Why We Are In Danger from World Terrorism *Because of* Dick Cheney's View the World.

Image via Wikipedia

Former VP Dick Cheney's work on his upcoming book, in which he will apparently defend his record, is producing a spate of articles on his views. One observation is that he is still strongly convinced a rogue nation will hand nuclear weapons over to a terrorist group, who will then attack the US.

To a Libertarian, this prospect leads strongly in an entirely different direction than Cheney thinks it must. To Cheney, all solutions involve the US continuing its intense involvement in attempting to direct the affairs of every other nation on earth.

To a Libertarian, the risk of terrorism suggests a different question: Why are foreign terrorists interested in attacking the U.S. in particular?

To answer this, let's turn to a terrorist problem that is not ours, and ask why it isn't. Chechnyan terrorists regularly attack targets in Russia. They have not attacked any U.S. targets, and nobody seems to expect them to. Why not?

They attack Russian targets because they have a beef with Russia. The Russian government holds power in Chechnya, controls its government, and fights with Chechnyan separatists. So the separatists attack those who interfere with what they consider their national rights: the Russians.

They don't attack the U.S. because we are not involved in Chechnyan affairs. More specifically, the U.S. does not involve itself in Russia's affairs: We don't support Russia in this conflict, we don't sell Russia weapons to use against Chechnyan opponents, we don't give speeches about it, we don't consider it our affair. And it isn't. And so we are not at risk from either side in that conflict.

The same goes for Tamil terrorists in Sri Lanka. And, for that matter, Basque bombers in Spain. We aren't involved in these conflicts.

But we involve ourselves in every other conflict on Earth, and in some of those conflicts, one party or another sees the U.S. as making their conflict harder because we support the other side.

Muslim terrorists don't denounce us and bomb us and fly jets into our buildings because we are Westerners. Not really. They talk like that sometimes, but if we weren't involved in the affairs of Muslim countries, they wouldn't bother forming an anti-Western-Culture theory to bolster themselves for the long fight against a superior foe. They'd just ignore us.

But we had to overthrow the government of Iraq; we had to take care of Saudi Arabia's problem by defending their neighbor Kuwait; we are now encouraging, apparently, Israel to bomb Iran's nuclear bomb facilities; we have troops in Afghanistan supporting a government we installed, and are bullying the neighboring governments too. And in country after country, year after year, we support oppressive governments, take sides in internal and external conflicts, and come up with elaborate excuses as to why we can't benignly watch the world do what it will, but must intervene, to produce, with force if necessary, the outcome we speculate would be good for us in the long run.

Central to much of this is Israel, whose continued existence we warrant, arm, and fund. Every country, every regime, and every opposition group that does or might someday threaten Israel we must involve ourselves against.

This leads to some perverse behavior sometimes. We can't just arm Israel, and threaten to intervene on her behalf should she be attacked -- in fact, the one thing we don't do is intervene militarily when Israel is attacked, for some reason. No, we have to try to control the complex internal politics of every regime around them -- and every other group in the world that is interested. So when Saddam invaded Kuwait, we couldn't just let Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, and possibly Syria figure it out -- they were all as unhappy with Saddam and his ambitions as we were, and they are right there on the spot. No -- we had to be the ones to intervene militarily, because otherwise the balance of power among Iraq and Iran and Syria and Israel might go out of control, and who knows where that would lead? We had to balance Iraq and Iran -- Iran, which had almost collapsed under the years-long assault of Iraq, and whom we helped prop up; but now Iran was growing too powerful, and a success against Iraq would give the mullahs too much power. To a Libertarian, this mess would have given the powers there a rare opportunity to decide whether they had more to fear from Saddam or from Israel. It might have led to a new alignment of powers. Imagine that. One in which the U.S. would play only a minor role. Imagine that.

No, we had to expend our blood and treasure to defend Kuwait -- and incidentally Saudi Arabia, source of the 9/11 assassins, and Iran, our current source of woes. And they all let us, because then they could avoid the blood and expense, and the political fallout, and still badmouth the US!

Every nation with problems, we have to get involved. North Korea is nuts; we have to step in and tell them that their policies to create nuclear weapons for themselves are "not acceptable." Even though we have, really, no clue what to do about it if the ignore us, as they always do.

For a while there it looked like we were going to use sense: We insisted that China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia take care of the problem in their own back yard. We refused to be drawn into the talks. North Korea, knowing a fish when they see one, very much want the US to be the sole opponent. They know they can always take us for a ride. (The irony of Bill Clinton's trip to shake hands with His Shortness to get the two reporters released is that Bill traded a handshake and photo op bit of propaganda for two human beings -- Bill gave North Korea less and got more from them than the U.S. ever has -- it was the most successful negotiation we've ever had with North Korea! (Usually, we give them oil and money and goods, and get a promise which North Korea never keeps.)

But lately, even with a Democrat liberal in the White House (what a surprise! The peace-loving Democrats in power continue the warmongering policies of the evil Republican predecessors!), the US is talking tough with North Korea. Again, we say have the Cheney worry: North Korea will give its nukes to terrorists who can bomb either Israel (our 51st state in practice tho not in law) or the US mainland.

Well, they might, though nothing we've been doing about it will help Israel, and our continuing involvement in every conflict on Earth makes us a target for the terrorist attack that must sooner or later succeed, because time is on their side, not ours.

