National Security Right vs. Anti-War Republicans, Pt. II

We've heard about Dick Cheney vs. Rand Paul, now let's introduce you to Michelle Malkin vs. Adam Kokesh, the anti-war, pro-Tea Party candidate for Congress in New Mexico. Former Reason intern Jeremy Lott has some details, over at The Guardian:

Malkin wrote that the organisation that Kokesh is part of, Iraq Veterans Against the War, had a membership that included "bomb-threat bullies and death-threat nutballs who threatened to assassinate me," as well as "fake army vet Jesse MacBeth". She charged that Kokesh was "arrested for defacing signs and travelled to Germany to urge soldiers to abandon their posts … He is an anti-war smear merchant in GOP clothing."

Kokesh, a retired marine who was involved in the first battle of Fallujah, denied the charges. […]

[H]eading into the New Mexico state GOP nominating convention last weekend, Kokesh refused to give an inch. "I'm running for office to continue my oath to the constitution that I swore when I joined the Marine Corps," he said. He aims to "take all the powers" the federal government has "taken on illegally" and "at very least, restore a republican form of government."

Some polling indicates that Kokesh has a shot to win the seat currently held by Democrat Ben Ray Luján, but first he has to get the nomination and that could be a problem with prominent conservatives like Malkin pushing against him. "Obviously I'm not a party line Republican," said Kokesh, in the understatement of the week.

The aforementioned GOP nominating convention has now taken place, and so far the Republican Party is refusing to place Kokesh on the ballot, because he received 19.5 percent of the vote, and state law requires 20. But wait! Democratic candidate Joe Campos, who received 19.7 percent of his party's vote, has earned a slot on the ballot, by virtue of the party choosing to round up. More on the subject, including Kokesh/truther accusations, from Reason Contributing Editor David Weigel.

Reason on Kokesh here.

Comments

[Fluffy]

You really shouldn't give that racist slime Malkin any publicity or links.

[darjen]

my impression was that most of the tea partiers favored global militarism. perhaps that is true... but this is still encouraging to see some bucking the war establishment.

[Aelhues]

She's a racist? Really? Based on what?

I've been loosely following Malkin for a few years now, and I've never read anything racist from her. I disagree with her from time to time, but that's true of everyone I've ever met.

[Fluffy]

The thesis of In Defense of Internment is racist.

Her thesis in that work is that if one or two of the Japanese interned during WWII actually were spies, the internment of all of the rest was justified.

Anyone who argues that punishing thousands of people of a given race for the actions of one or two members of that race is justified is a racist. It's actually one of the more virulent and pernicious ways to be a racist. She hands out collective racial guilt and defends collective racial punishment.

[Aelhues]

I haven't read the book, and I'm guessing you haven't either. However after quickly trying to gather the point, it sounds to me as though she argued that there were no pleasant options, and this may have been the best one in light of a fairly possible invasion. Additionally, (I'm not terribly familiar with the facts here), there is the point that, it wasn't just the Japanese, 11,229 but, 10,905 German citizens, 3,728 Italian citizens.

My point is that if you've read the book, you have me at a disadvantage on this particular issue, but I see no other evidence that she is racist, and from what I can tell, you are objecting to her opinion that profiling is not always wrong, not so much that she is racist.

[Michelle Malkin]

Oh, and I forgot to mention all those children he molested when he was the leader of the Branch Davidians.

[John]

I don't know anything about Mr. Kokesh. But reading that flier he seems to think we dropped the atomic bomb on Japan out of racism, which is complete fucking nonsense. Since Kokesh is a historical illiterate, I really couldn't care less about his views on the War or much of anything else.

[B]

I don't know whether Japan was bombed strictly out of racism, but atomic bombing wasn't necessary to end the war.

...two days prior to Roosevelt's departure for Yalta, the president received a crucial, forty page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from highly placed Jap officials offering surrender terms which were virtually identical to the ones eventually dictated by the Allies to the Japanese in August.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p508_Hoffman.html

[John]

That is bullshit. The Japanese refused to surrender. There surrender terms were ridiculous. They wanted to keep the Army and military in power. No war crimes trials, no change in government. That was unacceptable. That left us two options, invade and suffer upwards of a million casualties with no guarantee we would even win, or drop the bomb. If Truman had let the militarists still in power in Japan or invaded and killed a million Americans when he had the ability to use the bomb, he would have been hung. The Japanese left the allies no choice but to use the bomb.

[I, Kahn O'Clast]

The Japanese were fairly well dehumanized in the eyes of the American people by the end of the war.... I have no doubt that the decision to drop the Bomb on them was an easier one than dropping the same on, say, Berlin. It is not clear that we needed to destroy 2 cities, and it's not clear that we really needed to target that many people. That we did may well have a "racist" component: Japs were not human.

Keep in mind that while we did put the Japanese in camps, we never rounded up Germans or Italians.

[John]

Of course we also flattened Germany and inflicted millions of civilian casualties. If you read Oppenheimer's biography he says that they never had any issues with building the bomb to stop Hitler. People hated the Germans just as much as they hated the Japanese. You don't level cities because you are so concerned about the enemy. Our bombings of Germany were just as destructive as the A-bomb was. It just didn't happen all at one time.

[wylie]

Our bombings of Germany were more destructive than the A-bomb was. It just didn't happen all at one time.

FTFY. hell, the firebombing of tokyo killed more people than the two A-bombs (in immediate deaths at least.)

[dwcarkuff]

If there is any moral justification on earth for massacring entire cities full of innocents and "non-combatants" as we are wont to refer to ordinary citizens these days I would sure like to know what it might be.

[AlmightyJB]

"If there is any moral justification on earth for massacring entire cities full of innocents and "non-combatants" as we are wont to refer to ordinary citizens these days I would sure like to know what it might be."

Reduces Health Care Costs and Alleviates Global Warming. Silly wabbit.

[Cuff the dork!]

If there is any moral justification on earth for massacring entire cities full of innocents and "non-combatants" as we are wont to refer to ordinary citizens these days I would sure like to know what it might be.

How about this? "These 'innocents' are still building the weapons, spreading the propaganda, and worshiping at the altar of the state that brought us such glorious acts of heroism as the Bataan Death March, the rape of Nanking, and this bloody Pacific war they've sworn to pursue to its bitter end. Dare we give up all our progress against their hellish efforts now just because we're too squeamish to massacre a few civilians because they're not directly responsible for these atrocities?"

How about this? "If we have to invade, we'll be forced to expend hundreds of thousands or possibly even millions of our troops to slaughter every last one of these 'innocents' in hand-to-hand encounters as these fanatics order even very small children to take up guns and grenades against us. Compare that to a couple of bombs that we have reason to hope will crush their will to fight while only wiping out a couple of their cities/military installations. If not, at the very least we won't have to expend the lives of our troops getting the job done." (Did you know Nagasaki was actually a secondary target? The bomb was originally intended for the military base at Yokohama, but the bomber's navigator couldn't find it through the heavy clouds.)

How about this? "We know the Japanese are lying when they say they want peace. We saw how they lied about this at the very beginning, sending us diplomats to talk about peace even as they sent their bombers to attack Pearl Harbor. Why would that change now? Our top secret intelligence even confirms that they've told everyone else they intend to fight us to the bitter end. Can we really trust a word they say? No, our only hope of bringing this war to anything less than the bloodiest of conclusions is to crush their wills with our new super-weapon and make good on our demand for full and unconditional surrender so that we can demilitarize them for good."

