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Just when you think he cannot get any crazier

Hussein didn’t “make a living off killing terrorists.” He was a terrorist — an evil mastermind who worked every day to try to kill Americans, kill Israelis, and destabilize the Middle East. He was one of the prime financial supporters of a suicide-bombing campaign that caused greater relative casualties in Israel than 9/11 did in the United States. He funded Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. He plotted to kill a former president of the United States. He gave one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Abu Nidal, access to a government office. He sheltered Abu Abbas, responsible for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, and Abdul Yasin, a co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

David French, examining Donald Trump’s latest.

It is worth reading the whole thing. I know that a lot of libertarians, probably most who describe themselves thus, are on board with the “Iraq war was disaster and we should have left Saddam in charge” school. But the scale of the crimes SD committed, his sheltering of Islamist killers, encouragement of Islamist killers, acquisition and use of WMDs, breaking of UN resolutions/treaties, invasion of neighbours, etc, together constitute such a crushing case against his regime that I don’t regret, at all, his overthrow by external military force. It is also worth pondering the point that even if his regime had collapsed without the Coalition giving it a shove, we might still have many of the issues that grip Iraq now, although arguing over counterfactuals is always a bit of a mug’s game.

That Trump thinks that Hussein was good at dealing with terrorists is, in some ways, his must delusional statement yet and a scary insight into his view about the sort of regime he likes. For those in the US who plan to vote for this charlatan, the buyer’s remorse is going to be epic and on a scale that will make the anger about Obama look like child’s play.

 

78 comments to Just when you think he cannot get any crazier

  • Paul Marks

    Yes Donald Trump is delusional.

    However, if Republicans do not unite around Ted Cruz – Donald Trump will be the nominee.

    It is that simple now.

    Friends or enemies.

    Which, I admit, is what I like.

  • Pat

    Saddam was interested in acquiring power by any means necessary. In as much as he supported islamist/terrorist groups it was to that end, not out of allegiance to their cause.
    It seems to be commonly assumed that absent the second gulf war things would be better in Iraq.
    I’m not so sure.
    Firstly because Saddam would not hesitate to cause or aid mayhem if he saw a profit for him.
    Secondly because he was not immortal and could have been toppled by non-western forces at any time.
    This would have left a power vacuum into which a host of bad actors, possibly the same ones we’re seeing now, would enter and fight for supremacy.

  • It seems to be commonly assumed that absent the second gulf war things would be better in Iraq.

    That assumption annoys me a little. It is pretty certain that the Arab Spring – which, contrary to popular opinion, was *not* triggered by the CIA – would have spread to Iraq. Saddam’s reaction would probably have made Assad’s look rather tame in comparison.

  • But the scale of the crimes SD committed, his sheltering of Islamist killers, encouragement of Islamist killers, acquisition and use of WMDs, breaking of UN resolutions/treaties, invasion of neighbours, etc

    There is another that everyone seems to forget: his deliberately opening the valves and flooding the sea with crude oil and setting fire to the Kuwaiti wells in what must be one of the worst, most vicious environmental crimes in history. But those who moan that George W. Bush didn’t ratify Kyoto seem to have given Saddam Hussein a pass on this one.

    Which brings me to the other advantage of the Iraq War having gone ahead: it pissed off an awful lot of people who I want to see pissed off.

  • I know some Kurds who would spit in the face of anyone saying Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein. You know, that guy who gassed everyone in Halabja.

  • Patrick Crozier

    The more I read about Cruz the more he seems like Nixon Mark 2.

  • Mr Ed

    Patrick,

    Where are you reading about him? I see bad things about Mr Cruz as a person, but I would rather a nasty person who believed in the Constitution (even if he is that) to a nice scoundrel who believed in nothing other than blowing in the wind, never mind the nasty scoundrels.

  • Alisa

    What do you mean, Patrick?

  • JohnK

    In the case of Saddam Hussein and Gulf War II, I am one of the people who feel that there was no need of any extra justification regarding the overthrow of this tyrant, and that the whole WMD thesis, strongly championed by Tony Blair, and largely written up by Alastair Campbell, was a colossal mistake.

    The other colossal mistake, of course, was to fail to plan for the aftermath of the invasion. There seems to have been a belief that liberal democracy would automatically follow. In this context the Iraqi Army was disbanded, and I read that many of the leaders of IS are cashiered Iraqi Army officers. A better course of action might have been to have found a way to keep these men employed under the guidance of the Coalition, but instead notions of ideological purity prevailed. On the whole, it has not ended well.

  • mojo

    I have no hope for the Republic and, alas, no faith in my fellow citizens. Not after seeing Barack Obama elected twice.

  • The other colossal mistake, of course, was to fail to plan for the aftermath of the invasion.

    I think the mistake was to go from not planning it at all (which was the original plan) to trying to plan it. IIRC, Bush got persuaded to abandon his intention to wreck the place and leave in favour of trying to nation-build (which saw the switch from Jay Garner to Paul Bremner), which of course needed careful planning that never happened. Although I think in hindsight the belief that liberal democracy would follow was hopelessly optimistic, I believe the alternative approach – “those brown folk need keeping in line or they’ll tear each other to pieces” – was probably worth trying to avoid in 2003. One of the most depressing things about the whole Iraq War was that the alternative has been proven right.

  • JohnK

    I tend to agree with you. However the US DoD did have a plan, which was tossed aside thanks to the sad fact that Bush listened to Colin Powell and the State Department lawyers who told him he had to set up the Coalition Provisional Authority and put Bremer in charge.