And of course we're worried about NKorean missiles reaching Hawaii. Why on earth would Kim send a bomb to Hawaii? If the US decided that NKorea was a problem for the countries around it (and for Israel, the other target), then we wouldn't have to worry about Hawaii in this regard. And maybe -- just maybe -- the other nations of the world would eventually be forced to act like grownups and figure out solutions for their problems. After all, in many cases they are right there in the line of fire even more so than we are. Frankly, I don't believe the nations around Israel really, in their heart of hearts, want to see a terrorist group plant a nuke in Jerusalem. The likely reaction of Israel to the threat, or worse the reality, of such an attack would make me very nervous, even if I were the fruitcake President of Iran.

The US is a target for so very many negative forces of the world because the US involves itself in so many areas of the world. Just as there seems to be no aspect of American life that the government doesn't think it should have an opinion about, pass a law to control, and stick its bureaucratic noses into -- by the same token, there is no country on earth and no disagreement among the peoples of the earth that our wise politicians in Washington think is none of our business.

Switzerland isn't target of anybody's ire. There's a reason. Countries that meddle make themselves targets. We are the biggest target out there -- because we are the supreme meddlers in all the world. Just ask yourself: Why are we the ones at the center of everything? Why do other countries stay away, dummy up, waffle when we're in there Solving the World's Problems? How come they aren't worried about what's likely to happen?

All the security and waterboarding and spies and constrained freedom in the world won't protect us from our own inability to mind our own damned business.

The real root cause? Our political class is composed of meddlers. They get elected, and reelected, by sticking their noses in. They don't get vote by saying, "You know, we should just stay out of that one; yes, I know, awful things might happen; but we aren't the ones best suited to tackle the problem -- we'll just make it worse!" I know, because Libertarian candidates say that all the time, and none of you ever vote for them! Because you, like the pols, can't leave well enough alone!

There are tradeoffs in every involvement. We brush that aside. We shouldn't.

Related articles by Zemanta

• U.S. Willing to Hold Direct Talks With North Korea (abcnews.go.com)
• Hillary Clinton vows to protect Gulf states from Iran (telegraph.co.uk)

Obama Should Stay the Heck Out of Iran!

Image by BL1961 via Flickr

The President of the United States, according to headlines in the June 23, 2009 papers, expressed his outrage and dismay at the Iranian government's actions in its ongoing riotous dispute with its democracy-minded people. He has, however, no business expressing an official opinion about Iran's bad behavior.

We must make an effort to separate our feelings as people from the appropriate acts of our government. As individuals, we most of us deplore how the Iranian government is treating its people. The President, as head of our government, has no business with Iran's internal problems and should keep quiet, as should all American government officials.

Of course, the US government cares about what happens, mainly in our own self interest: We'd love to see the government of Iran change into one that respects Western values more, and we'd even more like to see the power of the mullahs curtailed. With luck, they might interfer less in Iraq and in Isreal and environs.

However, we are half a world away from that area. We cannot help the Iranian people by government action; imagine how embarrassing it must be for Iranian patriots to be backed by The Great Satan!

We are in the middle of an awful conflict in Iraq that started with righteous indignation and a desire for revenge and defense, and has degenerated into a ludicrous disaster and a smear on the good name of our country. You'd think we'd learn, wouldn't you?

Remember, we had an election a few years ago that many people think was stolen from the rightful winner, with the acquiescence of the Supreme Court. I'm sure the Democrats would have welcomed assertions on th

Image by US Army Korea - IMCOM via Flickr

eir behalf from the mullahs and government of Iran at the time, yes? Certainly, the government of Iran has been impacted very much since then by the guy who actually took office in the US, so they sure have an excuse!

In North Korea, we find ourselves making efforts to force Japan, China, and S0uth Korea to take the lead in solving the problem. (The North Koreans, no fools, insist that the US take the lead; they love how easily we are mislead and how readily we accept lies at face value.) Really, we need to butt out of that whole mess too -- yes, North Korea could, maybe, lob a missile at Hawaii; why on earth they'd do that I don't know, and neither does anyone else. If we didn't have a mutual defense pact with South Korea and with Japan, and if we didn't have troops in both places, the North Koreans would be no more interested in us than they are interested in bombing Switzerland. Then maybe it would be time for Japan and China to figure out how to deal with those nuts up north.

Is there really no place on Earth our government does not consider game for meddling? Can we not mind our own business? If you would only keep in mind that every time you concede to the government the job of interfering somewhere overseas, that excuse is used not just by the guys in charge today, whom you trust, but by whatever knucklehead we voters fall for in the future! Use your head! Be afraid!

Election 2008: Experience versus Judgment?

The Independent Institute in Oakland, CA, has an original and interesting view of this debate!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Both Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have been criticized for their "inexperience." In his latest op-ed, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland argues that experience should not be a determining factor in the selection of national political leaders. Richard Nixon and James Buchanan, for example, had lots of experience before becoming president, yet neither was a good president, according to Eland. In contrast, Chester Arthur was a good president despite having previously held only two mid-level jobs in New York and being vice president for a mere six months when the assassination of James Garfield thrust him into the Oval Office.

John McCain, although a more experienced candidate than Obama, has shown poor judgment on several matters of foreign policy, according to Eland, including calling for greater U.S. involvement in Iraq and advocating Georgia's entry into NATO--a move that could draw the United States into a military confrontation with Russia.

On the other hand, Obama, writes Eland, "was against invading Iraq from the start, has astutely championed withdrawing U.S. combat forces during what is likely to be a temporary lull in violence, and was much more measured about the conflict in Georgia, which threatened no vital U.S. strategic interests." McCain, Eland concludes, has too much experience in getting co-opted into making bad judgments from serving too long in Washington's military-industrial-congressional complex.

"A President Needs Good Judgment Rather than Experience," by Ivan Eland (9/8/08) Spanish Translation

The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed (Updated Edition), by Ivan Eland

Center on Peace & Liberty (Ivan Eland, Director)