Do you remember...?

Do you remember about how the START Treaty was going to make the world a safer and more stable place? I do.

Do you remember a time when Nations would actually declare their intentions and declare war before invading another country so that civilized norms between Nations are affirmed? I do.

Do you remember when the Left wanted the world to hold to standards of International Law? I do.

Do you remember when the Left criticized drawing lines and making threats as a serious destabilizing element of foreign policy? I do.

Do you remember a time when a President of the US would decry an act against International Law and the Laws of War as such? I do.

Do you remember a time when a President would have just said the plain things about International Law, the Laws of War and that the US decries barbaric invasions of an undeclared nature as making a Nation into a rogue as such activities were destabilizing to all Nations? I do.

Do you remember a time when a President, seeing foreign aggression would speak openly about working with our allies so as to formulate a response against rogue regimes? I do.

Do you remember a time when the Left decried activities of the US in the past when each and every particular of International Law was seen as unjust and that made the US a barbaric place? I do.

Do you see the way the Left reacts to this and how it now, when push comes to shove against a barbaric actor who does things against all standards of International Law, are making excuses for him? I do.

Yes I do remember these things and see the response of the oh-so righteous Left when a tyrant decides to just step into a place on his own without declaring war.

I remember that with Austria by reading history.

I remember that with Saddam Hussein and Kuwait by seeing it unfold.

I remember that by seeing Congress draft modern day uses of force, which are declarations of war, and having the Left decry the civilized manner of work between Nations as ‘illegal’ and ‘uncivilized’.

And now I see it again with Putin and Russia.

And I also see the inability to address civilized standards of diplomacy, the normality of relationships between Nations and the laws of war as part of the way civilized Nations act as not being upheld by the Left today.

Yes I see all of that and understand who the enemy is.

They are clear by their actions and inactions, both.

Thoughts for the future post-election

My views on the past election are simple and clear, or so I hope.  Taken from my commentary at Hot Air:

The next four years has a set of problems that remain unchanged, and they are due to a century of turning away from a fiscally responsible course and never working to pull back programs and hold institutions accountable for what they do. This does not change in 2 years of a Tea Party.

The ‘fiscal cliff’ of higher taxes, unsustainable debt, and the resulting low investment into the economy which gives lower jobs cannot be avoided no matter who is in office. Over-regulation of society and institutions by government was always going to be a hard job and will be harder because of who is elected, but the problem, itself, remains. The lowered productivity is a result of this, as well as an increasing cost to everything as central management fails as it has done since the beginning of time and only absolute poverty of thought and pocket have allowed such conditions to spiral into Iron Times.

As a Nation we see insolvent States about to go belly-up: CA, IL, NY to name but three. Yet Obama winning does not detract from the fact that at the State level the movement is away from ‘just accepting’ dictation from above. With 30 States with Governors who do not necessarily follow the federal government’s lead and Statehouses tasked with survival of their States likewise aligned, the coming problems of a few States going insolvent will point out that the Constitution is not a suicide pact: no State is ‘too big to fail’. That decision isn’t made at the federal level, but the State level and when the good and thrifty States put forth that their people did not vote for pensions in CA, IL, NY and elsewhere, then the second level of accountability comes into play along with its checks and balances.

These things were on the agenda no matter who won last night, and the American people are not giving a solid message but one that is nuanced with an innate understanding of what federalism is, even if it is not talked about. The fight now moves from the failed National institutions to the State and local level just where so many have said it would be and should be since the rise of the Tea Party. In that realm is the hardest fight for those who would correct the problems of society as the federal government will no longer be able or ready to help as it becomes insolvent in its own right. We will have a devalued currency, soaring prices for everything, and a bankrupt educational system from K-12 through to the University level that cannot be sustained and will, due to its own weight, collapse as it has already started to do.

Hard times are ahead and they always were. Mitt Romney promised to put pressure on the wound to at least allow it to clot up and perhaps limp along until something a bit better could be done. Now comes the next path, the harder path, the unpleasant path, the painful path and as we see our Nation devolve at the federal level it is up to the States to bring it back in line. We have grown overly fond of the 20th century Nation State and yet, driven by 19th century dogma against eternal 18th century understandings, it is up to us in the 21st century to apply the thing that is left to us: cauterize the wound. Our fellow citizens won’t want to face that now, but when they are slapped silly by having to pay for what others have promised and cannot deliver, when what they have been promised cannot be delivered, when their straits grow so dire because of unwise governmental choices then what other end is there?

Hold the Left to their lovely promises and continually ask how they can pay for it without killing people. Because medical rationing is the State deciding who should die and when – it is killing people via the element of the State. Taking from the rich does not make the poor wealthy as the economy declines, and that, too is the State deciding winners and losers and extending and deepening poverty for all which will kill those at the lowest part of society. This is the mirror that now must be held up to the gloating, smirking, finger-pointing, condescending Left and point to the blood on their hands and pooling around their feet. If all their lovely ideas are so grand, then why is such misery required and such impoverishment guaranteed? For this does not work out no matter when it was tried or by whom: it cannot be done ‘right’ because of the required misery that none on the Left dare to acknowledge and always decry as ‘someone else’s fault’ never their own.

That is your job: educate those who will listen, warn those who can hear, work with your fellow man to insure his safety, point out that the ills of the many are not solved by making the few worse off and killing the old, the poor, the young and the enfeebled. Help the educational system to implode and be prepared to take its place in your neighborhood so that the young can learn of our folly and that of their grand-parents and great-grandparents. Be an example to others, lead a good life, uphold your ideals, and prepare as many as you can for what comes next for it will be awful in ways we cannot conceive. Winning an election is not the same as surviving the victory, and an election is not a war but a battle.

As Breitbart said, we are at WAR.

I’ve been preparing for the long haul no matter who wins or loses a battle.