    There were other mistakes but that was the big one.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    Trump is technically correct, in that Saddam did kill some terrorists. But not his terrorists, of course.

    The point about Trump is not that he’s the font of wisdom and probity, but that he’s the most unequivocal “You’re fired!” the public can give the political class. In a way, his disqualifications, such as they are, only make him a better vehicle for the voters’ loathing.

    It really has come to this, that the public has become so disgusted at being jollied along that it’s ready to “drop back five and punt.” Hopefully, Trump, who really is an intelligent and accomplished man (albeit possibly an utter scoundrel, too), will prove not to be too bad in office. You have to remember that in America’s rather freewheeling political campaigns, the charge that “Smith sold his granny to the cannibals, with free home delivery” is basically just recitatif.

  • This doesn’t seem particularly crazy to me, nor is it insulting to veterans. The veterans didn’t make the policy. You must remember Saddam was a secularist. A Baathist, and only interested in appeals to the religion if it suited him. The terrorists are Islamists, not Baathists. Trump may not be completely right, but at least he appears capable of noticing when things don’t turn out like they were supposed to. It was implied the region would be stabilized; but clearly it was not.

    We will have ‘buyer’s remorse’ though. I am increasingly under the suspicion that the current conspiracy theories about shenanigans at the convention aren’t true- the real shenanigans will begin with a President Trump (or the less likely Sanders). Then we will have four years of a President being stymied, the Fed tightening, and debt shrinking. It will be painful and blamed on the outsider President.

    It will be at least a partial correction to all the mess they’ve been doing up to now, and then the establishment will field new weasel candidates with the expectation that former Trump voters should repent of their ways and vote for their anointed.

    Of course, I am biased. I don’t think we will be able to achieve desirable change via voting.

  • Tedd

    “Iraq war was disaster and we should have left Saddam in charge…”

    The latter doesn’t follow from the former.

  • monoi

    Saddam should have been removed after the 1st gulf war, for the environmental disaster he caused then if nothing else.

    The 2nd gulf war was misguided because it diverted the needed resources from Afghanistan. Now we are left with 2 basket cases.

    To still justify this war now is just ridiculous.

  • In a sane world Barrack Obama would be hanged for treason, Hillary Clinton would be in prison for numerous felonies, Bernie Sanders would be confined to a happy home with a lifetime supply of happy pills, and finally Donald Trump would be the presidential candidate of the Jackass Party.

  • nemesis

    In the words of Naill Ferguson:
    “If you look at history, and remember I’m historian, most revolutions lead not to happy clappy democracies but to periods of internal turmoil, often to periods of terror, and they also lead to external aggression because the simplest way to mobilize people in a relatively poor and not very well educated country like Egypt is to point to the alleged enemy within and then, of course, the enemy abroad.”
    Although this is in reference to Egypt, I think it could be applied equally to most of the Middle East.

  • NickM

    Gulf I War was the USA+1’s After Match Party after kicking the Sov’s asses. This was the end of Ronnie’s massive build-up of power. I recall before the shooting started watching on the telly the massed battalion’s of “Jane’s Fighting Armchairs” predicting dismal Cassandrics for the coalition against the Republican Guard. I don’t believe we should have moved on Baghdad in ’91. There was no mandate and Stormin’ Norman hadn’t planned it. George HW Bush was right. Get out after 100hrs of ground war after kicking the Shi’ute out of the gaff. Don’t even think about such nebulous idiocies as “nation building”. That it worked in Japan and Germany doesn’t mean it working in the Middle East which is Arseholes Inc for the most part. And has been since Allah knows when.

    Yes, there is good and evil and it would be great to think that evil should be taken on all the time but you have to be realistic. Perhaps in a couple of hundred years but now… nah.

  • AngryTory

    We should have just nuked Saddam in the 80s.
    We should have nuked Afghanistan on 9/12 – as Cheney and Bolton wanted!
    We should have vaporised Pakistan for holding Obama bin Laden.

  • PapayaSF

    For those in the US who plan to vote for this charlatan, the buyer’s remorse is going to be epic and on a scale that will make the anger about Obama look like child’s play.

    It’s just that Clinton or Sanders would be worse….

  • Julie near Chicago

    What almost everybody said–and that means most of the various points.

    First, Paul. Agree entirely.

    Second. Mr Ed, “I see bad things about Mr. Cruz as a person”:
    Do you mean that you yourself observe bad things?
    Or that you see bad things written about the man?
    And whichever, what are they? (This is an honest question, asked purely for information.)

    Anybody: Please chime in on that.

    Thanks.

    . . .

    One reads a great deal of drivel about Iraq. I will add to the foregoing comments that it was our present Sorry Excuse who allowed the power vacuum to blossom and bear fruit. It seems that things had finally been straightened out and were going pretty well until It took over and decided to leave Iraq. Besides, Pres. Bush himself warned us that we would be in it for the long haul, in at least one speech. Presumably the Exist Strategy would have been to leave when the situation was stabilized and the stability was such as to be self-sustaining — and that might be very far in the future.

    All this is the reason not to simply go in, depose S.H. — and possibly those darling young sons of his — and leave, as so many wanted to do.

    There had been various plans to rid the planet of the monster back in the ’90’s, including the last one that I know of, in which the operant group of, mostly, Kurds would do the deed but with the blessing and support of the CIA. This was scotched at 0-Hour minus about 2 sec., according to Robert Baer in his book, when Clinton’s/CIA’s order to Stand Down arrived. And the moment was lost.

    For some reason we lost the trust of some of our allies actual and potential over that. I can’t think why.

