Posted on 08/31/2007 6:16:40 AM PDT by PlainOleAmerican
The first truth we must find is a way to swallow this - we have exactly the government we elected!
Our Republican President has a public approval rating hovering around 30% and our Democrat congress has an approval rating down around 20%. Clearly, we don’t think much of our government, but we elected them and what does that say about us?
(snip)
In my last column titled “Ron Paul—A Liberal-tarian, not a Conservative," I demonstrated how easy it is to attack any politician on his alleged voting record, demonize an entire group on the basis of a few in that group who are willing to use unethical tactics to promote their allegedly ethical candidate, and cause a firestorm of political banter, both pro and con, without ever really getting to the heart of the subject at hand.
Welcome to American politics circa 2007
(Excerpt) Read more at capitolhillcoffeehouse.com ...
I have yet to pose this question to a single libertarian isolationist who would even attempt to answer the question. So far, they act like I never asked, call me a “neocon” and run for cover.
“He has offered Letters of Marquee and Reprisal, which gives us (military and non military) the legal and moral authority to go after the groups which attacked us, regardless of which nation they happen to be in.”
We already have the authority to defend out nation and way of life, and we are already doing just what he plans to put in a BS letter.
Get real!
Easy... helping others helps ourselves.
Expanding freedom protects freedom....
Not hard for anyone wanting to understand.
oops...
Good start, now google America’s number of violent crimes during the same period, including it’s “death toll”.
Then you can be accused of honest fair handed debate.
Yes, but it's not their fault they attract such useful (to us) characters...or so they claim.
But, the ZOT came too quickly. We didn't have time to make use of him. Oh, well.
Infuriating, I know...
Best to you!
Trying to stay sane myself!
Who wrote the article again?
And to you! I'm just sorry we couldn't have more fun with ol' noamnasty. But, some things are not to be. Oh, well.
Seems we have a big old 50 million dollar reward on Osama’s head. That is some pretty good scratch for a small band of mercenaries or some boys from Jersey...
Where is his head then...
Not so easy is it?
Ya don’t say.
Seems rhetoric is the easy part...
Love it.
Love it, President Bush, Hitler, same comment.
Hitler never got more than 32% of the vote, armed brownshirts assured his election, not brainwashed humans. Though I acknowledge he had substantial support in Germany.
Since you used the plural, other than Dictator Bush, what other Presidents qualify as dictators in your mind.
Do you expect that GWB will turn over the control of government in Jan, 2009, or will we have to take up arms?
BACK FROM HELL | By RALPH PETERS | Opinions | Scott Stringer | Adam Brodsky
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08312007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/back_from_hell.htm
Back from Hell
By Ralph Peters
August 31, 2007 — AO WARHORSE, IRAQ
IF you saw any news clips of intense combat last January, you were probably watching the fighting unfolding on Baghdad’s Haifa Street: 10 days of grim sectarian violence.
Until we put a stop to it.
The boulevard of Sunni-inhabited high-rise apartments erupted in shootouts pitting the “Haifa Street Gang” and its al Qaeda allies against heavily Shia Iraqi army units. It was a recipe for massacre, as terrified residents - those who remained - cowered in their apartments.
Then the U.S. Army moved in. Commanders must’ve felt tempted to just level the former Saddamist stronghold. Instead, they decided to rescue what they could. Our troops cleaned out the terrorists with what Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks - one of the Army’s rising stars - termed “very focused kinetic effects.”
And the Cavalry charged in: the 2nd Infantry Division’s 1-14 Cav, OPCON - Army-speak for “on loan” - to the 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Brigade.
This is a ride-to-the-rescue outfit in the old Cavalry tradition. Shifted from one hot spot to another in their wheeled Strykers, 1-14 Cav has fought its way through the streets of one gut-shot Iraqi city after another.
BUT Baghdad was the big one. Not only because it’s the capital but also because our changing strategy suddenly opened new opportunities to reset the terms of our presence.
Initially, Haifa Street was a brawl-for-all. Even now, the troopers of 1-14 Cav keep their “sabers” ready. But a patrol through the sector on Tuesday evening revealed changes many in the media just won’t credit. (We’re not supposed to win, you understand.)
Six months ago, terror ruled. The streets were empty of civilians. Shops were shuttered, facades were shot up, and hate graffiti covered the intact walls. Power was out, and the district was out of hope. The residents who could leave had already left.
It would’ve been easy to write off Haifa Street.
Instead, 1-14 Cav and their foster parent, the 2nd brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, switched gears. First, they won the fight. Next, they were determined to win the peace.
AND the numbers in “AO Warhorse,” their area of operations, reveal an impressive transition from a hellhole to a livable - if still understandably nervous - neighborhood: From 74 attacks on our troops in January, the violence dropped to 20 attempts in August. And they were minor attacks, compared to those of the past.
Overall, murder rates in Baghdad are down by two-thirds, while attacks on the Iraqi police and civilians have declined for months. In fact, 2nd Brigade is now “out of the checkpoint business,” according to its commander, Col. Bryan Roberts. With the Iraqi police doing its job, Roberts can muster as many as 34 combat patrols a day - the presence we always needed and didn’t have.
