Fear

Americans, I'm sad to say, are afraid. They're chicken shits. Because there was an attack on Paris. Over 100 people were killed.

Yet every year, over 10,000 Americans are killed by guns. We don't care. It's not that Americans die, it's HOW they die. Jealous husband -- that's life. Crazy guy -- it happens. Kid playing with dad's gun -- it's a tragedy. Depressed teen -- it was hormones. Black people -- take your pick of reasons that we write off.

The truth is, we're not afraid of killing. It's all around us. We're afraid of whatever the media and some fear-monger tells us to be afraid of. Because if we were objective about it, we'd do something reasonable. But fear isn't reasonable; it's the wrong stimulus to elicit a reasonable response.

Same with our compatriots in the armed services. If they die from an IED -- that's war. If they die from friendly fire -- that's war. If they drink themselves to death at home after PTSD -- that doesn't count.

Americans are afraid of the wrong things.

No, Syrian, Iraqi and other refugees aren't going to storm our borders like is happening now in Europe.

No, they're not going to "infiltrate" us through our southern border either. Not when ISIS or Al Qaeda could just send hundreds of jihadists with European passports to the U.S., without a visa, to wreak havoc.  Jihadists who can buy guns without a background check, and, in many states, openly carry firearms legally.  Why would terrorists take the former route, which takes at least 18 months, and may ferret out a real terrorist?  Why take the time and risk?  It defies reason and logic.

And yet we're afraid of them nevertheless, these refugees.

Americans are pussies. Especially the right-wing ones who say they want to defend America. They're the biggest fraidy cats of them all.  They'd rather upend the Constitution to defend against a lightning strike than take commonsense steps to defend themselves against much more likely causes of death.

But why?

It's the media. The same "lib'rul media" or "mainstream media" or "biased media" that they despise making them so afraid. They all -- we all -- get our information from SOMEWHERE.  So where are they getting information that's telling them that Syrian women and children are a threat to their very lives, to the American way? They didn't think of it themselves, that's for damn sure.

They are just as manipulable by the media as any liberal, as any other person... nay, more so, because they think their ideology gives them special perspicacity. And yet their fear blinds them.

And so I say, CHILL THE F--K OUT.  Stop being such f---ing pussies. If we're the strongest nation in the history of mankind -- and we are -- then that comes with some responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to serve. And serve we do -- at least some of us. Our men and women of the armed services go where we tell them, train whom we say to, kill whom we say to, and come home if they're lucky. But we civilians also have responsibility to NOT BE SUCH F---ING PUSSIES, and out of our fear, our ignorance and idiocy, send our brothers and sisters into harm's way halfway across the world to fight some bearded loonies in their caves, unless it really means something, unless it really protects us at home, or defends our interests as enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

The latter responsibility is where we're falling flat. Oh yes, we "honor" our troops with ribbons and FB posts... as we send them into one unsolvable mess, one quagmire after another.  As we ignore them when they return home and try to live in our great American society. Have we no shame? Have we no compassion? Have we no honor, to send these men & women of honor into stupid, dishonorable battles for nothing?

Swallow your Stars & Stripes and choke on them if you use them to justify your fear, to cover up you inadequacy, your latent racism, xenophobia, or religious vision of apocalypse.

Don't use our United States of America for your own stupid, selfish, fearful, short-sighted aims.

Don't buttress your own pathetic shortfalls with the might and resolve of the U.S. Military.

Don't ask our diplomats to say bullshit they don't believe.

Don't deceive yourselves, your family and your neighbors that you're in this fight when you're really not. You know nothing of war, or risk, or death or bloodshed or loss.

Just STOP. Just f---ing quit it. Just STOP.

Fuck Trump. Fuck Carson. Fuck Cruz. And yes, fuck Hillary. Fuck anybody who thinks we can solve civil wars or terrorism with "balls" or "bigger balls" or "brass balls" or salty balls or any kind of balls you can think of.  All that "balls" means is, some guy in a suit in a mansion with body guards sends thousands of Americans in uniform to die. Is that what you want?  Is that what you really need to feel safe, to go about your day?

If you really, truly need that, then I pity you. I despise you, yes. But I pity you.

You're not a worthy inheritor of America's greatness.  You're a scared little girl cowering under her sweaty bed sheets.

Being an 'indispensable nation' is killing America

This op-ed is worth re-posting in full.

Never let it be said I'm a partisan hack: I support Borosage's indictment of President Obama's executive overreach in conducting military operations without Congressional approval for war. 