    I do wonder if the order came precisely because people foresaw the power vacuum that would or might develop (as Secy. Cheney warned back in, I think, 1993). Just a thought, of course. There are other, less innocent, possible reasons (she hinted, darkly).

    . . .

    As for G.H.W. Bush, what I remember from the time is that half the U.S. faulted him for bombing Baghdad (which he didn’t, but don’t let the facts disturb us) and the other half for not finishing the job and bombing Baghdad.

    . . .

    As for the niceties of the war, Pres. G.W. Bush named 23 specific reasons for going after Saddam. One was that whether or not Saddam was directly involved in 9/11, he was known to have given support to the Al Quaeda gang, and they were the first object of our disaffection. There was also the intelligence provided from agencies all over the world that S.H. had “WMD,” which it turns out he did–even if not shovel-ready nukes.

    Getting rid of him was perfectly just and righteous from the libertarian point of view: Defense of innocent others is justified in most libertarian theories. The difficulty is in the use of the deposing nation’s (or, if you prefer, country’s) “blood and treasure” to do so, without the willing agreement of those who would be paying for it. In a volunteer military, the troops have actively signed up for the job, so in strictly technical terms, they made their call and bore the consequences. (This does assume, however, leaders acting in good faith: The President, DoD, and the entirety of the chain of command, committed to achieving the primary objective and then to dealing with whatever loose ends remain, even if that means a 50-year occupation, all with minimal casualties to our and our allies’ forces.)

    But there is an issue with the funding. Given that government in general and the military in particular is not voluntarily funded, the taxpayers ought (in justice) to each individually agree to the expenditure of their taxes on the enterprise.

    That’s a Gordian Knot in our present world, and I don’t see anything that can be done about it except to cut it…which is what the Pres. Bush decided to do.

  • Mr Ed

    Julie: I see bad reports about Mr Cruz, and the Carson/Cruz thing in Iowa troubles me. I lack the time to get tto the bottom of it.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Thanks, Mr Ed. Appreciate it. 🙂

    Carson/Cruz, Iowa, I’m inclined to give Ted the benefit of the doubt because he did publicly, and rightly, take responsibility up front and fairly promptly, and apologize to Dr. Carson. However, if his organization ran off in all directions without checking, he needs to get them under better control. On the other hand, we really don’t know the details of that. If one staffer saw the first CNN report and went off half-cocked, the thing might have snowballed from there, I suppose. And then we get “Ted lied, Carson died,” which I suppose was predictable.

  • Runcie Balspune

    The Iraq Wars were not a disaster, they eliminated one of the world’s largest armies formed of modern equipment combined with access to WMDs and long range missiles, led by a family of megalomaniacs, and funded by a crap load of oil. What was a disaster was the aftermath where (a) failure to split up Iraq into Sunni, Shi’te and Kurd, and (b) eschew the foundations of a modern liberal democracy in favour of a 7th century barbaric code of laws, all just so no-one got hurt feelings or could be accused of imperialism/colonialism.

    The current rag tag skirmishers operating off Toyota trucks with its theocratic nut-cases in charge is nothing in comparison with what could have been, the only thing keeping it viable is that Saddam’s old deposed generals are all running the show, albeit with far less fire power, and a good job too.

  • Tomsmith

    The situation in Iraq and Syria will be sorted out shortly by Saudi Arabia and allies. Without destabilisation this would not have been possible.

    Iran will be next.

  • Nicholas (Excentrality!) Gray

    Iran, with mountains for defence, will not be conquered by the Saudies- if Iraq couldn’t do it, why would the Saudies be able to?

  • Bod

    While the UN gets very little praise around here (least of all from me) – it’s worth adding to Julie’s point and noting that Iraq was under its own super-ASBO – UN Security Council Resolution 1441 of September 2002, which laid out in quite precise terms what the international community considered ‘acceptable behavior’. Note that the vote was unanimous – even the Chinese and the Russians were on-board.

    1441 was the last of something like 6 or 7 former UNSCRs; the last of which was Resolution 687 which incorporated the Gulf War cease-fire terms. 1441, as well as the spirit and letter of 687 were breached numerous times, with many of the stipulations ignored, including the attempted missile interception of UN-sanctioned air patrols. Indeed, if one believes that UNSCRs are legitimate, you could argue that Iraq’s abrogation of 1441 *required* a military response by the blue hats or their proxies.

    It’s possibly the best (and only) example of unified international accord you’ll find, and yet, amazingly, it’s all the fault of a cabal of simultaneously evil, morons.

  • NickM

    Runcie. It ain’t Half-wits in Hi-Luxs that worry me. It is the utterly asymmetric thing that does. As a conventional force the Islamists must have known after 73 Easting they were hog-tied and arse-fucked with a monkey-puzzle tree. So then it’s terrorism and now mass rape on the bennies.

    As to modern equipment. OK the West has made colossal fuck-ups in military procurement and planning but that doesn’t mean Iraq wasn’t fighting in ’91 with stuff from Ye Olde Sov Charity Shoppe.

    The Saudis are different. God knows why we sell them anything more lethal than a butter knife. But the Iranians have the morale and Shoddy Absurdia is corrupt and venal to the core.

    If it comes to them against Iranians then bring it!

  • NickM

    Bod the only “International Accord” I believe in is very high-mileage.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Bod,

    1441, yes indeed, and the rest of your observation also. :>)

  • AngryTory

    The situation in Iraq and Syria will be sorted out shortly by Saudi Arabia and allies

    And should have been dealt with on 9/12 by the U.S.A.!