Were these more rational times, you self-righteous pacifism-at-any-price revisionist blowhards would all be laughed out of academia, pilloried in the press, and derided for the vapid and spineless morons you are everywhere you go. Actually, your former allies on the left already do that, although only behind your backs for now. You idiots were mighty useful to them back when they were scoring political points for their agenda by attacking everything our military did.

[Jonas]

I love when people justify the American military's actions by pointing to how it's not really that much worse than all the other awful shit we've done.

"WHO FUCKING CARES IF WE OBLITERATED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN JAPAN?!?!? WE FLATTENED GERMANY AND INFLICTED MILLIONS OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES THERE, TOO, SO IT ALL EVENS OUT, BITCHES."

[Bonas]

How about the awful shit you pacifists have done? You sold out Poland and Czechoslovakia in the name of peace, because who cares about a few million kikes and polacks and other easterners with funny names anyway? Now some of you are trying to tell us that Hitler wasn't really that evil, that our cruel economic oppression of Japan is what drove those wonderfully peaceful people to rape China and massacre millions of its people, and oh, aren't we so mean to go nuking two of those Japanese cities like just because they vowed to fight on to the bitter end even after we'd blasted most of the rest of their war effort into oblivion?

You pacifists are treasonous scum, and the blood of all the people you're still screaming against fighting to liberate is on your hands forever. Dropping the bomb was merely a morally necessary thing to do, but the fact that known liars and traitors like you oppose that decision now makes it look downright heroic in retrospect.

[Gene Berkman]

Actually, many antiwar libertarians warned about the threat that Hitler posed, while the British & French governments - led by Conservatives & socialists, respectively - signed the Munich Pact.

The Munich Pact was signed at a time when Czechoslovakia could have defended themselves. It was not pacifists that prevented that - it was British & French diplomacy.

After America entered the War, President Roosevelt ignored the Nazi barbarism against the Jews in Europe. Winning the war came firs. A resolution in Congress to provide refuge for Jews escapeing Europe was co-sponsored by, among others, Sen Robert Taft, Sen Ed Johnson, and Sen William Langer - all had opposed getting into the war before Pearl Harbor.

[Kiwi Dave]

The RAF under Bomber Harris took a more sanguinary approach to bombing German cities than the Americans did to bombing Japan. I think there is little question that Britain (whose nuclear research program was more advanced than America's until the later stages of the war) would've used nukes against Germany if it had them.

[Isaac Bartram]

Actually, we did intern thousands of German and Italian nationals during WWII.

The difference in the treatment of the Japanese lay in the fact that American citizens of japanese descent were "relocated"* away from the West Coast to the interior.

There would be far less of a grievance if internment had been limited to Japanese nationals only.

Interestingly enough, in Hawaii itself, where sabotage and espionage were genuine dangers (the islands were a hotbed of Japanes spy networks), the only Japanese rounded up were ones actually suspected of any hostile activity.

*The preferred government euphemism for the program.

[B]

Douglas MacArthur disagrees:

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

[John]

McArthur was willing to live with a "surrender" that left the army intact and the same government in power. No one else was.

[Kiwi Dave]

John, don't waste your breath. "B" is linking to the "Institute for Historical Review," a neo-Nazi "Holocaust revisionist" website. I think this is an indication of where he's coming from.

[B]

My fault for not google-ing better. I'm not a neo-nazi, but apparently the people at the Institute for Historical Review may be. Is this better?

[Kiwi Dave]

Not a big fan of Rockwell (and he has an agenda, being against American involvement in WWII, as well as the Civil War), but a whole lot better than the IHR.

[wylie]

Against American involvement in the Civil War. That is one hell of a ballsy position to take.

[J sub D]

We dropped "The Bomb" on Japan to send a message to our allies of convenience, the Soviet Union.

[Kiwi Dave]

Bollocks. It may have had that side effect, but if you've read any decent historical analysis about the prospects of Operations Coronet and Olympic actually succeeding, and the projected death tolls (on both sides), and the only other option for obtaining unconditional surrender (which was a naval blockade resulting in the mass starvation of the Japanese people over the course of 2-3 years), you would admit that Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- atrocious as they were -- were probably the least terrible option.

Anyway, if it did make Stalin a bit more circumspect about his post-war expansionist plans, are you saying that's a bad thing? In any event, the historical evidence suggests Stalin was quite skeptical about the strategic game-changing capabilities of nukes post-Hiroshima.

[k-y]

"Anyway, if it did make Stalin a bit more circumspect about his post-war expansionist plans, are you saying that's a bad thing?"

No, he's saying it's the thing.

"In any event, the historical evidence suggests Stalin was quite skeptical about the strategic game-changing capabilities of nukes post-Hiroshima."

And that would have altered the decision making process in the U.S. how, exactly? Time travel?

[Gene Berkman]

The Soviet expansion into East Europe, north Korea and the Middle East (invading Iran) took place between the bombing of Nagasaki and the development of the Soviet atomic bomb(with stolen secrets from the US)

Apparently bombing Japan did not have the effect of tempering Stalin's expansionism.

[Vanya]

Typical American myopia. The Japanese were on their last legs in August 1945. What Americans forget (or seem to be completely ignorant of) is that the Russians had just routed the Japanese army in Manchuria, had captured the Kuril islands and Sakhalin. The Russians were days away from landing on Hokkaido. So the Japanese would have surrendered fairly quickly even without the bomb. The reason we used the bomb, really, was to show the Soviets we had it, and to urge the Japanese to surrender before the Russians landed on Hokkaido. Had we not used the bomb there's a very good chance we'd have a "North Japan" and a "South Japan" today just like Korea. Given that alternative, you can probably argue the A-Bomb was in the best interests of Japan, something the Japanese will never admit. (Although, some historians argue it was only the Russian threat that drove the Emperor to surrender, and that the bomb had no impact on his decision whatsoever. It really isn't clear just how much the Japanese high command really understood about the bomb at the time).

[John]

Bullshit. The Japanese still had an army of over a million. It was very easy to figure out how the US was going to invade. The Japanese had doubled the number of divisions they had in the area where we planned to launch operation Olympic. They also planned to arm every civilian. Through out the entire war the US had always had numerical superiority for our amphibious invasions. We wouldn't have for Operation Olympic. They would have probably kicked our asses. If they hadn't it would have been a slaughter that made Omaha beach look like a picnic.

Further, the US was on its last legs. We were on our fourth war bond campaign. We were also running out of infantry. There was serious talk that the divisions coming over from Europe might mutiny. We were seriously worried that our infantry wouldn't fight like it had in the past.

The Japanese had no reason to surrender. They still had a huge army and a secure Island. The only alternative was a starvation blockade that would have killed millions of Japanese. The atomic bomb was the only option.

[Libertymike]

John, you are reaching. To assert that the US was on its "last legs" is silly, particularly in relation to Japan's capabilities. As in industrial capacity. As in farm production. As in the number of airplanes, tanks, guns, grenades, and men.

[Kiwi Dave]

It may be exaggerating to say that the US was on its last legs, but it is no exaggeration to say that the invasion of Japan would have been touch and go (to say the least).

Again, in no way minimizing the horror of the use of nuclear weapons, as of 1945 I think we can say that they were the least bad option. Certainly, I cannot see any course of action that would have lead to a better outcome: unconditional surrender without the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers or millions of Japanese civilians (through invasion or starvation); no Korea-style partition of Japan into communist and non-communist spheres; and most amazingly of all, the transformation of Japan in just a few short decades from a crazed militarist Bushido cult to one of the most peaceful and prosperous societies on Earth. This is nothing to sneeze at.

[Vanya]

John, the Soviet Union had 1.5 million troops on the Pacific Front in August 1945. Are you not going to address that fact?