More damning to my mind has been President Obama's failure to articulate to the nation (and Congress) a national security-military doctrine/vision (call it what you will) that makes it clear when he thinks the United States should send its troops into battle, and when we shouldn't. Granted, this may be the most difficult job of any POTUS in an ever-changing world, and with inherited conflicts of past presidents.

Is it because Obama and his team doesn't have the strategic capacity to develop such a vision? Is it because Obaama is too arrogant to articulate it for us, we're just supposed to trust him not to do "stupid shit"? Or, most likely, is it because a timid Obama fears that no matter what he says, it will be parsed and pilloried by Republicans -- who also can't agree among themselves on a foreign policy -- looking to score partisan political points?

Borosage is right to point out that the opportunity cost of U.S. military adventures abroad is investment in piss-poor education and crumbling infrastructure at home. Maybe our government can buy guns and butter... but not forever, not at a sustainable cost. This is where the "fiscally responsible" yet "pro-military" Tea Parties and Republicans have fallen on their faces as an opposition, by refusing to specify just what they are willing to give up to achieve their stated top priority of fiscal balance.

Being the ‘indispensable nation’ is killing American democracy

By Robert L. Borosage

October 20, 2014 | Reuters

America — proudly dubbed the “indispensable nation” by its national-security managers — is now the entangled nation enmeshed in conflicts across the globe.

President Barack Obama, scorned by his Republican critics as an “isolationist” who wants to “withdraw from the world,” is waging the longest war in U.S. history in Afghanistan, boasts of toppling the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya, launches airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State and picks targets for drones to attack in as many as eight countries, while dispatching planes to the Russian border in reaction to its machinations in Ukraine, and a fleet to the South China Sea as the conflict over control of islands and waters escalates between China and its neighbors.

The indispensable nation is permanently engaged across the globe. But endless war undermines the Constitution. Democracy requires openness; war justifies secrecy. Democracy forces attention be paid to the common welfare; war demands attention and resources be spent on distant conflicts. Democracy involves forging coalitions to get action in the Congress; war is waged on executive order. The Constitution restrains the executive in times of peace; constitutional strictures are trampled in times of war.

When the founders wrote the Constitution, they worried about the tendency of kings, or presidents, to make war for personal aggrandizement or national glory.  So they gave Congress the power to declare war, intent on “clogging, not facilitating” the rush to war.  For the Republic, peace would be the normal state of affairs. War was a disruption — entered into only with prior debate and consideration by  Congress, the elected body whose members best reflected the attitudes of their constituents.

The United States, in the words of conservative John Quincy Adams, would provide a shining example of liberty as long as “she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

But now the pursuit of monsters to destroy is unrelenting. Almost inevitably, it seems, the restraints of the Constitution are being trampled. With little debate, U.S. leaders have chosen permanent global intervention even at the cost of undermining the Republic.

For the cost of war can be measured in dollars not spent here at home.

An educated citizenry is the foundation of a robust democracy. Yet from the absence of free, full-day pre-K to affordable colleges to advanced training, the United States is skimping on investment in educating its citizens. A modern infrastructure is also essential to a competitive, high-wage economy. But while Washington spends $3 trillion on Iraq, there hasn’t been a serious discussion about bringing America’s aged infrastructure, including our roads, bridges and airports, up to standard — which would cost about the same. 

A bridge to somewhere... now a bridge to nowhere.

Instead of this funding, the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies spend more on their militaries than the rest of the world combined. Washington maintains more than 1,000 bases, called “military sites,” across the globe, plus 11 aircraft-carrier task forces that are essentially moveable bases. U.S. conventional and nuclear forces are unrivaled — yet Washington plans to spend another trillion dollars over the next 30 years modernizing nuclear weapons that the United States aims never to use. U.S. intelligence and covert forces are permanently engaged, often secretly creating the implicit commitments that will force the next intervention.

It is only America, as the president said in a speech announcing his intention to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State, which he refers to as ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, that “has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorism … against Russian aggression … to contain … Ebola and more.”

This president, more than his predecessors, understands the perils of being the “indispensable nation.” Elected in large part to get the United States out of the seemingly endless wars in the Middle East, he now finds himself forced into another open-ended commitment.

In his speech to the National Defense University in 2013, Obama argued, “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ ” Obama warned specifically about this. “The choice we make about war,” the president said, “can impact —  in sometimes unintended ways — the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends.”