    As TRUMP™ said: “what’s the point of a good nuclear triad if you’re not going to use it?”

    TRUMP™ is the only candidate who open carries at every debate; he’s the only candidate who has promised not just to attack but to NUKE the enemies of freedom!

  • Dr. Toboggan

    For those in the US who plan to vote for this charlatan, the buyer’s remorse is going to be epic and on a scale that will make the anger about Obama look like child’s play.

    Yeah, probably, but look on the bright side: at least the media won’t try to dismiss, delegitimise or ignore that anger. The amount of shit President Trump is going to cop every time he puts a foot wrong might serve to rein him in a bit. Or, it won’t. Whatever.

    Taylor
    February 17, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    …the US DoD did have a plan [for post-war Iraq in ’03], which was tossed aside…

    What was that plan?

    AngryTory
    February 17, 2016 at 7:40 pm

    We should have nuked Afghanistan on 9/12 – as Cheney and Bolton wanted!

    Really? Bloody hellfire

  • Angry Tory is a nutter if he cannot see the epic downside of actually using nukes. Frankly if I was Putin and took Trump seriously, I would launch an all out preemptive nuclear attack on the USA the moment it was clear he had been elected. Fortunately I doubt anyone takes Trump seriously.

  • James Strong

    To Perry de Havilland, February 18 7.20 am.
    Your comment makes no sense. If it is serious it is completely inconsistent, i.e. there’s an epic downside to using nukes so that’s what Putin should do, and if it is an attempt at a joke then it simply isn’t funny.
    It’s also inaccurate because a lot of people take Trump seriously.

    Perhaps you are using rhetorical devices that I’ve missed? Or perhaps not.

  • AngryTory

    I was Putin and took Trump seriously, I would launch an all out preemptive nuclear attack on the USA the moment it was clear he had been elected.

    Bring it on!!! Obama won’t do anything but Trump sure will!

  • AngryTory

    Even some liberals can see it coming:

    There is no relevant precedent for anything happening in American politics right now, except perhaps for some limited parallels one could identify in the severely divided nation of the 1850s, on the cusp of the Civil War.

    http://www.salon.com/2016/02/17/political_paralysis_is_the_new_normal_the_gops_scalia_gamble_may_be_suicidal_but_its_not_illogical/?source=newsletter

  • The article AngryTory links to above is an amusing mix of historical rant giving way to occasional genuflections to reality. However I notice it does not mention which sides the Republicans and Democrats were on in the run up to the civil war to which he compares today. (Not wholly absurdly, but I will wait until a fight between two members figbeats up another on the floor, while armed supporters of both factions throng the public viewing gallery, before I grant the analogy is exact. Of course, these days, only one faction would approve its followers being armed, while the other will enforce the strictest gun control on the public viewing gallery – and even I can’t fault them too much for that).

    As regards of Cruz and ‘Carson withdrawing’ my thoughts follow. Carson and his team should have foreseen that their ‘going home’ announcement would be interpreted as code for giving up. CNN were the ones who reported it as such. My understanding is that Cruz’ team heard the CNN report and had a short time window before the caucus started in which to decide whether to advertise it (even further than CNN’s report ensured it had already been advertised). I do not know how easily the travelling Dr Carson could himself be contacted in that window, and the very fact that CNN was reporting the team’s statement as code ensured any denials from them would be at first doubted. The polls gave Carson 10%; he got 9%. By the standards of politics, this is either nothing or not much. As proof of conscious whole-hearted deceitful intent, it is, to my mind, definitely not enough.

  • Mr Ecks

    When all the bullshit is cut thro it makes no difference how good a president Cruz MIGHT have been if he doesn’t win.

    Trump can win but not if a lot of GOP bozos all take the huff and abstain. If Trump was even half the fool/loon that the crew on here say he is he would not have got this far. He will not be a good President because there is no such thing. The least worse is the only possibility. However–the shit he has caused both middle-class Marxism and neo-con scum has caused me to warm to his candidacy.

    If the GOP fools do abstain you can enjoy the accelerating decline of America that Killery/Sanders/Biden–or Christ forbid Bloomberg– will bring you. Trump will not restore America but he would be better than Obama or Bush and vastly better than the turd-parade that the evil party are floating.

  • CaptDMO

    Sure is easy sitting here in my recliner, attributing all SORTS of things to folks outside my personal sphere of influence.
    “The Five Blind Men and the Elephant” comes to mind.

  • My point is that if Putin, or indeed the Boys in Beijing, think Trump actually means the things he says, rather than just being a weathervane who says whatever is needed to liberate the sucker-of-the-day from his money or votes (the two being largely fungible), then if they value thier lives, they need to wipe the USA off the map the day before Trump gets into a position to use nukes just to prove how serious he is.

  • I think Trump is just more of the same. He will continue to expand the state and accelerate the collapse of several property rights in the USA. The future under Trump is the USA morphing into Argentina with nukes.

  • I would be far more worried about the trade war he’s likely to start, rather than random nuke comments he’s made. He’s been on this thing about making other countries pay since the 80s. Meanwhile, all the other countries have figured out the U.S. has a pretty sweet deal with the dollar as the international currency.

    Still can’t convince me I should me more afraid of him any of the other candidates.

  • Laird

    You have to view Trump in the context of Anthroponuclear Multiple Worlds Theory. Then it all makes sense.

  • Rich Rostrom

    What’s the over/under on when President Trump announces his general amnesty for illegal aliens? I give it three months.

    Laird: that’s a very interesting variant on the Anthropic Principle.

