Presidential debates as job interview

The so-called 'foreign policy debate' with Gov. Romney and President Obama was the last of 3 Presidential and 1 Vice-Presidential debates staged for this election cycle.  Presidents and Governors are Executive level positions, spoken with the capital E for government as a branch of government, and often with a lower case E for positions that are heads of companies, institutions and charities.  What Presidents are, by and large, are the ones that need to execute on policy and run day-to-day affairs of whatever organization they are in charge of.  Being an executive is not a mandatory position, not a position one is coerced into doing but a position one must volunteer for through application for it.  For the Executive position of the United States this means going through a long cycle of party primaries and contests, lots of travel, working to form up policy positions, putting forward one's vision of how the policy of this Nation should change (or not change) for it to be successful, and then, if one is skilled and lucky enough, to then interview for the position via 'debates' with one's final opponent to see who gets the job.  Each citizen that is eligible to vote can cast a ballot (and I urge the eligible to do so) to help decide at their district and State level which candidate is to be backed.  As a representative democratic system in service to a republican form of government, this is an honor and a sacred duty to our fellow citizens as they ask it of us by this form of government.

With the final debate now passed I can only offer a few insights into it, but they are critical ones.

First off is that foreign policy is the most difficult for any challenger to accomplish unless they have held a Governorship for a State that has extensive foreign business contacts.  An incumbent President gets a head-start on this, and this should be the time to demonstrate competence, capacity and a clear foreign policy vision for the future path of our Nation amongst our brother Nations.

In theme and tenor, then, President Obama must offer a vision to show that after 4 years he understands what foreign policy is, why it works the way it does, and state quite explicitly what that vision is for the next 4 years.   The past 4 years should offer a plethora of examples of this on low (at the detailed levels) and on high (in our affairs with other Nations), and this area should be the strong point of any President seeking re-election.  Unfortunately President Obama came out to score points against his opponent, belittle his opponent, mock his opponent and then offer no clear and decisive examples of how the course of the Nation is better for having him in charge.  Indeed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to end hostilities in Iraq is a transition agreement to slowly withdraw Coalition forces while letting Iraqi Forces stand up.  It is a regularized turn-over and weaknesses in structure in the new Iraqi Forces can be found and examined, solutions proposed and such an agreement put on hold to allow structural weaknesses in the Iraqi government to be addressed.  After WWII this took nearly a decade in Japan, a bit shorter in Germany and in both instances the withdrawal was not a set date or year, but a set of conditions to be met for the capacity and trustworthiness of the new government to actually do its job with bunches of neophytes doing it.  Similarly, in Afghanistan, a time-table is not necessary, but an end goal of a capable Afghani set of forces that are accountable for their actions, have internal safeguards against corruption, and a means to address new problems as they arise are paramount to leaving a relatively stable government in a very rough neighborhood of Rock 3 from the star Sol.  In both cases President Obama is looking to score points (to get out of Iraq and set a time-table for Afghanistan that is rigid) and misses the concept of having an end set of accountable structures in place.  Indeed President Obama ran on getting a SOFA with Iraq and failed, utterly, to do so, which meant that any structural problems Iraqis would meet up with now must be handled on their own without any experienced outside resources to call upon.  In Afghanistan the rigid time-table that brooks no accommodation to problems, that allows for no shifting of schedule to meet unexpected weaknesses or unforeseen changes on the ground means that it is a hard, knife edge cut-off. 

Is that preferable to having forces in Germany, South Korea and other places for decades?  Perhaps, yes, but that case has not been made.  Nor has the case been made as to why continued presence in those Nations is actually to the interest of the US today.  A foreign policy would give hard and fast grounding to just how long the US can and should stay in a Nation post-war, and what the means and methodology for leaving actually are in broad overview.  Why leave hastily from Iraq after ticking off the locals and stay in Germany or South Korea?  What is the policy involved?  Why is it different in each locale?  And since the Korean war hasn't actually ended by treaty, just why is it that decades of presence without a final conclusion is acceptable?  President Barack Obama is incapable of stating his foreign policy goals for post-war systems of turn-over to local control of governments, and so you will never know why he does what he does and does not do what he does not do.

Gov. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has less he has to put forward but all that he must put forward is in the policy arena.  For a challenger this is the time to look confident, capable, relatively fluent with the course of external events, and to tie those events together and how he would approach them into a foreign policy.  In these areas it is best when you have a general foreign policy overview that can be clearly stated and advanced.  Owing to his business experience, Gov. Mitt Romney ties foreign policy back to economics, trade and National capacity to advance prosperity so that we can be the ones who decide when and how to act, not merely re-act to events.  Whilst all Nations are equal, we understand that they differ based on size, economy and moral outlook, so that even the mightiest of Nations can be made humble before a good example and that those seeking to tear down Nations will fear a commitment to liberty and freedom backed by the local population.  By constantly and consistently tying foreign policy strongest to the economic realm, Gov. Romney brought understanding to his outlooks on foreign policy to drive out the practical implementation of it in the way of plans.  Plans, therefore, follow policy and are in service to it, not the other way around, and this is a key understanding of the role of an executive (writ large and small), which is to set out policy, formulate plans and implement said plans within the limitations of power and what can be accomplished by policy.

Beyond that a challenger must offer up continuity with the current President, that the boat will not be turned over, that changes will occur over months or years, and that good works are applauded even when they must be adjusted to fit new conditions on the ground.  Differences can be offered in the way forward, but they are built-upon what is inherited, and wholesale changes cannot happen quickly if at all with foreign policy.  In short the job of the challenger is to make a foreign policy bridge continuity with the current President and yet offer enough differences in policy so that a changed path can be seen.  During the Cold War this was mostly absent as the bi-polar world view set in and things that the US would not have stood for pre-war (coddling tyrants and dictators who were anti-Soviet if not pro-freedom) and the expediency of keeping the continuity going was done in the light of global nuclear war if one wrong decision was made.  By 1980, however, the stark differences between a US in decline and a USSR going into multiple overseas excursions could be seen and the foreign policy of President Carter could be starkly contrasted to the benefit of a challenger who seemed to have a more coherent world-view.  In this first area of policy presentation and Executive readiness, Gov. Romney needed to only state the understanding of what has gone on during President Obama's term, that some changes will be made but not quickly and always done to a different viewpoint of economic liberty in search of increased security to other Nations and our own.  An explicit foreign policy would be nice, yes, but not required at this point in time.

Secondly in the foreign policy area is tenor and style, especially when substance lacks, but tenor and style cannot be divorced from history nor past events.  A smiling, laughing Joe Biden during discussion of what a nuclear armed Iran would mean was jarring, disconcerting and actually quite horrible to behold as this individual could become President with one heart-attack or fall down a flight of stairs or slipping in the bathtub by President Obama.  There is a solemnity to these topics that are the course of the Nation in the world that must be taken seriously, because not to do so could wind up with global consequences of unseen proportion with just one misstep.  Again the sitting Executive should have this area hands-down: being Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Armies and the Navies should give this realm of tenor and style a weight far different than other realms of discussion for the President's job.

Here President Obama did a disservice to himself by trying to tear down his opponent while not properly putting his service into context.  When criticizing Gov. Romney that we don't need a Navy the size of what it was in pre-WWI times, that we have better technology and that we no longer used horses and bayonets, the President in attempting to demean his opponent actually demonstrated that he is lacking a grasp of importance of the US Navy to our own shipping overseas.  Oversight by satellites and drones is not the same as having a warship on the spot to deal with shipping problems fostered by modern Pirates which are just terrorists taken to sea.  The only way to get a sniper to take care of a hostage situation at sea is to have a Navy that is widely deployed and can offer timely assets appropriate to the threat involved.  That means that not only nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, but surface combatants and the capacity to field remotely operated or unmanned assets to be coordinated for local sea-going operations is required.  Indeed it is mandatory if a Nation is to have independent trade capacity and not depend upon other Nations for seagoing safety and support. 

Even worse, of course, is that the military still uses horses (particularly in Afghanistan where gasoline powered vehicles must be re-supplied with gasoline) and not only does it still use bayonets but also issues knives as a supplement.  The soldier has a three level threat system that has a specific order: the rifle for long range threats, the pistol for that stuff under 50 yards, and the knife or bayonet affixed to the rifle as form of pole-arm, for that stuff that is up-close and personal.  I would dare say we have MORE knives and bayonets amongst all the services issued to our troops than we did pre-WWI.  By trying to belittle and demean a mere civil opponent, the President demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of just how the soldier on the ground thinks and that there is no such thing as having too many knives or a bayonet mounted to the appropriate platform for it.  If we stress the knife more than the bayonet, it is due to those very technical circumstances the President brought up, not due to the lack of our soldiers needing a close-in weapon.  In attempting to 'score points' on an opponent, President Obama began removing them from his own column, instead.

