Return of the Cold War?

Vladmir Putin's Russia has been flexing her military muscles, lately, by violating the air space of Finland, with bomber flyovers.
This may seem like a threat likened to that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but it is merely a reflection of what is happening inside the political mechanisms of that country.
With the ongoing emergence of the new Democratic Russia, the goings-ons inside the Kremlin have not changed much from the Soviet days. You have the same kinds of power struggles among the various departments of the government, and the added struggles among the various political parties. As Peter Rutland writes in Business Week, the Russian President does not want to be seen as a "lame duck," in his waning months as President. He wants to show the world, and, especially, the Russian people that his United Russia party has allowed Russia to return to its status as a world power. It is all for the sake of the Russian elections coming up next year.
Russia is dependent on trade with other nations. The Soviet Union fell, because America and other nations in the West, refused to conduct trade in technological goods with that country. Already far behind the rest of the world in technological development, the Soviet economy could not compete in world trade, so the economy bottomed out and the Soviet government disintegrated. Even with Russia's oil wealth, today, trade is still very important in keeping the economy healthy. Russian economists and Putin's cabinet surely understand that.
The bottom line is that the show of force is more for the benefit of the United Russia party than for the rest of the world. Russia can not burn bridges with the rest world, and slow the advancement of an economy that was only recently devastated by corruption and bad policy. According to the Russian constitution, Putin is limited to three terms, after which he must step down. He is obviously intending to remain in power, either by proxy or by constitutional loopholes, so it is important to him to maintain the image of Russian power.
So, there does not seem to be a desire to return to the Cold War. It is only Russian politics in action.

A Tribute to "NASCAR Debbie" (revised and republished)

I only found out about this Sunday morning--an old friend of mine, and of everyone else who knew her, passed away August 14, suddenly and unexpectedly.
NASCAR Debbie was a petite woman--four foot nine and weighing not more than 90 lbs, but she had a heart as big as the world. Her personality was absolutely magnetic, and she always returned friendship with friendship. In her obituary, she was described as "eccentric," in a positive way, and she certainly was off center--unique as no other person could be. She seemed to see life as performance art, and she was an excellent performance artist.
With an IQ ranging in the top 1 percentile, she loved to mingle with us "slow" folks, and being in her company felt perfectly natural. She was funny, not with the usual jokes or one liners, but with a running commentary on life in general, and NASCAR Debbie could always make us laugh.
NASCAR Debbie was always kind, sweet, and generous. She literally lit up the room when she walked in, adorning the bar with appropriate decorations for every race and every Broncos game. A New York Jets fan, herself, she would hand out tissues to the Broncos fans after Denver lost a game. On the warm and fuzzy side, she would freely give hugs to those friends that needed one.
NASCAR Debbie was special to every one of her friends and family. "To know her is to love her" was a phrase that could be applied to her more than anyone else we knew.
NASCAR Debbie lived and breathed NASCAR. Her home was filled, wall to wall, shelf by shelf with Tony Stewart collectables and NASCAR paraphenelia. With the enthusiasm and excitement she exuded, she made watching the races on TV at the local watering hole a total experience--with her in the crowd, it was almost like being there.
It was NASCAR Debbie who kept me from drifting away from the sport after Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001. She got me interested in Smoke, more than I already was, and was instrumental in making me the fan I am today.
We had a falling out after 9/11/2001. It was my fault, because I suffer from PTSD, the events of that day produced issues that made me unbearable for her to be around. But, I will always cherish the times that Debbie and I had as friends, and she will always be a bright, shining light in my life. I never stopped loving her as a friend, and I never will.

New: I am asking for your help. I have a very limited income, carry no plastic, and have no PayPal account. The on-line guest book memorializing our dear, sweet friend is due to expire this Friday, September 22, unless it is sponsered for a year. If you could find it in your heart to help, please visit this link. It is not at all expensive, I just have no way to do it.

Update: The guestbook has been sponsored anonymously by a very kind and gracious NASCAR fan. God bless the sponsor and thank you everyone for your sympathy and understanding.

Who never saw this coming?