  • PapayaSF

    Rich, have you read this? I doubt if Trump would do a complete 180 on something so utterly central to his candidacy and his popularity. It would make the storm over “Read my lips: no new taxes” look like a walk in the park.

  • Julie near Chicago

    It’s conceivable Trump might try a facedown of Putin or Beijing with nukes, but I don’t think it’s likely — although Beijing might be more likely than Putin. And whatever else about him, I don’t think he’s unbalanced. But protectionism and property rights, well, forget property rights (if it suits him). He won’t, of course, do a dam thing about either the EPA or HUD or the D. of Ed., or the FBI/DEA/NSA. Would he take on SEIU and NEA the way we could have hoped of Walker? Doubtful. Illegal entry? Entrants already here illegally? Lots of bluster. Let’s see some results.

    There’s some hope that Cruz might at least try.

    That’s all the chicken entrails have hinted to me today.

  • Laird

    Rich, of course it’s a riff on the Anthropic Principle. I assumed everyone would get that.

    Julie, there is indeed some hope that Cruz “might try”, but after reading what he had to say today about Apple resisting the unconstitutional FBI demand that it hack its own phone system, and recalling his branding of Ednward Snowden as a “traitor” (a retreat from his earlier position), I have little hope that he will be a friend of privacy rights, or will do anything to rein in the NSA’s warrantless spying on Americans. Realistically, he’s probably the best on offer, but that’s a very low bar.

  • Julie near Chicago

    At a quick glance, the Anthropic Principle appears to have it backwards. Seems to me we’re here because we can be, and to the extent that we “understand” the Universe, i.e. the Reality, in which we find ourselves, it’s because we’ve evolved to survive in it by means of that particular phenomenon. (Whether or not the Universe and we exist or evolve by some entity’s plan — and the word “plan” implies the existence of a consciousness, one equppied to do the planning — is immaterial here.)

    (Why put “understand” in quotes? To indicate that the word “understand” does, after all, refer to a real, observed phenomenon. It happens to be a phenomenon of our minds.)

    In other words, if humans (and cats, coriander, cuttlefish, and canaries) couldn’t exist here, they wouldn’t. The Universe produced us all, not we the Universe.

    We all produce our own “maps” of the Universe and our own “User’s Guides” to it, of course, but those are famously not the “territory,” not actual Reality, themselves.

    . . .

    Also, what’s an Alternate Universe? If such a thing is accessible to us, it’s not “alternate”; it’s a perfectly good part of our own Universe/Reality, just a mite weird perhaps. If it’s not, it’s just pixie dust as far as we’re concerned. That which cannot impinge on us, we cannot know of. We cannot even infer. We can hypothesize (but never confirm the hypothesis) or conjecture (makes for good SF and fantasy, but takes a master to do it well) or even postulate. But those things are all just possibilities that our imaginations dream up — though prompted perhaps by prior observations or knowledge. If any turn out to be valid it’s because something observed in Reality confirms their validity, and they thus become a part of our Reality. (“Confirm” is a word signifying another real phenomenon: it’s another thing our minds do. We could get into analytic/synthetic here, but let’s don’t. That’s for next week.)

    Tomorrow, Class, we shall discuss the Mind-Brain Dichotomy. (They are far from the same, just as the fruit is hardly the same thing as the root; but, short form, Mind is an observable phenomenon that results from the Brain.) Pop quiz Friday, but here’s a hint: Define the Universe and give two examples.

  • Martin

    ‘That assumption annoys me a little. It is pretty certain that the Arab Spring – which, contrary to popular opinion, was *not* triggered by the CIA – would have spread to Iraq. Saddam’s reaction would probably have made Assad’s look rather tame in comparison.’

    Would there have been an ‘Arab Spring’ without the Iraq war? Quite possibly, but it probably would have been quite different to what’s happened, although I suppose it’s a safe bet it would still have all ended in tears. Anyway, the fact that a quite a few of the headcases running amok in Syria and Iraq right now got their taste for combat in the insurgency against the US forces in Iraq isn’t irrelevant (and the Syrian regime supported many of these back in the day to undermine the American occupation) ). Nor is the fact that the war effectively left Iraq as an Iranian satellite.

    ‘However–the shit he has caused both middle-class Marxism and neo-con scum has caused me to warm to his candidacy.’

    This. It’s been entertaining to see Trump shit on the sacred cows of much of the American left and right, all the while managing to garner widespread support.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Laird, I’m afraid the first link doesn’t work. It’s just http:///

    So I couldn’t follow it. Liked the Bruce Schneier quote in the second piece. Snowden…very much on the fence about that. Never thought he was a Great Hero; of course it’s possible to do a good thing for entirely the wrong reasons. There are claims that he did indeed endanger or even cost lives with his info. Same thing goes for Mr. Assange.

    But was it really a good thing he did? Somebody saw fit to leak the program The Gov had going to trace terrorist funds with the coöperation of banks worldwide. I’ve never read any claims that that leakage and publication was anything but a disaster.

    However, privacy is one of the most important rights, yes Natural Rights, we have. Ninth Amendment. So we need very strong laws to ensure it, except in the most unavoidable circumstances. There is also the Fourth Amendment issue. AND Mr. Schneier’s observation that insecurity begets insecurity, even in the purely non-psychological sense in which Bad Guys of various stripes will gnaw their way into the insecure tunnels. And probably sooner rather than later.

