Tag Archives: freedom

Resign, or Resigned?

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The parents of a SEAL lost in Afghanistan, on seeing the butchery of ISIS and President Barack Obama’s decision not to respond, have written an open letter to him, via World Tribune. Here is their letter.

Billy and Karen Vaughn

After finally choosing to view the barbaric, on-camera beheading by ISIS of freelance war correspondent James Foley, I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace.

My offering was my only son—Aaron Carson Vaughn. Aaron was a member of SEAL Team VI. He was killed in action when a CH47D Chinook, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans was shot down in the Tangi River Valley of Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011.

Many times over the past three years, I have been asked what drove my son to choose his particular career. What made him want to be a Navy SEAL? My answer is simple.

Aaron Vaughn was a man who possessed the courage to acknowledge evil. And evil, once truly acknowledged, demands response. Perhaps this is why so few are willing to look it in the eye. It is much simpler—much safer—to look the other way.

That is, unless you are the leader of the Free World.

As Commander-in-Chief, your actions—or lack thereof—Mr President, cost lives. As you bumble about in your golf cart, slapping on a happy face and fist-pounding your buddies, your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole—not only in America’s security—but the security of the entire globe. Your message has come across loud and clear, sir: You are not up to this job. You know it. We know it. The world knows it.

Please vacate the people’s house and allow a man or woman of courage and substance to seize the reigns of this out-of-control thug-fest and regain the balance we, America, have provided throughout our great history.

Thanks to your “leadership” from whatever multi-million dollar vacation you happen to be on at any given moment, the world is in chaos. What’s been gained, you’ve lost. What’s been lost, you’ve decimated. You’ve demolished our ability to hold the trust of allies. You’ve made a mockery of the title “President.” And you’ve betrayed the nation for which my son and over 1.3 million others have sacrificed their very lives.

But this should come as no surprise, since your wife uttered a vile statement on Feb. 18, 2008, during the primary campaign—one that speaks volumes of your true convictions. “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country,” she said.

I am sure my deceased son thanks you for that, Mrs Obama. Oh, and you’re welcome.

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed such despair and such growing fear that the world’s last best hope, America, has finally been dismantled. Perhaps the better word is transformed—fundamentally transformed. Come to think of it, it’s become difficult—if not impossible—to believe things haven’t gone exactly as you planned, Mr President.

Amazingly, in five short years, your administration has lurched from one disaster to another. You spearheaded the ambitious rush to end the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan—with no plan on how to do so effectively. Also, the release of “the Taliban five” in exchange for one American—without consulting Congress—is also on your shoulders.

You have been at the helm during unprecedented national security leaks—including, but not limited to the outing of SEAL Team VI on the Bin laden raid, the outing of the Pakistani doctor who provided the intelligence for that raid, the outing of Afghanistan’s CIA station chief, and the outing of your personal “kill list” to make you look tough. In addition, 75 percent of American deaths in Afghanistan and 83 percent of Americans-wounded-in-action have occurred on your watch, according to icasualties.org.

And now, we have this recent, heinous event: the beheading of an American citizen by a barbaric organization you foolishly referred to as “the JV team” in your statements to the New Yorker magazine in January.

You, sir, are the JV team. It’s time for you to step down and allow a true leader to restore our honor and protect our sons and daughters.

America has always been exceptional. And she will be again. You, Mr President, are a bump in our road.

Obama’s decision not to respond is embodied in his speech and question/answer period while he was traveling in Estonia. While there, Obama said his goal was to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. A few short minutes later, he said his goal was to render ISIS a “manageable problem.”

 

h/t Power Line

About the Ukraine Crisis

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Zbigniew Brzezinski had some thoughts in Foreign Affairs. In 1994.

Insurance is needed against the possibility, one might even argue the probability, that the weight of history will not soon permit Russia to stabilize as a democracy, and that the single-minded cultivation of a partnership with Russia, while downgrading other interests, will simply accelerate the reemergence of an ominously familiar imperial challenge to Europe’s security….

The crucial issue here, one that might well come to a dramatic head in the course of 1994, is the future stability and independence of Ukraine. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire. American policymakers must face the fact that Ukraine is on the brink of disaster: the economy is in a free-fall, while Crimea is on the verge of a Russia-abetted ethnic explosion. Either crisis might be exploited to promote the breakup or the reintegration of Ukraine in a larger Moscow-dominated framework. It is urgent and essential that the United States convince the Ukrainian government, through the promise of substantial economic assistance, to adopt long-delayed and badly needed economic reforms. At the same time, American political assurances for Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity should be forthcoming.

Let’s see, now. Russia already has occupied Crimea, and it’s investing eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government has been trying to mend its ways and to join with, and learn from, the West, via its nascent alignment with the EU and its desire to join NATO.

And yet….

 

h/t The Wall Street Journal

In Which I Side with the “Liberal” Judges

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Regarding the NSA’s broad (much too broad, IMNSHO) surveillance of American citizens, the three judges hearing an appeal to the 2nd Circuit Appellate Court (Democrat appointees, all) expressed concern about that breadth. A Federal District Court had ruled the surveillance constitutional, and the ACLU is leading the appeal (and so I’m siding with that crowd, too, on this matter).

In an oral argument that was set for less than 30 minutes and lasted nearly two hours, three judges on a panel hearing the case at the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan probed claims by the ACLU that the federal government’s collection of data relating to “every phone call made or received by residents of the United States” is illegal and unconstitutional.