From Reuters:

Venezuela's Congress on Tuesday gave
preliminary approval to President Hugo Chavez's proposed
constitutional reform, which would lift term limits to help the
leftist leader cement his self-styled socialist revolution

.
Sandmonkey's comment:
And since he is a leftist leader and his revolution socialist in nature, he gets a free pass. If it was anyone else, people would call it what it really is: A dictatorship in the making. But it gets better.
(Continue Reuters)

Chavez last week presented reforms to end central bank
autonomy, increase state expropriation powers and give the
president direct control over monetary reserves in a move
critics called a "coup" to keep Chavez in power indefinitely.

The legislature, 100 percent controlled by Chavez allies,
will hold two more votes to fully ratify the changes, which
must be finally approved through a popular referendum that
legislators say they hope will take place in early December.

"We are reforming the constitution to solidify … the
socialist nation, the socialist state, the socialist
democracy," said Carlos Escarra, a legislator and
constitutional lawyer who helped draft the reforms.

He has already secured a firm grip on key state
institutions including the court system, the state oil company
and most state and local governments.

Now El Presidente is planning on taking over the private schools so that he may indoctrinate all school children to his brand of socialism. This means that there will be no teaching of any economic or political philosophy other than that of which Chavez approves:

Venezuelan officials defend the program at the Latin American Medical School — one in a handful of state-run colleges and universities that emphasize socialist ideology — as the new direction of Venezuelan higher education.

"We must train socially minded people to help the community, and that's why the revolution's socialist program is being implemented," said Zulay Campos, a member of a Bolivarian State Academic Commission that evaluates compliance with academic guidelines.

"If they attack us because we're indoctrinating, well yes, we're doing it, because those capitalist ideas that our young people have — and that have done so much damage to our people — must be eliminated," Campos said.

I believe somebody predicted this would happen.

My last post on Iraq--for now.

I seem to have become obsessed with what is happening in Iraq right now--while nearly every other blogger I read regularly is avoiding the subject. I genuinely do want to address other things that are important to me as a Libertarian, and as a citizen of this planet we call Earth. Everybody who reads my blog knows where I stand on the issue, while those who haven't read it yet will quickly and easily find out. Those who would agree with me already agree, while those who disagree with me will never see my point.
I have said just about all that I feel needs to be said on the subject.
One last thing--General Petreaus is not a political figure, no matter what certain Congress persons and Senators may think. He is just a guy who does his job, and does it well. When he delivered his report to Congress, he did not sugarcoat anything, he did not try to justify the American presence in Iraq, he only described what resources he had, what he has accomplished with those resources, what he needs, and what he can accomplish in the future. He is not running for office, he is not trying to get anybody elected or re-elected. He made it clear that he does not like to lose the lives of those with whom he has been entrusted. His job is to pick up pieces and make something out of them
The inserts, or blockquotes, in this post are taken from an article in The Daily Star--an English language e-newsletter from Lebanon--written by syndicated columnist David Ignatius, and titled "Petraeus' Iraq legacy is the real issue." It is a good read, and should be perused with an open mind.

When Petraeus was training the Iraqi Army, he liked to talk about "pop-ups" - the militia units that appear unexpectedly with charismatic commanders and more fighting zeal than the regular military. Unlike more rigid commanders, he was willing to go with the flow - to conform his strategy to these pop-up realities on the ground, rather than try to make things fit his own big picture. That's one of his strengths. He's basically winging it in Iraq - exploring what works and then going with it.

This is a good assessment of the man's character. He is there to get a job done, and is flexible enough to do that job under ever-changing circumstances. As the next paragraph of the article explains, he is not one who has decided to "stay the course" that was left to him:

This bottom-up style of Petraeus and his group represents a decisive break with the cocksure, top-down ethos of Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon - and with a military leadership that bought into Rumsfeld's idea that technology had transformed the nature of warfare itself. Nonsense, said the colonels who advised Petraeus, many of whom, like him, are on their third tours in Iraq. They have learned the hard way to be skeptical of big ideas.

