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Conservatives Challenge Obama Over Libya
The antiwar right vs the neocon-neoliberal alliance
by Justin Raimondo, March 25, 2011
Poor Daniel Larison. Imagine living in his world, a dark, forbidding universe where the neocons were never discredited, where the interventionist consensus is bipartisan and unchallengeable, and only a pitifully small Remnant understands that there's nothing conservative about empire-building. Larison, a writer for The American Conservative – that heroic bastion of anti-interventionist, proto-libertarian sentiment on the right – spends a great deal of energy " proving" that the very movement his magazine seeks to build does not, in fact, exist.
When Rep. Jason Chaffetz started questioning the Afghanistan war, Larison dourly remarked on the Utah Republican's probable support for attacking Iran. Now that Obama has intervened in Libya, Larison is singing the same melancholy tune.
"If ever there were a time for populist American nationalists who can't stand Obama and claim to venerate and narrowly interpret the Constitution to protest, this would be it. Of course, this is not what's happening. Weigel explains:
"'There are individual Tea Party leaders, like Williams or Rand Paul, who wince at a military intervention undertaken like this. The Tea Party is libertarian in plenty of ways. But if it has one defining characteristic, it's that it's nationalist. If there's a way to remove Gadhafi decades after he aided the Lockerbie bombers, then that's more important than a debate over the deep thoughts of the founders. In a Saturday interview with Fox News, Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., one of the most popular politicians to win the support of the Tea Party, explained that his problem with the intervention was about grit, not the Constitution.'
Continuing his sour-faced griping, Larison concludes:
"… I didn't expect a great outpouring of antiwar sentiment from Tea Party-aligned Republicans in Congress, but opposing the Libyan war is a fairly easy call. It doesn't require a full embrace of Ron Paul's foreign policy views. It just requires some minimal adherence to their professed beliefs. The Libyan war represents everything Tea Partiers are supposed to dislike about Obama and Washington, and it should offend their nationalist and constitutionalist sensibilities. The first real test to see what a "Tea Party foreign policy" might be is here, and with some honorable exceptions Tea Partiers and the members of Congress they have supported have proved that they are indistinguishable from the hawkish interventionists that have dominated the GOP's foreign policy thinking for the last decade and more."
With Congress on Spring break, and the war but a few days old, the unfairness of such a summary judgment was underscored by an "update" published a few hours after Larison's original post, noting Sen. Mike Lee's criticism of the Libyan adventure as foolhardy and unconstitutional. Others soon joined Lee in making equally cogent and principled critiques, yet none were noted by Larison, perhaps because it undermines his view of the anti-interventionist right as a remnant of an unrecoverable past rather than the wave of the future.
Senators Lee and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) have both come out against the Libyan intervention, and so has Rep. Chaffetz:
"Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, does not back President Obama's plan for military force in Libya. 'I've got real questions for the president,' he said. 'I just don't believe that you unilaterally use United States' forces the way that we have.'
"Chaffetz knows the Libyan people have suffered at the hands of dictator Muammar Gadhafi, but the congressman does not believe U.S. forces should take part in 'policing' the globe. 'No doubt that Gadhafi is one of the world's bad guys, but the use of U.S. force raises it to another level,' he said. He criticized the president for making his case to the United Nations, rather than to Congress and the American people.
"After the initial phases of the military action unfold, Chaffetz says, he and other members of Congress will press the issue. 'Unless there's a clear and present danger to the United States of America, I don't think you use U.S. forces in North Africa in what is the equivalent of a civil war,' he said."
Larison once scoffed at Chaffetz as someone " who cannot be taken seriously," and yet how seriously can we take a pundit who refuses to see the progress his own (alleged) cause is making? The reality is that the anti-interventionist conservative critique that originated in the pages of his very own magazine, The American Conservative – as well as in the campaigns of Rep. Ron Paul – is echoing in the halls of Congress. See, for instance, this:
"Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is calling the decision of President Barack Obama to deploy force again Libya without first seeking congressional authorization 'an affront to the Constitution.'
"Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces. In a statement Monday, he said 'The United States does not have a King's army.'
"'President Obama's administration has repeated the mistakes of the Clinton administration concerning bombing in Kosovo and the George W. Bush administration concerning invading Iraq by failing to request and obtain from the U.S. Congress unambiguous prior authorization to use military force against a country that has not attacked U.S. territory, the U.S. military or U.S. citizens,' he said. 'This is particularly ironic considering then-Senator Obama campaigned for the Democratic nomination based upon his opposition to President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq.'
"While Muammar Gadhafi 'is a tyrant despised throughout the Middle East and North Africa,' Bartlett said, and 'his brutal and merciless attacks against his own citizens are horrific," it is 'self-evident' that the situation in Libya 'is not an emergency.'
"'The Obama administration sought and obtained support from both the Arab League and the United Nations Security Council to authorize military force against Gadhafi,' Bartlett said. 'The Obama administration also had time to organize a 22-nation coalition to implement a no-fly zone with military attacks led by U.S. Armed Forces against Gadhafi's forces.