Does the US Navy need more surface combatants, not just aircraft carrier battle groups and nuclear submarines?  One candidate does and the other does not, looking to replace physical capacity with remote surveillance and distant ships.  If China, say, decided to go after Taiwan and Hugo Chavez thought that seizure of Panama might help his tyrannical ends, then the US would be caught up in two Naval conflicts both requiring ships and support vessels, the full panoply of overhead assets and then be left wondering just who is guarding the Somali coast and the Straights of Hormuz.  If the Panama Canal becomes a US no-go zone and the South China Sea becomes the staging ground for an invasion outwards by China, the US is suddenly faced by having to see most of its shipping go through the Suez and Gibraltar.  Anything that put those at risk would be a crippling blow to the US and to the global economy if the US requirement for free passage cannot be asserted by military power during conflicts in which our foes were hitting at vital trade lines.

Today the modern nuclear ship force cannot be made into a 'Ghost Fleet' as the diesel ships had done to them.  When the nuclear reactor of these vessels is no longer enough to operate it and must be removed, then the entire ship is broken up to get at the reactor itself.  A few of these vessels that are from the first generation of vessels are nearing that point in time, and the end of their sustainment life is coming.  While replacements are being constructed (and some are in service) the idea that nuclear only fleet can do the task of safeguarding US commerce overseas is misguided and misapplied.  While we can make more mighty vessels (like the proposed and shelved DDX platform) the capacity to fine-tune response with firepower that is small, exacting and precise requires a human system at sea.  Be it for stop and search of cargo vessels for war materiel contraband or using a sniper to remove a few terrorists, these things cannot be done well (and sometimes not at all) by large vessels but only by small ones.  Littoral, near coastal, coastal and deep marine requirements all have their own necessities so that the modern US Navy is still covering areas from Brown Water to Blue Water, although less with gunboats and more with delivery systems for both arms and personnel, as well as lethal missiles, so that the role remains the same, the actual spatial area has remained the same or increased, and human capacity to deal with individual situations has to meet the new inputs from all these systems.  Technology has changed, yes, but the nature of the threat is so widely distributed that it cannot be dealt with by our current force mix.  This does not mean more of bigger and badder, but, like with GPS equipped munitions, often smaller, more accurate and less lethal delivered with precision.  It is very possible that a modern version of the WWII Jeep Carrier, that is a small aircraft carrier, light carrier or escort carrier, might become a platform for UAV/UCAVs or for ROVs or for VTOL systems all mixed together on one vessel.  Smaller and more versatile to cover a larger role and relieve stress off the larger battle groups means they can serve as a massive response to situations gone out of control, with the smaller forces serving to deal with localized threats from Pirates and threats that a large battle group just isn't made for.

That is the sort of analysis a Commander in Chief and Head of State must perform so as to clearly state just what the role, size and needs of our military are and should be in the future, not passing off what we have as 'good enough' just because it is relatively modern.  The people doing the threatening are using speed boats, semi-submersibles, cheap drones, and boarding ships with AK-47s, which is an entirely different threat matrix than dealing with Russia or China, say.  Yet the US Navy is required to deal with ALL OF IT.  Does a smaller navy relying on heavier vessels sound 'modern' at all in this context?  If so, then President Obama needs to make the case for that, which he did not do.

The Third major area, and the one that consumed the most time, was economics, but this concentrated more on domestic situations than our foreign trade.  Trade amongst Nations and how our Nation participates in such trade is a thing that the President gets much oversight and needs to foster agreement in the Senate to put trade agreements forward.  In this realm Gov. Romney performed well, as he put forward a clear vision of trade between the US and S. American Nations that would seek to build up their economic capacity and liberalize their trade, which would bolster them and the US, both.  Trade is something that can be 'win-win' for both sides when it is mutual and beneficial to both to have such trade.  This has been stated clearly as far back as 1776 by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, and continues to be true to this very day.  Gov. Romney later tied this to the expansion of small business in the US to participate vigorously in foreign trade and to set an example by doing so.  One of the greatest differences between President Obama and Gov. Romney is in this realm and President Obama was unprepared to offer up ideas on expanding trade in S. America at all, and only on an extremely limited basis in Asia, while Gov. Romney put forward that better trade relations lessen tensions between Nations and requires less military worries than poor or lacking trade relations.  On the flip side trade is to be between Nations that respect the sovereignty of other Nations and do not export Piracy in the form of terrorism to advance National goals by terrorizing the innocent.

In the non-military part of dealing with Iran, for example, Gov. Romney deployed something close to the unused but thoroughly Constitutional and tested framework of laws regarding Piracy in the US Code which I have handled multiple times, but is most clearly seen by me in this post.  A President gets wide latitude in dealing with Piracy as it is a threat not just to the US but to the system of Nation States, and those performing it are a threat to all mankind.  Gov. Romney put forward that more than just sanctions, and yet far less than war, can be done to the Iranian government by going after those that trade with them, and bringing those companies to heel via vigorous prosecution of them.  This requires that a President is fluent in the treaties the US has with various flag Nations and their vessels, and then be able to cite where their activities are contrary to their treaty agreements in regards to safeguarding trade and not trading with rogue Nations.  By dovetailing both trade and accountability for trade, Gov. Romney put forward a framework far deeper than anything President Obama has ever stated in this realm.  It is well and good of talking about treaties, but they are contracts between Nations and other Nations must be held accountable to what they have agreed to in this process.  In this area of foreign policy, the one that ties Nations together most intimately via trade, the President must be not only fluent but have a coherent outlook on it.  By having no response in general, and by not being able to deploy anything constructive to his foreign policy, President Obama lost not just stylistically (by trying to import that Gov. Romney is a warmonger) but also in substance by not even understanding the scope and depth of this Presidential suite of powers.

Now to the bits and pieces.

One of the stunning bits I learned from President Obama was just how unready he was for the Presidency.  I'm using the CNN transcript for this:

OBAMA: Governor - here - here's - here's one thing...

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: ...here's one thing I've learned as commander in chief.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHIEFFER: Let him answer...

OBAMA: You've got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean. You just gave a speech a few weeks ago in which you said we should still have troops in Iraq. That is not a recipe for making sure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and meeting the challenges of the Middle East.

Now I thought that this was something that ANYONE who ran for President would know right up-front, at the start and not have to do OJT for it.  This is something embedded in the American culture: the US President is clear, precise and tells you just what he expects so as not to befuddle our allies and embolden our enemies.  No one, and I do mean no one, needs to learn this as it as a thoroughly ingrained expectation of the office and has been since President Washington who set the standard for it.

The nation building trope from President Obama is a tired talking point:

But what I think the American people recognize is after a decade of war it's time to do some nation building here at home. And what we can now do is free up some resources, to, for example, put Americans back to work, especially our veterans, rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our schools, making sure that, you know, our veterans are getting the care that they need when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, making sure that the certifications that they need for good jobs of the future are in place.

We, as a Nation, do nation building abroad with Nations that have lost at war with us where the civil population is seen as innocent actors to a malignant government.  Are we war torn at home?  And even if we are, the role of the government is to stand aside and let the American People rebuild the Nation to our desires, not to the ones set out by our government.  Government is to follow the people, not lead the people in this.  Plus aren't the roads and bridges supposed to be FIXED by now due to the awesome power of the STIMULUS?  If not, why aren't they?  And who is being prosecuted for screwing this up so badly?

If the President wishes for the VA to act better, he could get on their case about processing claims in a timely fashion and not allow the backlogs to grow and the time to get something done to expand.

The only way that we can 'free up some resources' is by having government not taking them from the people to run the wars, and that happens once the war funding ends.  The money taken to run the wars is not money normally due to the federal government, and acting as if it IS then becomes an desire to keep spending levels at war time levels but without war time needs.  If America needs to be rebuilt, then it best happens at the local level which is the hardest pressed by war funding.  If the President wishes for things to get better, all he needs to do is stop the spending and not ask for higher taxes to keep spending at war time levels.

A scary-smart thing from Gov. Romney is his knowledge of Pakistan, which is something that President Obama (like South/Latin America) couldn't address properly:

ROMNEY: No, it's not time to divorce a nation on Earth that has 100 nuclear weapons and is on the way to double that at some point, a nation that has serious threats from terrorist groups within its nation, as I indicated before, the Taliban, Haqqani Network.

It's a nation that's not like - like others and it does not have a civilian leadership that is calling the shots there. You have the ISI, their intelligence organization, is probably the most powerful of the - of three branches there. Then you have the military and then you have the civilian government.

This is a nation, which, if it falls apart, if it - if it becomes a failed state, there are nuclear weapons there and you've got - you've got terrorists there who could grab their - their hands onto those nuclear weapons.

ROMNEY: This is - this is an important part of the world for us. Pakistan is - is technically an ally, and they're not acting very much like an ally right now. But we have some work to do. And I - I don't blame the administration for the fact that the relationship with Pakistan is strained. We - we had to go into Pakistan. We had to go in there to get Osama bin Laden. That was the right thing to do. And - and that upset them, but obviously there was a great deal of anger even before that. But we're going to have to work with the - with the people in Pakistan to try and help them move to a more responsible course than the one that they're on. And it's important for them. It's important for the nuclear weapons.