Yet even with this awareness, and no reelection race facing him, Obama could not escape the imperatives of America’s role as the indispensable nation. The commitments are too many,  the engagement too permanent, the capacity unrivalled — seemingly making all things possible.  As a result, this former professor of constitutional law has governed over the greatest assertion of executive authority — claiming the power to make war, to surveil, arrest, detain and even kill Americans without prior judicial review or due process.

Ike warned us about the growing "military-industrial complex" that sought to feed itself at the federal trough.

His Justice Department has used espionage laws against reporters and whistleblowers.  The secrecy shields massive waste, fraud and abuse, as the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against consumes the bulk of the national budget, aside from payments on the national debt and the insurance programs of Social Security and Medicare.

When President George W. Bush was about to launch the war in Iraq, millions of Americans – as well as many people around the globe — marched in protest. The large demonstrations against war led the New York Times to dub world public opinion a second superpower. Bush sought authority from Congress and a dramatic congressional debate took place, with strong dissent against the war.

When Obama committed the United States to the fight against Islamic State, he claimed the authority to act without Congress, though adding he would “welcome” congressional support. Yet with the midterm elections then a few months away, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress chose to postpone the debate and the vote.

The bombing began on presidential order. Americans accepted their role as spectators, registering no significant objection to this presidential war-making.  The indispensable nation is not only spending lives and resources on endless wars abroad, it is shredding its Constitution at home.

Ironically, America’s democracy is still strong enough to render it less than competent as a global policeman. Our military is the finest in the world, but still finds it hard to win a war. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate that while presidents can commit the nation virtually anywhere, Americans sour on long, costly interventions on the other side of the world.

This leads to strategies like “no boots on the ground” — designed not to rouse public opposition but almost certain to fail. Polls show that Americans have no interest in policing the globe. If the Constitution no longer constrains the president from making war, the public still limits his ability to wage it.

Blackwater gets U.S. justice for 2007 Iraq killings

Sedulous readers will recall my opposition to private military contractors, (aka mercenaries), or at least our increasing reliance on them to do jobs the U.S. Military used to do for itself, such as security, logistics and even intelligence.

Why? Because in Iraq and Afghanistan, they haven't been subject to local law, military discipline or the chain of command. They are almost a law unto themselves. 

I also argue they're bad for morale, what with their fat paychecks while our troops' families back home depend on food stamps to survive. And strategically, it's dangerous for our military to lose capabilities it once had and become dependent on outside contractors. 

We do know why the explosive growth in mercenaries though, since 2001: 

  1) They don't count as "troops" that we should care about when generals or politicians talk about U.S. forces overseas; 

  2) None of us has to mourn them when they die or hang a yellow ribbon to keep them safe; 

  3) They are a great way for Republicans to hand out government cheese and re-collect it in the form of campaign contributions (Blackwater alone has collected more than $1 billion in U.S. Government contracts, many of them non-compete); and

  4) There isn't a single government service that Republicans don't want to privatize or outsource, as the eight year of Dubya-Cheney's regime proved.

U.S. mercenaries caused tragedy in September 2007, when a group of Americans from Blackwater, LLC opened fire at a crowded Baghdad intersection and killed 17 innocent Iraqi civilians and seriously wounded 20 others. I posted about it then, writing:

When Blackwater's highly-paid mercenaries indiscriminately shoot and kill innocent Iraqis, the Iraqi people don't know it was mercenaries who did it, they think it was U.S. soldiers. Mercenaries in Iraq are harming the mission of our real troops by turning the Iraqis against America.

Blackwater is a deadly menace, and yet another blight on America's image as our real soldiers try to win hearts and minds in Iraq. 

Or as I've said before in more sanguine terms, it's hard to "win hearts and minds" when you're shooting them in the head and chest. This has always been the fundamental contradiction of America's occupations, er, counter-insurgency efforts  in Afghanistan and Iraq. We call these places "wars" but we also "liberated" their people who we're trying to help while fighting them. 

Even now I hear hot-air pundits like Limbaugh and Hannity say we "lost" Iraq after gaining territory here or there, as if it was a conventional fight to take and hold ground from the Nazis. 

Anyhow... finally justice has been done for some of the Blackwater killers, in the U.S.: Three were found guilty of manslaughter and one of first-degree murder.

And as for Blackwater, well... like many PMCs, they change their name as often as most people change jobs. It went from Blackwater Worldwide to Xe Services, LLC to Academi, LLC and most recently, through a merger with a rival, to Constellis Holdings. Check out Blackwater's detailed but murky history here, including other U.S. federal charges against Blackwater, and its cozy connections with Republicans and even the Family Research Council! 