"'Nonetheless, the Obama administration failed to seek approval from the American people and their elected legislators in the Congress. Failing to obtain authorization from the U.S. Congress means that President Obama has taken sole responsibility for the outcome of using U.S. military forces against Gadhafi onto his shoulders and his administration.'"
Rep. Tim Johnson, Illinois Republican, and a tea party favorite, has this to say:
"Constitutionally, it is indisputable that Congress must be consulted prior to an act of war unless there is an imminent threat against this country. The president has not done so. In fact, this is the same man who questioned President Bush's constitutional authority to commit troops to war.
"Our country has no business enmeshing itself in another country's civil unrest. We were not attacked. Our national security interests are not at stake. It is the American people, through their elected representatives, who are constitutionally empowered to take this kind of action. Not the president.
"We have spent $443.5 billion in the war in Afghanistan since 2001. We have spent $805.6 billion in Iraq in that time. We are already beyond broke for largely unacceptable reasons, and the president has just added to that dubious legacy, committing American lives and dollars without our consent and no end game in sight.
"The first night of this attack, we fired 112 Tomahawk missiles. Each of these missiles can cost up to $1.5 million. That's $168 million for one night's assault. Estimates to maintain the no-fly zone, depending on how much of the country we want to dominate, can cost $30 million to $100 million per week. Our commitment to that goal is to date open-ended."
The conservatives who are speaking out against the Libyan action are not just angry because the administration went to the UN Security Council instead of the US Congress to seek authorization, they are also attacking the underlying policy, the dangerous " responsibility to protect" doctrine. This is explicitly rejected by Barlett and other conservatives, who note Libya "has not attacked US territory, the US military, or US citizens."
If this is now the standard, then the War Party has lost the tea partiers, a group that includes Bartlett, Lee, Chaffetz, and Justin Amash – who is introducing legislation to defund the Libyan war. In the absence of a similar protest on the left, these tea partiers are the most vocal and visible opponents of the Libyan war. Together with Ron and Rand Paul, they are leading a new generation of conservative Republicans to do battle with the interventionist consensus that dominates Washington.
A couple of weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald – another writer, like Larison, with whom I share certain ideological sympathies – wrote a piece on the Tea Party and US foreign policy that was somewhat sympathetic to the idea that their less government philosophy leads logically to support for civil liberties on the home front and anti-interventionism in the foreign policy realm. Yet there was, to be sure, a certain condescending air that permeated Glenn's piece, and in the course of it he remarked that the libertarians and paleoconservatives constitute small factions "without much political influence." Today, as the main voices of protest against an unconstitutional and potentially very dangerous war come from these very elements, while the Democratic "left" (pathetically represented by the likes of Nancy Pelosi) mindlessly cheerleads this latest empire-building excursion, there are ample grounds to challenge Greenwald's appraisal – and Larison's.
Indeed, the freshmen tea partiers and Ron Paul supporters aren't the only ones questioning the Libya "rescue" operation. Haley Barbour, a pillar of the Republican establishment of some considerable girth and weight, is not only asking "What are we doing in Libya?" but is also questioning our ten-year Afghan crusade, and wondering aloud why we can't cut our bloated military budget. Indeed, Tim Pawlenty, the neocons' favorite GOP presidential candidate (to date), was quick to attack Barbour for entertaining such heresy.
The "isolationist" (i.e. pro-peace, anti-internationalist) sentiment represented – albeit unevenly, and inconsistently by the populist tea party movement is trickling up to the higher tiers of the Republican party leadership, so that even House Speaker John Boehner felt compelled to issue a statement questioning the process if not the policy that led to US involvement in Libya's civil war.
This "trickle up" process is working slowly, but surely. As the Obama administration embarks on a course determined in advance by its ideological premises a crass self-declared "pragmatism" which amounts to supporting the status quo unless and until it becomes untenable, and then pursuing whatever policy will satisfy the dominant factions within his own administration – Republican opposition is crystallizing. That many Republicans are reacting to this in a purely partisan manner is irrelevant: some opposition to Obama's Libyan adventure may start out as a partisan ploy, but political necessity is quick to harden into ideological conviction.
Ever since the Kosovo war – indeed, since this web site's very inception – Antiwar.com has been plugging away at the conservative pro-war consensus as an ideological distortion, and pointing to an alternative view which holds that limited government has to mean limited involvement in the affairs of other nations. You can't have a Republic and have an Empire at the same time. You can't hope to cut back the power of government if that government must have the funding and the executive flexibility to send US troops anywhere in the world without a by your leave either to Congress or to the long-oppressed taxpayers who are footing the bill.
That message is finally beginning to sink in. No, we aren't taking exclusive credit for this sudden awakening: it's the result of years of work by many people on many different levels, but Antiwar.com has, indeed, been a major factor in this remarkable shift, and I don't mind saying so.