It's important for the success of Afghanistan. Because inside Pakistan, you have a - a large group of Pashtun that are - that are Taliban. They're going to come rushing back in to Afghanistan when we go. And that's one of the reasons the Afghan Security Forces have so much work to do to be able to fight against that. But it's important for us to recognize that we can't just walk away from Pakistan. But we do need to make sure that as we - as we send support for them, that this is tied to them making progress on - on matters that would lead them to becoming a civil society.

If there was a Leftist critique of Afghanistan post-USSR, it was that the US just cut and run from it, to leave the Islamists to fight for control of the place.  Remember that the Taliban were not all that nice towards women, not allowing them to go to school and even executing those who disagreed with the regime publicly in a soccer stadium.  That criticism of not staying behind to help get a better result in Afghanistan was harped upon by the Left, until just after 9/11, where it became the 'vital war' and is now just seen as a place to run away from and Pakistan with it.  Thus repeating the same mistake with Afghanistan they decried, but with a nuclear armed State.

Even though there was material that Gov. Romney 'left on the table' that he could have attacked President Obama with, there was plenty of material he also left on the table that President Obama couldn't address in trade, foreign relations, and military size and scope.  Not every attack needs to be answered in a foreign policy forum, and one can choose to leave attack points aside while putting out statements for which an opponent has no answer.

To try and pick a 'winner' on 'points' for this realm of information is, perhaps, misguided: it isn't about points but continuity of the Nation overseas and putting a clearly defined set of goals in place that people can understand.

Neither candidate did that well, to be sure, but a President should be able to do it fluently, easily and even disdain from attacking his opponent in the one area where continuity is paramount no matter how deep the disagreements.  President Obama would have been well served by having the cool, aloof Obama show up tonight, the one who kept to himself and just played it straight without attacking Gov. Romney.

In this series of debates it is clear that one candidate has a job, but doesn't really know how to interview for it a second time, while the other has interviewed for a few such positions in the past and understands what the role of an executive is.  

That set of characteristics of what makes an executive on small and on large was demonstrated during this 'debate'.  Experience does matter and what you have to learn also matters, as well, and the question of who is better prepared to learn is left up to the individual to decide.  Because you are the one who receives the interview material and must make the hiring decision.  Even if you are outvoted, you must make the best choice of who is to be an executive that will govern in the way you think is more clearly suited to not just yourself but to the Nation as a whole.

The Devil Made Me Do It

President Obama along with the heads of Great Britain and France made a statement that they have INTEL that Iran has the facility up and running to enrich uranium and that the facility has no international inspection regime over it and that the worst must be suspected. France announced that Iran has until DEC 2009, after the German elections, to come clean on its activities and open up for inspection. Of course al Qaeda is already threatening Germany that it is not supine enough to al Qaeda's liking and that they better elect an appeasement and withdrawal government and get out of Afghanistan. The 'or else' is implied.

Iran doubled down on the reactors and they have two such plants.

Someone came in a day late and a plant short, that being the IAEA. They missed an entire enrichment facility in Iran and now we find out about it. I should think that building such a thing might just be a little obvious and that the IAEA would have had a clue some years previous to this.

Cause for worry, no?

But let me take up a position that I do not sponsor, do not believe in, because it is one worth doing, at this point. I will take up the Leftist position on Iran and now put forward the same, exact outlook that they took on Iraq. Fun will not be had.

Say that the Devil made me do it.

First off is that INTEL is so unreliable as to be useless. When tyrants bluster about sophisticated technology, it is just that, bluster. Really they are oppressed leaders of oppressed Nations and can't help but cry out to just gain attention. They need our 'help' not our confrontation because, you know, all those spooks and spies lie all the time to get their way on foreign policy. President Bush was one of the following or all three, depending on who you listened to on what topic and when:

A) A dunce who couldn't think his way out of a paper bag.

B) A fool who would believe anything that the CIA and other leaders put in front of him.

C) An evil genius looking to rule the world.

Ahmadinejad is just like Saddam in this in that he has said multiple, different things in order to gain attention and their missiles can only take regular, everyday, common warheads that they hand over to Hezbollah. Plus he says this is for making nuclear fuel AND nuclear medicines, and who would lie about those things, right?

Second is that the US is the oppressor. We put sanctions on Iran when they took our Embassy staff captive against all forms of International Law but, hey, that was decades ago before many on the Left were even born. Its HISTORY. Ok, the armed group Hezbollah has killed US and French soldiers looking to help Lebanon out, but that was HISTORY TOO! And Iran has been tied in with the Hezbollah attacks in Argentina because Iran's friend, Syria, wanted advanced missile and nuclear technology from it. But that... well that was in HIST... oh, wait that was 1994. Can't be history. Still we put on sanctions and CAUSED all of that, its OUR FAULT if they want high tech weapons. So we should end the sanctions, no harm will ever come to us because, you know, the past is history.

Third is that there are no, real, WMDs in Iran. No one has seen them, therefore they don't exist. And trying to say they are building them and just need the radioactive material is WARMONGERING. That's oppression! If we would just be NICE to them they wouldn't be so BAD. Probably tyrannical to their own people, yes, but we can help END THAT by GIVING THEM MONEY. If we did that we could get some access to their facilities, just like we did with the oh-so-nice USSR, no? Oh, wait... well... still giving money is a lot better than war! Having to pay Danegeld is always the best way.... We don't ever need to be worried about Iran actually trying to attack us and that they did that to our Embassy which IS considered sovereign territory under international law doesn't mean they broke international law! And electing one of the people who took part in the Embassy invasion and hostage taking as the head of the Nation doesn't mean that Iran is scoffing at international law!

Fourth is that it is all a plot to get Iranian oil. Everything is a plot. On the part of the US and Europe and Iran is just responding naturally to plots against it. Its our fault. No blood for oil!!!

Fifth is that these white leaders... errrrr.... Imperialist Leaders....ahhhhh.... semi-white capitalist sycophants? Hmmmm... that works! Semi-white capitalist sycophant running dogs (yeah RUNNING DOGS, lets see them respond to that!) of BIG OIL don't care about those funny people in Iran and are just out to exploit them and their natural resources and enslave them to have to work for a living! Yeah, that's the ticket!

The above are the Devil's Advocate positions put up by the individuals and groups who derided Bush and operations in Iraq, amended lightly for Iran. I count them as the message of the SLA: Semi-conscious Liberation Army.

If the Left had any consistency, honesty or courage, those are the things they would be saying about President Obama and the situation in Iran. I know that because I've heard them all brought up as multiple 'reasons' or 'root causes' in similar venues about Iraq, just put down the Embassy bombing and such to the fact that Saddam would not keep his agreements under international law after the First Gulf War, and that his funding of Palestinian terrorists, handing out processing techniques to al Qaeda that showed up in Hekmatyar's organization in London and in Afghanistan under the Taliban are the rough equivalents to the far cozier and deeper relationship of Iran and its founding of Hezbollah.

I mean if the Left actually BELIEVED those things then Barack Obama is one of many things:

A) A dunce being dazzled by more sophisticated leaders on the global stage.

B) A fool who will believe anything handed to him by these operators.

C) Naive in thinking that Iran means any harm to the world or anyone on it outside of Iran, save for some nasty incidents that really were just an indication of how oppressed Iran is.

D) Corrupted already by 'the system'.

E) Evil Genius, save that he couldn't sell a used health plan to anyone save the far Left who wants a total government take-over of everything, immediately, for our own good.

F) Being used by 'the powers that be' , lied to by international leaders who are trying to make him the sock puppet for their oil needs, and by Ahmadinejad who is playing back and forth on the 'do we or don't we, double or nothing' game just like Saddam did. Because, really, Iran, Russia and China are much better places than France, Great Britain or the US.

Or all of them. The SLA has never been all that coherent on things.

My view?

One - Iran is a threat and a demonstrated one since the Embassy take-over. They have never apologized for that nor offered those who take part up to the US to be tried under our laws for those crimes committed on US soil at our Embassy compound.

Two - Iran is a continued threat in using an extra-national private war organization called Hezbollah to attack targets on land and at sea without warning. The list of Nations that have a Hezbollah presence is long, and even limiting it to those they have attacked still leaves you with most European Nations, a scattering of North African Nations, Argentina (if not others although tracking them out of the TBA is damned hard), the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and a few other places less savory in the old 'stans area of ex-Soviet Republics in Central Asia. For its sea-based attacks Hezbollah is a piracy operation, and by funding those Iran is also culpable for those actions under its auspices.

Three - Iran has funded 'insurgencies' in Iraq and Afghanistan with literal tons of equipment captured that have been manufactured in Iran: missiles, bombs, machine guns, explosively formed projectiles, IED components, uniforms, radios... a long, long list of training and equipment. It meddles in the politics of Iraq via Moqtada al Sadr and endorses violence in Iraq, save when al Sadr gets cold feet and needs to run for 'religious training', no doubt with AK-47s and RPGs.

