Tag: war

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Accountability folly general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

The Choice That Isn’t

politics, Obama, Hiillary Clinton, lies, elections, FBI Director, James Comey, war president

Americans are used to being betrayed by their political representation.

This long series of infidelities has led to the current predicament, where the Republican and Democratic parties present us with the opposite of what most Americans want.

Why this vexing stalemate?

History.

The current Democratic President, Mr. Obama, gained both notoriety and trust for his stance against war. Rank-and-file Democrats rejoiced. The Bush Wars were over!

Nope. Obama grew into his role as war president.

Like his predecessor.

Under his watch, the U.S. expanded regime change to Libya, stretched the Afghanistan incursion into our longest war, and now sends more troops into Iraq. (Sans their boots.)

The peacenik manqué has discovered his talent for killing foreigners. His supporters, in consequence, “cling to” his other paltry achievements: a weak, ephemeral recovery; the imperiled, perilous Obamacare.

And a long series of lectures.

No wonder Democrats are demoralized enough to vote for hawkish Hillary Clinton, the least qualified presidential candidate in American history.

But wait, Obama hath ballyhooed: she is “the most qualified”!

Why “least”?

Because FBI Director James Comey just admitted* that any underling of his that had behaved as recklessly as she had with national security would be “disciplined” and “in big trouble.”

Instead, Americans may wind up hiring her . . . for Commander in Chief!

Republicans, on the other hand, have enthusiastically kicked at that “small government” football so many times, only to witness their “leaders” yank it away. Have they now given up? Donald Trump has no interest in limiting government; he talks of new spending programs.

With a “choice that isn’t” in these two losers, no wonder “we don’t win anymore.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*Comey’s exact words, in July, were “They might get fired, they might lose their clearance” — expertly hedging with those mights — “There would be some discipline.” Though he could find no evidence of intent to commit a criminal act, Comey did judge Mrs. Clinton “extremely careless” and “negligent.”

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politics, Obama, Hiillary Clinton, lies, elections, FBI Director, James Comey, war president

 

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Accountability folly moral hazard national politics & policies

The Longest War

Afghanistan, Obama, war, quagmire, illustration, photo

Is there a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel?

President Obama announced, Wednesday, that he would leave more troops in Afghanistan when he exits office than previously planned. Instead of cutting the current troop deployment of 10,000 down to 5,500 soldiers, Obama will now keep 8,400 “in country,” continuing our longest war.

Entering the 15th year of armed conflict and military occupation, thousands of lives lost along with hundreds of billions in treasure spent to equip and train Afghan forces and build infrastructure — and buy off warlords — recent U.N. estimates find the tyrannical Taliban controlling more actual territory in Afghanistan today than before the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Don’t blame the military. Our all-volunteer army is the greatest fighting force on the planet. But militaries break things; building new institutions and especially new modes of thinking among a foreign population is more difficult.

No political magic exists capable of turning Afghanistan into Arizona. Not this year, not the next, a decade from now, or two decades . . . not even a century down the road.

We must never forget that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”

And the politics don’t add up. There’s no credible plan to “win” in Afghanistan. All our leaders can muster is the witless maintenance of a deadly charade: nation-building a nation that balks at being built, hoping the roof falls in on someone else later . . . in the other party.

Sometimes courage means recognizing reality.

Our men and women in uniform have better things to do than fight and die for decades in a no-win war.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Afghanistan, Obama, war, quagmire, illustration, photo

 

Photo credit: Joseph Swafford on Flickr, courtesty of DVIDSHUB

 

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folly free trade & free markets meme moral hazard national politics & policies

Trump’s Dangerous Idea

Donald Trump, trade, protectionism, Donald Trump, war, borders, Bastiat

A lot of people were impressed by the reasonableness of Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech yesterday . . . despite the usual hyperbolic promises of “best” and “great” and “beautifully.”

Its general tenor? Refreshing. Rejecting post-Cold War foreign policy for a return to “national interest” and “America first”? Long overdue. Like Trump, I think we should eschew nation building.

But still there is that one big problem: Trump is a mercantilist. He believes in protectionism. He thinks that trade has to be “fair” in order to benefit both participants. He thinks NAFTA and similar trade agreements (which generally promoted trade while still reserving a lot of room for government futzing about) are what hurt American industry. Trump is always blaming the “bad deals” made with Mexico and China, rather than placing the blame where it squarely belongs, on

  • America’s world-high corporate income tax, and
  • chaos of regulatory excess, and
  • impenetrable tax code.

But protectionism makes sense to a lot of people. They are incredulous when they hear the (well-established) idea that free trade — even unilateral free trade — is a benefit to the people who live under it.

Surely, they snort, when you target aid or protection to some industries, you are doing good, right?

Wrong. Oh, yeah, of course protectionism protects the chosen few, the advantaged. That’s what it obviously does. But it doesn’t protect the general interest – consumers pay more and producers allocate resources to less valued uses.

You have to look beyond the obvious (“the seen”) to get the full picture (“the unseen”).

Trump’s at his most dangerous right here — forget his loose talk — by continuing to pretend that protectionism helps America.

We cannot afford another Smoot-Hawley.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Donald Trump, trade, protectionism, Donald Trump, war, borders, Bastiat

 

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general freedom national politics & policies

The Sanders/Obama/Nye Conjecture

climate change, global warming, drought, terrorism, Common Sense

When some of America’s most illustrious public figures — Senator Bernie Sanders, President Barack Obama, and Bill Nye the Science Guy — proclaim global climate change as the “obvious” cause of the rise of ISIS (and recent rounds of terrorism), it’s time to consider:

Is it climate change that is responsible for the recent rash of mass shootings in the U.S., most recently in San Bernardino?

There is a drought in California — a water shortage, anyway.

But that is caused more by overuse and underpricing of water resources — itself the result of public, not private, water resource management — than climate change.

Isn’t it more likely that people on the margin of stability — call them “crazy” or just evil — take cues from other shooters in the news, draw inspiration and then draw guns?

And fire.

America’s non-Muslim, home-grown mass murderers don’t seem to be making a clear point. Syrian refugee and European ISIS-sympathizing Muslim radicals do seem to be making a point — but one quite tangential to Bill Nye’s nifty causal chain: man-made global warming leads to droughts; farmers leave the country for the city; over-strapped cities lack water and jobs; frustrated male (and female) refugees go postal.

Hey Bill, don’t war and drone strikes, not to mention tyranny, also cause instability?

But then, so would cutting back on fossil fuels: the whole mid-east region runs on fuel sold to the West. If we fight ISIS by combatting CO2 emissions, and if the Sanders/Obama/Nye Theory is correct, we’ll just get more ISIS.

Copy-cattery and ideology explain this evil better. Not climate change.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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climate change, global warming, drought, terrorism, Common Sense

 

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general freedom national politics & policies responsibility U.S. Constitution

Thank You for Your Service

veteran's day, war, soldiers, peace, politician, Common Sense, Paul Jacob

When people risk their lives, saying thanks is the least we can do.

But it’s not enough.

Today on Veterans’ Day, we honor those who have served and are serving in the military.

The holiday was once Armistice Day, marking the peace agreement that concluded World War I at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. That’s where the phrase “the eleventh hour” comes from. It’s also why the holiday has remained on whatever day Nov. 11 falls — not the closest Monday to provide non-military government workers another three-day weekend.

Of course, Woodrow Wilson’s “war to end all wars” didn’t end warfare. Numerous wars have followed. Today, the president goes to war whenever he feels like it, not only without a declaration, without any authorization — or even discussion — by Congress.

So, here’s what I think we owe veterans:

A federal government that keeps its word.

The Veterans Administration’s continued failure to adequately care for returning soldiers is unacceptable. Until the VA is fixed, don’t vote for any incumbent.

Don’t let our uniformed sons and daughters be shipped off to any conflict where (a) our freedoms are not directly threatened, and (b) where there’s no sane plan to end the conflict and bring our troops home.

Don’t trust politicians.

From the sinking of the Maine (Spanish-American War) and the Lusitania (WWI) to the Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnam) and the faulty intelligence that greased the path into the Iraq Conquest, distrust is rational, almost a duty.

Disagree over foreign policy? Over whether to go to war or not? Sure, but we cannot leave these decisions to an insulated cabal of politicians. Deinsulate them. Speak your mind.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture meme national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

“No Boots on the Ground”

no boots on the ground, meme, Obama, war, Syria, lies, peace, Common Sense, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill, illustration

Obama has put “boots on the ground” in Syria after promising 16 times that he would not put “boots on the ground” in Syria. Our Nobel Peace Prize winner seems to have trouble staying out of wars.

USATodayBoots

 

U.S. Sends Ground Troops to Syria. Here Are 3 Reasons Why That’s Bad.

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no boots on the ground, meme, Obama, war, Syria, lies, peace, Common Sense, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill, illustration

 

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folly national politics & policies

A Tunnel with No Light

Obama, quagmire, foreign policy, Afghanistan, Syria, war, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

President Barack Obama pledged we’d be out of Afghanistan by 2016, but yesterday announced a “modest but meaningful extension of our presence” — keeping the 10,000 troops currently stationed there for all of 2016, and then, in perpetuity, maintaining a force five times larger than previously planned.

Why? Because, after 14 years of conflict and nation-building, Afghanistan is still neck-deep in violence. Last month, the Taliban briefly captured Kunduz, a city of over 250,000 people. Going forward, Obama admitted, “There will continue to be contested areas.”

The Afghan government is not self-sustainable and nobody seems to know how many years or decades or centuries that might take to achieve.

Meanwhile, over in Syria, the U.S. cannot train more than four or five moderate soldiers after much bluster and promise — and splurging a cool $500 million.

The U.S. invaded and “regime-changed” Iraq, helping shape a new government and national army. With all that effort — a cost of thousands of lives — once our soldiers weren’t doing the daily fighting to tamp down the bloody sectarian chasm, ISIS formed, the Iraqi army ran away and the country soon collapsed into civil war.

The Iraq Conquest put southern Iraq into Iranian orbit. How many lives was that worth?

The problem? Not military incompetence. The mission is the problem. Has any politician or military leader plausibly put forth a plan whereby our country’s intervention actually creates an improved and sustainable political order in any of these nations?

If so, let’s see it.

If not, why are our soldiers still in harm’s way?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly general freedom ideological culture

Caliph/f or Nyet

drought, war, Syria, Global Warming, California, illustration

We live in a time when intelligent people expend vital brain power concocting explanations for war that weigh drought as a more significant cause than . . . previous tyranny and warfare.

Yes, the President’s friends and acolytes defend the notion, in all seriousness, that it is unregulated capitalism leading to global warming and Levantine droughts that made Syrians all unruly. This explains everything!

Just blame Islamic State violence on the weather and not on . . . the murderous dictator willing to kill masses of his own people, the intoxicating ideology of jihad, and (definitely not!) on Barack Obama’s Mideast policies.

I emphasized the Syrian dictator’s acts last Sunday. But surely American foreign policy — going back to Bush, at least — destabilized the region, and constitutes a major cause of the violence.

A far greater cause than our car-driving addiction! And coal!

And flatulent cows . . .

Blame shifting is not just a foreign policy vice, though. My Townhall column began not with the nascent Caliphate’s droughts, but California’s. And there’s more than just a few syllables of pronunciation similarity. People are assigning the wrong causes in both regions.

When California’s government-run water system subsidizes almond growing in a near desert, of course there is going to be waste. And yet politicians focus on home water use, scolding folks for taking long showers.

Yet, who sets the price of the water homeowners buy? Who, then, is responsible for the incentives to which consumers react?

The State of California. Suffering no drought of disastrous dictates by politicians in over their heads.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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drought, war, Syria, Global Warming, California, illustration

 

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folly general freedom national politics & policies

Memorial Day Questions

Veterans and the political class, Obama, military, collage, photomontage, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, Paul Jacob, political, politics, blood

What do we owe to those who fight and give, as President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, “their last full measure of devotion”?

More, surely, than appreciative applause for the troops on airplanes and at professional sporting events . . . with their high-priced, taxpayer-paid military promotions.

First, vets are entitled to contracted-for medical care, as I addressed in greater detail at Townhall.com yesterday — not a Veterans Administration that systematically denies them needed diagnoses and treatments.

Second, wiser strategic decisions going forward. Vets deserve, and we all need, more (not fewer) questions of presidential candidates, such as the hypothetical inquiry of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Iraq, and the hypothetical Libya question Sen. Rand Paul suggests should be posed to Mrs. Clinton.

Bring on the if-you-knew-then questions!

But wait, what about a non-hypothetical: Are we today at war against the Islamic State?

We really should know . . . I mean, on Memorial Day and all.

President Barack Obama claims he has the constitutional power to engage militarily against the Islamic State under Congress’s 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). A number of legal scholars vehemently disagree. Which may be why, back in February, Obama asked for a new, anti-ISIS AUMF. Congressional Republicans balked, complaining the president’s proposed AUMF isn’t strong enough.

Of course, nothing prevents congressional Republicans from passing a stronger version.

Or better yet, demand that President Obama keep American boys and girls out of harm’s way in the always-messy Middle East.

The murderous leaders of the Islamic State may wish to be at war with us, but we don’t have to humor them. Let Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Iran defend themselves and their territories from this gang of cutthroats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Veterans and the political class

 

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Accountability national politics & policies

Aeschylation

“In war,” the Greek dramatist Aeschylus told us, “truth is the first casualty.”

This came to mind when Secretary of State John Kerry testified in the Senate last week.

The new Iraq War has been pitched exhaustively to the American people as “only air strikes” and “absolutely no boots on the ground” — even as the Obama Administration continues to send additional U.S. military advisors to place their boots on Iraqi sand (and, at least once thus far, to engage ISIS directly via Apache attack helicopters hovering above Iraqi ground.)

Kerry again assured senators that the president “has been crystal clear that his policy is that U.S. military forces will not be deployed to conduct ground combat operations against ISIL.”

Strangely, however, the Secretary most adamantly urged Senators not to pass an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that would restrict President O from doing precisely what he has so often and emphatically pledged not to do: put combat boots on the ground in Iraq.

The fact that the Obama Administration has foreclosed any possibility of putting US troops on the ground to fight, according to Sec. Kerry, “doesn’t mean that we should preemptively bind the hands of the commander in chief or our commanders in the field in responding to scenarios and contingencies that are impossible to foresee.”

Impossible to foresee? Yeah, right. The “no boots” promise provides all the stability of leaves in the wind.

Having any trust in this administration is impossible to foresee.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.