Let David Weigel, the turncoat former Kochtopus employee who smeared Ron Paul as a "racist," cite the irrelevant Alan West all he wants: he and his newfound "progressive" buddies have an interest in denying the reality of a new movement on the right that opposes foreign meddling by the US government as well as Washington's meddling with our healthcare. Having defected from Team Red to Team Blue, Weigel makes a living off the discredited and archaic "left-right" paradigm, which insists that everyone on the right is a Neanderthalish rube just itching to get him some Muslim scalps: citing him hardly helps Larison's case.
The constitutionalist-libertarian movement initially energized by Ron Paul's heroic efforts has grown well beyond the organizational confines of Paul's Campaign for Liberty and its growing and very active youth section, Young Americans for Liberty. A broad, grassroots movement has arisen that not only embraces the economics of freedom long championed by Rep. Paul, but also insists on the Paulian insight that our foreign policy of global intervention is an obstacle placed in the path of taking back our old Republic. Their horror at the presidential supremacism exhibited by President Obama as he goes to war without a vote in Congress is rooted in a principled opposition to Big Government per se, and in a recognition that imperialism is inherently hostile to their vision of a free America.
Larison writes that he's "still waiting for that new antiwar right." Well, Dan, the waiting is over. So relax, sit back, and enjoy it.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/03/24/conservatives-challenge-obama-over-libya/
Our Catastrophe, and Theirs
Justin Raimondo, March 25, 2011
Nicholas Kristoff declares that "a humanitarian catastrophe has been averted for now," and Dennis Ross claims 100,000 lives were saved by US intervention in Libya. Does any of this sound familiar? It's precisely what the advocates of the bank bailout did. They came to Congress and the American public (and overseas too) and said: if you don't give the banks and certain other favored mega-corporations $700 billion, financial Armageddon will ensue. After some reluctance, Congress caved and, to this day, the TARPsters claim that, if not for the bailouit, we'd all be broke. Oh, wait – well, anyway, you get the point.
How many times have we heard similar complaints?
Would-Be Bombers Say FBI Set Them Up
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/24/35224.htm
"MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal judge appeared receptive to defense attorneys' claims that the FBI entrapped the four men convicted in October of planning to blow up synagogues in the Bronx and use missiles to shoot down military planes at Stewart Air National Guard Base. 'The FBI did not infiltrate a plot,' U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said at a Thursday hearing. 'There was no plot.'"
Do something today that questions the legitimacy of government. "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi
Would-Be Bombers Say FBI Set Them Up
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/24/35224.htm
"MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal judge appeared receptive to defense attorneys' claims that the FBI entrapped the four men convicted in October of planning to blow up synagogues in the Bronx and use missiles to shoot down military planes at Stewart Air National Guard Base. 'The FBI did not infiltrate a plot,' U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said at a Thursday hearing. 'There was no plot.'"
Do something today that questions the legitimacy of government. "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi
Fourth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity in Mistaken SWAT Raid
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/23/fourth-circuit-denies-qualifie
"Second, the police were right. Tametta Bellotte did immediately go for her gun when the SWAT team entered. But not because she's a cop-killing, child pornographizing criminal. As it turns out, she was innocent. She went for her gun because she thought her life was in danger."
Do something today that questions the legitimacy of government. "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/23/fourth-circuit-denies-qualifie
"Second, the police were right. Tametta Bellotte did immediately go for her gun when the SWAT team entered. But not because she's a cop-killing, child pornographizing criminal. As it turns out, she was innocent. She went for her gun because she thought her life was in danger."
Do something today that questions the legitimacy of government. "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi
http://www.grouchyoldcripple.com/archives/008471.html
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Tuesday 22 March 2011
It's mostly anti-racists keeping racism alive
While race-relations experts fret about managing people, young people are embracing 'superdiversity'.
Adrian Hart
In October last year, Prospect magazine published a set of articles by black and Asian writers under the banner 'Rethinking Race'. The authors, who wrote about the negative effects of anti-racist polices, asserted that race is no longer the significant disadvantage it is often portrayed as. Importantly, they raised the question of how difficult it is to discuss race in an open and honest way.
Most have welcomed Prospect's contribution to what has tended to be censorious, deadlocked debate, and the articles seem to have inspired a forthcoming debate by the 'race-equality' think-tank, the Runnymede Trust, next week. Of course race is a significant disadvantage if you're being racially abused or discriminated against. But the Prospect authors patently don't mean that. They are referring, more broadly, to a society that is less racist, less intolerant and palpably more at ease with diversity than ever before. This fact ought to be something of a no-brainer and a cause for anti-racists to celebrate.
After all, surveys and polls consistently show that most white, black and Asian people agree Britain is more tolerant than in the past. They also indicate widespread acceptance of so-called 'mixed-race' relationships. This fact is underscored by academic research showing that almost 20 per cent of Britain's under 16s are from an ethnic minority with nearly 10 per cent living in mixed-race families (1). In London almost half of children under five can be categorised as 'mixed-race'.
