This one really got to me. NOW someone’s interested in burn pits. My previous comic is here.
For more comics, visit The Webcomic Factory.
This one really got to me. NOW someone’s interested in burn pits. My previous comic is here.
For more comics, visit The Webcomic Factory.
I am told this morning that Michael Badnarik died in his sleep of heart failure last night.
Michael was a great believer in and defender of freedom and the United States of America and its Constitution. He represented the Libertarian Party as presidential candidate against George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004. I am proud to have served as his foreign policy adviser during his campaign.
He spent his life inspiring other people’s interest in liberty, winning numerous people over to our cause.
He leaves a proud legacy and will not be forgotten.
Short contribution of Laurie Calhoun to the KPFA Saturday Evening News on August 6, 2022, with David Rosenberg about drone assassination and the logic of “violence breeds violence”. This three-minute exchange spans 5:10-8:15. Many other foreign policy topics are also covered in the thirty-minute news report.
News in Exile (WBAI): Paul DeRienzo and Laurie Calhoun consider the al Zawahiri drone strike report. Discussion begins at 14:30 and lasts five minutes.
Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid and Laurie Calhoun discuss the Zawahiri drone strike and “We Kill Because We Can” on Muslim Network News – August 2, 2022. Drone discussion begins at 15:36 and lasts 15 minutes.
https://youtu.be/sh1ZEQYuhIA
On the assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri by U.S. drone in Kabul (from Accuracy.org):
[Laurie Calhoun] said today: “President Biden has pivoted from the multiple crises of his administration — inflation, heightened tensions with China and Iran, and even the very real risk of nuclear war with Russia — to announce that he authorized the drone strike killing in Kabul, Afghanistan, of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the masterminds behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Twenty years and millions of ruined lives later, the Biden administration wishes to claim the summary execution of the charred corpse identified as a high-value target as some sort of historic victory. But lest we forget, throughout the ‘war on terror,’ many named targets were ‘reportedly’ killed on multiple occasions at multiple sites. The people incinerated in their stead were in fact unnamed civilians.
“Media pundits have been gushing over Biden’s alleged accomplishment, but less than one year ago, on August 29, 2021, also in Kabul, ten entirely innocent civilians were destroyed by a U.S. drone strike on the basis of ‘evidence’ that the target was driving a white Toyota Corolla and seemed to be acting ‘suspiciously.’ Shortly after that strike, the Pentagon vaunted their successful operation against a person said to be plotting an attack on Kabul airport. We later learned that the target was in fact an aid worker who was executed by remote control along with everyone else within the radius of the missile’s impact, including seven children. We have been assured by President Biden that Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed alone, and no one else was injured by the strike, not even his family. What a curious claim to make, given that family members were considered fair game for attack throughout the ‘war on terror.’ For all of these reasons (not to mention Biden’s historically low approval ratings), today’s report smacks suspiciously of overkill.”
“My case for pacifism, to recap, comes down to three simple premises. The first two are empirical:
Premise #1: The short-run costs of war are clearly awful. [Empirical claim about immediate effects of war].
Premise #2: The long-run benefits of war are highly uncertain. [Empirical claim about people’s ability to accurately forecast the long-run effects of war].
These empirical claims imply pacifism when combined with a bland moral premise:
Premise #3: For a war to be morally justified, the expected long-run benefits have to substantially exceed its short-run costs. [Moral claim, inspired by Judith Jarvis Thomson’s forced organ donation hypothetical].”
Excerpt From: Bryan Caplan. “How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery.” p. 125
Dr. Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and New York Times bestselling author.
I would posit that there is no civilization so utterly foreign to Americans than China.
Often, American impressions of China are informed by preconceptions, myth, and fear of the other.
For the average American, the sum of all knowledge about China is derived from Chinese restaurants and a vague recollection of the Tiananmen Square incident.
Something…something…tank man.
Oh… and also that the Chinese are dirty communists, that they steal our jobs, sell us crappy products, and are going to take over the world.
Little, if any, effort is made to explore the nuance of Chinese motivations–which involve an extensive, complex and multi-faceted past.
With more than 4,000 years of recorded history, any reasonable study of China is an admittedly monumental task.
But with anything, all it takes is some effort and a good place to start.
And just starting is as important as anything–because, as President Joe Biden said, “we are in a competition with China to win the 21st century.”
If anyone is going to talk the US down from its planned mass murder-suicide campaign, we are going to have to know what we are talking about.
So in this week’s episode of Liberty Weekly, I decided to start at the beginning of US/China relations–roughly 1840.
I invite you to join me.