Have you?

ajacksonian on November 7, 2012 at 9:10 AM

What institutions are about to fail?

- Medicare and Medicaid, the M&Ms, aided and abetted by Obamacare.  These are no longer vital and insolvent and show the folly of government trying to figure out medicine and, with Obamacare, just decide who lives and who dies.  Just like with cronies in business, the government seeks to make newborns a crony to the ruling government via having to thank it for being allowed to live.  Yet this is fiscally and morally irresponsible, and those two go hand-in-hand.  And these hands drip with blood.

- Social Security is in the red and after a few years of getting paid off with inflated dollars in their bonds, it will soon be insolvent.  The government has attempted to set a retirement age while demographics has been pushing the upper limit of human healthy old age for decades.  Luckily with the Obamacare death panels, government might try to make SSA solvent by killing the old, the sick, the infirm.  That will be YOU because ideology and politics will be involved, and getting SSA will soon get not means tested but compliance tested as this is how tyrants secure power to their government.

- Education – As a 13th century institution it has run its course, and has varied from the best route of teaching one how to think and replaced it with rote learning.  The first gets you a vibrant and constantly questioning citizenry, while the latter gets you a compliant one.  Yet to perform this there must be more bureaucrats than educators, more overburden and less to sustain it, which causes the institution to become brittle, frail, and to implode due to the move to sustain ever growing revenue to ever more bureaucrats, and far less capable teachers who can no longer think on their feet.  This one is coming hard and fast at the post-secondary level, but even at the lowest level these institutions have been crumbling and no amount of money will sustain them.

- Banking at the National Scale has enabled and empowered deficit spending which can only be paid for by one of two routes: inflation of the currency to pay off past debt in devalued currency, meaning you are deprived of wealth as more money is in circulation without work to back it, or, high interest rates so that excess currency can be removed from circulation which lowers the tax base by having people paid less in more valuable currency and the taxes set up for a low valuation currency cannot adjust downwards fast enough to cover the delta.  With lowered tax revenue there is a call to increase taxation, but what does one do when the hard and fast poverty line is numerated in inflated currency?  Taxing the new 'poor' doesn't sell and the old 'rich' are paying less because of a stronger currency as well.  Neither of these will make the bankers to be nice people, and for not doing their duty a decade and more ago of taking the punch bowl away when the party was starting to roar, we will find ourselves truly questioning why we have a National Banking System known as the Federal Reserve as they will be shown to be clear currency manipulators doing the bidding of spendthrift politicians.

- Insolvent States – 'Too big to fail' will be attempted to apply to States like CA, IL, NY and any others that have over-obligated their tax base to pensions and pay-offs to retirees.  This now drives the debt burden up to these States to the point they cannot be sustained.  The States, as signatories to the US Constitution, do have the power to negate and change contracts, to put forward that contracts done with ill intention or just absent-mindedness can be dissolved.  The other States will be pointing this out to those insolvent States and that the power to re-organize is well within the legislative process inside the States.  Other States will refuse to accept the burden of 'too bit to fail' for other States and point out that THEIR taxpayers had no say in the debt incurred and obligated by States they DO NOT LIVE IN.  This will not 'break' the Union, but put up the mirror that it is upon those who obligate such debt to deal with it.

Then there is the backdrop to all of this on the Global level as crony systems fail and become insolvent globally.  The EU is unlikely to last out another decade and it may only have months to live at this point.  Unless you want to see Germany put in charge of it, which would be the equivalent of winning WWII and losing it a generation later.  Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and now France all teeter on the brink of chaos due to Left politics and social policies that can't be sustained by anyone, not even Germany.  Germany might be able to cushion a collapse of that international monstrosity, but it will not be tied to it as their people did not agree to the debt incurred by other European Nations.  See how that works?  It is a mirror of America a few months ahead of us at this point.

China  has spent capital and wealth for cities none can afford to live in and impoverished their people and inflated their currency by stealth.  Already the rumblings of problems from east to west, from polluted and failing industrial provinces to the rise of radical Islam are hammering at that Nation.  Communism has failed.  Corrupt and crony National Socialism has failed which is what China moved to in the post-Mao world.  China has been used to bloody solutions in the past but never had a population educated enough to actually formulate resistance to it.  For the first time ever in Chinese history its government will have to face an industrialized Nation being impoverished that is just educated enough to know what is being done to it and with 21st century electronic and social media tools to talk with each other about their plight.  When all of the Western debt holding move to lower value either via Nation State insolvency or inflation (or both) China's economy will implode and has already started that in seeing low cost labor jobs moving via Chinese companies outside of China.  China is not the last bastion of cheap labor: SE Asia and Africa are and now China will reap what it has sown.

India has grown by leaps and bounds, yet its infrastructure has not followed suit and its ability to uplift the poor has only incrementally improved.  With global problems comes threats to the modern infrastructure of electricity, sewage conditioning and potable water (where they are available).  Technologically India has taken vast strides in the late 20th century with the fall of the USSR and having never fully vested in its backwards economic system, India has allowed areas for growth internally.  Yet those, too, rely on debt and foreign sources for materials and finished goods, along with food.  Unrest due to lack of food has hit not just India but other Nations as well, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, and these will only grow as Western food sources decline in productivity due to backwards government spending.

The Middle East is in the midst of upheaval due to Radical Islam and broken, crony infrastructure that is used to repress peoples.  The elements of Radical Islam do not have any modern notion of economics and will cause further strife, chaos, disorder and starvation in their wake.  Starving masses usually don't provide for competent military machines, however, and utilizing jihadi self-destructive violence only makes problems worse for those Nations supplying such as productive and young individuals are removed from the workforce.  The human bomb of demographic domination is built on a house of cards sustained by Western agriculture and productivity, and once those disappear the problem becomes a demographic one internally to those Nations of the 'Arab Spring'.  North Africa will export foment and jihadism, yes, and the population crash will redouble the devastation upon that weary continent.