I'll quote Wikipedia at you
"Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings were not the principal reason for Japan's capitulation. He argues it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories on the mainland in the week following Joseph Stalin's August 8 declaration of war that forced the Japanese message of surrender on August 15, 1945.[18] Others with similar views include The "Battlefield" series documentary,[2] Drea,[14] Hayashi,[15] and numerous others, though all, including Hasegawa, state that the surrender was not due to any single factor or single event."

Hasegawa probably overstates his case, but for you to pretend that the USSR played no role in Japan's decision is either ignorant or dishonest.

[k-y]

That's not what he's pretending. He's pretending that the U.S. military was, is and always will be a righteous machine bent on peace and justice.

[Gene Berkman]

"The Japanese refused to surrender..." No, they just refused (until Hiroshima) to accept "unconitional surrender" as an option.

The main condition they wanted was for the Emperor to be left on the throne. After the mass killings at Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Japan surrendered and the Emperer retained the throne.

It is well known by now that the Japanese government attempted to get a message to the Americans through the Russian embassy, that they were ready to lay down their arms. After the Russian embassy in Tokyo informed the Kremlin, Stalin declared war on Japan and took the northern Islands and north Korea, and the Russians did not send the message on to the Americans.

[Mike]

That may be, but the decision to surrender rested with the Supreme Council, and they refused until the Emperor eventually broke the stalemate after the second bomb. That's well-documented by both sides.

[Pro Libertate]

Hindsight is more than 20/20. We were tired of the aggressive shit, we were used to killing people by the tens of thousands, and we had no experience with atomic weapons. Do I think dropping both bombs was absolutely necessary? Not really. Am I surprised that we did it? Not at all. But it's really no more immoral than firebombing general population centers, which accounted for a whole lot more death and destruction.

Total war is bad, m'kay? Which is why we need to act in smart ways to avoid its necesssity.

[PM770]

Why does it get ignored that the Japanese Supreme Council was vigourously debating surrender AFTER the A-Bombs were dropped? To assume they were ready to unconditionally surrender (and it would have been madness for the US to accept anything less) before the bombs is nonsense.

While the thought that the A-Bombs ultimately saved Japenese lives can be debated, there can be absolutely no doubt that it saved US military lives.

[wylie]

Target selection aside, the A-bomb had to be used. We had to see it in action to keep us from being cavalier with nukes.

Imagine if the 1st nuke to go off had been one of the cold-war, MIRV editions. Thanks to MAD, there'd be noone left now to talk about how horrible it was.

Thankfully, the cold-war was restrained by the knowledge of just how utterly horrible using those weapons would be. MAD as a defense strategy just wouldn't have worked without that.

[Kiwi Dave]

True. At the time, people knew about the force of the blast, but no-one really had a clue about how bad fallout could be (under plans for Operation Olympic, Allied troops would be marching through nuked areas hours after bombing -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.....ar_weapons).

[nekoxgirl]

Does it really matter what he thinks about dropping the atom bomb on the Japs? I watched the Democrats and Republicans re-fight the Vietnam War in 2004. Are we going to have to re-fight WWII too?

[Alan Vanneman]

Poor Michelle! She's got "anti-war smear merchant in GOP clothing" Kokesh to the left of her and immigrant-loving, McCain-endorsing Dick Armey to the right of her. What's a poor tea-party gal to do? I hate to see a fellow Oberlin graduate in such agony.

[SugarFree]

Did you really graduate from Oberlin?

[Warty]

Oberlin? Christ, it explains so much. Shut the fuck up, Vanneman.

[John]

This guy seems to be a bit concerned about racism. Okay. But he also claims he wants to bring back the Republic and end illegal federal power. So is he willing to end federal discrimination laws and shut down the EEOC?

I don't know, just asking.

[JohnJ]

It's not unreasonable to believe that federal laws aren't the best way to fight racism.

[John]

No its not. But, a lot of anti-federalists change their tune when their sacred cow gets gored. I would be curious what this guy has to say about that.

[ev]

This school boy was always taught that .5 rounded up. Just sayin'.

[Ragin Cajun]

Only if it rounds to an even number. Which, in this case, it would.

[Some dude]

I learned that in school, too. But I have never heard that since. I thought my teacher was perpetuating a myth.

[Art-P.O.G.]

I didn't remember the even number caveat, but as you say, it's a moot point here.

[Timon19]

What?

[Ragin Cajun]

Called unbiased rounding, since if you do it for a set of numbers, the rounding errors tend to cancel.

[Isaac Bartram]

The standard practice is to round x.5 up.

There are, however cases where doing so would result in errors when totalling the numbers.

Hence, in fields where lots of rounded numbers are being totalled (eg, accounting, Land Surveying etc) x.5 is rounded to even numbers.

[Bingo]

This is the problem with working in an existing party framework to install pro-liberty candidates: the framework doesn't want you and won't cooperate.

[John]

No. The problem is you have a guy who talks the language of the left that turns off a whole lot of people. Gary Johnson is anti-war and he seems to do okay. If this guy would just lay off the "stop America's racist war" and stop pissing on World War II veterans claiming the A bomb was racism, he would probably get somewhere.

[Citizen Nothing]

News to you, John: The language of the right turns off just as many people.

[John]

Saying that America is a racist country that only engages in wars out of racism turns off a lot more people. All this guy does is confirm people's worst prejudices about Libertarians; that they are just a bunch of hard lefties pretending to like free markets.

[Citizen Nothing]

And other folks might say that you help confirm that Libs are just hard righties who like drugs.

[John]

I am not a fan of drugs. I just don't think I should pay a dime of taxes to keep degenerates from doing them.

[Citizen Nothing]

Heh heh. That's what all you dope fiends say.

[Art-P.O.G.]

I don't agree with Kokesh on everything, but he's a hell of a lot more interesting and promising than the status quo. I'd vote for him. Basically, I agree with what Bingo said.

[Soonerliberty]

I came to libertarianism from a conservative background, so I can understand John's points. It's just that conservatives don't understand the libertarian argument: free markets are the enemy of war. The best way to secure America is with free markets, not all out war against everyone. The military and police have become religious icons for conservatives. If you question their policies, they claim you are anti-American. I would say that conservatives are a bunch of statist progressives who pretend to like free markets but would sacrifice it all for a moral tyranny and massive military. How do you think you fund that military?

[John]

Yeah, because military action has never solved anything or stopped any forces of anti-freedom. If we never would have had the evil military, slavery would have solved itself and the twin evils of fascism and communism would have never touched America or anywhere else out of kindness I guess.

I would love to think like many Libertarians. It would be so nice to live in a world where no one would ever be a threat to me or this country if only we were peaceful enough. It would be wonderful to live in a world where you civilization's ability to defend itself with the gun largely determined its long term survival. Sadly, that world doesn't exist.

[Soonerliberty]

First, the Civil War was not begun to end slavery. It was a secondary consequence. It is only a myth that we perpetuate today to justify the North raping and pillaging the South to "preserve the Union." We canonize a war that was undertaken purely out of tyrannical intentions.

Secondly, there is ample evidence that slavery would have ended anyways without the war. It wasn't economically viable anymore. It is cheaper to pay a man a little bit of money so he can take care of himself than to house, feed, and clothe him. This is why chattel slavery was dying all over the world long before vacuous emancipation proclamations.

Thirdly, you cannot compare WWII and the Cold War. One was a war, one was not. Even if you consider those both to be wars, then why did we win? It wasn't because of some religious belief in a military state. The Soviets had that. We won because the productive forces of a 60% free market were too much for a 0% free market country to contend with. This is why libertarians believe that a free market is better able and freer to defend itself than any other system. The productive forces it unleashes would fund new technologies and equipment the enemy could only dream of.

