HARRY BROWNE: "When will we learn?"

The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn't be a surprise.

It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth – that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda. But sanity was a prior casualty: it was the loss of sanity that led to war in the first place.

Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty.

When will we learn that we can't allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually?

President Bush has authorized continued bombing of innocent people in Iraq. President Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. President Bush, senior, invaded Iraq and Panama. President Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded Grenada. And on and on it goes.

Did we think the people who lost their families and friends and property in all that destruction would love America for what happened?

Supposedly, Reagan bombed Libya to teach Muammar al-Qaddafi a lesson about terrorism. But shortly thereafter a TWA plane was destroyed over Scotland, and our government is convinced it was Libyans who did it.

When will we learn that "teaching someone a lesson" never teaches anything but resentment – that it only inspires the recipient to greater acts of defiance.

How many times on Tuesday did we hear someone describe the terrorist attacks as "cowardly acts"? But as misguided and despicable as they were, they were anything but cowardly. The people who committed them knowingly gave their lives for whatever stupid beliefs they held.

But what about the American presidents who order bombings of innocent people – while the presidents remain completely insulated from any danger? What would you call their acts?

When will we learn that forsaking truth and reason in the heat of battle almost always assures that we will lose the battle?

And now, as sure as night follows day, we will be told we must give up more of our freedoms to avenge what never should have happened in the first place.

When will we learn that it makes no sense to give up our freedoms in the name of freedom?

First of all, stop the hysteria. Stand back and ask how this could have happened. Ask how a prosperous country isolated by two oceans could have so embroiled itself in other people's business that someone would want to do us harm. Even sitting in the middle of Europe, Switzerland isn't beset by terrorist attacks, because the Swiss mind their own business.

Second, resolve that we won't let our leaders use this occasion to commit their own terrorist acts upon more innocent people, foreign and domestic, that will inspire more terrorist attacks in the future.

Third, find a way, with enforceable constitutional limits, to prevent our leaders from ever again provoking this kind of anger against America.

There are those who will say this article is unpatriotic and un-American – that this is not a time to question our country or our leaders.

When will we learn that without freedom and sanity, there is no reason to be patriotic?

Harry Browne was the 2000 Libertarian presidential candidate. More of his articles can be read at HarryBrowne.org, and his books are available at HBBooks.com.

No blood for oil.

Ah, yes, the famous leftist rallying cry from the Desert Storm era traitors, now being ululated by the Clownes for Browne. What the leftist ideologues didn't realize then and what you fail to realize now is that oil makes its way into all areas of the economy, from fertilizers to pharmaceutical to transportation. Hence, to allow a little Napolean such as Saddam Hussein to grab onto half the world's known oil supplies and dictate any price he wanted to would have caused massive starvation in places such as Africa. Ideologues again show their shallow rationalist mind-sets.

You're way off base. This is a cultural War.

Mid-Evil factions that have bastardized a glorious religion (Islam) versus a 21st Century McWorld.

The fundamentalists hate us for what we represent and are unwilling to accept it......willing to kill us because of it.

McWorld will have to drag these factions into the 21st Century and force them to live in peace with their neighbor - or -destroy them.

Patently ridiculous. Starvation in Africa is not the result of any insufficiencies in the world food supply. World per-capita food production has been increasing every decade without exception and is at its highest level in history, and that despite the allied embargo of Iraq, which certainly took Iraqi oil off the markets throughout much of the 1990s.

Starvation in Africa results primarily from the deliberate actions of corrupt Governments -- Governments such as Islamic governments in Sudan, practicing the "pure Islamic desert morality" advocated by Jihadist nut-bars as the "rejuvenation of Christianity" (see Cultural Jihad's homepage for details), who willfully restrict food supplies to starving regions, using starvation as a weapon against innocent people who reject the "pure Islamic desert morality" of the Jihadist regimes.

As always, you're Wrong.

As I said, oil makes its way into all areas of the economy, from fertilizers to pharmaceutical to transportation. You would sit by in your moral-liberal moral-cowardice and allow Saddam to dictate the price of oil, and you then claim it would not cause massive starvation? What a blind fool you are, hiding your head in the sand.