In the sub-Saharan southern Africa there are few good and viable Nations outside of South Africa, and even there social turmoil due to ethnic strife is not unknown.  If South Africa cannot assure its food supply then the problems about to beset the rest of the sub-Saharan region will come its way as well.  Outside of South Africa things are not so bright and the list of Nations undergoing social strife, ethnic cleansing, kleptocratic governments, and all with a backdrop of AIDS removing most of a generation is sobering.  It may well be that only the morally and socially upright populations and sub-populations survive to any great extent in 50 years due to the horror besetting their part of the world.

S. America is only meta-stable due to resource industries, which will collapse once Europe and North America no longer have industrial capacity nor demand to utilize them.  Nor will China in recession going far beyond anything we know as modern recession, be able to sustain internal demand (by building cities) to keep industries going.  Without industrialization spread deeply into S. America the opportunity to create vibrant economies is limited.  Chavez has pointed out that the end of socialist doctrines is internal lack of productive capacity and that indenturing people to the State (even if it is competently run) means lowering of living standards for all, not just the rich.  Argentina has had cash problems for more than a decade and its currency is suspect.  Brazil's crony socialism is about to see the end of ready cash flow, which means that without heavy industry and shifting away from agriculture, the Nation will be at extreme peril for internal problems.

Mexico had unwisely signed on to NAFTA, which exposed its backwards agrarian sector to the modernized US agribusiness.  Rural Mexico was deeply harmed as young men moved north to find jobs (first in transplanted US production facilities and, later, as illegal migrants seeking work) now find that those jobs are gone.  Organized crime and the foreign jihadi element helping the criminals now seeps into Mexico via standard means of corruption and through outright murder, often on a scale that dwarfs current wars.  Mexico had signed on to 'Green' ideas and limited marginal expansion of oil and natural gas, meaning that it is now bereft of those sectors to sustain the economy.  Mexico used to be able to feed its own people (albeit poorly) prior to NAFTA, and now that form of agriculture has been decimated by 20 years of NAFTA and those skills and knowledge of local farming, once lost, will not come back easily if at all.

Australia has been a relative bright spot for the world outside of Israel, as it had started to undo some of its socialist policies on retirement and put a relative amount of freedom back into the hands of its people.  Agriculture has done well in Australia and it is serving as the supplemental breadbasket of the world.  The internal problems of Australia are unique to it, including jihadists exporting problems to its shores.  As the British Commonwealth falters, it is Australia and Canada that will become those places trying to repeal the most onerous and financially lethal government policies the fastest.  The rest of the Anglo-sphere had best take note of this as these two Nations have resources, arable land, water, and relatively high productive capacity for the near term.  Longer term issues of global market collapse will hit these Nations, as well, but they will be able to weather these storms by having their people understand that the problems of government trying to control their economies (and their very lives) is the cause of the world's problems, not its solution.  Both Nations have had backwards laws on firearms and preservation of freedom, but nothing like Great Britain itself now has.

That these problems were all known before the election is troubling.  That the American people have not factored them into the Nation State federal government is more troubling, still.  Yet the US wellspring of revitalization starts at the bottom, not the top, which is why so many States moving to get responsible and responsive governments in place is heartening.  As the States are signatories to the US Constitution after in-State ratification by the people, it is these set of governments that hold the major key to renewal along with the people of the Nation as a whole.  If the socialist movements of the 20th century was to put more power into the hands of Nation State governments, America holds the card of that Nation State actually being formulated by the States and must serve all of their needs, not just any one of them or collection of them.  America was instituted on the self-evident observation that governments are instituted amongst men to preserve freedom and liberty and that it is very hard to give up any government even when it becomes contrary to the needs of its people.  The people will undergo great harm, even tyranny, before they finally have enough to change or abolish such government and to renew the tenets that government is given few things to do and must, actually, do them and leave the people to figure out the rest on their own.  First we must do all the stupid things, the good feeling things, the bass ackward things until we finally realize that we are far better with little government than with much of it.  Let us hope that we survive the troubled times ahead.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

-Winston Churchill

The cost of 'Realism' in Foreign Policy

The following is a foreign policy outlook paper of The Jacksonian Party.


Such great things have been accomplished by 'Realism' in Foreign Policy, right? How about a meandering around some of the recent part of the 'Realism' era of Foreign Policy.... time to slip back in time to when the War was Chilly, the Nukes were kept at the ready, and the rest of the world wondered just what it was that was going on between the US and USSR...

How about the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 in which Henry Kissinger worried that India had become a true client state of the USSR and so backed Pakistan in a bloody repression against West Pakistan... soon to become Bangladesh. And, it is reputed, truly bad-mouthing a leader of another Nation, that being India. That worked out so pleasantly, with the thousands dead and a region that would then have problems developing any stability for decades. Still, it kept the USSR out of things. Why Mr. Kissinger would *never* do anything to let something like *that* happen, would he?

The Paris Peace Accords birthed by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho in 1973. The North Vietnamese were to *stop fighting* when the US left... remember that? 'Peace with Honor'? Say, how IS South Vietnam doing with that 'Honorable Peace' the US brokered? Hmmm... seems that Communism actually spread because of this with quite some millions dead due to this 'Honorable Peace'. Well, at least the peaceniks got satisfied and went home! So they could prove the bravery of their 'peace' outlooks and do absolutely NOTHING to help build a just peace.

Then there was the Yom Kippur War, which saw Henry Kissinger which he did support the attacked Nation, Israel. He would then go on to establish this concept of Israel giving back captured territory for 'peace'. It has bought stability with Egypt and Jordan, but, somehow, Syria and Libya and a few other Nations just don't think much of this 'land for peace' concept. Never bought it, even with Jimmy Carter handing out billions of dollars to try and buy peace.