Four - Iran has had nuclear weapons ambitions very close to its founding during the Cold War, when nuclear weapons were seen as 'legitimizers' for playing in the arena of Super-Power politics on an international scale. After that they just want to destroy Israel and threaten their neighbors. The first was pure hubris, of course, but not to be discounted as a starting point. The latter two have driven Iran and Iraq under Saddam, especially during their 1980's war that killed millions on both sides and saw Saddam deploy nerve gas and Iran deploy children on the battlefront. Iran, on its end, formed a close alliance with Syria that had long range missile technology, has not signed on to the Chemical Weapons convention, has tried to get enrichment facilities for its phosphate deposits so as to extract uranium from them, gulled the Swedes into selling them such a plant, had started on a bio-weapons program, and has the manufacturing and technical expertise to know the WMD issues... if not the cash to carry them out. Iran has that cash. The Israeli's bombed the attempted start-up of a Syrian/North Korean processing site for getting enriched uranium beyond 'yellowcake' concentrations. There is some expectation that Iran has shared technology with Syria in that venue. So both are proliferating WMD technology. Further Iran took part in the AQ Khan network which has workable uranium bomb designs and schematics. Also that networked served to funnel Chinese, North Korean and even some Japanese nuclear technology into the network, with Japan having Mitutoyo sell 10,000 separators on the black market in violation of all international agreements Japan signed up to.

Five - Iran doesn't give a damn about international law. It breaks treaties, proliferates WMD technology, serves as a trans-shipment point for various black market networks (including such things as heroin, cocaine, and small arms to various Hezbollah organizations), encourages black market work by Hezbollah operations, and has sought to extend power and influence via Hezbollah into The Balkans, South America, Africa, Europe proper, SE Asia, and even into North America. The North American operations run by the late Imad Mugniyah incorporated such things as tobacco tax fraud, banking fraud, black/grey market dealings, car theft (if the reports are to be believed), and shipping drugs across North America via Mexican drug gangs. Each of those have cases in the US and Canada to back them, although the car theft part is harder to ID as part of the larger Albanian ex-pat criminal organizations that Iran semi-cooperates with. They do similar with Russia, with shipments of cocaine from Hezbollah in S. America showing up in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 20 ton lots. That ain't chicken feed.

Six - Iran is run by a group of individuals who are old, about one-deep in leadership, and who have a fantasy ideology about the end times and the 12th Imam. They also want to blow Israel off the map, bring harm to the US (the Great Satan) and generally get their belief on how Islam should run the world as an operational idea. Israel has a small unannounced but widely known defensive nuclear arsenal: you attack the with nukes and you can say good-bye to the world.

Seven - The money is on Iran having one or more nuclear processing facilities with the sweet possibility they are also using some small amount of Syrian help, and possibly giving better processing technology to North Korea.

Eight - Gazprom told the Russian government a couple of years ago NOT to invest any money into the petroleum/gas infrastructure of Iran. China pulled out of a $10 billion support deal for the Iranian petroleum infrastructure. All international analysis in those sectors points to a Nation ruining their natural resource exploitation system and that now must import not only refined gasoline, but even simple natural gas from outside their country. The infrastructure of Iran is being driven into the ground as bad or possibly even worse than Saddam did by not repairing his infrastructure: at least that needed wholesale replacement due to there being no infrastructure to repair. Iran is not so lucky and will need a retail replacement with each and every single part analyzed and replaced before it all implodes in the next five years or so. Want a real oil shock? Iran can't meet its export agreements and hasn't for years now. It is a net IMPORTER of natural gas and refined petroleum products. I disagree with Dick Morris on these points, and deeply: he has gotten the direction and amount of flow of natural gas and refined petroleum products wrong, and is still thinking in 1990's terms on Iran. Russia supports Iran for its own reasons, mostly getting paid for the stuff they have already done there, some for geopolitics against the West, some for the natural gas fields and oil fields in Iran that Russia could run better than Iran can at the moment.

When you add these things up you get an Iranian government (and I do hope the Iranian people can bring this baby down) that is: tyrannical, imperial, aggressive, expansionistic and dictatorial with a lovely dash of fantasy ideology thrown in to give the thing a piquant stench. Plus its eggshell economy is about to implode. I'm not too fond of the damned government and hope that the Iranian people can find the path to liberty and freedom and get rid of it. Unfortunately they are on their own in doing so: the US has given active and vocal support of their despotic government and not even a bone to those actually laying their lives down to free their fellow countrymen.

That is a black mark against America.

A deep stain that shows how callow we can be, as a Nation, to disdain supporting those who fight for freedom and liberty in all venues, even just in rhetoric.

Pushing 'health care' when there are nuts trying to get WMDs is a pointless exercise: when you are part of a WMD attack, no health insurance in the world will pay for that. Especially if you are dead.

You want WMD Life Insurance on that, instead. Good luck in finding it after the last couple of days.

To me the Left went certifiably nuts when they could not understand that there are Levels of Confidence with all INTEL and that no INTEL is 100%. To restate: there is no INTEL that is deemed 100% accurate with confidence. You may have a high level of confidence, say 90%, but that is not 100%. If you want 100%, you must invade and find out for YOURSELF on the ground what is going on. We have to trust these analysts as they are, surprisingly, conservative and don't like to step beyond their level of confidence in anything as it can come back to haunt them for the rest of their lives when they are WRONG. That is why you do NOT put political pressure of ANY sort on INTEL: the analysts must be given leeway to operate in an environment so they can weigh what is known, what they can't know and what they are trying to infer and political views get in the way of that no end and you wind up with faulty INTEL work. I don't like political pressure on INTEL from the POTUS and I don't like it from inside Agencies trying to run their own agendas, but that is something I have looked at multiple times elsewhere and will not further that here.

We cannot run a Nation or our relationships with others on good wishes and hoping for the best, because THAT is also a fantasy ideology and doesn't deal with the way people actually do things and why. Trying to imply motives is mind reading. What people do and comparing that to what they say then allows you to derive the truthfulness of what they say by what they do: it is evidence based analysis. It is prone to have levels of confidence. That sucks. That is how the real world works. If you don't like it, then please move to an alternate reality where that does work. Trying to bring that reality here will get us all killed.

How the reasoning is tortured

Yes, we do indeed hear how inflicting a feeling of drowning without the fact of it is 'torture'!  Indeed, the triumph of the stupidity happens when such a thing is put forward as what is done is to give a feeling of drowning, not the actual drowning in and of itself.  Are we to castigate and litigate upon those sanctioned to do such things for the professed reason of saving their fellow countrymen from harm and, indeed, their Nation?  If we are a Nation of laws then we must also recognize that we operate from the Law of Nations first and foremost so we can understand the context of our laws amongst Nations.

This would seem straightforward, but it isn't taught in school anymore, and so we have the mighty bellowing from on-high about things that are without reason, without basis and, indeed, implore us to be so civilized as to be decadent in our response to those seeking to exterminate our lives.

Thus to understand what it is that we are to do against those that seek to make war upon us that are not any Nation and have no sanction from any Nation, we must turn to the Law of Nations, first, to understand just what they are.  Only after we know that can we then proceed to see if our laws are in accord with the Law of Nations and that those doing this feeling of drowning activity to those attacking us are doing something unworthy or noble.  To do that I now turn to Book III of Law of Nations:

§ 34. Na-

Nations that are always ready to take up arms on any prospect of advantage, are lawless robbers: but those who seem to delight in the ravages of war, who spread it on all sides, without reasons or pretexts, and even without any other motive than their own ferocity, are monsters, unworthy the name of men. They should be considered as enemies to the human race, in the same manner as, in civil society, professed assassins and incendiaries are guilty, not only towards the particular victims of their nefarious deeds, but also towards the state, which therefore proclaims them public enemies. All nations have a right to join in a confederacy for the purpose of punishing and even exterminating those savage nations. Such were several German tribes mentioned by Tacitus — such those barbarians who destroyed the Roman empire: nor was it till long after their conversion to Christianity that this ferocity wore off. Such have been the Turks and other Tartars — Genghis Khan, Timur Bec or Tamerlane, who, like Attila, were scourges employed by the wrath of Heaven, and who made war only for the pleasure of making it. Such are, in polished ages and among the most civilized nations, those supposed heroes, whose supreme delight is a battle, and who make war from inclination purely, and not from love to their country.

This section is from the part on warfare and who makes it and how and I am using boldface to highlight passages.

What we see is that terrorists do, indeed, fit into the category of those who have delight in war for the reason that they want to world to follow their beliefs and put them into the top position over mankind.  These are monsters, ravagers and they become a public enemy (true enemies of the public beyond mere law breaking), and also wage war upon all Nations.  This is the point that vexes so many:  policing and warmaking are not 'either/or' against these, but BOTH and to the extreme.  We are to end their exploits, these monsters in human form, even unto exterminating all who follow them to the last man.  We do not do that in fury or hatred, but to bring justice to them in the only way they know.  We do not profess blood lust to kill a rat or a mad dog.  In fact in the latter if it was a beloved animal gone mad, we do it in grieving that one being that we loved had gone sick by the way of nature and needed to be removed so as not to harm us or our fellow man.  In sorrow we kill, but that does not stop us from doing the deed as it is necessary.  It is Just.

