The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom
and individual liberty
"There is but
one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
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Outside View: Wrong again -- It ain't the war on terror
stupid!
By Harland
Ullman
Unspecific warnings last week about an al-Qaida
terrorist plot were taken very seriously. With the anniversary of September
11th looming and the tragic killing of U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, last
year still open political wounds in Washington, it was unsurprising that the
United States, Britain, and France ordered the closing of a score embassies and
posts throughout North Africa and the Middle East and issued travel warnings
for the region. In the United States initially, there was general bipartisan
support for the closings. Critics of the Obama administration were quick to
point out that the war on terror was far from over and pronouncing the
"decimation" of al-Qaida premature. As the word "decimation" was wrongly used yet again -- it
means a 10 percent degradation -- so too has been the collective failure by the
West to recognize the tectonic changes that are reshaping the international
geostrategic system far beyond the reach of al-Qaida and other terrorist
groups. Hence, the
counter-terrorism responses have been technical and tactical rather than
strategic and aren't addressing the forces that are dramatically altering the
nature of international politics.
In simple terms, al-Qaida is symptomatic of far
greater changes in the structure of the international system. The major enemy and adversary are no longer
states bent on disrupting or dominating the system despite those who see China
as a future foe. Instead, the more immediate danger rests in the dramatic
empowerment of individuals and groups, for good and sadly evil, often lumped
together as "non-state actors." Edward Snowden, Bradley
Manning, countless "hackers" and anonymous people mailing
anthrax-filled letters whose actions have indeed constituted real threats and
systemic disruptions are among the former. Al-Qaida and other radical groups
reflect the latter. In essence, the 365 year-old Westphalian
system that placed sovereign states as the centerpieces of international
politics is being tested and in some cases made obsolete by the empowerment of
individuals and non-state actors. As former national security adviser Brent
Scowcroft observes, global politics has entered a post-Westphalian era. But
very few have taken note and fewer have acted on this realization.
The fundamental cause of
this empowerment is the diffusion of all forms of power writ large commonly
called "globalization," accelerated by the information revolution and
instantaneous global communications and the real and perceived fragilities and
weaknesses of states to intervention, interference and disruption by
non-traditional actors. September
11th could become the demarcation point of this new era much as 1648 and the
Treaty of Westphalia marked the beginning
of the state-centric system of the international order. While the analogy
is loose, it won't take centuries for the effects of globalization and the end
or at least the transition of the Westphalian era to take hold. Beyond
this inflection point in international politics, still unabsorbed and
misunderstood by most governments and people, a second reality complicates
taking effective action in what could truly be a "new world order,"
the description coined by U.S. President George H.W. Bush after the implosion
of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago.
Failed and failing government from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe with
Brussels and Washington in between is the largest collective impediment to the
betterment of mankind.
Without an extraordinary
crisis, little is likely to be done to reverse or limit the damage imposed by
failed or failing governance. The United States is Exhibit A although there are
far too many competitors for that title.
However, the changing
Westphalian system can and must be addressed if there is to be any chance of
success in containing, reducing and eliminating the dangers posed by newly
empowered non-state actors. We have been here before. Sixty-eight years
ago this month, the nuclear age dawned over Hiroshima. Over time as nuclear and
especially thermonuclear weapons were seen as more than just extensions of
conventional munitions and potentially existential, a theory of deterrence
emerged. We are at similar juncture
regarding cyber where we lack an overarching understanding of the implications
and possible consequences of this domain. The first step as the Westphalian system faces profound
redefinition is understanding and recognizing that these shifts are under way.
From that appreciation, specific concepts and ideas can be fashioned to help
guide us on this journey. The path will be difficult and tortuous.
Politics and ideological preferences will confuse and distort clear vision. The
tendency to overreact, as occurred after September 11th and the Snowden and
Manning leaks, will collide with budget realities in which a great deal less
will be spent on national security. And because of the pernicious nature of the
U.S. system of government, finding institutions with the objectivity, courage
and perseverance to chart this new unknown won't be easy.
Yet this must be done.
