RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/09/05/why-we-still-must-not-support-obamas-strike-on-syria-responding-to-ron-radosh/?print=1

Indeed, this is how a serious debate should be conducted. Invective-free.

I’ll take Ron’s latest arguments in order.

1. John Kerry has not changed. He remains the leftist “international test” advocate that he has always been. He publicly identified with Code Pink’s ideals when they disrupted his unconvincing, self-contradictory testimony in the Senate this week. His advocacy for striking Syria may be based on Islamist disinformation, about which I’ll have more to say shortly. Suffice it to say that he is carrying out the policy of his boss, whatever that policy is, in the job he has openly and lustfully sought for years and would never resign on any principle, and knows which buttons to push (“indispensable nation”) to make hawks pay attention to him. Lingo does not hide the fact that he is still the same man who smeared American troops then fighting in Vietnam and then built his career on that, and the same man who opposed the 1991 intervention in Iraq. The case for action then was much stronger than the case for action now. Should he not take a few minutes to explain his evolution in thought before asking us to just trust him? Is he wiser now, or merely older?

2. Failure to act decisively may be worse than not acting at all. The Iranians are watching, as are the North Koreans, etc. There’s a popular saying these days — “go big or go home.” That saying would get realized, in my judgement, if we strike Assad but do not kill him or remove him. After the symbolic, mostly meaningless strikes that Obama promises, Assad will emerge from the smoke as if he has been hardened in combat, stand on some rubble in a MacArthur pose, and announce that he “defeated” us. It will be absurd, but that’s how Middle East despots react when they’re bombed but not killed or face invasion. Obama’s “just muscular enough not to be mocked” strike invites mockery. Obama has already told Assad that he is not a target and that the strikes will be so limited as to be militarily meaningless. Iran will be watching that, too. Assad is probably already having soot smeared on his face and rehearsing his post-bombing lines. We know that Obama won’t go big. So in my view he should stay home — not strike.

3. The nature of the rebellion is not what John Kerry says it is. The pro-moderate source Ron cites, Elizabeth O’Bagy, is dubious and may be involved in a disinformation campaign to sell the “moderate” face of an Islamist insurgency. She appeared on Fox again today and played word games about her role with the Syrian Emergency Task Force — she is their political director, and they have Islamist ties. In my mind, this discredits everything she says about the “moderate” forces in Syria. The New York Times reported on the rebels’ brutality today. It also should matter that even when America does put hundreds of thousands of pairs of boots on the ground to kick out evil dictators like Assad (Saddam was pretty much his clone), the people don’t automatically love us and they don’t choose freedom. They tend to choose Islamism. They write sharia into their constitutions. They enforce anti-blasphemy laws. They elect the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Obama administration plays along. It may be that a strong dose of radicalism convinces people in the Middle East to swing back toward civilization, as has apparently happened in Egypt. Should the U.S. military be used in Syria to drive Assad out and start that Islamism-t0-civilization cycle? It’s risky, and Obama isn’t selling that. He’s playing Hamlet and promising to prick Assad so shallowly that he won’t even bleed.

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/assagne-ron-paul-liberty/2013/09/05/id/524110?promo_code=EB8D-1&utm_source=National_Review&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

IT HAS ALSO BEEN REPORTED BUT NOT CONFIRMED THAT RON WILL BE THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT AN ANTI-SEMITIC CONFERENCE IN SEPTEMBER..Former Texas congressman Ron Paul will reportedlydeliver the keynote address at an anti-Semitic conference in September, in the latest example of the three-time presidential candidate’s close association with extremists.Paul will speak at the Fatima Center’s “Fatima: The Path to Peace” conference, which will run from September 8th through the 15th in Niagara Falls, Ontario. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Fatima Center is part of the “radical traditionalist” Catholic movement, which comprises “the largest single group of serious anti-Semites in America,” routinely attacking Jews as “the perpetual enemy of Christ.” RSK

Ron Paul: Assange ‘Fighting for the Cause of Liberty’

Former Rep. Ron Paul on Thursday thanked Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for “fighting to increase transparency in our government” and fighting “for the cause of liberty.”

Paul’s praise came during the third and final installment of an interview with Assange on the Ron Paul Channel — www.ronpaulchannel.com– the subscription-based Internet channel launched last month by the Texas Republican.

Paul concluded the interview with Assange – confined in the Ecuadorean embassy in London — by directing viewers to the WikiLeaks site where they could donate to Assange’s cause.

The day after Assange told Paul in the second part of the interview that the United States was taking advantage of the humanitarian crisis in Syria to justify a military strike, Paul took a more personal approach in the final installment, asking about Assange’s personal philosophy.

