"Resolved, That the Libertarian National Committee: Calls upon the State Legislatures to enact legislation to prohibit the States’ National Guard and any member thereof to be released from the state into active duty combat unless the U.S. Congress has declared war pursuant to Article I, § 8, Clause 15 of the U.S. Constitution" Over Memorial Day weekend at the first meeting of the newly elected Libertarian Party National Committee, the Board unanimously adopted a resolution in support of Defend the Guard. The resolution, authored by renowned anti-war activist and delegate from Texas Scott...
Global War on Terror
Adam Kinzinger Executes Neocon Vision for Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine approaches its tenth week, the steady flow of ominous headlines has grown to a floodwater deluge. Dissenting observers are made to watch, seemingly helpless, as the broader levy of sanity threatens to break, unleashing a torrent of death and destruction across Eastern Europe, and likely, the globe. Leading the bad news cycle, on Sunday, May 1, Congressman Adam Kinzinger proposed a new Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) in the U.S. House of Representatives. The legislation, if passed, would allow President Joe Biden to deploy American forces to restore “the...
Elon Musk, Twitter, and the ‘Ministry of Truth’
Just last week, I finally got around with starting to read Crime and Punishment, Fyodr Dostoevsky’s famous novel about a Saint-Peterburg student’s murder of an old lady pawnbroker. The murderer and book’s main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, got the idea from a fellow student whom he overheard saying at a local eating establishment: “On the one hand, you have a nasty, stupid, worthless, meaningless, sick old woman who’s no use to anyone. […] On the other hand, you have young fresh energies that are going to waste for want of backing. […] If one were to kill her and take her money, in order...
The Necro-Neologism of Lethal Legal Experts
The power of language is magical to behold. Through the mere pronouncement of words, people can be persuaded to do what they would never have thought to do, left to their own devices. The playbook with the most success in this regard is that of war. When people are “informed” that they and their families are in mortal danger, they can and often will acquiesce to any and all policies which government authorities claim to be necessary in order to protect them. Young people can be coaxed into killing complete strangers who never did anything personally to them. Citizens can be brainwashed to...
Warmongers Against Putin’s War
Revulsion to war is inconsistent for some. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought critics of this particular war to the antiwar movement, though they likely will return to their pro-war instincts when current headlines fade. For now, in the West, Vladimir Putin has been labelled as the next Adolf Hitler. Ironically Hitler was a product of the West and led a terrible invasion of Russia (a memory that lingers and moulds present day Russian foreign policy). Twenty years ago Saddam Hussein was the next Hitler. Colonel Qaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Mahmoud Ahmanddinejad and so on were all...
Veterans’ Group Responds to Liz Cheney: ‘Put Up or Shut Up’
Today Bring Our Troops Home, a national organization of Global War on Terror veterans, called on Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney to stop using the U.S. Constitution "as a media prop" and support congressional war powers as stated in Article I, Section 8. "It is time for Liz Cheney to either put up or shut up. In a weak attempt to defend herself after the Republican National Committee rebuked her, Cheney tried to claim she was standing on constitutional grounds. It is a lie," said Sgt. Dan McKnight, Chairman of Bring Our Troops Home. In reaction to the censure enacted Friday by the...
From GITMO to the ‘Killing Machine’
Twenty years ago, on January 11, 2002, the prison at Guantánamo Bay (GITMO) admitted its first round of post-9/11 terrorist suspects. Two recent films, The Mauritanian (2021) and The Forever Prisoner (2021), chart parts of the ugly history of the facility, during which acts of torture were rebranded by officials as “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EIT) and inflicted on at least 119 of the 780 men held at GITMO over the course of the Global War on Terror. The story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was cleared for release in 2010 but remained incarcerated for another seven years as the...
News Roundup 12/16/2021
US News Kevin Clinesmith was reinstated to the bar after he pled guilty to removing information from a FISA court application to get a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. [Link] Biden signs an executive order that instructs the federal government to target more drug traffickers with sanctions. [Link] The Senate passes the 2022 NDAA, approving $770 billion in spending for the Pentagon. [Link] The NDAA includes $75 million in lethal military assistance for Ukraine and a plan to build a Global War on Terror memorial. [Link] Covid The Navy will begin discharging unvaccinated sailors. [Link]...
Losing Hearts and Minds on FOB Wolverine
In an email to my father on July 18th, 2013 from my computer on Forward Operating Base Wolverine, I wrote, “This country is the hopeless dream of arrogant experts.” To this day, that line sums up my feelings about the entire war in Afghanistan. Now that the war is decisively over, journalists and historians are hard at work framing how America’s Afghan war will be written into history. The experiences of those who executed the war on the ground are missing from these accounts. I am documenting my experiences because I feel it's my obligation to future generations. In the summer of 2013,...
RIP Colin Powell
Should Generals be Diplomats? "Retired General Colin Powell was appointed US Secretary of State under President George W. Bush, and you may recall his colorful powerpoint presentation before the UN General Assembly in the run-up to the 2003 war on Iraq—yellow cake, aluminium tubes, mobile chemical laboratories (think: Breaking Bad). Powell did not convince very many of his colleagues at the UN that Iraq needed to be invaded in order to thwart Saddam Hussein’s allegedly imminent transfer of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) to Al Qaeda, but the US government went to war anyway. Why?...