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Over on Daimnation there is a good piece that he has picked up about the feelings of a Muslim American from New York who is with the US 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan.
His views come as no suprise to me and should shame the ‘kill all towelheads’ crowd into silence. December 10th, 2001 | Comments are closed
 Some months ago Carla Howell and the Libertarians of Massachusetts set out to do more than just talk about making government smaller. They decided to act. They decided to give the people of Massachusetts an opportunity not to slow the rise of taxes, not to freeze them, not to index them… but to roll them back. They penned a ballot initiative to abolish the Massachusetts Income Tax. It is not easy to get an initiative on the ballot. It costs a great deal of money and untold hours of labour. Libertarians from all over pitched in with donations of cash; Carla and her crew lived and breathed petition from 6am to 12 midnight day after day, week after week, month after month. And they did it. 75,516 Certified signatures were delivered in 10 shipping boxes to the Elections Division Office of the Secretary of State on Tuesday, December 4th. The event was covered by local and national media and garnered significant publicity for the Libertarian Party. Carla reports coverage by the Associated Press, the State House News Service, The Boston Globe, The Lowell Sun, Berkshire Eagle, NPR, WBZ, WBUR, WTAG, WSAR, WHMP, WHAI, WHYN, BNN TV, Free-Market.net, The Chicopee Herald, Reminder Metro-West, Providence Journal, Fox News and CNN Banner Headline. Our modern day Sons of Liberty delivered 101,139 raw signatures to 343 town clerks; 75% were validated. Only 57,100 were required to put this measure on the ballot for November 2002. It was unreported whether they are saving the Indian war paint for next year’s post election party. The implications are beginning to sink in. Howls of anguish and even fear that voters might actually vote for $3000 a year back into their own pockets are rising from the snouts of the public trough class. You can be sure the next phase will be neither quiet nor behind the scenes. The porkers will be out in force from here on out, inventing tax cut horror stories, trundling out their pet talking head victims, putting career bureaucrats on TV to tell how they will cut their most important services first… Oh it is going to be glorious to watch. It has already begun. Michael Widmer, Director of Communications and Deputy Chief Secretary of former Governor Michael Dukakis(D) and currently the President of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation is one of the first to voice his fears:
Awww…. I’m soooo sad about that Mr Widmer. In fact, ending the income tax would leave a state budget of $14 Billion. That’s 40% higher than Michael Dukakis’ last bloated budget. Mr. Widmer also noted that ending the income tax would cause “the lay-off of tens of thousands of government workers.” He neglects to add it would put $9 Billion back into the Massachusetts economy. That’s enough to create 400,000 new jobs in the private sector. More than enough to put those government employees to work doing something productive, Mr. Widmer. Next Question? It’s going to be a bloody war for the next year and the opposition is going to bring enormous resources to bear to hold on to their $9 Billion a year tithe from the working people of Massachusetts. Carla’s little tribe are going to need help. I highly recommend that all who can afford to do so donate and continue to donate. Money is the armament of political warfare and we have to keep our braves in arrowheads if we expect them to take on the Leviathan. It’s going to be an absolutely magnificent tea party. December 9th, 2001 | Comments are closed
Over on Fevered Rants, bloggista Alex del Castillo has dug up some interesting legal references pertaining to the John Walker affair in Afghanistan. He has some good links on the subject.