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Obamacare
Provision: “Forced” Home Inspections by Joshua Cook
“Clearly, any family may
be visited by federally paid agents for almost any reason.” According to an
Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted. The Health
and Human Services’ website states
that your family will be targeted if you fall under the “high-risk” categories
below: Families where mom is not yet 21. Families where someone is a
tobacco user. Families where children have low student achievement,
developmental delays, or disabilities. Families
with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces,
including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had
multiple deployments outside the United States. There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to
be “eligible.” In 2011, the HHS announced $224 million will be given to support
evidence-based home visiting programs to “help parents and children.”
Individuals from the state will implement these leveraging strategies to
“enhance program sustainability.” Constitutional attorney and author Kent
Masterson Brown states, “This is not a
“voluntary” program. The eligible entity receiving the grant for performing the
home visits is to identify the individuals to be visited and intervene so as to
meet the improvement benchmarks. A homeschooling family, for instance,
may be subject to “intervention” in “school readiness” and “social-emotional
developmental indicators.” A farm family may be subject to “intervention” in
order to “prevent child injuries.” The
sky is the limit. Although the Obama
administration would claim the provision applies only to Medicaid families, the
new statute, by its own definition, has no such limitation. Intervention may be
with any family for any reason. It may also result in the child or children being
required to go to certain schools or taking certain medications and vaccines
and even having more limited – or no – interaction with parents. The
federal government will now set the
standards for raising children and will enforce them by home visits.”
Part of the program will require massive data collecting of private information
including all sources of income and the amount gathered from each source. A
manual called Child Neglect: A Guide for Prevention, Assessment, and
Intervention includes firearms as potential safety hazard and will require
inspectors to verify safety compliance and record each inspection into a
database.
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The Jihadis Are Alive and Well - Obama's Strategy
Promotes Terrorist Attack By Mark
Alexander
"A universal peace ... is in the
catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of
visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James
Madison (1792)
According to Adm. Mike Mullen, Barack Obama's former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "The
single, biggest threat to our national security is our debt." Indeed, the
"Obama debt bomb" dropped on America will inevitably lead to
insolvency, unless there is a resurgence of the economy or inflation, or both,
which might devalue that debt and defuse the bomb. (Of course, Obama never
mentions that threat in his unending campaign to tax and spend the nation into
bankruptcy.) But there is
another perilous hazard, which has been and remains more immediate than the
national debt threat.
As his approval ratings
continue to sink, Obama seeks to maintain the allegiance of his green
peacenik core constituency by trumpeting his ordered withdrawal from Iraq and
his pending ordered withdrawal from Afghanistan. He justifies these withdrawals by asserting that the risk of Islamic
terrorism is greatly diminished, though clearly, as soon as we withdrew from
Iraq, terror networks sprouted again. In
a high-profile May speech at the National Defense University, Obama framed his
perception of the war against terrorism, saying, "This war, like all wars, must end." "Al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on
the path to defeat," he insisted. "Their remaining operatives spend
more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us."
This assertion is a continuation of a recurring
political theme from his 2012 re-election campaign, when Obama said, "[W]orking with Joe Biden
and our national security team, we've been able to decimate al-Qa'ida. ...
Al-Qa'ida has been decimated, Osama bin Laden is dead." (Of course, that
same cynical campaign theme was precisely why his administration's political
operatives changed the narrative talking points about the Benghazi attack.)
However, despite his false and repetitive
contentions that al-Qa'ida was on its heels, on the ropes, in retreat and
decimated, Obama qualified those assertions in his NDU speech, noting, "What we've seen is the emergence of
various al-Qa'ida affiliates. From Yemen to Iraq, from Somalia to North Africa,
the threat today is more diffuse, with al-Qa'ida's affiliates in the Arabian
Peninsula -- AQAP -- the most active in plotting against our homeland." So
now the administration is
differentiating between "al-Qa'ida core," which was and remains a
network of terrorist organizations and cells linked primarily by an ideological
Islamist script, versus "al-Qa'ida affiliates," which are a network
of terrorist organizations and cells linked primarily by an ideological
Islamist script.
"This parsing
should be filed under "distinctions without a difference."
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