I'll leave you with this this beaut [emphasis mine]:

[T]he State Department's chief investigator [of Blackwater] reported being threatened by a Blackwater official in Iraq in August 2007. The investigator said project manager Daniel Carroll told him "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq."

With such an attitude, it's not surprising that a few weeks later Blackwater killed and wounded all those Iraqis. Good thing somebody could and did do something about it!

US jury convicts Blackwater guards in 2007 killing of Iraqi civilians

By Dan Roberts 

October 22, 2014 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/42kcf

The 'You didn't build that' lie persists

Here we have the latest citation from the Rush Limbaugh Show. Rush quotes as Gospel for his mind-numbed robots that President Obama sincerely believes that nobody who has achieved that fleeting "American Dream" really deserves any credit for it.  Nope, it was all thanks to Big Gubument, says Rush of Obama's beliefs:

That's what the President believes. Obama doesn't believe in the prescription of hard work equals success.  In that statement, he just puts it down.  He just delegitimizes it.  Cookie, find that from our archives.  That was July 2012, Roanoke, Virginia.  Give me the whole thing.  "I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." That's not what makes the difference.

The thing is, that quote has always been taken out of context. Several sentences of Obama's speech have always been artfully deleted by the talk-radio/Fox News media axis. Factcheck.org busted this myth back in July 2012, yet it still persists:

There’s no question Obama inartfully phrased those two sentences, but it’s clear from the context what the president was talking about. He spoke of government — including government-funded education, infrastructure and research — assisting businesses to make what he called “this unbelievable American system that we have.”

In summary, he said: “The point is … that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”

Now here's what President Obama actually said, unedited and unabridged by talk radio and Fox News hacks, on July 13, 2012 [emphasis mine]:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

Now the thing about it, now that you've read it, is that Fact Checkers be damned, it's unequivocally true. You can go back as far as you like, and you can find the hand of government in the great successes of our nation, business or otherwise. The things that we take the most pride in as Americans are the things that we did together. 

I mean, is it any wonder that our Armed Services -- not Microsoft, not Apple or Google -- are held today by Americans in such high esteem?  Is it indeed because they "defend" us -- against whom? -- or because they are the last great institution devoted to a -- dare I say it? -- socialistic ethos of collective contribution, shared sacrifice, and honor for the glory of country? Instinctively, in our guts, we see the value in their honorable endeavors.

The great pity of modern American culture is that we cannot apply those same values of sacrifice, teamwork, equality and honor to making the lives of Americans better. The U.S. Military can teach us plenty; but we accept their lessons emptily, we accept their examples of self-sacrifice ritualistically, without thought or self-reflection. Glory be to them -- but shame on us!

Going further... The GOP talks about morals, they talk about values. What would be wrong with President Obama talking about the value of hiring American workers and paying them a fair wage?  What would be immoral or un-American about Obama's naming and shaming those companies like Apple, Google... the list goes on and on... that call themselves "American," and yet employ most of their workers and pay most of their taxes overseas, and his demanding, "Can't you do better?  Can't you be more patriotic?"  

I'm not talking about a single law, a single executive order, just our Chief Executive saying what we all know in our guts to be true: so many U.S. companies treat American workers like Kleenex; meanwhile, they depend like the dickens on American consumers to buy their products. If this were wartime, if this were a time of crisis, we simply wouldn't put up with it.  And yet we do. Because we believe that's just the way it is.  Well who the hell said so?? 

I'm fired up!  WHOO! 

Engelhardt: U.S. National Security State is an insane religious order

Right on!  Tom Engelhardt is a lone voice of sanity. Our National Security State (NSS), as he dubs it, has indeed grown out of control. Its reason for being has become self-perpetuation and -aggrandizement.

As I posted back in March, the Department of Homeland Security, which didn't even exist prior to 9/11, has spent about $800 billion since then in order to prevent any more such attacks.  Never mind that that plot could have been thwarted if the FBI had simply listened to its field agents.  No, we had to go an make a "monstrosity" (in Ron Paul's words), a real "Department of Defense" to rival the Pentagon -- the "Department of Offense."  

This is not to forget the outrageous $700 billion Pentagon budget that is bigger than the next 13 biggest military budgets in the world combined; and let's ponder in awe and disgust that the Pentagon employs, directly and via contractors, about 3.3 million Americans, making it the single largest U.S. employer. Finally, let's remember Pentagon's network of hundreds of military bases worldwide. (For comparison, by one estimate, the Roman Empire had about 37 major bases at its height, while the British Empire had 36. So what does that make the United States, Rotary International?!)