Chile would come in for special attention with the victory of Socialist Salvadore Allende, who would do his best to turn around Chile's failing markets, get inflation under control and put folks back to work. As a Socialist, mind you. But, after a good start, Socialist politics and running the printers day and night at the treasury soon made things worse, and threats to shift control of private companies out of the hands of their owners worried many of the US holders of those companies. Soon the concept was that of getting the CIA to start causing trouble... which would lead to the 1973 coup in Chile.

Kissinger's support for the end of the Rhodesian Bush War would see South Africa pull out support for Rhodesia and the civil war there then degenerate for some time, until it went from minority rule to dictatorial rule under Robert Mugabe.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." - Henry Kissinger speaking about the Coup.

So much for the concept of democracy.


Zbigniew Brzezinski would prove just as adept at 'Realism' in the outlook that strengthening ties with Communist China was more important than supporting the prosperous break-away province of Taiwan. Yes, we are *still* using that designation to this day, when Communist China still has State controlled elections and Taiwan has multiparty, democratic elections. All the US had to do was break the treaty we had with Taiwan and pull out our forces... and so it was done, a friend and ally turned away for the 'realism' of a Communist counter-weight to the USSR. Not that the USSR and China had been on good relations very much for a decade or two, by that point.

Now Mr. Brzezinski would *also* support Islamic Fundamentalists in Afghanistan after the Soviet Invasion and, if some accounts are true, *before it* so as to bog down the Red Army in a central Asian 'quagmire'. Yes, as National Security Adviser he saw supporting totalitarian, fundamentalist Islamic radicals as a *good idea*. And once the Afghan War started, the support for those radical elements would not only remain, but increase under Ronald Reagan.

Just about the same time, in 1978, Mr. Brzezinski assured the Shah of Iran that the US would 'back him to the hilt'. Even when members of the State Dept. were saying otherwise. The whole fiasco of not doing a damned thing against the Iranian Shia Revolutionaries, the hostage taking of the US Embassy staff, and the entire fact that those actions are casus belli remains a major stain on all concerned in the Carter Administration, starting from the top. Iran was a US ally, not a Soviet one and the USSR made NO inroads there after the revolution. Actually came to hate the regime quite some bit and upped its supplies to their neighbor's dictator ascendant - Saddam Hussein.

"I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the Khmer Rouge. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him. But China could." - Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1979


This brings us to the wonderful era of Ronald Reagan where he did, indeed, call for a wall to be torn down and an Evil Empire to be confronted! Kicked the Armed Forces back into the procurement concept and got a few new weapons systems started, which would prove the final straw on the Soviet back. Some few may say the view of getting the Red Army bogged down in Afghanistan and funding radical Islamic groups was *worth it*! Not like the USSR was involved in more partisan conflicts than one could easily shake a stick at across the world and was ready to spend itself blind to do that little thing. What President Reagan did *not* do is stand up for the Nation against non-Soviet threats... the little things like terrorists bombing the Beirut Embassy a couple of times, gratis of Syria and Iran. Also bombing the Marine Barracks there who were in place to try and stop the fighting from going from bad to worse. The American dead from the Embassy bombings was only 19 out of the total of 85 dead, and the Barracks bombing would netting 241 US servicemen and 58 French allies dead, along with some civilian staff. While the Vice-President spoke brave words about the US staying and that we 'would not be cowed by terrorists', what would happen is the US *would* leave within 6 months after a minor bombing campaign and no ground work to take out the terrorist safe havens. This was a defeat for the US in a non-Soviet venue: the USSR had little to care about as Iran and Syria were making their own plans for Lebanon.

From there comes the entire and ongoing Iran/Iraq war which the US had decided to give some help to Saddam Hussein against Iran. The old 'enemy of my enemy' not being too nice a guy in his own right. Still, compared to the USSR and the amount it was channeling into Iraq, and no one has done a good comparison of the economics between that support and the funds needing to go to Afghanistan, Angola, Ogaden, Uganda, etc, was quite small. That does not indicate level of technical expertise gained, but it does point out that material support in equipment and infrastructure were not on par between the US and USSR. That extension of support on a global basis and in particular for Iraq really was quite an overstretch by the USSR by any accounting, but Iran was willing to expend lives cheaply, including children, to stop Iraq, and so the death toll mounted and little in the way of equipment would have changed that outcome.

What did happen, however, on Ronald Reagan's watch, was the Iran-Contra affair, in which Ollie North, Richard Secord, John Poindexter and a cast of variegated players, decided it would be 'a neat idea' to send arms to Iran for hostages, supply money to an international arms dealer so as to get arms to the Contras. Such a fun idea that! Unfortunately, beyond breaking some Congressional prohibitions on that and the word of the President that we would have nothing to do with Iran nor EVER negotiate with terrorists, this little cabal introduced one of the most able and noxious characters to hit the international arms circuit into a whole new line of business: exporting terrorism.

Anyone reading the past few months of posts at my other site know that man: Monzer al-Kassar. From this one, single man being introduced via secure association with Administration officials into Latin America would come a truly awful tide of events that would continue on far past the 'neat deal' of Ollie North. Before Mr. Kassar arrived on the scene in Latin America there was very little in the way of Islamic terror that was not associated with Fatah, and those few events were either of the assassination sort or the 'joint venture' with some minor 'Red' faction doing something in the amateur leagues.

Starting with Mr. Kassar would come ties between him and the child of Syrian ex-pats in Argentina: Carlos Menem. As Carlos Menem was running for office he was getting direct aid from Syria and brokering deals to give the Syrians advanced missile technology and nuclear technology... all that before he ever got into office. The man doing that brokering was Mr. Kassar, who's wife was of the Assad family. Even though that deal was scotched by the US at high levels, the outcome of those contacts would be to funnel Argentinian arms to Bosnia to equip Iranian fighters. Also out of that would come the establishment of the Iranian intelligence network for its Foreign Legion - Hezbollah. Mr. Kassar was also in a fine position to use his narcotics trafficking background to reach out to FARC and work out deals with them on the 'arms for cocaine' concept.