Yes. It would not cause massive starvation -- for world food production has increased inexorably every decade, even through the oil shocks and embargoes of the 1970s, utterly disproving your completely unsupported fantasies (rather, the corrupt governments of Africa would continue to cause massive starvation of their own populations, exactly as they are doing now).

Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

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. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. -- President George Washington, Farewell Address

Washington regarded your kind of chicken-little war-mongering as being the bleatings of Dupes and Tools.

I do as well.

Once we have killed the enemies that fools like yourself have created for us (by your treasonous, moral-cowardice policy of sacrificing your own fellow-citizen's blood for "cheap oil"), we would be well advised to ignore all the Interventionist "Cultural Jihad"s as the always-Wrong Dupes that you are, and return to Mr. Washington's sage advice.

I would like to point out that Harry Brown, has long stated his position against terrorism and for the defense of america, at least 10 years.

He said the same things in his 1992 campaign. He was the first, the leading, and for the most part, the ONLY significant political figure that has called for a change in our military to be defensive, not aggressive. He has long advocated the majority of our military budget should be spent defending our borders, building a missle defense system, and preventing terrorism. He also was the first to advocate the assassinating of terrorists and their leaders that kill americans, instead of the usual civilian retalliation bombing of foreign cities.

Everyone else talking today about terrorism is a "Johnny Come Lately". We should have listened to Harry Brown 10 years ago. Instead of deploying our troops all over the world in over 100 different countries under clinton, we should have instead defended our borders from terrorism and attack.

Just how far back in history do you want to go? In the 1700s, the group of people that currently call themselves Palestinians were forced there by the Ottoman Empire. In the late 600s, the Arabians booted the Byzantine Empire from the region. Before Christ, the Romans stormed in and grabbed the region from the Greeks. You care to go back to Biblical times? Okay; how about the Assyrians, or the Babylonians, or the Egyptians, or the Jews, who have the oldest claim to the land? Oh, let's not forget about the British, who ruled the land from the end of WWI until 1948. Also, let's not forget those few Jews that managed to stay there almost continuously since the Romans threw them out in AD 70.

I have read your recent posts, and the tone carried throughout certainly justifies the anti-Jewish (do bear in mind that the Arabs are also Semites before you claim that you're anti-Semitic) label you have earned. I strongly doubt that Israeli gunships will hurt me, but a Palestinian hijacked plane or car bomb certainly will.

You wish to make a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Only one side's avowed goal and leader-ordered directive is to kill every last person on the other side. Only one side's goal is to live within borders that are defensible with neighbors that do not wish to see it extinct. Given that the one side's goal is nothing short of anihilation, the other side has been forced to respond harshly in an attempt to sap the will of that side to anihilate. Said response has already worked on a couple of other former enemies.

Since you are incapable of distinguishing truth from the blind ignorance of hatred, I will repeat what I just said, identifying the sides for you. Only the Palestinian's avowed goal and leader-ordered directive is to kill every last Israeli. Only Israel's goal (at least vis-a-vis the Palestinians) is to live within borders that are defensible with neighbors that do not wish to see it extinct. Given that the Palestinian's goal is nothing short of anihilation, the Israelis has been forced to respond harshly in an attempt to sap the will of the Palestinians to anihilate them. Said response has already worked on Egypt and Jordan, which no longer advocate Israel's extinction.

Your continuing insistence that words outtrump deeds clearly proves your incapability to think straight. It's pathetic. As for the issue of ancient history, I already pointed out that I could care less about what happened 50 years, let alone 3000 years ago. You continue to lie to yourself. Denouncing me as anti-Semite while simultaneously obfuscating the commonly-held meaning of the word merely proves that you prefer to talk instead of think.

Oh. And if you are in fanger of Palestinian hijacked planes or car bombs, could this be because of your advocacy of Isreali gunships?

The problem isn't that we've taken actions around the world, the problem is that we've done it half-assed.

What! Libertarianism for Americans, but no one else? I think that more than alittle of the resentment we get from around the world has been our support or lack of action where people are being brutally oppressed. It's long past time for America to extend the blessings of Liberty that we have gathered to ourselves and our posterity to all of the world.

"Oh no!", say the Dems and Reps, "we can't be the worlds policemen!" You're half-assed isolationists! The world is our neighborhood, let's clean it up.