Fourthly, libertarians understand that the world is dangerous, which is why we believe in self-defense. It seems liberals don't even accept that. However, we think that free markets give us the best chance to defend ourselves.

[Fluffy]

I would just like to say that you can't automatically equate so-called isolationism and pacifist.

I support maintaining our nuclear arsenal and our qualitative conventional armaments advantage.

And if a foreign nation employed a weapon of mass destruction against the United States or one of its allies, I would endorse a full-scale retaliatory strike on the Eisenhower model.

And I would have been perfectly happy to have the US fight its way through every last Afghani to get at Osama bin Laden in 2001.

I just don't see the wisdom or morality of maintaining a vast overseas system of dependent client states. I especially find it foolhardy to maintain such a system and then scratch your head in befuddlement when its victims don't like the United States and want to attack us or harm us.

[Fluffy]

Sorry, that should say "pacifism", of course.

[qwerty]

Well said.

[qwerty]

That was for John.

[Fluffy]

stop pissing on World War II veterans claiming the A bomb was racism

I actually agree with you about the propriety of the use of the 2 Japan bombs, but I fail to see how the people who disagree with us about the subject are pissing on WWII veterans.

Ultimately we're talking about a moral judgment about the decision of a single man. Not one of those WWII veterans is responsible for the use of the bombs. Truman was, solely, and he's dead.

So disputing the bomb decision pisses on Truman. But nobody else.

[Solely on the American side, at least. The Japanese were also responsible, of course.]

[John]

Fair enough. That was probably not good language on my part.

[Chris]

Agreed. I generally think of Libertarians as more or less centrists who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal (again, this is a wide sweeping generality). Aligning with either side is a foolish venture because ultimately there is too much we don't share with either of the established parties which only serves to weaken our position. Republinuts (and Demotards for that matter, though it seems that wexare less likely to align with them) are only interested in Libertarians insofar as we are able to help them with their agenda.

They have zero interest in our quest for freedom and we should not be used as a tool to gain entry.

It seems to me the best way to infiltrate DC we need to coax the majority of R and D who are NOT strict party line voters (I still don't quite understand how it is that we allow the hardline Right and Left to control our political system) to vote for Liberty, not try and sneak it through the front door under the guise of something it isn't. Liberty has no place in the R or D party. They have both amply shown they are against it and trying to bring Liberty through them seems to me utterly pointless.

[nekoxgirl]

The easiest converts would be the anti-war Left. If we could somehow get them to understand that they can't have a huge welfare state without dealing with the aspects of statism they don't like (endless war) we might could get somewhere.

[Aelhues]

This point is completely baffling to me. I'm conservative'ish. I'm somewhat isolationist, with the caveat that swift and powerful retaliation is not only called for but necessary to promote our security. I see conservative thought, as wanting a constitutional republic with as minimal as is reasonable federal government, leaving as much power as possible in the hands of the people and states. In most ways I agree with libertarians on almost every area, except in specific philosophical areas.

Point being that I know a lot of the Republicans that frequent sites like Malkins, think in similar ways to me, and would feel comfortable on sites like this if they toned down some of the derision for the right. Where as the anti-war left, doesn't seem to get freedom and liberty at all. I don't see how they'd be even bordering on easy converts. I don't know how many times I've heard the constitution completely dismissed, and limited government (when talking about social issues), completely scoffed at, while talking with anti-war lefties.

[Chris]

Conservatives in the Republican vein have no interest in anything other than their own form of a big gment nanny state. Rather than taxing for HCRlike plans, they tax to fund the drug war and religious persecution and anti-homosexuality and whatever other moral agenda they have. There is a heck of a lot more to freedom than not supporting social welfare systems.

They are no more for freedom than your average leftie.

[Chris]

I'm not sure there are any easy converts. Most are stuck on stupid with their big government ideas. On one side we have fools who think that the government should provide for us all (by robbing us via taxes galore), the other thinks they need to protect us from ourselves via various forms of prohibitions simply because they don't approve.

They are chipped from the same big government rock.

[Citizen Nothing]

If you ever get a chance to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum at ground zero, take it.

[Ragin Cajun]

I concur, but are you agreeing with this "A-bomb = racism" claim?

[Citizen Nothing]

No. I don't agree that dropping the bomb was a racist decision, although I'm still of two minds about the wisdom of using it.

[Citizen Nothing]

Maybe the LP can offer him a spot, thereby tipping the vote to the Dem. The Republicans must be punished hard when this shit happens.

[John]

Why can't the libertarians find someone who is not part of the get the US Out of North America Party? Seriously, it would be one thing if he was just a straight isolationist. Or said that we are fighting the war in the wrong way. But he goes way beyond that. He is claiming that we only invaded Iraq because we are racist. He can go fuck himself with that shit. He need to go join the multicultural America is evil left where he belongs.

[Citizen Nothing]

Actually, he says "racism is inevitable when we go to war with people ethnically different from us."
Arguable, but not outlandish.
And why do you think we invaded Iraq, John? Serious question. Faulty intelligence plus hubris is my take.

[John]

Definitely faulty intelligence. I think they thought that they could knock off the head and Iraq would then become a forceful US ally in the region. They totally underestimated how bad of condition the country was in and how long and hard it was going to be to turn the country around. It looks like we have succeeded in doing that, but it was nothing like they thought it was going to be.

As far as his point, yes he does make a subtly different point. And to some degree he is right. The people on the ground getting shot at, surprisingly tend to not to like the people who are shooting at them. I would make two points in response. First, I personally don't see any evidence in the Iraq vets I know, and I know a lot of them, that they are any more racist now than they were before the war. Indeed, where is the evidence that they are? Have there been a rise hate crimes by vets against Arabs? Or anything of that sort? Second, even if they were more racist, I see no evidence of how that is worked its way up to affect overall US policy. In the end at best he is left with a pretty mundane point that some people come home from wars not liking the enemy.

[Citizen Nothing]

I think there may be a racism of circumstance at play. Surrounded by enemies of a certain color, one is likely to see all those of a certain color as the enemy, no?
But upon returning home, the soldier might me no more racist than the next guy.
Perhaps the "circumstantial racism" should be called something else.

[Fluffy]

I don't think the statement "racism is inevitable when we go to war with people ethnically different from us" applies only to the troops, John.

Has there been an increase in anti-Arab bias in the US since the year 2000?

[John]

Has there been? God knows if there was, in the form of noticeable hate crimes, the media would have covered it. I haven't seen it. There was one incident of violence after 9-11 involving ironically enough a Sikh in Arizona.

And whatever increase in prejudice has happened has a hell of a lot more to do with Arabs killing 2800 Americans on 9-11 than it does with the war in Iraq. Again, this clown is left with the pretty mundane point that when one group of people go and murder a bunch of another group, the second group can sometimes get angry about it. BFD.

[Fluffy]

The very fact that you call it a mundane claim would seem to indicate that you concede that it is a true claim.

So let's put a checkmark down here to note that John officially agrees with the candidate on this point.

*Check*

[Fluffy]

I find it a little amusing that you started out by damning the guy because you misrepresented his point - it was pointed out that you misrepresented it - so now you're damning the guy because you think the point is a mundane and trivial observation.

So you were pissed when you thought he was making an outrageous misstatement - and pissed when you thought he was uttering a truism.

So you're basically just bound and determined to be pissed here. Right?