However, the same surveys and polls show that we tend to think racism is increasing: The Home Office Citizenship Survey 2007/08 states 'over half (56 per cent) of all people feel there is now more racial prejudice than five years ago' but also notes 'people from minority ethnic groups (32 per cent) are less likely than white people (58 per cent) to feel there is now more racial prejudice'(2).
The mismatch between perception of racism and its reality may offer a clue as to why anti-racists feel so very reluctant to celebrate. Anti-racism, by definition, focuses on the extent to which its target has not vanished. As others celebrate, anti-racists turn up their racist-incident radars fearing that the problem may quietly incubate and suddenly loom out of the mist. But this slightly panicky 'racism watch' approach is a problem all by itself. Too often it mistakes its target. One primary school headteacher, bewildered by local authority pressure to report playground 'racist incidents' (however trivial or unintended they might be), pointed to the harmonious anti-racist incidents breaking out every minute of every day. 'Who's counting those?' she lamented.
Highlighting the unprecedented superdiversity breaking out in Britain's schools seems to irritate anti-racists. In a singularly bad-tempered review of my Manifesto Club report The Myth of Racist Kids, Institute of Race Relations writer Jenny Bourne stated: 'If children do, as the author asserts, all get on so well, in what is termed "a spirit of enthusiasm for growing social diversity", it is precisely because there has been a long and distinguished struggle against racism in this country.'
Bourne goes on to attribute the intrinsically colour-blind, intermixed generation of kids currently swarming Britain's schools (which she'd prefer to disavow), not to diversity itself but to 'the efforts of generations, including teachers, social workers and others in liberal professions'. According to Bourne, it is not the lived experience of diversity that we should applaud, it's the management of diversity. On managing 'racist incidents' in the nursery and the playground she says: '"Catching them young" is a way of ensuring that subliminal notions do not become fully fledged prejudices and go on to lead to racist behaviour.' This is, indeed, the management plan favoured by local authorities UK-wide who, for the year 2008/09, identified well over 30,000 racist incidents in England and Wales alone. Utilising the officially recommended definition of a racist incident ('any incident perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person'), the dragnet effortlessly scoops up an abundance of incidents from the everyday banter and name-calling of primary school children. Forms are filled, children admonished, parents written to. And, of course, no race-relations management plan as daft as this would be complete without someone assessing the yearly statistics, flagging-up 'a problem' and ensuring more educational interventions on racism, identity and race (and more racist-incident reporting).
The nip-it-in-the-bud fantasy that animates official anti-racism flies in the face of any intelligent understanding of how children develop. It feeds off the notion that social change can be gently engineered via 'early years' interventions that somehow cut out prejudice (or add in self-worth). Children are viewed as hapless and helpless - permanently at risk from a cloying racism ingrained in both society at large and 'the parents' (typically denigrated as tabloid reading trolls).
The director of the Runnymede Trust, Rob Berkeley, is more measured, but neatly describes another shibboleth cherished by the modern day anti-racist. Commenting in the Times Educational Supplement, he said, 'I don't think its helpful to call a four-year-old a racist, but there will be another child on the receiving end whose self-esteem and learning will suffer'. The notion that a racist insult – whether it was intended as racist or not, or understood as racist or not – damages the ethnic minority child is central to today's racial thinking. In the new anti-bullying lexicon, 'resilience' is set aside and almost anything can be a wounding word. But to insult 'race' is considered particularly damaging. In official government guidance, teachers are reminded that while all insults are hurtful, a 'racist' insult 'goes to the very roots of someone's identity'.
In January, Runnymede launched a Birmingham-based project on changing attitudes to race asking the question 'can we end racism in a generation?'. Focusing on the children of parents now three generations on from the first major wave of post-war immigration, Generation 3.0 seems to have thrown-up something of a reality-check for Runnymede. Almost as though it were a new discovery, the Generation 3.0 research document excitedly reports that 'contact between younger people from different ethnic backgrounds' has led to an 'increase in tolerance' and views on 'race and identity', steadfastly held by an older generation of adults, 'do not necessarily match the superdiversity that informs younger generations' (3).
In other words, Runnymede seems to have noticed that where race equality is concerned, the kids are doing it for themselves. The obsession of older generations with sealing everyone into ethnic or religious boxes (an obsession shared by anti-racists and racists alike), and the endless hand-wringing over what is or might be racist or culturally offensive, is increasingly regarded as archaic (or just plain annoying) by younger people. As one 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl commented to the Generation 3.0 video-box, 'we're kids, we're growing up… I think the older generation just need to be quiet!'.