And of course we have the NSA.  What can I say that hasn't already been said?  The NSA assures us that they have foiled some 54 "9/11"-type attacks (but only 13 in the U.S.... maybe we should start charging Europe a fee?) with their ceaseless spying on innocent Americans, but they can't tell us anything about these so-called plots because they're so secret.  But the NSA did tell a Presidential task force, which responded, essentially with, "Phooey." So that's more money and liberty down the drain.

Folks, this is all done in our name, ostensibly to protect us. We're not innocent bystanders in all this.  We're enablers.  We must stop enabling.  We must tell our Congressmen -- I'm talking to you, "fiscally responsible" Tea Partiers -- that the NSS has grown out of our control and must be chopped down. This monster now exists to feed itself and make babies, not to protect us. 

Read on!...

American Jihad 2014: The New Fundamentalists 

By Tom Engelhardt

January 5, 2014 | Tom Dispatch

URL: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175789/

Lib'rul media remembers Hasan, forgets F.E.A.R.

Well you know me, always out to expose the dastardly lib'rul media.  

Seriously though, I can't understand why my liberal co-conspirators in the media pay so little attention to this crazy story about a shadowy, murderous, drug-dealing, anti-government militia group operating inside the U.S. Military?  

I mean, we still see stories about the Fort Hood shooter, including the saga of his beard... and I'm sure it has nothing to do with his being Muslim, no sirree.  

Conservative bloviators like Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn have done their best to keep three-year-old Nidal Hasan story alive and stir up fear that he is just the tip of the Islamist iceberg in the military.  Yet the right-wing as well as MSM media (whatever that is) both ignore F.E.A.R.  

Could it be that my fellow liberals ensconced in their corporate media fronts for left-wing brainwashing operations are napping on the job, or.... (gasp!) could it be that there is no liberal media at all?  

Families of Slain Couple in FEAR Militia Case File Claim Against U.S. Army

By Don Terry

August 29, 2013 | Southern Poverty Law Center

URL: http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/08/29/families-of-slain-couple-in-fear-militia-case-file-claim-against-u-s-army-2/

The Case Parade

SPLC Intelligence Report | Fall 2013

URL: http://www.splcenter.org/get%20informed/intelligence%20report/browse%20all%20issues/2013/fall/Fear%20Rising/The%20Case%20Parade

Wilkerson: Drones destroy 'warrior ethic'

I'm still going back & forth on drones.  Here Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Gen. Colin Powell's former chief of staff and a critic of the "sexed up" intelligence leading to the Iraq invasion, and some other guy offer some new objections to America's use of drones that I've never heard before.

For one, drones destroy what Wilkerson calls the U.S. military's "warrior ethos" [bold mine]:

At one stroke, the drone has destroyed any positive image of the United States in the countries over which it operates. It has contributed to the destruction of the tribal codes of honor, such as Pukhtunwali among the Pukhtun tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this immorality and destructive nature reflects back on those who use it, harming the warrior ethic of the American military so critical to battlefield bonding among soldiers in combat.

The warrior ethos may be largely a myth but, like most myths, it protects something very important: the psychology of killing in the name of the state. That killing becomes nothing less than murder when the soldier doing it is utterly invulnerable. Most US citizens, so long divorced from any responsibility to take up arms and fight and kill, do not understand this. Soldiers – good ones – do. Such understanding was behind the recent cancellation by Secretary of Defense Hagel of the valor award for drone operators. 

Likewise, Wilkerson argues that drones deprive our victims, most of them located in tribal communities with ancient codes of honor, of the chance to defend themselves or fight back.  We can imagine that their pent-up frustration would lead to more terrorist recruits and increased danger to the U.S.:

However precise the weapon, this is the reality and the price on the ground, destroying the codes so vital to both parties involved – those who are targets and the people who see them die and the operators at their computer terminals. The use of the drone is creating more problems than it is solving.

In the defense of drones I will say this: they are just a weapon. We also employ air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missiles from so far away that our enemies have no chance to strike back.  And these missiles can also strike without warning and cause collateral damage.  There are also Howitzer artillery pieces with a range of about 25 km.  The principle is the same. This is not to mention our nuclear weapons that can erase entire communities.  (And the U.S. is still the only country to have used nuclear weapons.)  Or our cyber weapons deployed by nerds sitting at computers thousands of miles away.  

So if we're going to say that drones are somehow "dishonorable," unfair or causing dangerous rage in the communities whose hearts and minds we want to win over to our side, then we also have to include all these other impersonal, remote-controlled weapons that bring death from the sky.