The Australian described his political philosophy as a blend of “California libertarianism,” Greek political theory, along with thoughts from the Federalist Paper and some naturalist views.

http://www.cagle.com/2013/09/the-most-embarrassing-president-of-my-lifetime/ “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” — Teddy Roosevelt “The buck stops here.” — Harry Truman “I didn’t set a red line.” — Barack Obama Barack Obama is, without question, the most embarrassing president of my lifetime — and that is saying something, since my life so far has encompassed 12 presidencies, some […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/357748/clear-cut-stupidity-syria-jonah-goldberg ‘The genius of you Americans,” the Arab-nationalist and one-time president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, once explained, “is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.” I’ve long taken patriotic pride in such […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/357705/print

In late 2007, Powerline’s John Hinderaker reminds us, Senator Barack Obama, then a presidential candidate, provided answers to questions posed by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe and New York Times, in order to provide voters with his views on presidential power – you know, so we would know what to expect if we elected him. Here’s an exchange in which the self-proclaimed constitutional law scholar explained his position on the commander-in-chief’s use of force:

Q. In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)

A. The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As John points out, Senator Rand Paul proposed an amendment to the use-of-force authorization voted out of the foreign relations committee yesterday. The amendment precisely tracked the position articulated by Obama in 2008. It was defeated 14-4, thanks mostly to Democrats who are doing President Obama’s bidding.

Interestingly, Obama claimed yesterday that the use of force is necessary to enforce a purported international norm against chemical weapons. Of course, the fact that most countries sign a treaty hardly means there is an international norm – the world has declined to act against Syria, and conduct is a more reliable indication of a norm than parchment. It is also an international norm that sovereigns may not be bound by international law without their consent, and Syria has neither signed nor ratified the chemical weapons convention.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ Ed Markey, Useless Doofus If you wanted a parody of a politician’s fear, paralysis, indecisiveness, and timidity, you couldn’t do much better than the Senate’s newest addition, Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey: U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey punted as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a compromise resolution designed to win support for President Obama’s […]

Why Conservatives Should Rally for the President’s Resolution

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/09/04/why-conservatives-should-rally-for-the-presidents-resolution-and-work-to-defeat-the-forces-of-the-new-isolationists-left-and-right/?print=1

THOSE OF US WHO OPPOSE INTERVENTION ARE “EERILY REMINISCENT” OF CHARLES LINDBERGH AND OTHERS? HMMMM…FUNNY BUT YOU WERE SO OPPOSED TO A FAR MORE JUSTIFIABLE WAR IN VIETNAM THAT YOU WERE ONE OF THE USEFUL IDIOTS CHEERING FOR THE VIETCONG, MAO, AND SOVIET UNION….RSK

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/09/04/why-conservatives-should-rally-for-the-presidents-resolution-and-work-to-defeat-the-forces-of-the-new-isolationists-left-and-right/?print=1

[1]As the Obama administration goes to Congress to seek support for a resolution authorizing a military strike against Syria, the deep divisions in both the Democratic and Republican parties are at present making it problematic, at best, that he will gain the votes he needs for a consensus in favor of action.

The divisions today are eerily reminiscent of those at the beginning of the Cold War, when pre-war isolationists or, to use the term they preferred then and prefer now, non-interventionists once again came forth on both the Left and Right to oppose a strong response to Soviet expansionism.

Before Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt had to face convincing a strong isolationist sentiment at home, as well as a reluctant Congress, to do anything that could involve the United States in war. After running for the presidency with a promise to keep the nation out of war, once in office Roosevelt acted to strengthen the British resolve through the Lend-Lease program as well as putting through the famous trading of bases for destroyers.

At home, the America First Committee, headed by Charles Lindbergh and which included old liberals and progressives such as John T. Flynn and Oswald Garrison Villard as well as conservatives such as Col. Robert McCormick and William H. Regnery, became very influential. During the years of the Nazi-Soviet pact, the American Communist Party created its own front group, the American Peace Mobilization, which argued that FDR was seeking to wage an imperialist war for oil and urged Americans to keep out of war and focus their opposition on the nefarious plans for intervention favored by the British Empire.

Pearl Harbor put an end to the America First Committee’s efforts, as the nation united behind the president and thousands of young men flooded the recruiting centers to volunteer to fight against the threat to America’s security. At the war’s end, as the Soviets moved effectively to use the turmoil and insecurity to expand communism as far as they could in the East and the West, a new opposition emerged on both Left and Right against taking a firm stand against Stalin and his cadre.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-three-decade-delay-of-a-nuclear-waste-repository?f=puball There was a time when the United States was a can-do nation that built canals, bridges, railroads, and highways. Now we are a nation whose civil engineers annually report the dangers of decaying infrastructure. A perfect example of how incompetent our government has become is the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. In 1982 the […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/syria-and-other-unlearned-lessons It is autumn’s first festival of incompetence. Like the President-in-council surrounded by high-level blockheads vainly searching for their first clue. Like the Joint Chiefs Chairman insisting that more delays in the already belated US response to Syrian provocation will not present any intelligence or operational problems.  He would be joking except that the administration’s […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ There isn’t much enthusiasm for Obama’s plan for Syria. A lot of the Senate would like Obama to go bigger. A lot of the House would like Obama to just go. Even the experts have trouble explaining how and why the attacks will do any good. The debate has congealed down to credibility. The […]