By 1992 the first truly professional terrorist attack in South America happened: the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina. The measure of its professionalism is that it has never been tied to *anyone* due both to the Menem regime's destruction of records and the work of Mr. Kassar to obfuscate his whereabouts. Later the AMIA Jewish Center Bombing would wait over two decades until someone could be *charged* with it. This is the fallout of that 'sweet deal' of Ollie North: the establishment of Hezbollah in Latin America. The very same organization that killed Americans in Lebanon at the Embassy and Barracks.

Argentina, for all of its problems, had never been on the forefront of anyone's lists of Nations at risk due to the USSR. It was on the periphery of the 'big game' for that. It moved to the center stage of the terrorist step-stones into the Western Hemisphere, and from there the Tri-Border Area and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean would see an influx of Islamic Terrorism. Even before the 1992 bombing the effect of that was being seen in Trinidad when Jamaat al-Muslimeen staged the first Islamic coup in the Western Hemisphere. A very, very 'sweet deal' that now sees multiple and diverse radical Islamic elements across the Caribbean and Latin America. Plus, if General Contreras is to be believed, that Monzer al-Kassar actually had drug rings in the US and Europe to do final processing and distribution for him. Add in connections to Chile for arms running and to the Medellin and Cali drug cartels, and one begins to wonder just how such a 'sweet deal' could have such a nasty outcome. No, that isn't the end of it, not even close! But I will continue on to the next fun 'Realist': James Baker.

For Mr. Baker I will turn tothe articles in the BNL notebook and see what lovely things he was promulgating while in the Reagan Administration. As the head of the Treasury Dept. and then moving on, during the Bush (41) Administration State Dept., James Baker was placed in a set of critical roles for oversight on the movement of funds to Iraq via the USDA Commodity Credit Corporation. Money for 'grain sales' wound up funding procurement of 'dual use' equipment and often for funding, directly, things like the Gerald Bull 'supergun' during 1988-1990. Before Mr. Baker came into the Dept. of State, Iraq was under the CCC for $393 million/year starting in 1986 in loans, and that would skyrocket to $1 billion/year in 1990.

This policy started, however, in 1984 prior to Mr. Baker's time at the Dept. of State while he was in the Head of the Treasury Dept. that would oversee the funds moving to Iraq via theExport-Import Bank for loan guarantees. Although the EXIM Bank is a separate part of the Executive Branch, it is difficult to see how funds flowing through it and via the CCC would not attract any attention of the Treasury Dept. from 1984-89. This is especially true as questions were raised about Iraq's ability to actually repay the loans before 1989 and Mr. Baker moving from Treasury, under President Reagan to Dept of State, under President Bush. Those questions seem to have been sidelined as the Iraqi participation moved from that of a large CCC participant to the largest participant in that program.

The main bank that would be utilized for purchases was the Banco Nazionale del Lavoro, Atlanta Branch, which would famously deliver farm equipment and lose the manifest for it so have to redeliver it with the first delivery going *missing*, send G-5 Howitzers and ammunition via the 'freight forwarding' aspect of the CCC, moved nuclear triggers via the CCC and BNL that were stopped by the UK that saw a few problems with sending those to Saddam, and, of course, buy goods at inflated prices and the middlemen would resell them and keep the profit. All of that to help out poor little Saddam Hussein who got at least ten times as much from the USSR, at least twice as much from France and three times as much from China. Some of the things that Saddam bought couldn't be found from them, obviously, but the amount of influence purchased compared to the top three, who had longer term and lasting relationships meant that the US accounted for 0.45% of Saddam Hussein's support up to 1990.

What *was* Mr. Baker buying with that policy? One could argue, as Mr. Kissinger did, that the Iran/Iraq War was one that we hoped *both* sides could lose. The meager amounts put into that vast war and supporting Saddam after it point out to sheer and unabashed negligence as the US could not hope to match the Soviet and later Russian influence there. The amount of debt Saddam retained was enough to swing those top three Nations to his whims to help thwart the UN Security Council resolutions in the Oil-For-Food program. The course of 'Realism' meant investing in a genocidal tyrant well after he was known to BE genocidal. Isn't that a lovely policy for the US to uphold? Yes, it is against Iran, but the pure venom evinced by the people of Iraq against Iran was manifest by the fact that a large amount of Iraqi Arab Shia *volunteered* to die for Saddam so as to fight Iran. And then 300,000 would die believing that the US would actually step in to help them if they staged an uprising. But the US couldn't do that, after encouraging them to do so... that was 'unrealistic'. Poor saps actually BELIEVED in the US to abide by its word.

"I fear the current wave of radical Islamism is going to be a continuing problem as long as poverty and discontent exist in that part of the world. We must find a way to get beyond that and to achieve some economic development. I once made a proposal for a Middle East development bank. It was not picked up on but it's still needed, for the Middle East is the only part of the world without a development bank." - James A. Baker III, The Middle East Quarterly, SEP 1994, Volume I: Number 3.