    As for Cruz’s changing his mind about Snowden … People do change their minds, and not always gladly, and not always from base motives. (I wouldn’t take Trump’s word for his position on Snowden, no matter what it was.) I suppose a lawyer, whether the Prosecution or the Defendence, would put a Preponderance of Evidence argument. Laymen such as I … go partly by that and partly, but only partly, by gut.

    My gut, which was never highly enthusiastic about Sen. Cruz (I wanted Walker), is becoming less and less comfortable with him. But it still seems to me that he’s “the best on offer,” to quote you.

    I’ve never been a fan of Rush, but in searching for a clip of Trump allegedly on Cruz’s site (and so it is, but the site doesn’t do decent menus and there’s no search function — you have to use one of the search programs) I ran across a transcript of Rush talking about Trump’s strategy against Cruz that some might find interesting if they can stand all the talky filler. (Well, it is a talk show after all.) It includes various remarks on Cruz, or I wouldn’t even bring it up. What I took from it, myself, was largely “Politics as usual, for both guys. And they both know how to play this game.”

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/01/18/trump_is_making_a_strategic_mistake_in_the_way_he_s_going_after_cruz

    Anyhow, thanks for the links.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Martin: The Arab Spring I doubt was conjured up by the CIA. I do think our Sorry Excuse in the WH may have actually colluded to some degree with the Muslim Brotherhood, and certainly supported them and talked up the insurgency. Lots of fools on all sides of the various aisles, including the libertarian ones, thought it was just wonderful — at last rebellion, Real Democracy is coming to Egypt, no more Nasty Dictator Mubarak, Hallelujah!!, and the Sith helped that along. It might directly or indirectly have had the CIA involve itself somehow in the proceedings, but it ought to be clear that Mr. Obama is not exactly as anti-Islamicist as one could wish.

  • Paul Marks

    Yes Perry – the United States looks like becoming another Argentina or Brazil.

    And the most anti Latin American politician, Donald Trump, is actually very much a Latin American style Populist.

    At least his Evita Peron is supposed to be pretty – the best money can buy.

    I am sick and tired of “conservatives” and even “libertarians” (of the person in Kent sort) telling me I must “respect” the Trump voters and try to “understand” them.

    I do understand them – they are vile. They do not want a smaller government, they just want a bigger government to be in white hands to bash the black and brown people and to “fight our battles for us”.

    If the First Book of Samuel, Chapter Eight, can not convince them of the error of their ways (do the Christians of South Carolina actually read the Bible?) there is naught I can do.

  • Paul Marks

    Even the attacks on “Corporations” and “Big Business” (Trump being like Bernie Sanders) are not new.

    More than a century ago Pitchfork Tillman got Congress to pass an Act against “corporations” donating to political campaings (the Tillman Act).

    People who take Pitchfork Tillman of South Carolina (or Governor Bilbo of Miss) as their moral guide are Beyond the Pale.

    I am not going to play games with them.

    I am not a donkey – I am not interested in playing with donkeys.

    Including donkeys who dress up as elephants and run for the Republican nomination.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    Julie near Chicago
    February 18, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    But was it really a good thing he did? Somebody saw fit to leak the program The Gov had going to trace terrorist funds with the coöperation of banks worldwide.

    IIRC, that ‘somebody’ was the New York Times. Since The Times is wise and without sin, I believe we can regard Snowden as having done a good thing, at least until The Times is hauled into court.

  • long-lost cousin

    I think Trump is just more of the same. He will continue to expand the state and accelerate the collapse of several property rights in the USA. The future under Trump is the USA morphing into Argentina with nukes.

    It’s going to be great. It’ll be yuuuuuge! We’ll have the best Argentina ever!

    I mean, he’s Herbert Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho to the Lady MacBeth and Hugo Chavez on the other side.

  • Julie near Chicago

    PfP, you got a point there. :>)!

  • Julie near Chicago

    Getting back to the issue of the Iraq war, American Thinker put up a pretty good piece on that today:

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/george_w_bushs_decision_to_invade_iraq_was_correct.html

  • Nicholas (Excentrality!) Gray

    I am all against dictators of every creed, but I don’t think that we should allow governments to topple other countries, unless they have been directly attacked. We, the libertarian community, should be selling weapons, and training, to the oppressed adults within those countries, so they can decide for themselves what to do about ‘their’ dictator. We could even disguise the training as a video game, and have them learn in arcades and at home.
    That should be the non-government, libertarian, solution to a dictatorship; not using a government for the job!

  • Julie near Chicago

    Nicholas, that’s all very well, but in the first place the innocent citizens who are trying to rebel or mount an insurgency or whatever usually need support from outside. For instance we ourselves needed the help of the French. Now I don’t mean that military help or intervention is always needed: the Kurds and others trying to rid themselves of S.H. in Iraq in the late ’90’s were counting on American support, and the Iranians were trying to rid themselves of Imadinnerjacket at least and probably the Ayatollahs as well in 2009, and we should have been publicly providing moral support and trying to rally global public opinion in their favor, at a minimum.

    Anyway, in the case of Iraq, for us Americans it was a matter of destroying a real threat: legitimate self-defense, unless you think the other guy has to actually fire at you before you’re justified in shooting at him. And I should think that many of the Coalition members recognized the threat to all concerned, hence their joining. I hope Australia was one of them — I always assumed you were. :>)

    Anyway, if “we” should not “allow” “governments to topple other countries,” your words indicate that if your country, A, sees another country, B, attempting to topple the regime of a third country, C, then you, A, should prevent B from doing so — even if B is decidedly a Good Guy and C is Mao’s China. And how can you do this without using force against B, if B is determined to rescue the Chinese?

    Sigh. Life is extremely complicated.