[John]

"So you were pissed when you thought he was making an outrageous misstatement - and pissed when you thought he was uttering a truism.

So you're basically just bound and determined to be pissed here. Right?"

No. I am not pissed at all. I just think this guy is a nut and a fake. His points are untrue, exaggerated and even if they were true completely mundane. He is slandering the entire country based on these bullshit ideas.

[John]

I also would point out that you miss my entire point. To the extent that there has been an increase in racism, it is because Arabs murdered a bunch of Americans. Yet, this guy still blames the United States for the increase in racism. Why the fuck isn't he giving classes in Saudi Arabia explaining all of the ill will they have created?

[John]

I don't agree with it at all. I think this guy is a shitbag. I am saying that even if he is right, the point doesn't prove much.

[Fluffy]

His points are untrue, huh?

We did kill lots of Native Americans.

We did kill lots of Filipinos.

We did intern Japanese Americans.

Racism indisputably played a huge role in each of those events. [I use the term "event" loosely, since naturally the killing of Native Americans took place over centuries.]

I tend to think that the other events he lists had root causes that weren't race-related - but the very indisputability of the first three makes it understandable that many observers would see a racial element in these events, too.

I don't think even you think that the first three events aren't true, John. You just don't think they're important. You think that focusing on them or even just remembering them distorts history, and that this makes the people who do it America-hating multiculturalist assholes.

Since the United States was an improvement on what came before, who cares if some shitbag Indians died? = your attitude. It pisses you off that anyone else cares, or talks about it, because you think that's not "balanced". "We should be talking about the greatness of America!" yadda yadda yadda. "Talking about these things undermines us in front of our enemies, who are even worse!" yadda yadda yadda. And I understand why you think that. But the true is the true is the true.

[John]

I never commented on the Indians. Of course we whacked the Indians out of racism. But that was also 150 years ago. As far as the interning of the Japanese, that is about 1/1000th of the crime that Jim Crow and slavery were. And again it was also 70 years ago now. And I would also add that that horrible federal government this guy is so pissed about, did a hell of a lot to end Jim Crow and a whole lot of real racism in this country. He wants a Republic but if we had a Republic like he wanted things would probably be a lot worse for black people in the South today.

The question is, what do you want to do about it now? Is America so tainted with blood that it has no right to exist? Is it so tainted with blood that it has no right to act in self defense and only the worst motives can be assumed for any of its actions? Are all of the good that America has brought into the world to be forgotten?

In the end, what is this clown's point? I don't see how running around yelling "we killed the Indians therefore the Iraq war is wrong" is much of a serious point. He claims to be a "patriot". But he spends his entire life obsessed only with America's past sins. He really is the get the US Out of North America Crowd. Sorry, but I am not buying any of that.

[John]

In the end Fluffy, what does any of that shit have to do with Iraq or the questions at hand? I would say nothing. And this guy just brings it up because in his view the US can't ever do anything right.

[Fluffy]

I think that remembering these events is useful because it's very easy to get people to agree to embark on moral crusades that involve butchering people overseas if they see their own history as a parade of righteousness.

"We're America, and we're spreading the way of truth and light in the world!"

Trotskyitism of the neoconservative variety or of your variety is difficult to maintain psychologically for people who remember occasions on which the moralizing slogans had dubious or problematic results.

And that's the thing about it that galls you the most. When you write Is it so tainted with blood that it has no right to act in self defense? what I actually read is, "If I don't shout down all the people who talk about what we did to the Indians, people might hesitate when I ask them to kill a few hundred thousand Iranians! Stop talking about that historical shit!"

[John]

Oh that horseshit Fluffy and you know it. You act like there is never a legitimate threat to the US. You act like everyone who sees a threat just wants to go kill brown people. That is bullshit. Maybe you think the Iranian regime is wonderful and would never do anything aggressive. I hope you are right. But I find their threats to be credible and their regime to be a serious problem. And it is not because I have love of killing Iranians. When you accuse me of just wanting to kill Iranians, it is you that is avoiding debate. And in fact you are just avoiding reality. You would rather live in a fantasy world where only Americans are capable of evil and only "neo conservatives, Trotskites and hoarders" are capable of evil and are responsible for all wars in the world than face the cruel reality that there are people in the world who really hate our guts and mean us harm.

I only hope that the country is lucky enough to avoid confrontation and avoid waking your from your dreams. Because your dream world sounds a lot more pleasant than reality. Sadly, it is still just as much of a fantasy. And you keep it to avoid arguing the facts. Easier just to claim everyone who disagrees with you is a racist killer.

[Fluffy]

You act like there is never a legitimate threat to the US. You act like everyone who sees a threat just wants to go kill brown people.

I don't think that everyone who sees a threat to the US in Iran is motivated by racism. Probably only a very small minority are.

I do think, though, that on balance the dispute between Iran and the US is the fault of the US, if we consider the entire history of the region and not just cherry-picked events. In fact, by the maxim of our actions, we have no grounds to be angry with Iran at all.

So although we may not be motivated by racism, we are definitely motivated by a parochialism that sees the US as always moral, always in the right, incapable of error, incapable of deception or misrepresentation, etc.

I am not attempting to argue that the racism in the US' past proves that we're racist today, and that this somehow means that our Iran policy is motivated by racism.

I am arguing, however, that:

1. Our history is more morally problematic than you acknowledge [other than in grudging asides];

2. As a result, we should pause in lengthy contemplation before we engage in overseas crusades we believe are founded on our unique moral righteousness.

[John]

I don't disagree with points 1 and 2. But I think Kokesh would take those points a lot farther.

[$]

I am normally with Fluffy, but here I am with John: this guy talks like a moronic postmodern-educated communist. Shouting about the United States being a "racist country" is an insult to the vast number of presently-living people who are decidedly not racist, and mostly even actively anti-racist. Hell, we have a government that invalidates contractual agreements that might even have a hint of racism.

Booming about America's racism is the surest sign that you are a stone-cold moron, either in that you really believe it, or you think that leftist tropes will somehow get you respected.

[Gene Berkman]

Actually, the media reported far more than one hate crime directed against Arabs (or people suspected of being Arab) after 9/11.

The real racist factor in the Iraq War was the willingness of people to believe that the Hussein regime was behind the attack on the World Trade Center. Many people undoubtedly believed that all Arabs hate America and are in it together. The Bush administration used this kind of reasoning to drum up support for an attack on a country that never attacked America.

[cmace]

They punish themselves. Look what they're pulling on Rand Paul. They gave away Delay's seat in the same manner.

[nekoxgirl]

I think they'd prefer to have a Democrat in the seat than a Libertarian Republican. The leadership of the Republican party as much more in common with Nancy Pelosi then Ron Paul.

[Kitty squasher]

I think you'd prefer to have the most profligate taxer and spender of a Democrat in the seat rather than any patriotic Republican. Your false messiah Paul has way more in common with the Democrats and their false messiah than with, say, Fred Thompson or anybody else in the Republican Party who makes a lick of sense.

[?]

When did that "mass round up of Arab-Americans" happen? I'm not on the Boston Diversity Rodeo's mailing list.

[John]

I missed that little nugget. That is just horseshit. Libertarians do themselves no favor by defending this guy. There is a serious anti-war anti-interventionist position. But this guy doesn't take it.

[Citizen Nothing]

Hey, he went 6 for 7. Not a bad batting average, at least for someone running for office!

[Citizen Nothing]

Oops. Sorry. 5 for 7. I'm pulling credit for A-bomb = racism.

[Fluffy]

Following 9/11, hundreds were rounded up and held at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center.

The first of the lawsuits over the so-called "Ashcroft Raids" was settled by the feds in November.