Warren Christopher got to be the next Secretary of State during this new post-Cold War era where everything was going to be just fine in the world and history would end. Unfortunately he was as unprepared as his predecessors to actually deal with what was happening in the world, as this short listing of terrorist incidents will show, my thanks to the MIPT Terror Knowledge Base:

Bomb explodes near US Ambassador's Residence in Columbia,
Carbomb explodes outside US Ambassador's Residence in Columbia,
Slayings of CIA personnel in Langely, VA,
Window smashing of US Cultural Center in Serbia,
Grenade attack on US Embassy in Serbia,
Guards at US Consulate attacked in Columbia,
ETA suspected of bombing near US Embassy in Spain,
Two US soldiers wounded by sniper fire in Somalia,
Kakurokyo attacks HQ of US forces in Japan,
Kakurokyo attacks US Camp Zuma in Japan,
Shining Path explodes carbomb outside US Embassy in Peru,
US diplomat killed in Tblisi, Georgia,
Forces of Gen. Aidid suspected in killing of four US soldiers in Somalia,
Red Brigades attack US-NATO airbase in Italy,
Three US soldiers killed when helicopter downed in Somalia,
US Embassy bombed in Estonia,
One US soldier killed in Somalia,
Shining Path attacks US-Peruvian Binational Cultural Center in Peru,
US diplomat kidnapped by Jahm tribesmen, headed by Mubarak Mashan, in Yemen, US soldiers fired upon in Somalia,
Gunmen fire shots at US diplomat in Ethiopia,
'Southern California IRA' grenade attack on British property in US,
Lebanese man fires on van carrying rabbinical students in US,
Haitian exiles fired upon in US,
Shots fired at residence of US Ambassador in Uruguay,
Mozambique National Resistance Movement kidnaps US pilot working for UN in Mozambique,
Convoy carrying US Ambassador attacked in Somalia,
FARC kidnaps American in Columbia,
Shining Path bombs US Embassy in Peru,
Grenade attack as USAID offices in Ethiopia,
Two Americans working at US Consulate killed in Pakistan,
Oklahoma City Federal Office building bombing in US,
RPG attack on US Embassy in Russia,
US Army Captain fired at in Saudi Arabia,
GIA sets US Embassy warehouse on fire in Algeria,
Hezbollah and al Qaeda attack OPM/SANG complex in Saudi Arabia,
Chukakuha and Kakurokyoha bomb US base in Japan,
Attempted kidnapping of US human rights worker for UN in Guatemala,
Territorial Anti-Imperialist Nucleus firebombs US serviceman's car in Italy,
FARC kidnaps American Citizen in Columbia,
Guard at U.S. Government Binational Center disarmed and wounded in Columbia,
Revolutionary Struggle launches RPG attack at US Embassy in Greece,
Attack on US Consulate in China,
US Consulate attacked in Mexico,
Bombing of US Information Services compound in Pakistan,
Attempted firebombing of US Cultural Center in South Korea,
Firebombing of US military compound in South Korea,
Contras kidnap USAID election observer in Nicaragua,
Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah bombing kill six US servicemen in Saudi Arabia,
US Defense Intelligence Agency employee stabbed in Egypt,
USAID vehicle torched outside US Embassy in Russia,
Nicaraguan Sandinista Liberation Front HQ set on fire in US,
Attempted firebombing of US Consulate in Indonesia,
Jamaat-e-Islami attack US Consulate in Pakistan,
FARC captures and kills US Citizen in Columbia,
Letterbombings of Saudi Arabian newspaper offices in US,
Letterbombs arrives at Ft. Leavenworth in US,
Letterbombs arrive at Saudi Arabian newspaper offices in US.

Probably missed a few there as I concentrated on diplomatic and military events, leaving out the vast swath of other things that are out there, but those happened just while Warren Christopher was in office as Secretary of State. Still, while a number of these are 'just' terrorist attacks, quite some few go by an older and more prosecutable concept, which no one in the Clinton Administration every bothered to do. For all the fact that the concept of 'law enforcement' being used against those waging illegitimate warfare is just plain nuts, the Clinton Administration couldn't even be bothered to actually do the work to prosecute these under *any* name. Far better to be 'liked' than respected on the world scene, I guess. I can't really lump Warren Christopher in with the 'Realists'... he just failed the US without much of a direction for it. Thus we get an idea of how President Clinton handled foreign policy in a way that safeguarded the Nation.

From that we get - 1) North American Free Trade Agreement - In which now that Mexico has broken its agreement to bolster its economy, stop the flow of illegal aliens northward and, instead of exporting goods is exporting its unemployed, has broken with this agreement. Mind you, that was WHILE President Clinton was in office. Far too hard to hold Nations to agreements they signed on to, I guess.

2) Allowing Saddam Hussein to break his cease-fire agreements, throw out multiple teams of weapons inspectors, corrupt the Oil-For-Food program, subvert the sanctions regime and, with impunity, killing 300,000 Shia Arabs that revolted against him and having two US Presidents do NOTHING about that. Yes, far too difficult to hold Nations to agreements, especially ones where they fire at you and undermine the concept of international law.

3) Operation Desert Fox, in response to (2) which did NOTHING to remove Saddam Hussein and emboldened him as he believed the US and the international community would do NOTHING to seriously challenge him.

4) Get involved in 'peacekeeping' operations in so many places that Congress had to start curtailing that as it was eroding the infrastructure of the Armed Forces. From that, two US Army Division fell to their lowest readiness rating since Vietnam as the CinC would not allow them proper R&R and sustainment by rotating them OUT of 'peacekeeping' duties. One of those was the 10th Mountain Division which would be unready to go anywhere right after 9/11.

5) Allowing Iran an easy set of inroads to the Balkans by not being willing to either uphold or break or hold any other Nation to international agreements about the Balkans. Finally allowing arms *in* gave Iran the pretext to go into Bosnia and a few other places with its agents and trainers.

6) Doing nothing to confront al Qaeda even after: 2003 WTC Attack, African Embassy Bombings, the attempted bombing of the USS The Sullivans, and no warning given from that to the Navy and thus getting the USS Cole attack. Mind you, Osama bin Laden had *declared war* on the USS and was getting a body count to prove it even before 9/11.