  • Paul, I am reluctant to call Trump voters “vile” because then I would be speechless when contemplating Sanders and Clinton voters. You are doubtless right that some think rather of making PC’s love-to-hate targets into a victim-culture group than of destroying crybully culture; it is the obvious end-game for PC in the US, just as importing hordes of jew-hating sexists is the obvious end-game of PC in Germany and Sweden. I know which of those two groups I’d call vile. In the U.S., vile is the term I’d use for those who have taught this game for so long that it finally spread even to any such Trump voters.

    Others may well have got to Trump for other reasons. I’ve already written my speculations on why Sarah Palin endorsed him (see http://www.samizdata.net/2016/01/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-664/#comment-699110 and the latter part of http://www.samizdata.net/2016/01/samizdata-quote-of-the-day-664/#comment-699026). As I say there, I’d love to believe those reasons are simply errors but find myself forced to think hard about it first.

  • If you open the links I posted above in a new window, you get to them. If you open in a new tab of the window you’re viewing the above comment in, you get to a wrong place in the old post’s thread and must scroll down. (I see this behaviour in Safari v9.0.3.) This is probably the fault of HTML and/or web browser(s), not anything to do with the samisdata site, but worth being aware of for anyone else who has cause to show a link to a comments.

  • Mr Black

    I don’t think statements like that indicate Trumps likely actions in the future. He says things that make sense to him given his knowledge of the situation. When that knowledge is mistaken, his statements are also mistaken. As President he’d no doubt be briefed on these issues and make a decision based on those briefings, not what he previously imagined was going on.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Niall, that’s interesting about Safari 9. I’ve gotten so I just don’t use Safari anymore — I stick to Firefox. And I read another complaint somewhere recently allowing that Safari has become so broken that it’s not worth messing with anymore. I think that person said Apple isn’t even serious about supporting it anymore. I wouldn’t know about that.

    Anyway, I vaguely remember your remarks on Sarah Palin vis-á-vis Trumplove, but I’ll follow your links and refresh my memory. :>)

  • Julie near Chicago

    Mr Black, that’s exactly what a then-friend of mine said about Obama when I pointed out that he obviously had no experience of foreign affairs, before the 2008 election. “Maybe not, but he’ll have advisors who’ll help him with that.”

    How’s that “advisors”-thing workin’ out for us?!

  • Julie near Chicago

    In fact, Obama chose advisors who would help him to achieve his objective of diminishing America in both wealth and status as a global power and a good one. Perfectly natural and predictable

    Mr. Trump is a protectionist — a mercantilist — through and through. Naturally he would choose like-minded advisors, and he unlikely to hire economists for their Austrian or other non-protectionist views.

    And he would probably choose advisors who would help him to “make deals.” In the area of foreign relations, this rather makes me think of Kissinger, although I may be misinformed on that.

  • Julie, the removal of Brendan Eich gave me a certain distaste for Firefox. (I’m also not convinced its technical direction is the most future-proof, but that’s another matter.) Currently, I’ve no reason to believe that what I saw was Safari-specific – I merely reported the browser and version as standard practice for any software bug report.

    This has reminded me that a version of Brave was released in late January; I’ll check it out.

    (I almost hit ‘Post Comment’ when I noticed I’d expressed a concern that Firefox might not be future-poof. Some typos are potentially more unfortunate than others. 🙂 )

  • long-lost cousin

    Paul, I am reluctant to call Trump voters “vile” because then I would be speechless when contemplating Sanders and Clinton voters.

    “Vile” is a little strong. In most cases, more like “So angry that they’re thinking with the little head rather than the big head.”

    Frankly, I blame the GOPe for this. If they hadn’t so thoroughly destroyed the Republican brand by giving us Bushes, McCain, Romney, and the roll-over-and-play-dead Congress, we wouldn’t even be talking about New York liberals and populists as Republican front-runners.

    As for Dem voters…that’s most of my family. “I’m a Democrat because I want your stuff and insert vapid bullshit about women’s rights here.”

  • Julie near Chicago

    By now I think we’re moving on, but strictly for what it’s worth, here’s a piece from the Wall Street Journal on The Hairy One. Following the link to Comments, I see that to read all but the teaser start to the story, one must have a WSJ subscription. Anyhow, for scholarship’s sake: It was posted by commenter “Graham” (with his intro), and is taken from

    https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Conservative_Principles_and_Activism/conversations/messages/286954

    ————

    The campaign advisor that was hired is named Stephen Miller and the source was an editorial in the WSJ dated January 27, 2016. The title of the article is “The Leap of Trump”.

    It is attached here and the paragraph in question is made red. [Not on Samizdata, it’s not! But it’s the paragraph with the link in it. –J.]

    Graham

    . . .

    Jan. 27, 2016 7:06 p.m. ET

    1110 COMMENTS

    Financial analyst and our contributor Donald Luskin has described Donald Trump as a “black swan” over the political economy. He’s referring to an outlier event that few anticipated and whose impact is impossible to predict. As the voting season begins in Iowa, this strikes us as a useful way for Republicans to think about the Trump candidacy.

    We’ve been critical of Mr. Trump on many grounds and our views have not changed. But we also respect the American public, and the brash New Yorker hasn’t stayed atop the GOP polls for six months because of his charm. Democracies sometimes elect poor leaders—see the last eight years—but their choices can’t be dismissed as mindless unless you want to give up on democracy itself.

    The most hopeful way to interpret Mr. Trump’s support is that the American people aren’t taking decline lying down. They know the damage that has been done to them over the last decade—in lower incomes, diminished economic prospects, and a far more dangerous world. But they aren’t about to accept this as their fate.