For Runnymede, this may well be a catch-up moment. Diversity itself is washing away the racial boundaries long ago established by imperial powers who found racism a highly effective political ideology. In recent decades, racism has ceased to be a virulent social force readily promoted by politicians, magistrates and the police. Today, playing the 'race card' will backfire in no uncertain terms. And while its true that racism can sometimes lead to acts of violence or bigotry, it is now unplugged from any systematic, politicised pattern. As spiked has previously argued, in twenty-first-century British society it's the rarity of racist violence and bigotry that makes it so shocking to us. Race is still a problem today but it's more often anti-racism keeping it alive and kicking. Our belief in the existence of a pervasive, invariably hidden, social disease of racism requires no proof; effect is deemed sufficient evidence of cause. Armed with this article of faith, it is not surprising that anti-racists regard every shocking example as 'the tip of the iceberg'.
Criticism of the way diversity is managed should not be brushed aside as though it were an attack on the lived experience of diversity itself. An impressive superdiversity is forming right under the noses of anti-racists stuck in yesterday's world. Maybe some of those shrill voices, warning that criticism is no more than 'an attack on multiculturalism', just need to be quiet.
Adrian Hart is author of the Manifesto Club report, The Myth of Racist Kids – Anti-Racism Policy and the Regulation of School Life. For more information, visit his website.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10315/
-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: | another muslim hot spot for obamao |
|---|---|
| Date: | Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:56:34 -0400 (EDT) |
| From: | claguerra245@aol.com |
| To: | Rhomp2002@earthlink.net |
World News
'Humanitarian Tragedy' Unfolding in Ivory Coast
Mar 25, 2011 - 4:50 PM |AOL News
UNITED NATIONS -- Though the world's attention is fixed on Libya, the fighting in another hot spot -- Ivory Coast -- is escalating. The power struggle between the country's two leaders has claimed...
A War by Any Other Name Is Still a War
Posted by Laurence Vance on March 25, 2011 10:07 AM
It isn't a war against Libya, it is just "a time-limited, scope-limited military action" or a "kinetic military action." The government calls its non-wars wars, like the war on cancer, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on tobacco, the war on terror, and the war on childhood obesity, but refuses to call an act of war by the United States a war.
War on Words
Posted by Butler Shaffer on March 25, 2011 12:56 PM
Laurence: Don't forget that the bombing and killing of Koreans was done in the name of a "police action"; American troops killed people in Kosovo and other places -- as "peacekeepers"; while other military action -- e.g., current Libya -- in the name of "humanitarianism." The Strategic Air Command -- which has unloaded millions of tons of bombs on other countries -- tells the world that "Peace Is Our Profession." Such corruption of language is engaged in to comfort Boobus -- the collective dullard who actually loves war; relishes war -- provided it's called something else. In the lyrics of Tom Lehrer, such people "would rather kill them [foreigners] off by peaceful means."
Posted by Laurence Vance on March 25, 2011 10:07 AM
It isn't a war against Libya, it is just "a time-limited, scope-limited military action" or a "kinetic military action." The government calls its non-wars wars, like the war on cancer, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on tobacco, the war on terror, and the war on childhood obesity, but refuses to call an act of war by the United States a war.
War on Words
Posted by Butler Shaffer on March 25, 2011 12:56 PM
Laurence: Don't forget that the bombing and killing of Koreans was done in the name of a "police action"; American troops killed people in Kosovo and other places -- as "peacekeepers"; while other military action -- e.g., current Libya -- in the name of "humanitarianism." The Strategic Air Command -- which has unloaded millions of tons of bombs on other countries -- tells the world that "Peace Is Our Profession." Such corruption of language is engaged in to comfort Boobus -- the collective dullard who actually loves war; relishes war -- provided it's called something else. In the lyrics of Tom Lehrer, such people "would rather kill them [foreigners] off by peaceful means."
 | Canada ousts PM Harpercoto2admin | March 25, 2011 at 4:54 pm | Tags: canada, Canada government toppled, stephen harper | Categories: Elections | URL: http://wp.me/pAnVO-3X1 |
Opposition topples Canadian government A no-confidence vote succeeded in triggering Canada's 4th election in 7 years and the ousting of PM Stephen Harper By Rob Gillies Associated Press (Salon) Opposition parties toppled Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government in a no confidence vote, triggering Canada's fourth election in seven years. The opposition parties held the Conservative [...]
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 | President Obama: "I don't need no stinking Constitution" (Video)Scotty Starnes | March 25, 2011 at 2:35 PM | Tags: Constitution, liberal media, Libya, MSNBC, Obamacare, President Obama, U.S. Constitution, unconstitutional | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4Ru |
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| | Kinetic Military Action? Are You KIdding Me?Scotty Starnes | March 25, 2011 at 4:30 PM | Tags: kinetic military action, Libya, Libyan War, no-fly zone, President Obama, Progressives, regime change | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4RE |
Snidely Whiplash
So we are not engaged in war in Libya. We are involved in "Kinetic military action" as defined by these prevaricating, game playing progressives on Pennsylvania. Ave, Capital Hill and in the dens of journalistic integrity otherwise known as mainstream media. Nice. How many times have I discussed this incessant attempt of the left to redefine terms in order to make their ugly seem more palatable? Kinetic military action? Are you kidding me? Progressive's can rename war anything they want but it's still killing people and breaking things.
