Saturday, September 21, 2013

Using elections to end the perpetual war

The American people have become weary of the open-ended, blank-check war initiated in response the 9/11 attacks over twelve years ago.

My sense is that people vaguely suspect three things about the conflict:
  1.       The actual perpetrators have either been caught or killed;
  2.       The war has become a self-perpetuating bureaucratic entity that has made itself immune from accountability;
  3.       The national security state has taken power granted in response to the 9/11 attacks and used these powers against the American people or reserves the right to use them against political dissenters, like the Occupy movement.


I propose forming a coalition to end the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed after the 9/11 attacks.

Friday, September 6, 2013

preventing chemical weapons from being used in Syria by Carl Nyberg

Even if you accept the one-sided version of the Syria conflict that Bashar al-Assad is evil incarnate and the rebels are heroically struggling against an oppressive regime...

President Barack Obama has failed to persuasively explain how bombing Syria prevents chemical weapons from being used again. Obama has attempted to get diplomatic cover for attacking Syria at the G-20, from the Arab League, at UN Security Council and from NATO. So far, Obama has failed to get a majority to even censure Assad.

Apparently, other countries noticed how UN Security Council resolutions criticizing Iraq got misinterpreted by the United States during the Bush administration.

If the goal is to keep poison gas from being used in Syria's civil war, I have a plan that I'm pretty sure will work. Of course, if the goal is to put the might of the U.S. military on the side of the rebels... well, that's a different project.