7) Doing nothing to confront Hezbollah or Iran based on: OPM/Sang bombing killing US personnel in Saudi Arabia, a bombing by Hezbollah in Saudi Arabia killing 6 US servicemen. Mind you this is after Hezbollah had started attacking US Embassies and servicemen in Lebanon in the 1980's and the Iranian involvement in those and the later bombings showed how little the Clinton Administration cared to do anything to protect US personnel *just* on the Government payroll, not to speak of private citizens.

8) FARC, from Columbia, established a good and hard track record of going after Americans in S. America: kidnapping an American, another kidnapping, capturing and killing an American, taking over the US Embassy in Columbia, and attempting to assassinate President Clinton via a bomb on a State visit to Columbia. Apparently doing such things just was too difficult to confront by President Clinton.

9) Working out the Oslo Accords and then doing nothing to convince Yassir Arafat that he must, in actuality, carry through with his agreements. Meanwhile browbeating Israel to keep its side, even when its 'negotiating partner' has demonstrated bad faith. Failing utterly at Camp David to end the Arafat initiative to constantly change goals upwards on his side to put forth appeasement as, if he didn't get the new demands, he would 'restart the intifada'. Which, by the way, hadn't stopped anyways.

10) Brokering a deal with North Korea to end its enrichment of nuclear material and putting no structure to force North Korea to hold to that agreement. Instead North Korea attempted extortion of more than the US was obligated to give by threatening to restart its work. That agreement gave the tyrant of North Korea the ability to get food and goods to feed his people without stopping any of his other activities outside of the nuclear realm, like the creation of $100 US bank notes called 'supernotes', which was aimed at debasing the US paper currency in use.

11) Ignoring the INTERPOL testimony on the coalescence of transnational terrorism and organized crime, thus leading to much of the expansion of radical Islam into the western hemisphere by Hezbollah and al Qaeda. That plus a misguided concept to try and utilize police powers against those waging illegitimate warfare on the US made for the expansion of radical terrorism without any attempt to end it a lasting legacy of the Clinton Administration.

President Clinton was no 'Realist', obviously. He also had no Foreign Policy nor any concept of National Security or even holding Nations to their signed agreements. He escaped the verdict of al Qaeda by 8 months and 11 days. Because of these things based on some unidentified view of how the world works, the US was left with worn down Armed Forces, no ability to counter terrorism, inability to enforce treaties and with a legacy of not even treating those using the means and weapons of war against the US as actually doing this thing known as 'waging war'.

The era of 'Realism' and the post-Cold War mentality did the following:

I) Ignored threats that were asymmetrical to the Cold War, completely. These were threats that did not impact the Cold War and were outside the chilly environs of it, being done with Nations that had already 'chosen sides' but were minor to the main conflict, or were willing to take advantage of the two sides in the Cold War without regard to that conflict.

II) Moved away from the traditional American support of democracy and accountability as the basis for Foreign Policy, and putting in its place a brokering of despotism to counter outside threats. This has not safeguarded the US and, instead, empowered tyrants on a global basis that could exploit 'regional necessity' to get US backing. The US was unwilling to counter or reform these Nations and, instead, empowered tyrants through a slogan of: trade helping individuals to democracy. The tyrants saw this, I'm sure, as: cheap goods to keep their people quiet. America is a Revolutionary Nation born on principles that the basis for human liberty are universal. Whenever the US decides to give a tyrant a 'free pass' because they are a 'counter-weight' to a worse tyrant, we forget that the enemy of ALL tyrants is human liberty. The US debases its own beliefs of that foundational concept when it reneges on that as a basis of Foreign Policy. All tyrants should fear the US, not look to the Nation for 'goodies' to quell their populace so that the few may remain in power over the many forevermore.

III) Countering regimes that have come to power democratically because the US does not like their outlook. If the true power of democracy is to allow Peoples in their Nations to find the best route to liberty and freedom, then any People that make a mistake must fix it for themselves. The US was ill served by the coups against Ngo Dinh Diem and by that against Salvador Allende. This, patently, has not worked out to the best interests of the United States. The argument can be made that taking down such regimes is trying to avoid the catastrophe of WWII and the corruption of a democratic Nation. It can be counter-argued that if we mean what we say about democracy, then we will not be afraid to go to war with one like was done in WWII against such a corruption of it, if it decides to declare war upon us. Bringing down a *neutral* or *allied* democratically elected government debases our own democracy and our trust in it as a system of government.

IV) Believing that poverty is a driving force behind radical Islam or terrorism. Poverty has not been the driving force behind Islamic Radicalism or of terrorism. Indeed, al Qaeda's main operations are carried out by those that we would consider to be 'middle class', living in Nations with opportunity but coming from repressive regimes. Revolts by the poor can become ones that are radical or be radical to start off with, but many, like in the Philippines against Marcos, are seeking *justice* and *accountability* by the government to the People. Those that turn to terrorism are not seeking *justice* nor *accountability* but an overthrow of the entirety of the Nation State order to get their way. None of the terrorist organizations have restricted their fund-raising, recruiting, training or attacks to just one Nation. Even the most Nationalist of terror organizations, like some of the IRAs, ETA and Shining Path, have gone extra-territorial in their means, methods and attacks. This is not a question of poverty, it is one of corrupt and power-hungry views of the world to make it run in accordance to the wishes of the groups involved. That can be in just one Nation, but there are many that cross Nation State boundaries and seek a wider regional or global change in the ordering of the power structure in their favor. It is the middle class and affluent that can afford the education for radical teaching and can afford to follow that with what we would consider to be 'good jobs' that pay well. The poor can and are used by such organizations as foot soldiers, shock troops, and 'expendables' for various things. Their leadership are those that are well off in the realm of finances and goods, but lacking in the realm of accommodation with the rest of humanity.