This is becoming surreal. Nothing is real. Nothing had the same meaning it had yesterday. Since the smartest and most nuanced person ever showed up things get more and more screwy by the day. For the record, I am not in favor of the no fly zone which is, as I heard said yesterday, becoming a "no move zone."
How is attacking Libyan tanks some form of enforcing a no FLY zone? Do tanks fly? Perhaps if we actually consider the Sturmovik IL-II or the A-10 a "flying tank," but other than that, tanks don't fly, so what gives with attacking ground targets that are clearly not Libyan regime air assets? Isn't this nothing more than Obama using the no fly zone as an excuse for regime change? Or at the least a hope of continued unrest that will keep driving up oil prices? As I said the other day, if I hated oil and atomic power I'd be in Heaven about now.
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Scott J
From: Scott J
So clever. He managed to nail the source with respect throughout.
In case you're wondering what this is all about, the White House has
termed the Libya hostilities not war but a "kinetic military action",
cf http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/white-house-libya-fight-not-war-its-kinetic-military-action.
--S.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/overseas-contingencies-kinetic-aliocious.html
Overseas-Contingencies-Kinetic-Aliocious
In trying to explain himself when bombing foreign lands,
It behooves a modern president to keep his prose in hand.
One little slip in lexicon accounting for the rubble
Will end up in congressional investigative trouble.
Ohhhhhh!
Overseas-contingencies-kinetic-aliocious
I must admit the messaging is really quite atrocious
But if you say it soft enough, you'll always sound precocious,
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious!
Um-diddle-diddle-um-diddleye
Um-diddle-diddle-um-diddleye
In olden days they called this thing a stale three-letter word
But in this new millenium I find that quite absurd.
My unabridge-ed thesaurus is dog-eared through and through,
One syllable seems pitiful when thirteen more will do!
Ohhhhhhh!
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious,
When you put it in that way it won't seem so ferocious.
Gargle first with Listerine in case of halitosis,
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious!
Um-twiddle-diddle-um-twiddle dee
Um-twiddle-diddle-um-twiddle dum
Unlike Bush adventurism, there's no "war" to fear
It's um... it's er... it's uh... it's mmm... let me be crystal clear
In days not weeks we cease it all, for "peace," or as you know,
Suoicilacitenikeicnegnitnocsaesrevo.
Ohhhhhh!
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious
A neologic tailor-made for media hypnosis
If you hear it long enough you'll drink until cirrhosis,
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious!*
*Iowahawk reminds you: song parodies are the lowest form of humor
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Impeach Barack Obama
A Challenge to Tea Partiers and Antiwar Liberals
by John V. Walsh, March 24, 2011
http://original.antiwar.com/john-v-walsh/2011/03/23/impeach-barack-obama/
The time has come for those who claim high regard for the U.S. Constitution to show that they mean what they say. The time has come to begin impeachment proceedings against President Barack H. Obama for high crimes and misdemeanors.
The United States has initiated a war against Libya, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has conceded. When one country bombs another, which has not attacked it nor posed any immediate threat to it, that is an act of war. No "humanitarian" rationale justifies such an act. Only an act of Congress suffices according to the United States Constitution. Barack Obama has violated that provision of the United States Constitution, which he swore, falsely it is now apparent, to defend and protect. Barack Obama has committed this greatest of impeachable offenses. Other offenses related to torture and violation of the civil liberties of U. S. citizens may emerge as articles of impeachment are drawn up.
Many Tea Party candidates and paleo-conservative and libertarian Republicans, such as Rep. Ron Paul, won office by declaring their high regard for the Constitution. Rep. Paul stated in advance of the attack on Libya that a Congressional declaration of war was necessary according to the provisions of the Constitution before an assault could proceed. If these Republicans do not act now to begin impeachment following the lead of the very principled Dr. Paul, their words meant nothing, and they should be turned out of office.
Similarly antiwar liberals such as Dennis Kucinich backed candidate Barack Obama because of his promises of peace. But President Obama has given us ever more war. His pledge to end the war in Iraq by 2009 turns out to be an empty promise, and he has widened the war in Afghanistan. He has also ordered the bombing of Pakistan, another act of war not authorized by Congress. If such liberals are genuine agents of peace, they too have an obligation to follow the lead of Kucinich who has used the term impeachment with respect to Barack Obama's behavior to initiate impeachment proceedings. Otherwise they are poseurs, and they should be turned out of office.
Barack Obama can himself be called as the first witness to the hearings on his impeachment, so obvious is his crime. In 2008 as a candidate for the presidency he replied as follows to a question from the Boston Globe's Charlie Savage.