I think you're reading his statement as claiming a mass roundup of all Arab-Americans, where it is actually referring to a mass roundup of some Arab-Americans.

[Citizen Nothing]

Following Fluffy's ruling, I'm calling 6/7 again.

[John]

You act like they rounded up people at random. They arrested people immigration violations. OMG, Arabs can't overstay their VISAs. The humanity and racism.

And the fact that the Obama Justice Department settled the case proves nothing.

[Fluffy]

Hey, I'm just trying to clarify the statement for the penny-sign guy. I'm not saying I endorse it.

There is a significant difference between thinking that the Ashcroft raids were mean, and thinking that all Arab-Americans were rounded up after 9/11 and put in camps. One is a debatable political belief, and one is evidence of psychotic delusion. And cents-sign guy thought that we were talking about the latter, when it seems pretty clear to me that we're talking about the former.

[R C Dean]

This is an argument about who the NM Republican Party puts on the ballot. Isn't that pretty much the more-or-less private business of the NM Republican Party?

They don't want this guy on the ballot, I think they are well within their rights t0o refrain from bending the rules for him by rounding up. 20% is 20%, not 19.5%, is a perfectly defensible position.

OTOH, if they want to bend the rules and round up, go right ahead. Their party, their rules, their candidate.

[Citizen Nothing]

True. But it still says something about the NMRP that is important to know.

[k-y]

If it is private business, then I don't see why the parties are granted an automatic slot for their winner in the general. Automatic slots in public elections should be available to the public.

[Sid the Baby]

Doesn't Malkin play for the Penguins?

[BakedPenguin]

I wish she did. I'd teach her a thing or two about body checking.

[R C Dean]

I also have to say: Islamophobia is not racism. Islam is not a race, it is a belief system. Opposing a belief system is not racism.

[Citizen Nothing]

Ah. But Islamophobia as practiced in America?

[R C Dean]

CN, I honestly don't think most people who are opposed to Islamist influence care at all what color your skin is or what country you come from.

[I, Kahn O'Clast]

I think when Americans are prompted to think about Islam the think Arab (and maybe Persian which most think is Arab). They do not think Indonesian, Malay, Northern Nigeria, or anyplace in the horn of Africa. And they don't think of Malcom X's brand.

They think "rag head".

And that's a wee bit racist.

[I, Kahn O'Clast]

Oh and Turks and Kurds and Azeris are considered "Arabs" for all intents and purposes.

[ed]

Opposing a belief system is not racism

Even if that belief system is ObamaCare?

[Fluffy]

RACIST!

[Isaac Bartram]

Kokesh, a retired marine who was involved in the first battle of Fallujah, denied the charges.

No, Adam Kokesh is not a retired marine. He may be a former marine, an ex-marine or a discharged marine but he is not is not a retired marine.

This, of course, is not a reflection on Kokesh, but on the writer of this article who does not seem to understand the distinction, which is a quite important one.

[Citizen Nothing]

I was at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville earlier in the week. Very cool museum. It reminded me of what the world was like just 40 short years ago. It's very easy for a guy like me to forget how pervasive racism was then. Wounds like that take a long time to heal. I don't think that acknowledging those wounds is a bad thing nor is recognizing that, despite the race-baiting of the left, racism still really does exist.

[John]

Of course it still exists. But, we don't help matters by pretending that it is the motivation behind every act we don't like And we really don't help matters by pretending that only one side is guilty of it or denying how radically better things are today than they once were.

[Citizen Nothing]

John, if you were a black guy in your 60s, would you still be pissed off by the shit you encountered in your youth? I sure as hell would be.
Yeah, that time has passed. But those are the kind of sins that, as unfair as it is, are visited by the fathers upon their sons.
We -- and I mean all of us, white, black, brown, blue (in the case of Libertarians) -- are still paying for the original American sin of slavery, and probably will be for another century.

[John]

Yes we are all paying for the sin of slavery You are right. But just because some people still have a right to be pissed off, doesn't mean we shouldn't tell the truth.

[Barry Loberfeld]

"We -- and I mean all of us, white, black, brown, blue (in the case of Libertarians) -- are still paying for the original American sin of slavery, and probably will be for another century."

I don't believe so.

[Citizen Nothing]

I think I must be missing your point, B.L.
From the linked essay: "By its original logic, affirmative action should be an idea whose time has long gone."
I agree. But it's not long gone. So we're still paying.

[Warty]

CHICKEN AND COW!!!!!!!

[Fluffy]

DOLPHIN AND WHALE!!!!!!!

[P Brooks]

Boooooooooriiiiing.

[Dan]

Yeah, it should round up. But really, what the heck is the point? Kokesh couldn't crack 20% in a two-candidate GOP nominating convention. Him being on the ballot would result in another embarrassing, and permanent, loss.

[hurly buehlre]

Malkin is far more astute as a hockey player than as a political observer.

[R C Dean]

I think the fundamental flaw in Kokesh claims is that not every bad thing that happens to someone with brown skin is racism.

Sure, we killed a bunch of Vietnamese and (back in the day) Filipinos. Because we were at war with a bunch of Vietnamese and Filipinos.

There is a natural tendency to dehumanize whoever your enemy is in wartime. "Krauts", anyone? Because we killed a bunch of Germans and called them names, does that mean the US is racist against Europeans? I'm not buying it. Without more, killing a bunch of people you are at war with and calling them names doesn't add up to racism for me.

Abu Ghraib, racism? Deplorable, yes, but racist? Mistreating prisoners and war criminals isn't inherently racist.

Nuking Japan, racist? Bombing people you are at war with isn't inherently racist.

C'mon, this guy plays the race card like a member of the Obama administration. Defining racism down doesn't help anybody, and most definitely doesn't help combat real racism.

[John]

Exactly.

[Fluffy]

Sure, we killed a bunch of Vietnamese and (back in the day) Filipinos. Because we were at war with a bunch of Vietnamese and Filipinos.

I think Viet Nam was largely a matter of ideology and power politics, but on the Filipino issue, I have to say:

We thought that the Filipinos weren't fit to govern themselves because they had brown skin.

After the Spanish-American war, we let Cuba become independent because they were just white enough to govern themselves, as far as we were concerned. But it was "obvious" to us that the Filipinos couldn't, so we decided to rule them. And when they resisted our rule, we butchered them and put them into concentration camps.

I think the brown skin had more than a little to do with that happening.

Do we really have to go through the motions of going through old Hearst news clippings to show the racial element involved in our imperialism there?

[John]

That is a good point. But what does some imperialistic war 100 years ago have to do with anything?

[Fluffy]

Because the people who engaged in that war thought they were bringing the blessings of American civilization to poor benighted savages who just needed to "learn" from us.

And if Americans at the turn of the 20th century could delude themselves to that extent, it implies that it's possible that Americans at the turn of the 21st century are also capable of such hubris.

[John]

What about all the wars that were done in self defense? Should we forget those? Every situation is different. Just because we were right or wrong one time says nothing about the next.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

John, how many wars have been about self defense besides 1812,WW2 & Afghanistan? Most of the wars America has fought were wars the American government chose to involve itself in. They were not a necessity for America's survival. So you really don't have much of a point here.

[John]

And Korea, which was done in defense of a defenseless nation and saved millions from communism. And don't forget the Germans were bargining with the Mexicans to invade and attacking our shipping before World War I. The Germans did a lot more to start World War I with the US than the British ever did to start the War of 1812.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

John, America was supplying the U.K. with arms when we saying we were a neutral country. Germany warned America to stop sending ships to Britain & America choose not to. The Germans decided to respond with force. The Germans were asking Mexico to ally themselves with Germany if America entered the war on the side of England. Germany wasn't trying to conquer America it was trying defend itself during a war.