V) Realists have never dealt with Foreign Policy on the basis of the Revolutionary conception of America. They have approached, one and all, even the less than capable President Clinton, on the basis of the US being a Great Power first, and a land of Freedom, second. Looking through what went on through the latter part of the era of 'Realism', we see that view permeating the air with Kissinger, Brzezinski, Baker, Scowcroft... all very much on the 'Realistic' economic stability side and not very much on the universality of human freedom side. This is not a misperception, as witness all the thugs, tyrants and despots that they urged the US to support over the years. This entire school of Foreign Policy misses the basis for what America *is*: a land that believes that all men are created equal. That the source of legitimacy is not in the power of the economy nor in the power of arms nor in the vastness of the individuals, but in the depth and sincerity of holding *to* liberty so as to be free. America does not export revolution and has no business deciding for other people what their system of government should be. America does have a stance to make that we believe all People are better off being Free and utilizing Liberty to the widest extent possible so as to lead good and fulfilling lives. We are the friends of those who befriend us, and urge our friends to find the most liberty that their people can have so that we can grow stronger together as Free People. Tyranny and despotism are the enemies of Liberty and Freedom and should be given no quarter, no rest, no succor.


In pulling in evil regimes to counter worse ones, we diminish the meaning of liberty and freedom for ourselves and the scales slowly shift in favor of the evil of tyrannical and authoritarian outlook. That has gone on so long that an entire segment of the political spectrum now adheres to authoritarian concepts about diminishment of the individual under the beneficent oversight of the State. These dwell in both the Right and the Left. They are Enemies of Freedom. 'Realistic' policies have debased the foundation of what it means to have a Nation called the United States of America. The ideals of Liberty and Freedom being universal are now widely attacked within the Nation itself, because the Government has looked towards a 'Balance of Evil' rather than the Might of Freedom as its guidepost. In that light, those that seek to give more and more to the Nation State are proceeding down the pathways set up by the 'Realists': they seek to treat Peoples as servants to events, not as the movers of them and the definers of Nations. By adhering to tyrants and despots to counter totalitarian regimes, we have come to accept that authoritarianism is an acceptable path for ourselves and the world. Those seeking to erase Nations, homogenize humanity and bring partisan based equivalence across humanity are far *worse* than dictators we have countered over generations.

America can go forward by jettisoning its support of regimes that encourage no Freedom and Liberty within their bounds. That means actually confronting them, ending our trade with them and encouraging our allies to do the same. That will hurt the Nation economically, and greatly, as we have come to accept the everyday banality of such repression of the human spirit until we accept it as the natural order of things. Both the Left and Right mouth words of freedom, but in their hearts are views of authority over mankind, not coexistence within the panoply of human outlook and cultures. By no longer daring to say that human Liberty and Freedom IS universal, we deny its protection to ourselves as well as those in desperate need of it. America, for all that she deals with the actual world on a daily basis, is a highly idealistic Nation, based on ideals and principles that transcend class, culture, ethnicity and politics. Those pushing that 'everything is political' wish to say that human liberty can now be bartered away by the political class. Those foundational aspects that give root and meaning to the American outlook are being hacked at by those wishing to uproot this Nation and all Nations.

The United States was not founded to be a 'Realistic' Nation: democracy in such a large Republic had never been tried and all Republics AND democracies had failed throughout the ages. By working to undermine the ability of the Nation to hold to its long-term views on the universality of human freedom and liberty being paramount to mankind, and by making alliances with dictators and tyrants, the position of the US to actually oppose them has weakened over the past four decades.

The Nation is now in the untenable position of having to support a 'free trade agreement' with a Nation that demonstrates no ability to regularize its democracy or to institute reforms necessary to drive out corruption in the public policy area: Mexico.

We also support trade to increase freedom without any demonstration that this concept works. The American History is that free people at liberty to invest and spend their hard earned wages and winnings in life as they see fit to build their lives better to benefit the Nation is an obvious one. Having cheap exports and imports with Nations that do not adhere to basic human freedoms of speech, religion and freedom from government confiscation of goods now means that the US actively supports those ends and not the ends of liberty and freedom. China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and other Nations are direct recipients of US money and investment and there is little to no overhead on that to help support pressing these regimes to become free and prosperous based on that freedom, instead of extracting funds from their populations or just repressing them for natural resources extraction.

The Nation does not bolster its free friends and allies nor encourage them to greater liberty and freedom via investment in them. A simple plan to hand the industrial and material cast-offs of the US economy to recently freed Nations and those Allies in need of such things to help them prosper would be very low cost to the Nation as we have utilized these goods to the greatest amount we can, but there is still utility and ability to make a good living with them in other Nations that have befriended us. While the US can and should work with other peoples to create freedom and liberty, we should work even harder to sustain it in our friends and allies so that we can become stronger for being free *together* and that there is large and good value in liberty and freely choosing ones own way in the world. That means no longer appeasing tyrants and gaining an iota of humility to recognize that others *trust* us, and that such trust must NOT be betrayed by 'Realism'.

These are outcomes of the Foreign Policy that I proposed earlier.

Support friends and allies with free trade and by having cross-investment with them to sustain our liberty and freedom together with them.

Put tariff and taxation upon those dealing with Nations that neither help nor oppose the US. There is a cost to support our freedom and liberty and that is not only internal to the Nation but external to it as well so that our goods and values are not exploited by those who do not care overmuch for us.

And the enemies of freedom and liberty must come to recognize that they have no friend in the US, and that their opposition to the universality of human freedom and liberty is a bane to us. They should get no trade, these Nations that seek to undermine human freedom and liberty and that openly show their hostility to the US and its friends and allies.


The Liberty and Freedom we have has a cost to it, and when we let the good of it move to support despotism, totalitarianism and authoritarianism, our liberty is perverted to unjust ends. Free People can acknowledge this cost and adhere to the rallying cry of the Revolution: "No taxation without Representation."

And those Nations that offer no representation to their People should be *taxed* for that, so the wages of Free People do not build the bonds of slavery.