Savage:" In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)
Obama: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
High members of his administration agree and might provide ancillary testimony. Vice President Joseph Biden has declared: "The Constitution is clear: except in response to an attack or the imminent threat of attack, only Congress may authorize war and the use of force." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was of the same opinion: "If the country is under truly imminent threat of attack, of course the President must take appropriate action to defend us. At the same time, the Constitution requires Congress to authorize war. I do not believe that the President can take military action – including any kind of strategic bombing – against Iran without congressional authorization."
Barack Obama has further isolated the U.S. in the world by going to war against Libya, contrary to his claims of being a part of a broad international effort. This can only do more damage to our country, bleeding now with so many problems. Consider the vote in UN Security Council. Michael Lind informs us of the demographics and power relationships lying behind the UN vote as follows: "In the vote to authorize war against Libya, the U.S., Britain and France joined by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal and South Africa. Abstaining from the vote were five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and Germany."
"What do the five countries that registered their opposition to the Libyan war have in common? They make up most of the great powers of the early twenty-first century. A few years back, Goldman Sachs identified the so-called "BRIC's" — Brazil, Russia, India and China — as the most important emerging countries in the world. The opponents of the Libyan war on the Security Council are the BRIC's plus Germany, the most populous and richest country in Europe."
"Including the United States, the Security Council nations that voted for the no-fly zone resolution have a combined population of a little more than 700 million people and a combined GDP, in terms of purchasing power parity, of roughly $20 trillion. The Security Council countries that showed their disapproval of the Libyan war by abstaining from the vote have a combined population of about 3 billion people and a GDP of around $21 trillion."
"If the U.S. is factored out, the disproportion between the pro-war and anti-war camps on the Security Council is even more striking. The countries that abstained from the vote account for more than 40 percent of the human race. The countries that joined the U.S. in voting to authorize attacks on Libya, including Britain and France, have a combined population that adds up to a little more than 5 percent of the human race."
The situation appears worse the more one regards it. Lebanon's government controls only part of its territory. Gabon is a statelet with a mere 1.6 million people, smaller than many American cities. And the UN ambassadors of two of the countries who sided with the U.S., Nigeria and South Africa, were not present when the vote was scheduled to be taken. Ambassador Rice had to leave the Security Council chamber, find them and usher them in herself.
Partisan considerations should not impede the move to impeach Barack Obama. When George W. Bush was president, many on the Democratic Party Left called for his impeachment. They must do the same for President Obama who has more clearly violated the Constitution than President Bush since he did not even seek the dubious Congressional "authorization" which George W. Bush asked for and received. If the Left cannot do this, its credibility will be in shambles, and quite deservedly so. On the other side clearly there is reason to indict Bush, and some on the Left are calling for that as are certain authorities in European countries where the former President dare not go. But at the moment Barack Obama is in charge and capable of greater damage if he is not stopped by impeachment. Impeachment of Barack Obama can no longer be avoided.
President Barack Obama has violated the U.S. Constitution and employed the armed forces of the U.S. as a king's army. The U.S. made its revolution to escape such a predicament, and if this usurper of Congressional authority is not stopped and punished, these crimes will continue under each succeeding executive. This must end and it must end now. Impeachment proceedings must begin at once.
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Tomorrow (Saturday, March 26th) there will be a series of presentations for the Agora I/O "unconference," one of which I'll be giving. You can either be there in person, at the Valley Forge Beef & Ale (827 South Trooper Road in Eaglesville, PA), or you can "attend" on-line by going to
http://agora.io/etienne and following the directions there.
Here is the agenda for the Valley Forge part of the event:
Noon Steve Scheetz "Creating Local Barter Groups"
1:00 pm Karen Emery "Silver Barter, Back to our Roots"
2:00 pm James Babb "Free Market Solutions for Secure Air Travel"
3:00 pm Mike Salvi "Get in where you fit in ...how not to get
totally overwhelmed as an activist"
4:00 pm Larken Rose "Mental Preparations to Create Free Markets"
5:00 pm Larken Rose Open discussion
If you're tired of begging politicians to please let you be free, then join the discussion whereby we make ourselves free, with or without the cooperation of the politicians.
Sincerely,
Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com
Do something today that questions the legitimacy of government. "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi
http://agora.io/etienne and following the directions there.
Here is the agenda for the Valley Forge part of the event:
Noon Steve Scheetz "Creating Local Barter Groups"
1:00 pm Karen Emery "Silver Barter, Back to our Roots"
2:00 pm James Babb "Free Market Solutions for Secure Air Travel"
3:00 pm Mike Salvi "Get in where you fit in ...how not to get
totally overwhelmed as an activist"
4:00 pm Larken Rose "Mental Preparations to Create Free Markets"
5:00 pm Larken Rose Open discussion
If you're tired of begging politicians to please let you be free, then join the discussion whereby we make ourselves free, with or without the cooperation of the politicians.