[John]

What about the Korean War. We saved South Korea from communism and now it is one of the freest most prosperous countries on earth instead of a Marxist prison state. Was that done out of our hatred from brown people? Should we have just let the South Koreans go gently into bondage to show the world who much we loved them?

[Drax the Destroyer]

Korea was a war fought on the validity of the Domino theory (which turned out to be a bunch of bullshit). If it had been fought in a much "whiter" country I am sure it would not be considered the "Forgotten War". But of course this is just conjecture, and I don't really give a crap about the racist claims.

Extending your idea of a "just" reason to fight, we then must get involved in every civil war on the planet where there is a "clear" bad side, in order to ensure that the losers are not freedom lovers. Moreover, we should invade every blatant communist nation since that seems to be your litmus test for our enemies. Communists are their own enemies by holding onto an ideology that dresses up slavery as something virtuous. If they come to our shores they better be prepared to bring it, because otherwise, the U.S. would be one of the worst places to fight an insurgency. Saving other peoples/nations from communism sounds great and all, but this country is not Superman. We can't swoop into a region we are not tied to (except by a piece of paper) and expect an easy moral victory. Why should Americans sacrifice their lives for a domino that will never fall in their direction?

Korea is called the "Forgotten War" for a reason. The shear waste of Vietnam overshadowed the utter waste of Korea. Moreover, American involvement in the Korean war was prompted by marching orders from the glorious U.N.. Do you think we should listen to the U.N.? If the U.N. had its way today, we would invade China to merely stop their sins against the environment. Just because the outcome of the Korean war was a "free" South Korea, it does not justify the means to achieve that supposedly good end. South Korea is perpetually in a state of war, occupied by American troops they hate, bordered by a starving state run by a militaristic broadway-fellating madman. Had South Korea lost to the North, what would we have today? A Vietnam? A Micro-China? I didn't see either of those nations on Bushie's Axis of Evil list.

[Jersey Patriot]

It's called "supporting your argument". His argument is that war against The Other inherently involves racism. He supports it with lots of examples, some very good, some a little spotty. The Filipino example is a very good one.

[R C Dean]

Do we really have to go through the motions of going through old Hearst news clippings to show the racial element involved in our imperialism there?

Fair enough on the Filipinos, fluffy. A hundred years ago, a genuinely racist imperialism led to war.

Viet Nam? Iraq? Japan? Let's see those clippings about the white man's burden in those wars.

[Gene Berkman]

Racism in our war with Japan is documented in "War Without Mercy" by John W. Dower.

As for Vietnam, I suppose some of our GIs called them "gooks" as an endearment?

[Holy Cow]

Come on, Saddam Hussein was all right.
He only invaded Kuwait, was one of the biggest financier of intl. terrorism, committed genocide and never abided by the surrender treaties of Gulf War I.

Oh, and I forgot. He actually did have some WMD (hint: yellowcake sent to Canada; David Kay's interim CIA report).

But yeah, it was ALL about the oil and racism. Remember when Dick Cheney sliced some Arab guy's head off and national TV and crapped down his throat? Good stuff!

And I'm still swimming in all this free oil. It was so cool how the US invaded, kidnapped a bunch of brown chicks (many of whom are now our faithful concubines!), stole the oil and then promptly left.

[Isaac Bartram]

Actually, at the time Saddam invaded Kuwait, I suspect Kuwait was the bigger financier of terrorism. It was a good way to keep all the Palistinian migrant workers in line without, you know, giving them actual rights or formal residency status.

[Gene Berkman]

In the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Saudi Arabia was a much bigger financier of terrorism than Iraq was. Saudi Arabia in recent years has even held telethons to raise money for Palestinian terrorist groups.

And 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis; none were Iraqis or, for that matter, Palestinians or Afghans.

[Isaac Bartram]

I suspect that Saudi Arabia is still the No 1 financier of international terrorism.

[Cookie Kwan]

I really hope the "war makes baby Jesus cry" Libertarians and Independents don't eff up our chances of correcting this new socialist/elitist government we've been punished with, come November and especially in 2012.

I can just see them voting for some flakey Tea Party candidate, thereby giving away all our checks and balances and offering the Dems control for the next 40 years.

Shit. Now I'm really depressed.

[R C Dean]

I wouldn't worry about it, Cookie. From what I can see, the anti-war movement pretty much hates the tea-partiers for being a bunch of racist torturing warmongering neo-con torturers.

Now that the Dems are killing brown people and keeping people at Gitmo, I don't see much of anyone for them (well, the principled ones, anyway) to vote for.

[Holy Cow]

You can totally tell when Bush shook Karzai's hand, the Texan was totally like: "Ooh, brown skin cooties! Make it stop, Dick!"

I hear the 1st Marine Division's bullets only pierce skin with pigment no lighter than Bryant Gumbel's. When the bullets hit a white man's skin, the bullets turn to chardonnay. Cool, huh?

[GoNavy]

Given that alternative, you can probably argue the A-Bomb was in the best interests of Japan, something the Japanese will never admit.

Ironically, Vanya, I think you are correct. Even if the sole reason the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan was because the US wanted to keep Japan from being occupied by the Soviets, the effect would have been that significantly fewer Japanese died from the bombs than would have died because of the communist takeover. The US has nothing to be ashamed of for dropping the bombs. One thousand planes dropping thermite or one plane dropping Little Boy ? WTF is the difference ? the city is still burnt to a crisp.

[Isaac Bartram]

Keep in mind that while we did put the Japanese in camps, we never rounded up Germans or Italians.

Actually, we did intern thousands of German and Italian nationals during WWII.

The difference in the treatment of the Japanese lay in the fact that American citizens of japanese descent were "relocated"* away from the West Coast to the interior.

There would be far less of a grievance if internment had been limited to Japanese nationals only.

Interestingly enough, in Hawaii itself, where sabotage and espionage were genuine dangers (the islands were a hotbed of Japanes spy networks), the only Japanese rounded up were ones actually suspected of any hostile activity.

*The preferred government euphemism for the program.

[Aelhues]

I know I'm pretty late to the party here, and likely only a few will read this, but I'm really shocked that we made it this far without anyone (besides me, only a few minutes ago), challenging fluffy's assertion at the top that Michelle Malkin is racist slime. I know conservatives are fairly unpopular around here but can we at least attempt to maintain some amount of association with the truth?

[Fluffy]

I answered your question above.

[nj]

Anyone who defends Japanese internment is racist slime . In a sane world, Malkin would be inconsequential figurehead.

[rochester_veteran]

Kokesh is a radical who's had numerous affiliations with left wing groups including, Iraq Veterans Against the War, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Code Pink, SDS, Communist Party of America,Muslim Brotherhood and the Black Panthers.

Kokesh is trying to co-opt Tea Party Movement support, but he's not been endorsed by any Tea Party group. In fact, the New Mexico Republican Committee has been getting numerous calls from concerned citizens inquiring why the Republicans are allowing Kokesh to run as a Republican.

Please read more about Kokesh in a letter from my friend, Bob Miller:

http://teaparty.freedomworks.o.....okesh-nm03

Rand Paul needs to pick his friends better!

RV

[Libertymike]

I wish someone would take a brick to Michelle Malkin's ugly face. Wait, that might actually enhance her looks.

[Fluffy]

If attending an anti-war demonstrating means you are "affiliated" with the Black Panthers who also marched, then I guess since he marched in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in NYC Guiliani is a homosexual.