Why do we distinguish between those who make war that are not Nations and those who are Nations?  Again in Book III:

§ 67. It is to be distinguished from informal and unlawful war.

Legitimate and formal warfare must be carefully distinguished from those illegitimate and informal wars, or rather predatory expeditions, undertaken either without lawful authority or without apparent cause, as likewise without the usual formalities, and solely with a view to plunder. Grotius relates several instances of the latter.⁵ Such were the enterprises of the grandes compagnies which had assembled in France during the wars with the English, — armies of banditti, who ranged about Europe, purely for spoil and plunder: such were the cruises of the buccaneers, without commission, and in time of peace; and such in general are the depredations of pirates. To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorized by a sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say, — the lawful and the illegitimate, — are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different.

§ 68. Grounds of this distinction.

In order fully to conceive the grounds of this distinction, it is necessary to recollect the nature and object of lawful war. It is only as the last remedy against obstinate injustice that the law of nature allows of war. Hence arise the rights which it gives, as we shall explain in the sequel: hence, likewise, the rules to be observed in it. Since it is equally possible that either of the parties may have right on his side, — and since, in consequence of the independence of nations, that point is not to be decided by others (§ 40), — the condition of the two enemies is the same, while the war lasts. Thus, when a nation, or a sovereign, has declared war against another sovereign on account of a difference arisen between them, their war is what among nations is called a lawful and formal war; and its effects are, by the voluntary law of nations, the same on both sides, independently of the justice of the cause, as we shall more fully show in the sequel.⁶ Nothing of this kind is the case in an informal and illegitimate war, which is more properly called depredation. Undertaken without any right, without even an apparent cause, it can be productive of no lawful effect, nor give any right to the author of it. A nation attacked by such sort of enemies is not under any obligation to observe towards them the rules prescribed in formal warfare. She may treat them as robbers,^(146a) The inhabitants of Geneva, after defeating the famous attempt to take their city by escalade,⁷ caused all the prisoners whom they took from the Savoyards on that occasion to be hanged up as robbers, who had come to attack them without cause and without a declaration of war. Nor were the Genevese censured for this proceeding, which would have been detested in a formal war.

As we have seen, plunder is but one object of illegitimate war and it can be waged for no other reason that those doing so enjoy it.  From that these actions do not gain the opprobrium legitimate war making, but are forms of predation carried out by monsters.

Warfare is a liberty and has a positive and negative aspect to it, but the liberty itself is granted to us at birth: it comes from the Law of Nature and is never separated from us.  In society to create the State and then the Nation, we invest our negative liberty of warfare, that is offensive warfare for the society and even the positive social liberty of defensive warfare, to the State and Nation.  We do that so that we are not forever plagued by warfare that others drag us into within society.  With that said we retain the positive aspect of warfare, that of personal defense, defense of family and defense of property for ourselves and can even reclaim defense of society with our fellow citizens when neither State nor Nation respond to invasion or even simple danger that puts society at risk.  This, then, civilizes warfare as we have removed it from the purely personal realm for offensive means and societal defense, although not entirely for the latter as it reverts back to us when with our fellow man and our higher social organs do not respond to attacks.

When we are attacked by those who reclaim all liberty of warfare to themselves and even create an organization to do this, they are using this as a form of depredation to work their will.  They have no right to do so, and thus no cause put forward by them is Just.  When we are attacked by such individuals, all laws and rules of warfare and society may be placed aside as we are to bring these monsters down with extreme prejudice against them for taking these acts against us.  Things which we would look aghast on in normal warfare or in the warm bosom of a Nation at peace can be done when we are attacked by predatory men.  None think the worse of us to defend ourselves and ensure that we are defended to the utmost.

It is here that the problems of those citing waterboarding as 'torture' run afoul of the real world: we have been attacked by predatory men, continue to be attacked by them and are exerting extreme prejudice to bring them down as they have attacked us to kill us with no warrant, no sanction and for no Just reason at all.  In reclaiming their full liberty of warfare, they have become human predators, monsters of unreason.  Any that do so, no matter how sweet and kind their words, betray themselves by their actions which demonstrate they are the enemy of all mankind.  They seek to overturn all law, all justice, all resistance and enslave us all to their will.  It does not matter if they have the direct means to do so, their demonstration of limited means shows they are trying to get better means as, before that, they had NONE.

Thus we follow in Book III:

§ 69. Who is an enemy.⁽¹⁴⁷⁾

THE enemy is he with whom a nation is at open war. The Latins had a particular term (Hostis) to denote a public enemy, and distinguished him from a private enemy (Inimicus). Our language affords but one word for these two classes of persons, who ought, nevertheless to be carefully distinguished. A private enemy is one who seeks to hurt us, and takes pleasure in the evil that befalls us. A public enemy forms claims against us, or rejects ours, and maintains his real or pretended rights by force of arms. The former is never innocent; he fosters rancour and hatred in his heart. It is possible that the public enemy may be free from such odious sentiments, that he does not wish us ill, and only seeks to maintain his rights. This observation is necessary in order to regulate the dispositions of our heart towards a public enemy.

Private enemies are inimical to us: they hate us and attack us with no just cause.

When it is a Nation, that is unjust and unlawful war.  When it is an individual waging war on their own, it is the depredation done by a predator.

These are not pleasant terms to use as we are so used to our fellow man understanding what law is and why it is important, and that respect for these things we create called 'Nations' means that we can set aside some negative liberties to be held by that creation to protect us so that we do not descend into becoming lawless creatures.  Indeed, Thomas Jefferson with editing help by Ben Franklin expressed, clearly, how we build up these things, and they clearly cite what the Law of Nature is with respect to us:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

There, clearly stated, is that the powers of earth are to be used as a gift derived from the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, to which we are all entitled.  The laws of earth are something we create from the Laws of Nature, and thus, in that deriving, we create something for ourselves in this earthly realm.

Those that rend the laws of earth asunder to return to the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God are moving back from this creation, therefore, and no longer a part of this community we create.  These men recognize that within the very next part where they speak of this.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We are all, indeed, endowed with the gifts of the Laws of Nature in FULL.  And we use those gifts to pursue life, liberty and happiness for ourselves.  This is a self-evident truth that the pursuit of these things is a result of us being natural beings of the earth.  But we cannot do that as natural man living in a State of Nature, for there is only the Law of Nature there which is the seeking for oneself these things, and not with anyone else.  When we return to that state of being that is where we go, to give up the laws of earth we only have those gifts given to all mankind, that of Nature.  We cannot secure these gifts alone: to create security we must do something.

That is spoken of next:

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

We create something beyond ourselves, and join with our fellow man in doing that.  To share a culture, history and set of agreed upon ideals we become a people and we create something to help govern us so as to secure our liberties and that is government.  Further, to protect our society and ourselves, a government must derive its just powers from the consent of the governed.  One of these things we do to create this sovereign power amongst us, for it is ours to create as the laws of earth, is to invest our negative liberties in it so we may keep watch over them and see that our fellow man abides by this.

Stepping back to Book III in Law of Nations, there is this passage:

§ 3. Right of making war.⁽¹³⁶⁾

In treating of the right to security (Book II. Chap. IV.), we have shown that nature gives men a right to employ force, when it is necessary for their defence, and for the preservation of their rights. This principle is generally acknowledged: reason demonstrates it; and nature herself has engraved it on the heart of man. Some fanatics indeed, taking in a literal sense the moderation recommended in the gospel, have adopted the strange fancy of suffering themselves to be massacred or plundered, rather than oppose force to violence. But we need not fear that this error will make any great progress. The generality of mankind will, of themselves, guard against its contagion — happy, if they as well knew how to keep within the just bounds which nature has set to a right that is granted only through necessity! To mark those just bounds, — and, by the rules of justice, equity, and humanity, to moderate the exercise of that harsh, though too often necessary right — is the intention of this third book.

Nature gives us the right to employ force in self-defense so as to preserve our rights.

Do notice that the problem of those wishing to take to heart the extreme literal teachings of the gospel want to suffer plunder, depredation and massacre rather than employ violence to defend themselves.  de Vattel does not mince words when he calls them 'fanatics' as they are that: devoted to a cause without using reason.  There must be bounds to the teachings in the gospel, for they do not tell you to become a slave to warlords, killers, pirates, brigands, thieves and those wishing to maraud against you like animals.  To prescribe that those who give up the laws of earth are to be ENTITLED to them is a fanatical position: to do so no longer makes one civilized, but fanatical at removing the reason behind having society and Nation to have such laws.