In criticism of drones I will say that they have the unintended (?) psychological effect of creating terror.  Imagine if you are not a terrorist, and yet you hear drones buzzing above you everyday without end, and you know that an errant missile could kill you or your innocent friends and family any second, day or night.  How would you feel about that?  You would be terrified or outraged or both!

Again, let's remember that drone strikes are happening where the U.S. is not at war and often violating national sovereignty.  Drones may have no "physical" footprint but they certainly have a moral, psychological and legal footprint in the countries where they attack.

Wilkerson is definitely right about one thing: America is overdue for a public debate about the use of drones, and everybody should be asked to weigh in -- citizens, politicians, academics, human rights advocates, lawyers, the military, and even victims' advocates.  We can't simply trust Obama or any POTUS to handle this responsibility himself.

UPDATE (05.07.2013): Here's a HuffPo article, "Obama Drone War 'Kill Chain' Imposes Heavy Burden At Home," that offers another drawback of drones: the psychological toll it takes on the the military intelligence officers who sift through data and watch computer screens all day to identify targets.  Apparently it's not just like playing a video game.  These military operators work 12-hour shifts, live under constant pressure for perfection, struggle with constant doubt and fear of deadly mistakes, and so their burnout rate is high.

Dealing remote-control drone death, the US has lost its moral compass

By Akbar Ahmed and Lawrence Wilkerson

May 4, 2013 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3ft2e

Thoughts on fighting terrorism

I would like President Obama and Congress to lay down a few markers for U.S. citizens and the rest of the world, because the "Great War on Terrorism" (GWOT) is hopelessly muddled and prone to overreach.

First, in operational terms, the most important marker is that any terrorist group that we take action against must present a clear and present danger to the United States, because that is the measure by which we decide whether to take military action against other sovereign states. And as a practical matter, we must look where such terrorists are based. If they are acting in a sovereign state -- as they are most likely to do -- then we must act only with the permission of that state. Failure to act militarily without that state's permission would be a violation of that state's sovereignty. There is hardly any act more serious that the United States could undertake. Violating another country's sovereignty should never be done lightly, and never without clear consultations with said state. And again, as a practical matter, we should be extremely wary of violating any country's sovereignty, since they are prone to take the most extreme actions against us in response. The United States would do no less if the shoe were on the other foot.

Second, we must always make a clear distinction between state-sponsored terrorism and non-state-sponsored terrorism.

Bitter experience has taught us that non-state terrorists flourish in failed or failing states, like maggots in a rotting corpse. Such groups present a novel and special challenge to the United States.  We know now that terrorist groups often hope that the U.S. will choose to put boots on the ground in failed states. Such groups flock to failed or failing states; in the first case for refuge and operational freedom; in the latter case often to foment total state failure to secure such operational freedom.  

Furthermore, terrorist groups know that our presence in such states will provide them with ready and abundant targets in confusing environments where our rules of engagement are muddled and lead to the killing of combatants and innocent non-combatants alike. Terrorists do not care about non-combatants. Indeed they hope that innocents will be killed by indiscriminate use of American force, since such killings tend to bolster their recruitment and win over public opinion to their side.

State-sponsored terrorism, by contrast, is war by other, indirect means by our adversaries in other sovereign states.  Where we can make a solid connection between the actions of terrorists against the U.S. and the states who sponsor them, then the U.S. should have the right to respond appropriately, up to and including military force against the sponsor state.  The U.S. has made it fairly clear that it will hold state sponsors accountable. So this is not the real problem. 

The main condition is that we must avoid conflating the two types of terrorism.  The second condition is that our government should never fail to provide evidence of a clear and present danger to the United States (or its allies) before authorizing military force against non-state or state-sponsored terrorists, or the states who sponsor terrorists.  

The U.S. Constitution makes no reference to terrorism. Terrorism did not exist in the late 18th century.  It is a modern phenomenon. Nevertheless, the principle set down in the Constitution that the President must seek permission from Congress to declare war should still apply in the case of terrorist organizations.  Our Founding Fathers' fear was not that the U.S. would make war against private individuals as opposed to other sovereign states; rather, our Founders were afraid that the Executive would deploy U.S. forces indiscriminately and non-judiciously. The same fear, the same likelihood, exists with regard to traditional warfare as it does with non-traditional counter-terrorism military operations.

M. Moore: We don't 'support our troops'

Well said!  Nothing I could add.