Indeed,

[Judge Gerard] Lynch asked how well briefed members of Congress were before voting, and questioned how much they understood about the program. At one point, [Judge Robert] Sack chimed in, “We don’t know what we don’t know” about NSA operations.

Lynch and [Judge Vernon] Broderick both questioned why the government’s justification for the bulk phone data collection program would not also extend to bank records, credit card transactions, and other personal data. Lynch asked if the government’s argument would not also entitle it to access “every American’s everything.”

It’s a fine line between the legitimate security needs of the Federal government if it’s to do the job for which we hired it—to protect us from foreign threats and from each other—on the one hand, and our individual liberty and responsibility on the other. Ben Franklin was right.

It’s necessary, also, to keep in mind that without our individual liberty and responsibility, we have no security. It matters not a whit whether we’d be enslaved by our own government or by a foreign power—we’d still be slaves.

Our Constitution has drawn that line: judge-issued warrants, on a showing of probable cause, are necessary to the legitimacy of the collection. These warrants also must be particular to the person and his property, and they also must be particular to the things being sought out. Fishing expeditions are not allowed.

True, “warrants” are sought in advance via a FISA court. But the FISA court is a secret court, a Star Chamber, no matter its currently good intentions. “Warrants” issued by it similarly are secret, which is to say, they don’t exist: they’re not public, and the person being “searched” under them has neither the ability to contest the warrant in court prior to its execution nor the ability to quash at trial the data discovered and/or seized. Nor can there be any guarantee that, given an ultimate victory, whether over an individual warrant that was discovered or over the process (the DC Circuit is hearing a similar appeal, and the thing is likely to find itself in front of the Supreme Court in the next session), the collected data actually will be expunged.

The 2nd Circuit’s case can be followed as American Civil Liberties Union v Clapper, 14-42, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

What Does Europe Owe Ukraine?

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The crisis in Eastern Europe…is now entering its 10th month. What began with the collapse of an association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine can now be called a war.

Emphasis added.

All Ukraine wanted was to be free. Free from Russia; free to chart its own course; free to begin to escape its own history of governmental corruption; free to align itself with, learn from the association, and perhaps to prosper in its freedom. The EU implied, with that agreed association, that it would help Ukraine work toward those goals, using that association and EU’s vasty trade market.

When the collapse of the agreement occurred, the Ukrainian people tossed the mendacious government that had collapsed it—and those people—in favor of returning to the Russian sphere; in retaliation against the Ukrainians’ making their wishes, their demands, their very sovereignty over government known, Russia invaded Ukraine. First, the Russians occupied Crimea and then partitioned Ukraine, incorporating Crimea into itself. Then the Russians invaded eastern Ukraine, initially by supplying arms and ammunition to Russian “separatists” already present in the region, then by supplying Russian soldiers “on holiday,” and now openly, driving a Russian held corridor through southern Ukraine stretching along Ukraine’s erstwhile Sea of Azov coast from Russia to Crimea.

What is Europe doing about this? They’re talking. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin 25-35 times, to engage in idle chit-chat. The EU has applied pinprick “economic sanctions.” They do not supply arms and ammunition. The openly say they will not supply troops—which Ukraine already has said they do not want, but still….

What is the value of Europe’s agreements when they dishonor the implications of an association agreement? Even the one that was signed by the government which the Ukrainian people put in place a couple short months ago?

Democracy People’s Republic of China Style

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And democracy Hong Kong style.

The PRC’s view of elections in its satrapy is that only candidates acceptable to the Communist Party of China can stand for office in Hong Kong. Indeed, the Deputy Secretary General of the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee, Li Fei, has said out loud that openly nominating candidates would create a “chaotic society.” He went further:

[R]ights come from laws, they don’t come from the sky. Many Hong Kong people have wasted a lot of time discussing things that are not appropriate and aren’t discussing things that are appropriate.

The contrast between freedom and tyranny could hardly be made more starkly clear.

Pursuant to Li’s remarks,

The…Standing Committee ruled that all candidates for chief executive must receive more than half of the votes from a special nominating body before going before voters.

And

[T]he 1,200-member nominating committee would select two or three candidates. After one is selected through universal suffrage, the chief executive-elect “will have to be appointed by the Central People’s Government.”

The good citizens of Hong Kong, though, have been holding massive demonstrations during the current run-up to the elections for governing positions there, demanding that actual democracy break out (as agreed by the PRC when the UK gave up Hong Kong to them at the end of the last century). These citizens demur from the PRC’s despotism.

Democracy, freedom, are messy and chaotic at times. That’s the price, and the strength, of free men working their way along a path of their own choosing, rather than suffering the order of government telling them what their path must be. The noisiness and seeming chaos are in the nature of every man being free, of every man having his say, of every man acting in his own time according to his own needs and wishes. It is a sign of a healthy society.

My suggestion, in the hubris associated with my position on the outside looking in: the citizenry should agree on a couple of candidates for the relevant posts—most particularly, for Chief Executive—and then, en masse, write those names in, and thereby elect one of them to each of those relevant posts. The citizens then should demand the PRC recognize that man as the Hong Kong Chief Executive and those men as the elects for those relevant posts.

Of course, such a prior arrangement is not different from what the Standing Committee has done, but as a one-time event to make an important statement and to make the PRC’s behavior internationally public, perhaps an exception can be made. After all, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is the citizens of Hong Kong’s right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

In such an event, extraordinary measures become necessary.