Sincerely,
Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com
Do something today that questions the legitimacy of government. "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt." - Mahatma Gandhi
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/125195/herbert-resigns-as-new-york-times-columnist/
Herbert resigns as New York Times columnist
Romenesko Memos
Bob Herbert writes in his resignation letter: “I have been writing a column for 25 years, nearly 18 at The New York Times. The deadlines and demands were a useful discipline but for some time now I have grown eager to move beyond the constriction of the column format, with its rigid 800-word limit, in favor of broader and more versatile efforts.” He says he’s writing a book about “some of the great challenges facing the United States.” Two memos after the jump.
Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal’s memo:
To the Times Staff:
It is with great regret that we have accepted Bob Herbert’s resignation from The Times.
His columns over the years have been extraordinary, from his crucial series on the false arrests and imprisonment of dozens of innocent people in Tulia, Texas, to his profiles of soldiers wounded in combat, to his recent work on the individuals and families devastated by the Great Recession and its aftermath.
He was often called “the conscience of The Times” and will take his place in the long, proud history of Times op-ed columnists.
We will miss him and wish him the best in his new endeavors.
Andy Rosenthal
Herbert’s note
I have been writing a column for 25 years, nearly 18 at The New York Times. The deadlines and demands were a useful discipline but for some time now I have grown eager to move beyond the constriction of the column format, with its rigid 800-word limit, in favor of broader and more versatile efforts. So I am leaving The New York Times and the rewards and rigors of daily journalism with the intent of writing more expansively and more aggressively about the injustices visited on working people, the poor and the many others in our society who find themselves on the wrong side of power.
I am writing a book called “Wounded Colossus” about some of the great challenges facing the United States and will be part of a new, soon-to-be-announced effort to help bolster progressive journalism in the cause of a more generous and just America.
My years at The Times have been wonderful and I will miss working for the greatest newspaper in the world. But sometimes a mission presents itself, and I could not look in the mirror if I did not respond.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy[1] is the title of a book by
John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Relations at the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, published in late
August 2007. It was a New York Times Best Seller.[2]
The book describes the lobby as a "loose coalition of individuals and
organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-
Israel direction".[3] The book "focuses primarily on the lobby's
influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American
interests".[4]
John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Relations at the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, published in late
August 2007. It was a New York Times Best Seller.[2]
The book describes the lobby as a "loose coalition of individuals and
organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-
Israel direction".[3] The book "focuses primarily on the lobby's
influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American
interests".[4]
On Mar 25, 1:19 pm, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Along with The Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission.
>
> <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/author/scottystarnes/> Hillary
> Clinton admits the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) runs the nation
> (Video)<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/hillary-clinton-admits-...>
> *Scotty Starnes
> <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/author/scottystarnes/>*| March 25,
> 2011 at 9:30 AM | Tags:
> CFR <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/?tag=cfr>, Council on Foreign
> Relations<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/?tag=council-on-foreign-relations>,
> Hillary Clinton <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/?tag=hillary-clinton>, new
> world order <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/?tag=new-world-order>,
> Secretary
> of State Hillary
> Clinton<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/?tag=secretary-of-state-hillary-cl...>|
> Categories: Political
> Issues <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/?cat=35145> | URL:http://wp.me/pvnFC-4Rc
>
> watch?v=Kfpgl6NqF0I
>
> Oops. Somebody just admitted who tells this regime how to think and what to
> do.
>
> Add a comment to this
> post<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/hillary-clinton-admits-...>
> <http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/scottystarnes.wordpress.com...>
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>
> [image: WordPress]
>
> WordPress.com <http://wordpress.com/> | Thanks for flying with WordPress!
> Manage Subscriptions<http://subscribe.wordpress.com/?key=5d39acfd19218362d540a3fc3dc3315d&...>|
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington <alpert@ggwash.org>
Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: [WardOneDC] Redistricting Game
To: WardOneDC@yahoogroups.com, columbia_heights@yahoogroups.com, MountPleasantDC@yahoogroups.com, AdamsMorgan@yahoogroups.com, usreetnews@yahoogroups.com
![Yahoo! Groups]()
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From: David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington <alpert@ggwash.org>
Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 4:11 PM
Subject: [WardOneDC] Redistricting Game
To: WardOneDC@yahoogroups.com, columbia_heights@yahoogroups.com, MountPleasantDC@yahoogroups.com, AdamsMorgan@yahoogroups.com, usreetnews@yahoogroups.com
Yesterday, the Census Bureau released its detailed population estimates for the District of Columbia. This process kicks off the decennial debate over redrawing DC's wards. The boundaries of 2, 7, and 8 will have to shift, which will likely affect some of the other wards as well.
To encourage more resident input, I've created a web application that lets you do the redistricting yourself. You can see the populations and boundaries of each ward and click to move areas between wards until they balance out.
http://redistricting.greatergreaterwashington.org/
I will be aggregating all of the maps and recommendations from residents to create a report for the DC Council. I hope that many of you will take a few minutes to make your own map, both because it's fun and also to ensure we have a wide range of resident views for the analysis. You can even share the map you create with your friends via email, twitter, facebook, and more.
Enjoy!
David
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