Those Who Say "I Support the Troops" Should Just Stop, Out of Respect for the Troops

By Michael Moore

January 3, 2013 | MichaelMoore.com

I don't support the troops, America, and neither do you. I am tired of the ruse we are playing on these brave citizens in our armed forces. And guess what -- a lot of these soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines see right through the bull**** of those words, "I support the troops!," spoken by Americans with such false sincerity -- false because our actions don't match our words. These young men and women sign up to risk their very lives to protect us -- and this is what they get in return:

1. They get sent off to wars that have NOTHING to do with defending America or saving our lives. They are used as pawns so that the military-industrial complex can make billions of dollars and the rich here can expand their empire. By "supporting the troops," that means I'm supposed to shut up, don't ask questions, do nothing to stop the madness, and sit by and watch thousands of them die? Well, I've done an awful lot to try and end this. But the only way you can honestly say you support the troops is to work night and day to get them out of these hell holes they've been sent to. And what have I done this week to bring the troops home? Nothing. So if I say "I support the troops," don't believe me -- I clearly don't support the troops because I've got more important things to do today, like return an iPhone that doesn't work and take my car in for a tune up.

2. While the troops we claim to "support" are serving their country, bankers who say they too "support the troops," foreclose on the actual homes of these soldiers and evict their families while they are overseas! Have I gone and stood in front of the sheriff's deputy as he is throwing a military family out of their home? No. And there's your proof that I don't "support the troops," because if I did, I would organize mass sit-ins to block the doors of these homes. Instead, I'm having Chilean sea bass tonight.

3. How many of you who say you "support the troops" have visited a VA hospital to bring aid and comfort to the sick and wounded? I haven't. How many of you have any clue what it's like to deal with the VA? I don't. Therefore, you would be safe to say that I don't "support the troops," and neither do you.

4. Who amongst you big enthusiastic "supporters of the troops" can tell me the approximate number of service women who have been raped while in the military? Answer: 19,000 (mostly) female troops are raped or sexually assaulted every year by fellow American troops. What have you or I done to bring these criminals to justice? What's that you say -- out of sight, out of mind? These women have suffered, and I've done nothing. So don't ever let me get away with telling you I "support the troops" because, sadly, I don't. And neither do you.

5. Help a homeless vet today? How 'bout yesterday? Last week? Last year? Ever? But I thought you "support the troops!"? The number of homeless veterans is staggering -- on any given night, at least 60,000 veterans are sleeping on the streets of the country that proudly "supports the troops." This is disgraceful and shameful, isn't it? And it exposes all those "troop supporters" who always vote against social programs that would help these veterans. Tonight there are at least 12,700 Iraq/Afghanistan veterans homeless and sleeping on the street. I've never lent a helping hand to one of the many vets I've seen sleeping on the street. I can't bear to look, and I walk past them very quickly. That's called not "supporting the troops," which, I guess, I don't -- and neither do you.

6. And you know, the beautiful thing about all this "support" you and I have been giving the troops -- they feel this love and support so much, a record number of them are killing themselves every single week. In fact, there are now more soldiers killing themselves than soldiers being killed in combat (323 suicides in 2012 through November vs. about 210 combat deaths). Yes, you are more likely to die by your own hand in the United States military than by al Qaeda or the Taliban. And an estimated eighteen veterans kill themselves each day, or one in five of all U.S. suicides -- though no one really knows because we don't bother to keep track. Now, that's what I call support! These troops are really feeling the love, people! Lemme hear you say it again: "I support the troops!" Louder! "I SUPPORT THE TROOPS!!" There, that's better. I'm sure they heard us. Don't forget to fly our flag, wear your flag lapel pin, and never, ever let a service member pass you by without saying, "Thank you for your service!" I'm sure that's all they need to keep from putting a bullet in their heads. Do your best to keep your "support" up for the troops because, God knows, I certainly can't any longer.

I don't "support the troops" or any of those other hollow and hypocritical platitudes uttered by Republicans and frightened Democrats. Here's what I do support: I support them coming home. I support them being treated well. I support peace, and I beg any young person reading this who's thinking of joining the armed forces to please reconsider. Our war department has done little to show you they won't recklessly put your young life in harm's way for a cause that has nothing to do with what you signed up for. They will not help you once they've used you and spit you back into society. If you're a woman, they will not protect you from rapists in their ranks. And because you have a conscience and you know right from wrong, you do not want yourself being used to kill civilians in other countries who never did anything to hurt us. We are currently involved in at least a half-dozen military actions around the world. Don't become the next statistic so that General Electric can post another record profit -- while paying no taxes -- taxes that otherwise would be paying for the artificial leg that they've kept you waiting for months to receive.