However the issue of citizenship at the time of Walker’s alleged treason is rather more important legally I assume as the actions cannot be ‘treason’ if he had renounced any allegiance to the US earlier. I am no lawyer but if that is the case, why is be being held by the USA at all? Why not just leave him in the tender cares of General Rashid Dostam‘s Uzbeks? I must confess I have always declined to accept the idea of the state-centric notion of ‘citizenship’. I see nothing wrong with loyalty to a society with which one has affinity but I for one feel no such thing for any state, which is quite another matter. My outrage over September 11 was not because the United States was attacked, but because fellow members of an extended civil society of which I am a member were murdered without cause by some sociopathic collectivist Islamic terrorists. Nationality per se is really not the issue. By my way of seeing things, Walker chose to join the Taliban and thus should be of no more consequence than any other captured Taliban soldier. It should be remembered that the US/UK are at war in Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda and attacking the Taliban was only done because that proved to be a pre-requisite for achieving that objective. If Walker were a member of Al Qaeda, well, that would be different. He would be part of the organization responsible for September 11 and should be treated accordingly…but that does not seem to be the case. As a defeated Taliban member, however, he should have just been left to get on with his new ‘friends’ in what is left of Kandahar, if Dostam’s people were inclined to let him go. If they were not, and he died in some fly infested prison cell in Mazar-i-Sharif, I do not see how it would be the concern of anyone in the USA. I would hardly describe that as being let off lightly! Alex del Castillo sums up with a similar view, but more because he views it as what he deserves. I take the view that it is the correct thing to do, which is a somewhat different sentiment even if the result may be the same. December 8th, 2001 | Comments are closed
The querulous Eric L. Bainter replies to George Guttman’s views and verbiage. Mr. Guttman writes:
I agree with his basic message – that there’s nothing wrong with the military tribunals for foreign terrorists/war criminals – but his comment as stated is incorrect in strictly factual terms. There’s enough loose verbiage flying around about the tribunals now, generally from the anti-tribunal crowd, which certainly undermines their positions. Military personnel face trial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is largely similar to US law for civilians, not a tribunal as laid out in Mr. Bush’s executive order. The UCMJ does have some differences from most civilian trials. For example, UCMJ panels (juries) can generally convict with a two-thirds, except, I believe, in capital cases (maybe some JAG out there can comment). I told our local JAG office that I would be happy to serve on a tribunal, and I eagerly (if not optimistically) await the call. Eric L. Bainter December 6th, 2001 | Comments are closed
Christopher Hitchens is in typically ebullient form on The Nation as he writes The Ends of War, in which he makes a remark that I suspect is destined to became a classic quote:
Outstanding. Just for good measure, he yet again carves up Noam Chomsky in his Parthian shot. In a battle of wits, nauseating Noam is unarmed. This whole article is well worth a read. I am only just starting to get used to the idea of not reflexively thinking of Christopher Hitchens as the enemy. December 6th, 2001 | Comments are closed
There is an interesting article in the Virginian-Pilot called Gun shop owner sues ATF over reports. The owner of a gun shop in Virginia is suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms because it has demand records of the shop’s used gun sales. The owner says the government is compiling a database of gun owners, which is strictly illegal. I particularly liked:
Excellent. The state can only tie liberty in knots if enough people are willing cooperate with it. Don’t cooperate. December 6th, 2001 | Comments are closed
Here are some insights sent in by Samizdata reader George Guttman. Agree or disagree, they are reasonable points to make: So the father of American Taliban member John Walker says “he is just a 20 year old kid”. Well so are the US Marines we have had to send to Afghanistan to protect ourselves from “kids” like that. Come on, take some responsibility. Why is September 11th referred to as a “Tragedy?” Let’s call it what it was…A terroristic act of war…kinda puts an angle of reality on it. Why is a US military tribunal “wrong” for foreign terrorists… when it is also what US military personnel face. December 6th, 2001 | Comments are closed
There is a great little observation on Instapundit noting the fact that militia is not automatically a dirty word to BigMedia(tm) anymore. A short but very interesting piece. November 27th, 2001 | Comments are closed