    Americans aren’t Japanese or Europeans—at least not yet. Mr. Trump’s promise to “make America great again” is for many patriotic voters a rallying cry for U.S. revival. In that sense it is motivated more by hope than by the “anger” so commonly described in the media.

    The problem is that Mr. Trump is an imperfect vessel for this populism, to say the least. On politics and policy he is a leap into the known unknown. That so many voters seem willing to take this leap suggests how far confidence in American political leaders has fallen. We can debate another day how the U.S. got here, but with the voting nigh it’s important to address what a Trump nomination could mean for the GOP and the country.

    Pundits on the right are stressing the obvious that Mr. Trump is no conservative, but he’s also no liberal. He has no consistent political philosophy that we can detect beyond a kind of relentless pragmatism that is common in businessmen. Mr. Trump calls it “the art of the deal.” The President he may most resemble in that populist pragmatism, if not in manners, is another business success who turned to politics, Herbert Hoover.

    Can Mr. Trump win the Presidency if he is the nominee? Who knows? We’ve argued that the GOP nominee should be the favorite this year, and perhaps Mr. Trump can mobilize middle-class voters in Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania and win more states than Mitt Romney did. We certainly know he wouldn’t shrink from flaying Hilary Clinton.

    But there’s no guarantee that Mr. Trump would win the mainstream, college-educated Republican voters he would also need to win. His net negative rating with the public is the highest in the presidential field in the latest WSJ/NBC poll at minus-29. Jeb Bush is minus-27, Mrs. Clinton minus-nine.

    Mr. Trump might be able to repair this image if he ran a more sober campaign as the nominee than he has run so far, but he could also blow up under months of intense media scrutiny. His biggest test would be showing he has the temperament to be President, and his tantrum this week over Megyn Kelly and Fox News isn’t reassuring.

    All of which means that Mr. Trump has the widest electoral variability as a candidate. He could win, but he also could lose 60% to 40%, taking the GOP’s Senate majority down and threatening House control. A Clinton Presidency with Speaker Nancy Pelosi would usher in an era of antigrowth policies worse than even 2009-2010. This is the killer black swan.

    And how would Mr. Trump govern as President? Flip a coin. Maybe he would surround himself with astute advisers, work closely withPaul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and craft a reform agenda to revive the economy a la Reagan. His tax reform outline is close enough to sensible that Mr. Ryan could knock it into shape. He would not want to be a “loser” in office.

    But history teaches that Presidents try to do what they say they will during a campaign, and Mr. Trump is threatening a trade war with China, Mexico and Japan, among others. He sometimes says he merely wants to start a negotiation with China that will end happily when it bows to his wishes. China may have other ideas. A bad sign is that Mr. Trump has hired as his campaign policy adviser Stephen Miller, who worked for Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), the most antitrade, anti-immigration Senator. [Note: Link is to a newspaper writer named Stephen Miller. Not clear to me that it’s Trump’s Miller. –J.]

    Foreign policy would also be a leap in the dark. Mr. Trump has said he respects former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, and so do we. But Mr. Trump also admires Vladimir Putin—enough so that even after a British judge found last week that Mr. Putin had “probably” ordered the murder in London of a Russian defector, Mr. Trump defended Mr. Putin because he wasn’t found “guilty.”

    Mr. Trump has shown great staying power in the polls, and perhaps his campaign organizing talents will be as strong as his social-media skills. But Iowa and New Hampshire are only the beginning of primaries that have weeks or months to run, and a huge chunk of voters haven’t made up their minds.

    Ted Cruz has his own electoral and governing issues and he isn’t the only alternative to Mr. Trump, despite what both men would like Americans to believe. Voters could still elevate one of the other candidates. Republicans should look closely before they leap.

  • Nicholas (Excentrality!) Gray

    Here in Australia, the home of the black swan, we take umbrage at all these comments! However, there is one good outcome of a Trump victory- any female relative gets to be called a Trumpette. His daughter looks hot. I can’t wait to blow the Trumpette of my choice, come victory day!

  • Donald trump has been a big money, big government liberal democrat all hiss life and still is . If he heads the federal government he will increase its power and scope to enrich himself and his cronies. Donald will say most anything in order to remain in the news . It is his 24/7 media coverage that gives him his lead, not his positions . He gets 8 times the coverage of anyone else by saying outrageous and downright insane things . So long as his name stays on TV and the front page he really doesnt care about anything else.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Nicholas! *Eee-eee-eeeewwwww!!!!!* :))))!!!!

    . . .

    mrburns, I fear you have hit the nail right square on the head. (Well, except I guess there are a lot of people who like some of what he says are his positions enough that they ignore his other “positions.”)

  • Nicholas (Excentrality!) Gray

    Julie, if I’ve offended even one person- I must try to offend more! Only one comment! My jokes used to sicken more people than that… in the good old days….

  • Julie near Chicago

    Cheer up, Nicholas, it’s true that I’m always happy to be offended, but it takes a particularly offensive offense to elicit such a lengthy wail of exuberant offendedness from me.

    Go forth, my son, and sin some more.

  • Nicholas (Excentrality!) Gray

    What will all those ‘protesting against the political establishment’ voters do if they do elect The Self-Chosen One? Suddenly think ‘Hillary wouldn’t have been that bad!’? Four years of the President you can’t Trump, because he IS Trump?

  • Mr Ed

    I am a bit surprised at the Donald’s pitch for the Italian-American ‘vote’.