaid Part D and Voted to increase tobacco taxes to pay for Medicareprescription drugs. This was the largest expansion of entitlement spendingsince President Lyndon B. Johnson, creating $16 TRILLION in unfundedliabilities. This was George W. Bush’s free prescription medicine program,virtually socializing the pharmaceutical industry which is now being funded byever increasing prescription drug prices to consumers. Santorum was quite happyto vote to enrich the industry from which he had received so many campaigncontributions. In fact, Santorum was such a favorite of GlaxoSmithKline that, followingthe loss of his senate seat, executives wrote, “The defeat of [Santorum] creates a big hole we need to fill.” The leaked memo isevidence that unprincipled politicians, like Santorum, can still be bought andsold in the USA.



Santorum cosponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act with John Kerry. Other backersincluded Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. This Act would have forced allbusiness owners to accommodate the religious practices of all their employees.Rick believes if companies don't cater to the different faiths of theiremployees, then they should be compelled by law to do so.

From Wikipedia, "This legislation has garnered the diverse support ofvarious religious groups including, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the SouthernBaptist Convention, the NationalCouncil of Churches, the North American Council for Muslim Women, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Seventh-dayAdventist Church, the Council on American Islamic Relations, B'nai B'rith International, the AmericanJewish Committee, AgudathIsrael of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other groups."Can you imagine the cost to small businesses? No true fiscal conservative wouldsanction this type of law with the variety of so-called religions today.



His Tax Increases alone would disqualify him as afiscal conservative, but truly across the board he is a big government spender.He voted to increase tobacco taxes (a sin tax) four times. Hevoted to increase taxes by $9.4 billion to pay for this same amount in anincrease to student loans. He voted twice for internet taxes. Santorum voted against the repealing of the Clinton 4.3 centgasoline tax increase.



The Senator voted to make Medicare part B premium subsidies a newentitlement. He voted to raid Social Security instead of using surpluses topay down the debt, and then he voted for giving $18 billion to the IMF! Of course paying off the debt (at $5.6 trillion at the time) within30 years didn't appeal to him either. He actually voted to raise the debtceiling five times!



On Immigration, the Senator voted against hiring an additional 1,000 border patrolagents, paid for by reductions in some state grants. Subsequently, the borderpatrol was cut even further and when I wrote to my Senators, Lamar Alexanderwrote back to me that he would send my letter to Homeland Security and theywould answer me. (Was that a threat Senator?) I have yet to hear a word and Icomment about it in every letter I write to Alexander, but back to SenatorSantorum. He voted against increasing the number of immigrationinvestigators and voted to allow illegal immigrants to receive the "earnedincome" tax credit before becoming citizens! Excuse me, but this is blatantredistribution of wealth and to illegal aliens who have not contributed tosociety.



The NationalEndowment for the Arts(NEA) benefited from Santorum's vote for taxpayer funding of same. He also made sure he voted against a 10% cut in the budget for the NEA. Whywould Santorum, as a Catholic, vote for funding the NEA when they feel acrucifix in a jar of urine is art? This is a social conservative?



On Free Trade, Rick made the right choice and votedagainst NAFTA in 1993, but in subsequent votes he voted yes for the Oman,Morocco, Singapore, Chile, and Australia FTA as well as CAFTA. He voted yes tothe Trade Authority as well as to normal trade relations with China.







HOW SANTORUM VIEWSGOVERNMENT



Rick Santorum made thisstatement, "One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more ofa Libertarianish right. They have this idea that people should be left alone,be able to do whatever they want to, government should keep our taxes down andkeep our regulations low, that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, weshouldn't get involved in the cultural issues. That is not how traditionalconservatives view the world. There is no such society that I'm aware of wherewe've had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture."