Some Notes on Terrorism

I wrote the following as a responce on a Facebook status, I thought it might interest a wider audience:

The United States was attacked on September 11th, 2001 by Al-Qaeda, a small terrorist cell comprising of no more than a few hundred members. Why did they do this, was it because they "hate our freedoms" like some claim? Why didn't they hate our freedoms before the end of the cold war then, why did Osama bin Laden consider the US an ally in his war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s? Why did the US provide the Arab fighters of the Soviets with money, weapons, and military training if they hated us so much?

The fact is Al-Qaeda didn't attack us because we were free, they attacked us because of what we where already doing to them. You just have to read the transcripts from bin Laden's own speeches on the 9/11 attacks. He gave three reasons for the attacks, 1) the economic sanctions the US imposed on Iraq in the 1990s which killed thousands of civilians, 2) the presence of 5,000 U.S. military troops in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim holy land, left there after the 1991 Gulf War, and 3) the continuing support of Israel by the US. We have to come to terms that the attacks were not from some genocidal group determined to murder all Westerners, but a reactionary group determined to restore the sovereignty of their region if not by the most ethical means.

Terrorism is just like any other murder: you look for the motives. Looking at the real causes of the terrorist attacks is not somehow "sympathizing with the terrorists", as much as looking at the real cause of an infection in your body is somehow “sympathizing with your infection”. You just can't simply declare that all infections are evil and want to destroy humanity, so we must wage an endless war, no matter the cost, against infections. That would be silly, you would look at the cause of the infection and then try to correct that individual problem. Al-Qaeda is an infection and that's how they must be dealt with, take away their fuel and support for them will die away to nothing. That is how the 9/11 terrorists should have been dealt with, not with a costly war in Afghanistan The Afghanistan war is a war against the Taliban, the governing organization of Afghanistan who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and not a war against the real criminals, Al-Qaeda.

Simply put, the War in Iraq was a senseless invasion of a sovereign state that had not attacked us. There was never any proof that there was a connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, nor was their ever any proof they were developing weapons of mass destruction. It was an ill considered, poorly planned and just plain unnecessary military action that resulted in the senseless death of thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis none of whom were fighting the US until after the invasion. Once again, it had nothing to do with obtaining justice against Al-Qaeda for their attacks against the US.

Pakistan and Libya also never attacked us, we have no business being in either one of those nations, and we don't need to be in Yemen either where we have special forces right now. We certainly have no need to be in Syria either where some are banging the drums of war for. We don't need to be helping the Libyan rebels like we have been, who have actually admitted they have connections to Al-Qaeda! Those calling for aiding the Libyan rebels are actually calling for aiding the friends of Al-Qaeda. So, in a way, both Republicans, like John McCain, and Democrats, like President Obama, are aiding Al-Qaeda, which is the complete opposite of obtaining justice for the crimes committed against the US people on 9/11!

And not a single one of these wars were declared constitutionally. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and the president was given the power to wage war. What that means is that under our system of government, the president cannot legally wage war against another nation in the absence of a declaration of war against that nation from Congress. As James Madison, the father of the Constitution said, “The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”

The Constitution gives no branch of the government the authority to police other sovereign nations, and that's exactly what these wars are about. Our founding fathers did not support this idea, George Washington said in his farewell address, "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible." Meaning trade peacefully with everyone but when it comes to the affairs of other nations, stay out of them. Thomas Jefferson said America should have, "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." As to keep America out of foreign affairs all together.

Some say, "It will be embarrassing to America if we just pick up and leave. It'll hurt the image of America." And I say to that how many more men and women must die, how many more billions must be spent to save face? I've got to say that is one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard. We give foreign aid to all these countries, taken from mine and your tax dollars, while simultaneously dropping bombs on them, paid with- you guessed it- yours and mine tax dollars. We are conducting a mass effort of nation building, while also blowing up their nation. It makes no sense economically, especially in a time when our country is so deeply in debt. And once again, none of it has to do with obtaining justice for 9/11.

None of these wars have any type of an achievable goal. Winning a “War on Terror” is as likely as winning a “War on Hate”. Both encourage more terror and hate the harder they are fought. The more you bomb them, the more they hate you so the harder you must bomb them. Therefore the only logical means to win a war on hate, like a war on terror, would to be to end all hate and terror (and war for that matter) by killing every person on the planet. That's just plain silly, but that's the only logical conclusion I can see as being a victory for the War on Terror. Those who promote such terms as "the War on Terror" don't think through what words they choose to use.

I am calling for a return to a constitutional foreign policy, a conservative foreign policy in line with that of great America-Firsters of old like Senator Robert Taft. I am harkening conservatives back home, away from the liberal-interventionism that has so plagued the Republican party as of late. I am advocating Americans to win these wars by restoring America to it's founders vision and returning our troops home not only from the above mentioned wars but from Germany, Korea, France, England, and everywhere else around the world they're dying and wasting money providing defense to countries who should be paying their own way. We don't need and can't have an America empire if we're going to be conservatives and follow the Constitution! For the only way to 'win' these wars is to restore America to it's founders vision. To create once again the bastion of freedom it was intended to be and become the nation of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship" that Thomas Jefferson had so hoped we'd remain, and leave the welfare-and-warfare-isms' of the liberal-interventionists behind us.

Mitch Daniels is a what?

My dear governor, Mitch Daniels, the architect of the Bush budget deficits, is a.... libertarian? What?! So says David Bernstein of the Cato Institute, listing him alongside Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in an article on his blog. I've heard the same thing come from the folks at Reason Magazine.

As a resident of Indiana, I've observed what damage Mitch Daniels has done to my state with his sometimes corporatist policies and sometimes socialist policies. He can by no means be considered a libertarian... in any way, at all and I have no idea why the Cato-Reason crowd seem to think he's any better than a Romney, Huckabee, or Pawlenty. This continuing mentioning of Daniels as if he was some sort of Ron Paul by those within the Kochtopus just continues how shallow their libertarianism is, not that that was ever in question, Rothbard was pointing out their lack of principles decades ago.

I attended a debate in 2008, between Mitch Daniels, Libertarian Andy Horning, and their Democratic opponent Jill Long Thomson. I honestly could not tell the difference in the actual policies of Daniels and the democrat, the only difference was in posturing. Andy was the only candidate presenting a platform of real libertarian change. He was elegant, well-spoken, and most importantly of all unashamed of his principles.

I think if the libertarian standard bearer for president is coming from Indiana, it should be proud libertarian Andy Horning, not crony-capitalist Mitch Daniels. So the next time I hear someone mention Mitch Daniels as anything but a welfare-warfare statist, I'm going to tell them to ask Andy who he thinks the real libertarian is.

New Articles at Associated Content

Hello everyone! I've decided to once again start blogging here again. I should have new content up all the time so make sure to continue coming back so you don't miss anything! I've already wrote a few things at Associated Content that you might want to check out, see my:

The Death of Bin Laden and American Liberty
"As I flip through the channels on my television and read comments online, I continue to become progressively more outraged about the understanding people tend to have about the death of Osama bin Laden. I find it to be utterly disgusting to see so many people cheering that a man was killed by the government without a trial, without having a chance to personally defend himself, or have evidence be presented in his defense. Is not a right to a trial, no matter how gruesome the crime, an integral part of what America was founded upon? And yet they cheer while this and every other right is stolen away from all of us..." Read more here.


"Atlas Shrugged" and "Madea's Big Happy Family", They Both Have Surprises
"I went to the movie theater for the first time in quite a while. This is not something I do too often because of 1) the outrageous prices of tickets and refreshments and 2) most of the time the movies I want to see aren't playing in a theater anywhere near here anyway. But while attending today, I was surprised that tickets were only $5, and found out this discounted rate was because I went on a weekday afternoon. If tickets continue to be at that semi-reasonable price, I might return to the movies on another weekday afternoon sooner than I would otherwise.

The two films I saw today were "Atlas Shrugged", the first film adaptation of Ayn Rand's best-selling Objectivist novel, and "Madea's Big Happy Family" today, the most recent in the line of box-office hit "Madea" movies from director Tyler Perry. Both these films managed to be surprising to me in their own, if very different ways." Continuing reading here. Thanks!