Whilst I understand what Dale Amon is saying and largely agree that the American public will be far more resolute now than has been the case since the Vietnam War, I think you should not underestimate the capacity of George Bush’s political enemies to make mischief. If you think the likes of Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Edward Kennedy, Charles Schumer et al. are going to stand resolutely by the President if large numbers of body-bags start coming home, then I think you vastly overestimate their attachment to the interest of American society as opposed to their own narrow political interests. What is more, there are large sections of the US media who will do their damnedest to undermine the Republican Party the moment they no longer think it will be commercial suicide to be seen as ‘unpatriotic’. For all its many and varied flaws, the British media and the elements of the body politic that actually matter are wired rather differently. That is the reason I made those remarks in my earlier article. Unlike many of the more inbred nitwits in the British media (i.e. the Daily Mail), I do not subscribe to the idea that all the US military’s special forces all have two left feet and that the United States will immediately recoil with horror at the first sight of American blood. I have lived in the USA on many ocassions and have met enough people in the SpecOps community that I know otherwise. I agree with you that Al Qaeda did a very good job of delivering aversion therapy to the US public regarding casualties. But do not underestimate the vipers within when things start to get messy. They will play the ‘bring the boys back home card’ the instant they they think can safely do so. Perhaps I am wrong about them, but I suspect otherwise. November 25th, 2001 | Comments are closed
Perry de Havilland raised a point that:
Which is only true within a certain context. Americans don’t really much care to go off somewhere and die for their foreign policy. That is absolutely true. But Americans in defense of America are quite capable of sustaining terrible punishment without flinching. A documentary “The Battle of Midway” aired on the BBC last night and shows the levels of courage of our recruits and the levels of carnage that the home front will endure when we’re really pissed off. It’s that damn libertarian streak in the country. We just won’t go marching off to die just because some damn fool has a flag and wants a parade. That is al Qaeda’s mistake. They successfully moved their issues from the foreign policy arena (ho hum) to the personal. We took 9000 casualties (notice that no one in the media is giving casualties in the usual way, total dead and wounded?) in a matter of hours. I think you have to go back to Gettysburg to get numbers like this in a single day. They got our attention alright, but not in quite the way they had hoped for. With 9000 casualties on our own territory, a few thousand more won’t phase us. We’re even mentally prepared for the possibility they might kill another 100,000 of us with a dirty little nuke. That would be a very bad idea on their part because then we’d REALLY be pissed off. It is not in the best interests of anyone on this planet for us to get that ticked off. So no. We aren’t afraid of casualties when we are fighting for ourselves and for our right to live our own way in our own place. Those who have made the Japanese mistake are in for a severe lesson. When riled as a people, we are without a doubt the meanest, nastiest, hardest-assed sons of bitches on the planet, bar none. November 25th, 2001 | Comments are closed
…it is much, much worse. Thomas M. Sipos writes from experience. He is an American attorney who has seen it all from the inside. His exposé article How to Make Money in Soft Tissue Injury makes compulsive reading. It is written in a style that rather reminds me of a less stoned version of Hunter S. Thompson: brutally cynical with an air of detached surrealism. Highly recommended. November 25th, 2001 | Comments are closed
An article in the Sunday Times today suggests that Tony Blair is exasperated that his wish to see a major deployment of ground troops to Afghanistan is being ignored by George Bush.
Sorry Tony, but whilst you and your new best friend George make a fine couple at photo opportunities, there is no disguising that there are two fundamentally different world views at work here. Tony Blair is the leader of a reformed socialist party who regards it as axiomatic that the role of the state is being ‘my brother’s keeper’. By extension Blair wants to take up ‘The White Man’s burden’ in Afghanistan. He wants stout and resolute British soldiers to prevent those messy Afghans from sliding into barbarism in the post-Taliban order. He presides over a nation which has a realistic view of the realities of war and has fought its last few rather well. As a result, the general British public has quite a high tolerance of combat casualties. George Bush is the leader of a corporatist capitalist party with a significant anti-corporatist and anti-interventionist wing. He has support for a war of retaliation and the destruction of Al Qaeda and anyone who stands between the USA and Al Qaeda. Bush presides over a nation which has a rather squeamish view of war, at least with regard to American casualties, and very little interest in open ended military commitments. Whilst images of women in Kabul walking unmolested without burqas causes Americans entirely justified satisfaction, few seriously think that is why their airforces and special ops teams are killing people in their names. Blair is not just wrong, he is dangerously wrong. An absolute prerequisite for coherent military operations is having clear and unambiguous goals. The Americans have set themselves exactly that: the destruction of Al Qaeda and any who give them succour. What Tony Blair is doing is applying his fuzzy socialist logic to a very simple strategic question and attempting to turn clarity into ambiguity. This is not a peacekeeping operation, it is not a nation building operation, it is not a humanitarian operation, it is a war against Taliban/Al Qaeda in reprisal for the mass murder of civilians in America: to think anything else is just a dangerous distraction. As I have been saying, we simply have no business trying to civilize Afghanistan at bayonet point, not only it is wrong, it simply will not work. Fortunately it seems that Bush and his advisors are able to see that too. November 25th, 2001 | Comments are closed
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