From there we go on to see where we put our negative liberty of warfare for ourselves and society:

§ 4. It belongs only to the sovereign power.⁽¹³⁷⁾

As nature has given men no right to employ force, unless when it becomes necessary for self defence and the preservation of their rights (Book II. § 49, &c.), the inference is manifest, that, since the establishment of political societies, a right, so dangerous in its exercise, no longer remains with private persons except in those encounters where society cannot protect or defend them. In the bosom of society, the public authority decides all the disputes of the citizens, represses violence, and checks every attempt to do ourselves justice with our own hands. If a private person intends to prosecute his right against the subject of a foreign power, he may apply to the sovereign of his adversary, or to the magistrates invested with the public authority: and if he is denied justice by them, he must have recourse to his own sovereign, who is obliged to protect him. It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners; as, in that case, there would not be a single member of the state who might not involve it in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature, — the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint, whether she is authorized to employ force, and justifiable in taking up arms, whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the state requires it, — that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights, without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty (Book I. § 45).

Thus the sovereign power alone is possessed of authority to make war. But, as the different rights which constitute this power, originally resident in the body of the nation, may be separated or limited according to the will of the nation (Book I. § 31 and 45), it is from the particular constitution of each state, that we are to learn where the power resides, that is authorized to make war in the name of the society at large. The kings of England, whose power is in other respects so limited, have the right of making war and peace.¹ Those of Sweden have lost it. The brilliant but ruinous exploits of Charles XII. sufficiently warranted the states of that kingdom to reserve to themselves a right of such importance to their safety.

We cannot have this right to ourselves if we wish to have society: they cannot co-exist, and one must put aside this right to HAVE society.  They return to us, fully, when we are attacked and our organs of society called government cannot or WILL NOT defend us.  We are not divorced from these rights, they are born in us all in equal measure and it is only when we set aside the use of these rights to cooperate with our fellow man do we gain the boon of comradeship and some security.  When any person takes up the personal, in-born rights and no longer sets them aside, they are saying that they wish not to have a society WITH US.  If we extend the hand of friendship and goodness to them, they have already spurned it by not only walking away from society but, then, in exercising these rights against our fellow man.

There is no due process of law that we can give them.

They have taken up the merciless position of war for themselves and spurn societies and Nation to work their ways using the means of warfare.  Even the tribes they exploit when they are from foreign soils, recognize that those in the tribe invest the negative liberty of warfare in the tribe, to be moderated by the whole, and those that seek to fight on their own do not have the support of those abiding by the common society.  To fight alone is not 'glorious' it is a horror as only animals will do that or those so threatened as to have no other recourse than to viciously assert their rights to be free of oppression.

When we invest these negative liberties in government to protect us all it gains majesty.  Not only is this part of the act of making it a sovereign government, but we elevate it to demonstrate that we will not commit wanton acts of warfare as that dissolves the majesty of our endeavor.  Without that government given our the use of our liberties and our agreement to not use them we, a government would have no majesty but would not exist.  Thus taking the right to wage war on our own is to dissolve our connection to majesty and when we seek to give mercy to those who have no endowment, no capability to invest their liberty and right to use it in something higher than themselves, we elevate Nature's beasts to that of Nations.  And yet that is what so many call for, to raise bestial man up to 'due process of law' and, thusly, not increase the stature of the law but corrode it as we now believe that monsters can be given mercy.

From that digression we can no go forward in understanding with Jefferson and his editor Franklin:

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. 

Whenever government becomes destructive of the ends of civil society, whenever it abuses that society and uses that investment of negative liberties meant to protect us to undermine society, then that government can be changed or abolished by the people.  Government is to utilize the means we give it to protect us, not dictate to us.  When we seek to invest 'good' things, positive liberty that is the sole domain of the people INTO government, we act in an ill way towards ourselves.  When we seek to have government address those who have attacked the government and who show no willingness to be tried by civil means and civil authority, the remedy that must be sought is martial not civil on its own.

Going to war against a Nation (be it offensive or defensive war) requires us to give quarter and mercy on the battlefield.  For those abridging the law of nations, however, we learn this:

§ 141. A particular case, in which quarter may be refused.

There is, however, one case in which we may refuse to spare the life of an enemy who surrenders, or to allow any capitulation to a town reduced to the last extremity. It is, when that enemy has been guilty of some enormous breach of the law of nations, and particularly when he has violated the laws of war. This refusal of quarter is no natural consequence of the war, but a punishment for his crime, — a punishment which the injured party has a right to inflict. But, in order that it be justly inflicted, it must fall on the guilty. When we are at war with a savage nation, who observe no rules, and never give quarter, we may punish them in the persons of any of their people whom we take, (these belonging to the number of the guilty.) and endeavour, by this rigorous proceeding, to force them to respect the laws of humanity. But, wherever severity is not absolutely necessary, clemency becomes a duty. Corinth was utterly destroyed for having violated the law of nations in the person of the Roman ambassadors. That severity, however, was reprobated by Cicero and other great men. He who has even the most just cause to punish a sovereign with whom he is in enmity, will ever incur the reproach of cruelty, if he causes the punishment to fall on his innocent subjects. There are other methods of chastising the sovereign, — such as depriving him of some of his rights, taking from him towns and provinces. The evil which thence results to the nation at large, is the consequence of that participation which cannot possibly be avoided by those who unite in political society.

Even against savage Nations we are to ensure that this justice falls upon them with equanimity so that they learn to respect the laws of humanity, the laws of earth.  That is for those who fall within a Nation that has savage rulers, when there is no National support, no way to hold a government and its people accountable, such as the case when man takes back all his liberties and dissolves his connections with our human laws, there is no sovereign to impress, no Nation to demonstrate what the laws of warfare and humanity actually MEAN.  If there were we would give it, to avoid untold bloodshed.  For those that take prisoners only to behead them, defile them, and otherwise utilize them against all the laws of humanity and have no Nation to which to protest their actions, then they have offered us only one response in warfare: no quarter.

What we do not gain is respect from other Nations when we do: we gain their derision because we cannot distinguish between civilized man and bestial man.  When we do offer mercy for the mere need to protect our fellow citizens, and then seek to hand such over to the Nations where they came from, is it any wonder those Nations look askance at us?  Why should THEY clean up for crimes committed against US?  Why should they take in a bestial man when it is our right and duty to ensure that such never becomes a threat to humanity AGAIN?  When we find such monsters off the battlefield preparing for yet another odious attack, we can subject them to civil law, but only at our peril.  To advocate for it is not to seek international law but international lawlessness as it is advocating placing Natural Law on par with human law, earthly law, which we create to protect us from that self-same Natural Law.

Then, when the easy appeals to why the respect of the rule of law falls on deaf ears for those that have abdicated any recognition of the right of a society to have civil law, we hear the grand appeal to another and lesser area of international law on the Universal Declaration of Human rights.  It is, indeed, a lofty thing as treaties go, but it is a treaty: subordinate to the law of nations, itself, and secondary to any internal law of those individual Nations.  It is not an over-arching document of appeal for every human on the planet as that treaty requires adherence to it so as to get the 'rights' it outlines.  Those who claim to use the treaty to back themselves up have, clearly, not read it, as the very last article is thusly given:

Article 30.

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Yes you do not get the right to act in a barbaric fashion from this treaty, and when you aim at the destruction of those freedoms and rights you do not get the protection of this treaty.  As articles go it is a negation one: you don't get the right to destroy what is set up therein.  Thus, to do those acts you have stepped away from the protections of it.  If you wanted those protections you would act in a fashion to uphold it, but by not doing so those that take such actions cannot be given the sanctuary of it as it is reserved for those in civil society who obey the laws of their Nation and the law of nations.

From that, international law offers no safe haven.  Nor can any treaty or convention on warfare as those that work to dissolve the harmony of Nations put themselves outside the protection of the civil laws and laws of war and peace.  I do not say that in a mean spirited way, in fact that is a most distressing thing to me, beyond measure, that our fellow man would return to a bestial state and not uphold civilization.  They have moved to the tender mercies of the Law of Nature, red in tooth and claw, recognize this and expect no other in return.  Would that some Nation had done this so we could repatriate these people to that Nation after a war, but they have dissolved those bonds by their own actions.  Even KSM has complained that the 'rights' he is due have slowed the process of justice for him, as he knows the conclusion of that and is able to cite speedy remedy to us, his captors, as a great boon for those in his state of confinement.  When a beast tells us we are too civilized, that we are tripping over ourselves to show mercy to a beast who expects none, then it is not our actions that are at fault, but our inability to attend to our duty as a Nation to protect our citizens and the citizens of all Nations from those who take up vile Personal war against us.

If KSM can recognize this how can we not do so?

§ 183. An unjust war gives no right whatever.

HE who is engaged in war derives all his right from the justice of his cause. The unjust adversary who attacks or threatens him, — who withholds what belongs to him, — in a word, who does him an injury, — lays him under the necessity of defending himself, or of doing himself justice, by force of arms; he authorizes him in all the acts of hostility necessary for obtaining complete satisfaction. Whoever therefore takes up arms without a lawful cause, can absolutely have no right whatever: every act of hostility that he commits is an act of injustice.