If we had not been expending so much of our resources chasing poppies and pot, we could have done away with these terrorists long ago. We've sent 43 million dollars to Afghanistan, THIS YEAR, to fight opuim production. Yeah right! I'm so sure that they put that money to the use we intended.

Like Osama bin Laden,Saddam was supported by our government and did our bidding via his war with Iran.A succession of our regimes throwing their weight around have managed to create several of the monsters running amok today.

Excellent point that needs repeating. Our Foreign Military Sales (FMS or SA - Security Assistance) programs identify charismatic, "up and coming" young foreign nationals and officers, and our military trains them. When our gamble pays off, and these officers and nationals advance to leadership positions, we supply them with all sorts of armaments.

Saddam is our creation. In addition, Derville is right about the analysts nixing the elimination of Saddam. I remember reading their analysis in the Washington Post before Desert Storm. And it was again, a choice between the lesser of two evils. At the time, a charismatic, religious fundamentalist leader seemed a much worse evil than Saddam. And I've seen on several forums on FR that Usama too was our own creation ... a little gift from the wonderful folks over at CIA, from our interventionist activities in Afghanistan when the USSR was having their own private Vietnam there.

I do not subscribe to what you call his 'philosophy', which includes open borders and a utopian view of economics and culture. One area in which he is clearly discredited is 'open borders', but then again, isn't Bush in favor of same?

Agreed. What alot of folks have problems with is DISSENT. A lot of folks are of the view that association with, or tendency to lean towards, a particular political party necessarily entails complete agreement with all stated policies and platforms.

And its always entertaining to watch the RINOs attempt to lambast everyone as commies or socialists or liberals for something that is identical to a policy of GW's.

my country, right or wrong YES
my government, right or wrong NO

Au contraire my dear little umbrella-headed wise introspective and objectivist friend, my kind are the decisive types who have historically been called upon to clean up the messes created by your kind....the handwringers and contrarians. Did you see the idiot Law Professor form Illinois at Urbana/Champagne opining all the thoughtful nuances about "law" and "liberty"? He reminds me of "your kind". Soft, indecisive, weak and preoccupied with self. I have lived in brutal environments my dear and "your kind" are nice targets. This is war. All of you objectivists and Dubya bashers can shout your shrill hyperbole from every hilltop after this is over. Right now, no one is listening. Most of "your kind" is reacting thru their opinings on this forum exactly as I expected they would should a cataclysm ever happen as has unfortunately been the case.

Must be nice to consider yourself your own scorekeeper. You and the rest of the Free Republic Libertarian "puppy wolf pack" will sure have a lot to second guess and whine about and point out all our mistakes for the rest of the world in the coming months won't you?

I hope you all have fun. Meanwhile your polar opposites will be directing a war to preserve our nation. I hope ya'll enjoy yourselves. Probably a good time for all of you to go light up some nice "fatty" and "contemplate" over what's really the best course of action from a purely objectivist perspective while the rest of us go about helping this effort however we can.

God bless all of you. I don't know how we could survive without ya'll.

"I hope you all have fun. Meanwhile your polar opposites will be directing a war to preserve our nation. I hope ya'll enjoy yourselves. Probably a good time for all of you to go light up some nice "fatty" and "contemplate" over what's really the best course of action from a purely objectivist perspective while the rest of us go about helping this effort however we can."

I will light up a FATTY just for you while I contemplate having to send my son to this war. I would respecfully suggest to you that is not a time for petty bickering. We have a war to fight. Perhaps the most impoartant war this country has ever been in.

Nuclear Power, and Natural Gas (of which US proven reserves are also immense).

I know I was not supposed to reply, but you just make it too easy. You sound like a greenie.

You just keep ignoring the fact that the oil out of the middle east is essential to the world economy.

Since when do you let pesky little facts get in your way?

"Thank you for seeing the light....Browne the Clown, and his cult following, could not wait for the bodies to be found before they used this event as a back drop for their usual silly chest thumping and anti-everyone-but-themselves vomit spew."

I've decided to put my support behind people like Ron Paul and Brett Schundler. God bless'm both!

Has Mr. Ron Paul spoken on this subject yet? Sure would like to know his thoughts.

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