[Fluffy]

As a matter of fact, claiming that attending an antiwar demonstration means you are "affiliated" with the Communist Party and Code Pink [since those groups also marched] is one of the most shockingly dishonest arguments I've seen in a long time, and tells us just about everything we need to know about you, cunt.

[Libertymike]

Fluffy, rochester-veteran's rant is typical statist nonsense.

If you are soldier, you take an oath to protect and defend the constitution-that duty trumps following orders. There is no authority for the proposition that soldiers are to disregard the plaing meaning of the constitution which does not permit the state to make war on foreign soil.

So, the "hero" in uniform is charged with knowing the constitution, including the fact that there is no clause granting the state the power to make war on foreign soil. I

Soldier boy must know that the framers were smart enough to anticipate that there would be those who would make slimy, sophomoric appeals such as "the constitution is not a suicide pact" as a pretext to make war on foreign soil and thereby enlarge the power of the state.

[Jersey Patriot]

Soldier boy

Kisses girl
Leaves behind a tragic world

[rochester_veteran]

Here's a link to a photo of Kokesh and Medea Benjamin together at a DC anti-war rally:

http://iraqslogger.powweb.com/images_large/adamandmedea.JPG

The truth hurts, doesn't it "Fluffy".

[Jim Bancroft]

Anti-war REPUBLICAN?
How can someone who marched with EVERY Left wing MARXIST organization ever be called a Republican without a smirk on his face??
GOOGLE:
Kokesh + IVAW
Kokesh + ANSWER
Kokesh + World Workers Party
Kokesh + Ansbach Germany, where Kokesh openly called on US Army troops to desert in time of war and even videotaped himself doing it and posted it online at IVAW and Youtube!

And to prove this bildge runs deep, GOOGLE Kokesh + Schiff!
Connecticut deserves better!

[Jim Bancroft]

TO FLUFFY:
You need to read more. kokesh didnt just show up with them, he protested at a recruiting station in DC to prevent any recruiting going on, he and his crowd of protestors told Blue Star Mothers that their sons serving inIraq deserved to DIE.

YEs, THAT Adam Kokesh!

He surely did and people caught it because witnesses saw him there and heard him chanting with the crowd just before they smashed the windows.

He also marched through the streets simulating shooting innocent Iraqi citizens while his Marine former brothers were fighting against terrorists in Iraq!

This is a REPUBLICAN??

[rochester_veteran]

I stood against Kokesh and the IVAW during their Winter Soldier 2 (WS2) "hearings" in DC back in March 2008.

Over 1000 veterans, their families and friends, rallied against the IVAW, across the street from the Labor College in Silver Springs, MD, where WS2 was being held and at the Washington Monument the following day. We didn't disrupt it, but we let them know we were there and that it wasn't going to be another repeat of Kerry's and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War BS party, the original Winter Soldier (WS). No way were we going to allow the IVAW defame the current generation of warriors, the way my generation of Vietnam Era Vets were maligned at the original WS!

As a leader in the IVAW, Kokesh was in cahoots with Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and also ANSWER. Here's a link of a video of Kokesh speaking at a press conference with Medea Benjamin and Code Pink:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFUC5DD7LbQ

Now Kokesh is claiming to be a Republican and he's bamboozled Rand Paul! How could Rand support a person who trashed a Military Recruiting Center in DC and encouraged active duty soldiers to desert their posts in a foreign land (Ansbach, Germany)?

Wise up, Rand and drop your affiliation with Kokesh, he's a BS artist!

RV

[evision]

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

[evision]

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

[evision]

http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com

[Henry Massingale]

Hi allow me to take both the parties on a ride, so put on your seat belts, its the Law,
Please allow me to share a concept with the People Of America, that will build for tomorrow. The Great Wall Of China in America. A 10 year project, and within the respect of why China built that wall and even as of today China makes money form that wall. This project will build towns and cities on both sides of the border and will bring peace.
Another concepts is,
To find a way into the hearts of children, first you must allow a truth to be shared and then let this share build within their hearts and you will see children open their minds to things not known.
Permission is given to copy this and put it in every school in the United States, to build on so that it will all ways be known that we do care.....we have been down that road and the glory for that dollar is lost by things done....
Welcome to FASC Concepts
The Day The World Stood Still
We are at War with a Drug Empire
We have been joined by so many people , from the blog site of Eminem to Chuck Norris to Jay Z and thousands of other people who wish to bring a new life to all.
When I wrote my first " Boycott" I just wanted to see the trickle effect it would have, with out stepping into a forth dimension and having my in site lost.
The Arabic Drug Empire is the only one in the world that seeks to kill every last man woman and child in the world in order for their chosen few can repopulate the world....
Our goal is for our words to go around the world, to be heard in the streets to the country until it reaches the White House and shakes the very foundation of this Government Institution. It is not what we say that counts in as much as, it is what we do not say that builds words of truth.
Some say that a Boycott is a waist of time, but it would depend on what is said , to understand we wish to live and we fight with words of truth to in force our right, because we face inhalation through the miss use of a faith.
It is not our goal to change a way a people think, but it is a goal to show only a truth, my goal is simple, to bring the destruction and down fall of this empire...
The following is also linked to drugs and Drug Empires that date back around 1000 years BC and a World and things not spoken of because of a intent for it to disappear from the knowledge of Mankind. A world so old that time its self had all most for got.
A true story, also documented in history.
That because of malevolent acts that is also ancient and is also documented history before Christ, the sacrilege committed against God in order to gain great wealth and to enslave nations through drugs, to build children into that they wish.... All of this is true and a fact of documentation of history.
This sacrilege spoken of is in fact the sacrifice of life to spiritual evil. Even now documentation in Mexico and the United States , 1979 to 2000 reports filed and some cover ups now proved to be true.
I read these things and I see where the Arabic Drug Empire is involved with the Mexican Drug Lords. What lost of understanding is that according to the faith of Ben Laden it is forbidden by God to walk among the infidels. That all infidels are to be vanquished from this world in order that the chosen ones will repopulate the world.
It is a well known fact that the Arabic Drug Empire seek biological war tactics and it has been heard that a chemical balance is sought of how to implement Biological with Drugs, in order for it to be undetectable.
The betraying of the Mexican Drug Lords by The Arabic Drug Empire will bring death to Mexico and the United States.
Why should the Mexican Drug Empire take faith in my words, first If you and I stood before God I say to you that this is true it is the words of the streets that hold credit, and nothing is offered to them, The Mexican Drug Lords, dealing drugs is illegal. It is time to step away sit back and see what this drug dealing is doing and see those who have begun to lose their soul to this money making drug and the true and ancient evil bound to it.
You do not have to take faith in my words for now, let your soul and mind speak to you.
Some people seek proof of God, will, let me show you the essence of evil first and ah, will enjoy the ride, because it is said by thousands of people who do drugs that some how a door was opened to them a what came through to them, is only felt / sensed, and it stays in a darkness unseen to eyes, as it twist their soul into the thing of which they are not.
Some say that the one of few will step forward and a balance will once again be in place, while others disrupt by the telling of of the end within the Book, Revelations . As for me I read and I see that the fate of men is within their hands.
Will I have shown you the links and a truth that you did not know, a world that should have been lost in knowledge of things so old and built within Empires, so help to pay this forward.
Henry Massingale
FASC Concepts in and for Pay It Forward covers the web with over 219,000 post on google
Drop by and see why we built a anti crime / war form in a Health Care Reform Concept. To strategically Rebuild America
http://www.fascmovement.mysite.com on google look for page 1 american dream official site