I support you, and will try to do more to be there for you. And the best way you can support me -- and the ideals our country says it believes in -- is to get out of the military as soon as you can and never look back.

And please, next time some "supporter of the troops" says to you with that concerned look on their face, "I thank you for your service," you have my permission to punch their lights out (figuratively speaking, of course).

(There is something I've done to support the troops -- other than help lead the effort to stop these senseless wars. At the movie theater I run in Michigan, I became the first person in town to institute an affirmative action plan for hiring returning Iraq/Afghanistan vets. I am working to get more businesses in town to join with me in this effort to find jobs for these returning soldiers. I also let all service members in to the movies for free, everyday.)

Locke, Hobbes and history v. Gun nuts

Paul Rosenberg is absolutely right in his philosophical argument that lasting liberty is incompatible with individual gun ownership; but he spends most of his time refuting the less deeply held belief of the pro-gun crowd: that freedom-loving individuals need guns for their own security.  

Rather, the gun nuts' main argument against reasonable gun control is that we the people need more and deadlier guns to overthrow our government if it ever becomes tyrannical.  

This is a bad and eristic argument in favor of individuals' unrestricted access to all types of deadly guns. Yet it's difficult to refute using purely inductive logic because something similar has never happened -- especially in the most powerful country in the history of the world with a military of 3 million and all the wizz-bang futuristic weapons you can think of.  For argument's sake, such a nation has never gone from democratic to tyrannical and tried to oppress its own people.

And so we liberals can only make reasonable, rational arguments to the effect that we the people wouldn't stand much of a chance fighting such an evil government. And in the meantime, 30,000 gun deaths a year (including 9,000 gun murders) is a high price to pay for the "freedom" to defend ourselves in such an unlikely what-if scenario. (I actually think flesh-eating zombies taking over is more likely, but that's just me....)

What's more, as I told my Uncle T. (who subscribes to this argument) over Christmas, if the United States government ever did become so murderous and tyrannical, then it would mean there were at least 1,000 lapses in our democratic vigilance leading up that moment that had nothing to do with our weapons or guns. It would mean we the people largely had ourselves to blame for it. *

Apropos, Rosenberg points out that John Locke and the Founding Fathers had no idea how important peaceful protest would become in securing the freedom and civil rights of so many millions of people, starting about 160 years later.  (That's yet another thing they never imagined, in addition to AR-15 semi-automatic rifles in the hands of madmen....). 

And so despite the Founding Fathers' lack of prescience...

... that doesn't mean that Locke's underlying logic has died. To the contrary, the issue of the consent of the governed has never been more alive than it has been in the last few decades. But what's most interesting is that it's taken such a strong turn toward non-violent, unarmed revolution, seen most recently in the peaceful successes of the Arab Spring. Of course these did not succeed everywhere, and violent struggle emerged in several countries, yet it should be remembered that nothing remotely like this was even conceivable at the time that Locke wrote. And yet, the underlying thrust of his logic has been supremely vindicated by the non-violent lineage of Thoreau, Gandhi, King and Mandela - a lineage that stands directly opposite to the gun-crazed vision of the NRA. [Emphasis mine - J]

What I should have added to Uncle T. was that, as Mark Ames recently pointed out, gun ownership actually decreases our democratic vigilance since guns give far too many Americans an unearned sense of complacency, or a sense that the mere act of owning firearms is a "rebellious" thing in and of itself... and meanwhile they sit at home on their couches while the plutocrats corrupt our government and screw the Average Joe's of the country who "cling to their guns and religion," instead of those gun owners being politically active. (And no, being an NRA member does not make somebody politically active.)

... (Sigh) But these are all reasonable things to say to unreasonable people. That's why I'm mostly preaching to the pro-gun control choir here.

* And I added to Uncle T. the unoriginal thought that a better defense of our liberty against government tyranny than the 2nd Amendment is our professional, all-volunteer military and the esprit de corps instilled in our troops who vow to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. It's one thing for them to shoot armed baddies overseas; but it's quite another thing for them to obey orders to shoot and kill their fellow citizens at home, armed and unarmed alike. To defend their countrymen is the exact reason most of them sign up in the first place!  And so, this argument in favor of the unrestricted right to bear arms is quite insulting to our U.S. servicemen and women.

Locke and unload: Why the NRA doesn't understand rights

It's the exact inability of guns to secure our freedom that establishes the foundation for our civil government.

By Paul Rosenberg

December 27, 2012 | Aljazeera

URL: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121226104857715225.html