And plans are already in the works to turn the district over to the Iraqis.
During the mounted segment of the patrol, I asked Gen. Brooks - who stood tall in a Stryker’s hatch beside me - if he worried about a surge in al Qaeda incidents in the remaining weeks before Gen. David Petraeus reports to Congress.
Brooks realizes how badly the terrorists yearn to embarrass us, handing ammunition to the just-quit camp. But he told me we’d just broken a key al Qaeda network that was planning dramatic eve-of-testimony strikes. Other terrorists might still manage to stage attacks, but the organization’s spinal column was broken.
MEANWHILE, our “urban renewal” of Haifa Street became an accelerating success. En route to Combat Outpost Remagen, we saw people of all ages in the streets, a half-dozen soccer games under way, patched and repainted facades - and even new solar street lamps (a big hit in a power-strapped city).
So why don’t you hear more about our military’s successes? It goes beyond the old media dictum that “if it bleeds, it leads.” Plenty of journalists have staked their reps on our predicted failure in Iraq - and they hate the reversal of fortune the surge is achieving.
God knows plenty of problems remain. Iraq’s government isn’t much help - none, as far as Haifa Street’s revival is concerned. And five minutes away, there’s a bustling Shia neighborhood. Not long ago, the residents were all Sunnis. Shias with a new-born sense of entitlement (and a vicious militia) drove them out.
Nor have all of those who used to live on Haifa Street returned - they’re being coaxed back bit by bit.
But those familiar with the desolation-row atmosphere that prevailed just months ago are encouraged by the prog- ress. Iraqis have begun to help themselves, while their government squabbles.
AFTER winding our way through a lively market, we stopped by a riverside cafe. Its patio was crowded in the softening evening.
The establishment had been reopened with a grant of pennies from the Cav and 2nd Brigade. At the sight of us, the owner rushed to tell everyone that we would always be welcome as his guests. He was excited about the future - almost to the point of weeping.
Outside, in the orange twilight, 1-14 Cav’s Maj. Dave Stroupe and I paused on the embankment above the river. A micro-grant had cleared away years of garbage. Kids were swimming, while their elders fished.
Every so often, a corpse still floats by. And the mahalla, or neighborhood, across the river is still seeded with terrorists. But the precious normalcy around us represented a true and wonderfully human victory.
Smiling at the hubbub on the cafe patio and the laughter from the kids splashing in the shallows, Maj. Shoupe shook his head in wonder.
“When we came down here in January,” he told me, “the only people we saw in the streets were shooting at us.”
Then the U.S. Cavalry rode to the rescue.
Since when does America need a constitutional amendment to defend it’s interest, here or anywhere else in the world?
The problem with (b) is that it's unconstitutional.
Article I / Section 8 / Clause 11
Powers of Congress
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
When war is duly declared, it is not merely a war between this and the adverse government in their political characters. Every man is, in judgment of law, a party to the acts of his own government, and a war between the governments of two nations, is a war between all the individuals of the one, and all the individuals of which the other nation is composed. Government is the representative of the will of all the people, and acts for the whole society. This is the theory in all governments, and the best writers on the law of nations concur in the doctrine, that when the sovereign of a state declares war against another sovereign, it implies that the whole nation declares war, and that all the subjects of the one, are enemies to all the subjects of the other. Very important consequences concerning the obligations of subjects, are deducible from this principle.
James Kent, Commentaries
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FYI – Law of Nations Article I / Section 8 / Clause 10
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
Having given you this general idea and description of the law of nations; need I expatiate on its dignity and importance? The law of nations is the law of sovereigns. In free states, such as ours, the sovereign or supreme power resides in the people. In free states, therefore, such as ours, the law of nations is the law of the people. Let us again beware of being misled by an ambiguity, sometimes, such is the structure of language, unavoidable. When I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean not that it is a law made by the people, or by virtue of their delegated authority; as, in free states, all municipal laws are. But when I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean that, as the law of nature, in other words, as the will of nature's God, it is indispensably binding upon the people, in whom the sovereign power resides; and who are, consequently, under the most sacred obligations to exercise that power, or to delegate it to such as will exercise it, in a manner agreeable to those rules and maxims, which the law of nature prescribes to every state, for the happiness of each, and for the happiness of all.
James Wilson, Of the Law of Nations, Lectures on Law
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Nowhere is there an authority to declare war on an ideology, no matter how abhorrent we consider that ideology to be.
If we expect the nations of the world to respect our sovereignty, we need to respect theirs.
Yep, when the fasts don’t support your position, lob in the neocon bomb and run for cover!
That’s the MO of the Ron Paul supporters I’ve met.
Do you expect that GWB will turn over the control of government in Jan, 2009, or will we have to take up arms?
Um, don't waste your keyboard time. He's been zotted.
That truly deserves posting as an article, and placement on the front page.
Ah, but there are plenty more and probably more on the way...
I know. I'm just coming down off a lost opportunity, is all.
Wonder what his next username will be? Time will tell.
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