He knows what he is due, and in chiding us, the predator tells his prey that their duty is killing them by not putting him away forever.

Yes we do, indeed, hear cries of how bad torture is against these predators.

They are right in that we do no mercy in letting such predators live, save when they can give us information to save the lives of our fellow man who live under the laws of earth and man.  When those we capture decry that we are taking too long to do anything to them, they know their position in this order of things, while those wanting them treated 'nicely' do not.  Those who take up arms against us for themselves, under no guise of sovereignty, have no right whatsoever that they can appeal to nor NONE that can be given to them.  They avow the injustice of all things not of the Law of Nature and disdain them all in their actions which follow their lethal intents predicted by their horrific words.  They follow through on their promises to us, and recognize that we have a duty to remove them from the fold of human laws all together, and permanently.

When we quail at the thought of putting down a rabid dog who was once our beloved pet, we, too, will feel heartbreaking sickness that we must now put an end to a once loyal companion.  That companion once knew of our relationship and the law of it between us and them, but Nature has interceded between us.  Those that remove that barrier and recede into the Laws of Nature have but themselves to blame for what they do, and cannot appeal to illness.  They could hold themselves accountable and give themselves up to civil authority to be judged.  They could do that and step back into the fold of humanity to be judged by us.  When they are dragged from their 'safe houses' and 'spider holes' they are not seeking that from us.  Would that these were mere normal criminals transgressing mere civil law, but they aren't.  They have dissolved that tie between themselves and civilization to return to Law of Nature.  They can always return to be tried by us for their predatory crimes against us and receive that due process that all who respect the law of nations are due.

They can start acting civilized whenever they want and do so.

After being captured it is far too late to give them that gift they have spurned and scorned.

The duty of our government and Nation are clear on that, and the determination that they make unlawful war against us is all that is necessary.

The judgement penalty are given.

KSM knows that and accepts it.

Once we are too civilized to do our duty to ourselves, then we are truly lost and will soon be just like him.

And the monsters will have won.

How to handle pirates

[UPDATES AT END]

Some of you may have noted that the Danish-owned, US flagged container vessel Maersk Alabama has been boarded by Somali pirates (Source: al-Reuters, 08 APR 2009) with 20 American crew on-board:

In Washington, White House staff were closely monitoring the situation and assessing what steps to take.

"Our top priority is the personal safety of the crew members on board," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Among the ship's cargo were 400 containers of food aid, including 232 containers belonging to the U.N.'s World Food Program that were destined for Somalia and Uganda.

In the latest wave of pirate attacks, gunmen from Somalia seized a British-owned ship on Monday after hijacking another three vessels over the weekend.

This is an attack to gain attention and cash for holding up humanitarian supplies.

This is also the third attack since this weekend and there have been eight other attacks in the first three months of this year. Attacks are not limited to US flagged vessels, and the gamut of those that have been seized or attacked includes such noteworthy Nations as France and Russia.

The crew has freed themselves and captured at least one of the pirates.

That is the example of how to do things: go against those who have reverted to the savage law of nature.

Our flagged vessels should not be unarmed, especially the officers and crew.

Some help from great men of the past will help: Mr. Winchester, Mr. Smith, Mr. Wesson, General Thompson...

No one should be unarmed against humans gone savage to their own ends.

We still don't know how they did it at this point, but that they did do so is without doubt.

My hat is off to the brave crew of the Maersk Alabama.

You are a beacon of what liberty is and that it needs to be defended.

UPDATE via Ace of Spades HQ

After taking one of the Pirates captive, the others escaped in a lifeboat that was unfueled from the Maersk Alabama and they had the Captain Richard Phillips of the ship hostage. An attempted hostage deal found the Pirates reneging on the deal, thus still holding the Captain hostage.

The USS Bainbridge is on its way to set matters straight as an unpowered lifeboat can't go very far in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia.

Pirates are never to be trusted as they will do anything to gain any advantage for themselves.

My deepest hopes to the Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama, and my heartfelt support to his family, loved ones and fellow shipmates for his safe return.

The Pirates can rot in hell, trial is too good for them and they refused to surrender to civil authority in the form of Captain Phillips and the lawful crew of the ship.

[UPDATED 12 APR 2009 Easter Sunday]

Captain Phillips has been freed in a swift firefight today! (Source: Breitbart)

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - An American ship captain was freed unharmed Sunday in a U.S. Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been
holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior U.S.
intelligence official said.

One of the pirates was wounded and in custody after a swift firefight, the
official said.

Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vermont, was safely transported to
a Navy warship nearby.

The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on
condition of anonymity.

A government official and others in Somali with knowledge of the situation
had reported hours earlier that negotiations for Phillips' release had broken
down.

The district commissioner of the central Mudug region said talks went on all
day Saturday, with clan elders from his area talking by satellite telephone and
through a translator with Americans, but collapsed late Saturday night.

[..]

Crew members said their ordeal had begun with the Somali pirates hauling
themselves up from a small boat bobbing on the surface of the Indian Ocean far
below.

As the pirates shot in the air, Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in
a cabin and surrendered himself to safeguard his men, crew members said.

Phillips was then held hostage in an enclosed lifeboat that was closely
watched by U.S. warships and a helicopter in an increasingly tense standoff.

Talks to free him began Thursday with the captain of the USS Bainbridge
talking to the pirates under instruction from FBI hostage negotiators on board
the U.S. destroyer.

A statement from Maersk Line, owner of Phillips' ship, the Maersk Alabama,
said "the U.S. Navy had sight contact" of Phillips earlier Sunday—apparently
when the pirates opened the hatches.

Before Phillips was freed, a pirate who said he was associated with the gang
that held Phillips, Ahmed Mohamed Nur, told The Associated Press that the
pirates had reported that "helicopters continue to fly over their heads in the
daylight and in the night they are under the focus of a spotlight from a
warship."

He spoke by satellite phone from Harardhere, a port and pirate stronghold
where a fisherman said helicopters flew over the town Sunday morning and a
warship was looming on the horizon. The fisherman, Abdi Sheikh Muse, said that
could be an indication the lifeboat may be near to shore.

The U.S. Navy had assumed the pirates would try to get their hostage to
shore, where they can hide him on Somalia's lawless soil and be in a stronger
position to negotiate a ransom.

Three U.S. warships were within easy reach of the lifeboat on Saturday. The
pirates had threatened to kill Phillips if attacked.

On Friday, the French navy freed a sailboat seized off Somalia last week by
other pirates, but one of the five hostages was killed.

Early Saturday, the pirates holding Phillips in the lifeboat fired a few
shots at a small U.S. Navy vessel that had approached, a U.S. military official
said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the
matter publicly.

The official said the U.S. sailors did not return fire, the Navy vessel
turned away and no one was hurt. He said the vessel had not been attempting a
rescue. The pirates are believed armed with pistols and AK-47 assault rifles.

Phillips jumped out of the lifeboat Friday and tried to swim for his freedom
but was recaptured when a pirate fired an automatic weapon at or near him,
according to U.S. Defense Department officials speaking on condition of
anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the unfolding
operations.

My greatest and warmest thanks to the US Navy and my deep admiration at the pluck and courage of Captain Phillips!

All of them are a credit to the Nation.

Now, perhaps we can see if the Nation can be worthy of having such brave souls in it.

Private War the scourge we call terrorism and piracy

This is a topic I have written on multiple times, looking at the definition of terrorism being from the same root that piracy comes from:  one seeks pure power via war means the other seeks cash.  Terrorists attack at sea using the means of private war: they have attacked French tankers, Egyptian freighters and warships of the United States and Israel.  The groups doing that go by names like al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas.  The use boats to raid beach resorts, they board ships to take hostages and they see no reason not to use the weapons of war against civilians.  The currency of pirates is money, the currency of terrorists is power to intimidate, to threaten, to destroy that which they don't like... one is paid in gold the other in blood.  If the first is bad the second is horrific and far worse than mere piracy as those doing such actions place themselves against society and Nations to rule as they will outside of any law.  Both are outlaws in the truest sense: placing themselves outside all frameworks of civilized law and reclaiming the negative liberty of warfare to themselves.

When society and civilization starts to crumble, the opportunist predators appear.  If you laugh at them when they do not have the means, you are terrified and bleed when they do.  Yet their credo is ancient, going back to the roots of what it means to be civilized and no matter what their names, nationalities, ethnicity, 'causes', or beliefs, they come down to the same tactics described since the days before there were Nations, and yet there were still States.  We forget that Captain Morgan was viewed as a pirate by Spain even when his most notable attack was on LAND.  He had writ, justification and no knowledge that a peace treaty had been signed, so those at home first viewed him as a pirate for a land based attack on Spanish towns and fortifications.  Yes a person waging private war with his confederates is waging piracy on land, there is no difference between sea and land in the view of Nations, even though we have done much damage to ourselves to tell ourselves that piracy is only by sea.  It was not that way after the Fall of Troy, was not that way up to the early 20th century and is not that way to this very day.  The United States once had a leader who clearly told the troops what to do with those who waged terrorism and why, and he is revered by all parts of the political spectrum and yet we cannot learn the wisdom he signed off on for the troops:

Art. 82.

Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.

That is a rule for the US Army that was kept for 30 years and infringes on no treaty, no convention and no other view of civilization amongst Nations as it *is* the civilized view *of* Nations what these individuals are.  That President in that era committed the US forces to treat these individuals as described with summary treatment from the battlefield without recourse, review or other appeal.  That was not injustice, but battlefield justice and it was in General Order 100:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD

Prepared by Francis Lieber, promulgated as General Orders No. 100 by President Lincoln, 24 April 1863.

The Great Emancipator, the President who Saved the Union, the man who so many point to as wise and honest, forthright in his term and stature was the one who sent the troops with that as a General Order, on land and sea, and it was kept into the 1890's.  Yet it contravenes neither the Hague nor Geneva conventions as those only cover civilians and uniformed military.  It is for Nations and citizens to respect and cross at their peril, and those who are neither, who take up war on their own, have little recourse to civil law in the battlefield or when picked up by those fighting in war.  This was recognized by President Jefferson as a necessary duty and function of the President: to protect the Nation by those who would wage war but be part of no Nation and have no commission or reason to wage war outside of the Nation State framework.  President Jackson sent the first US vessel around the world... it was a warship, the USS Potomac, and it was sent to the Malays to deal with those who were pirates and terrorists.  President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the Moro Insurrection to be put down as they were under no aegis of any Nation to fight as they did.

Each of these Presidents knew what their duty was and knew how to deal with those who had backing of no Nation to seek war on their own against the United States.  These are not wilting flower Presidents:  Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt.  They made no excuses for those that were uncivilized and practiced war to their own ends against not only the US but against all Nations.  That was their duty abroad - to use their Commander in Chief and Head of State powers to confront those who would tear at the fabric of international law and civilized intercourse amongst Nations to their own benefit no matter what their goals were.  While many decry ill-war amongst Nations, they raise no voice of action against those threatening the very international security they espouse.  These people who wish to confront no one, at any time, at any place and seek to excuse any action taken against civilization are seeking to submit themselves and their fellow citizens to rule by terror, rule by force, rule by war.  In decrying war they invite it by showing they have no standards to actually stand for: they seek to lie down with the lion and be the sacrificial lamb that the lion will see as his fair share for the taking.  There are no 'moderates' amongst those that take back to the Law of Nature: they are immoderate in the extreme and acting in an uncivilized way.

We see this amongst leaders who talk of 'humanitarian grounds' for those who commit ruthless acts of violence using the weapons of war (Source: Independent UK), even in the face of the families who were hurt by such groups coming to ask for justice and law to exist to keep such terrorists from facing no day of reckoning for their crimes.  Another terrorist convicted of killing 9 and attempting to kill 11 more, is now to be on 'parole' for his actions against society and his Nation (Source: Irish Times).  It does not matter if they are Red Brigades or Red Army Faction: they sought to undermine Nations with their attacks and had no backing to take up the weapons of war against anyone.  There is no difference in kind between these groups and their people and those of the Islamic world or those still tearing at Nations to this day.

Now we are faced with expansion of terror networks abroad due to one Nation that has fostered it in their own borders, often through negligence and many times through willing cooperation.  Pakistan has a long history of this, terrorism is an outgrowth of their older cultures that seek to place personal war amongst tribal leaders to meet their own ends.  Today those groups that started out with a single 'cause' now have a grievance list miles long, and it comes down to one, single thing: they will kill to terrorize society, tear it down and seek to gain power as society crumbles.  This is a codified view of one of those groups, named al Qaeda, that has its view put forward in that those that disagree with it, who are to be beaten down into submission are 'savages' to them.  Others take up that exact, same methodology when they seek private war on land or at sea, and have no good in store for citizens of any Nation.

Today the attacks in India and Afghanistan demonstrate that the hotbed of terror is no longer *just* in the Middle East, but has many tendrils and many organizations and many heads to it.  If FARC goes down in Colombia, others already exist in South America to take their place and continue their ways, even if not as lucratively it will be done.  These terror attacks in India are sourced to these networks that are international and transnational, even when they have 'nationalist' heads to them.  The attacks based upon religion is something that Western Europe gave up after the 30 Years War with Westphalia, and yet others do not see that as 'civilized' and use religion as an excuse to kill the innocent.  And yet, when you confront them, there are those that seek not to and to excuse killing and justify it.  They are more than cowards: they hate society and civilization and will not say any word against those taking up private arms to kill without commission, without warrant, without any authority over them to seek a just end to such violence as a Nation would do.

Further these same people, those seeking a more 'humanitarian' way forward have crippled the recourse to keep international systems accountable: they weaken the legal system and seek to excuse any action so as to blame society for the ills of the individual.  Even when it is the individual exploiting those ills to their own ends and seeking to be held unaccountable.  That is the hard part of this: tearing apart the criminal and terrorist networks that have cross-integrated, cross-trained and support each other fully now.

Yet we used to have a clear and concise understanding of what to do with these types of people and organizations.  Even when they struck from shadows, and hid in civilian guise to exploit Nations, they could be found and retribution handed out.  That way of war those that are 'humanitarian' want no part of: the simple deployment of civilians under National commission to go after these groups on the foundation our ancestors put in place.  It was simple and well understood at the founding and Congress given those powers, which had been understood for generations if not thousands of years previously.  Hugo Grotius would write on those things and come up with the necessary limits of civilian law and yet the need for society to know that harm done to it had been returned in kind on a one-for-one basis as seen in On The Laws of War and Peace. 

That work and others by Grotius would join with pre-existing works to form new ones that would define what the Law of Nations was and how Nations, like England, had a common law in agreement to it.  It was from there that the foundation of the United States came:  from old Roman Law given international distribution, through a man caught up in the 30 Years War seeking to know what the causes of war and peace were along with the laws of the sea, and then later members of the Enlightenment finally putting these things down so that all would know, in any Nation, what Nations were and how they all conform to that same outlook.  If you haven't been taught these things, if you haven't read them then you are ignorant of them, and are uninformed as to how our world worked to give us what we have today.  They can be lengthy works, even in translation, yet their reading level is not high and none are beyond what can be taught in a week.

How can anything relating to those willing to tear down societies and Nations be regarded as 'humanitarian'?  Simply, it can't, as these are individuals who have returned to the state of nature on their own and are seeking uncivilized means to gain their way, be it for profit or power.  Those that serve them, help them, excuse them are complicit in this work.  It is not 'civilized' to be 'humanitarian' towards vicious and brutal outlaws seeking to destroy the system of Nation States.  That is complicity in barbarism.  When civil justice is applied to those waging war on their own, it lacks the power and depth to address the horror of their activities.  They take up the weapons of war and only, only if they put them down and hold themselves accountable TO the law can they be said to be seeking a civil end of their barbaric ways.  They accept the judgment of civil law by doing that.  Captured fighting they are not 'prisoners of war' but brutal savages willing to kill and due summary judgment on the battlefield without recourse to higher power: they are known for their deeds and actions, thus they are defined by them and not their words, not their 'reasons' and not their 'grievances'.  They have civil means to get these things addressed and WILL NOT TAKE THEM.

These are the opportunistic predators showing up on weak society and weakened civilization.  Being civil requires recourse and that recourse is via civil means to address such individuals and groups.  When their actions go warlike, they are willingly taking to war against Nations and all lawful citizens, no matter where they live.  We have means as a civilization to address them not *just* by civil means, although that is necessary, but by the means of war both Public and Private given sanction by civil means.  That is the strength of civilization: recognizing when it is being threatened and using the accountable means to address these barbarians.  Those we confront as a totality of civilization will follow no rules, no law and seek to evade justice.  We know that by their actions.  There is no nobility in being 'humanitarian' to such for they see it as weakness to exploit.

As I see the blood and flames in India, Afghanistan and from many points around the world, I see a deep and lax civilization dying and the parasites already proliferating to eat on this once proud thing we held in common.  It once protected us and we deemed it good and restrained by civil means, a bulwark to keep us alive and the intercourse between Nations civil.  When we give it other things to do, strap it down with all sorts of 'good' things that distract it from that ability to protect us, we are then shocked that our protection goes down and that the killers roam many lands and seas without recourse.  In festooning the Nation State with so much power, it becomes immobile at powerless as it cannot do all things at all times well.  Soon it begins to lose the ability to protect, to enforce laws and ensure that the lawless are addressed.

That is the time we are now in.

Give more to the Nation State at your peril.

For the next thing you give it will be the able to restrict good and imprison those that disagree with it.

That is when all those 'good things' become ill and the protector turns into the punisher unbound by civil restraints.

Look at Mumbai, today, and see the outcome of generations of being 'nice' and 'humanitarian' and of Nations unwilling to keep governments to doing only a few, vital things to protect society.

We had a choice of confrontation and calling barbarism for what it is.

We haven't as a society, a Nation and as humanity.

Now we pay.

In blood.