To those who think General Patreaus' methods are the same that have already been tried in Iraq, and have failed, think again--the General and his staff seem to have rejected any idea to continue the strategies that have already been tried. I need say no more. Mr. Ignatius sums it up very well in the last three paragraphs of his article:

Petraeus and his team understand, too, that this war is about people - and helping them one by one to break the cycle of intimidation. When I asked Colonel H.R. McMaster, a key Petraeus adviser, to name a turning point in Anbar, he cited the day last February when Al-Qaeda deposited at a hospital in Ramadi an ice chest containing the severed heads of the children of several sheikhs who had been cooperating with the United States. Rather than submitting to this barbarous act, the enraged sheikhs deepened their alliance with the US military.

We need to be honest about what's happening now in Iraq: Local solutions are better than no solutions; tribal power is better than terrorist intimidation; pop-ups can be better than the pre-planned models. But Petraeus' ad-hoc, ground-up security framework is not the same thing as stabilizing the country. In the time remaining, he has to pull things together as best he can - connect local successes to provincial and national institutions; extend the Sunni rebellion against extremists into the Shiite regions; break the control that Shiite militias now exert over the Interior Ministry and the police.

We do know how this is going to end: with US troops returning home. The question is what they will leave behind. It's likely to be a ragged, patchwork quilt, and there isn't much time left to stitch it together.

Careful what we wish for?

There is a definite plus to Dr. Ron Paul's candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination; he is getting part of the Libertarian message out to a large segment of the voting public--substantially more than he did as a Libertarian Presidential Candidate in 1988. He is making his point on the Libertarian principles of non-initiation of force, the unconstitutionality of the Federal Income Tax, and the need to repeal the IRS, the need for smaller government, and the importance of free market capitalism in keeping our economy healthy. Every Libertarian, and most conservatives, agree that the United Nations is a useless, and needless entity that we, as a sovereign nation could do without. Dr. Paul has been very articulate on this subject.
I am certain that, given the opportunity, Ron Paul would make a statement declaring that all Federal lands and mineral rights should be sold to private ownership, where the decision on whether or not to drill for oil, cut timber, grow crops of the owner's choice, raise livestock, etc, is up to the owner of the property.
It would be good for us, the Libertarians, if Dr. Paul would address some other issues. We would be happy to hear him explain that the government has no right to legislate individual moral decisions, such as the personal choice of abortion, or to choose or not choose to consume or participate in marijuana, prostitution, gambling, alcohol, or other "vices" that should be a matter of personal responsibility. Of course, we know that in the Texas State Legislature, and in Congress, that Dr. Paul has voted for laws that would prosecute physicians who perform abortions, and his silence on the issue of prohibition is absolutely deafening.
Dr. Paul has also failed to address the participation of the AMA in the act of persuading legislators to limit individual rights, and the support that organization has expressed for "universal" health care. Being the politician he is, and owing his chosen vocation to the AMA, we can't expect that he would say much to criticise that organization.

Where are the solutions? It's easy to argue that open borders would eventually even out the world economy, provided that there is still a way to prevent the smuggling of weapons that could be used against the citizens of a country. An open border can not be a one way portal--in order for a border to be genuinely open, it has to go both ways. We should, for instance, just as easily be able to get a job with competitive wages in Mexico as it is for someone in Mexico to come here and get a desirable job. Ron Paul, or any other candidate for that matter, would do well to venture a proposal on how to create borders that are truly open.
The debate over how we got to Iraq has been discussed ad naseum. That discussion does not address the question of how do we fix it. Every scenario projected for the region in the event of a precipitous withdrawal of US military forces includes the genocide of Iraqi Sunnis and a large scale war between Farsi and Arab. Nuclear holocaust is another situation that could happen, if Israel sees a need to protect itself by green glassing the entire region. Ron Paul's solution is to "let it happen," but there are no other candidates who have any solution at all.
The problem here is, there can be no economy in any nation without energy, and, for at least the next twenty years, Mid East oil is a very important energy source. The Wahadi Fundamentalist Caliphate of Mesopotamia, envisioned by Bin Ladin and others, would not allow the trade of oil to any other nation, including Islamic nations, that does not subscribe to Wahadi Fundamentalism. The Mesopotamian Caliphate would detrimentally effect the economy of every nation in the world.
Any large scale war in the region would undoubtedly result in the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. This is an important sea lane necessary for trade not only for oil, but for technological and other goods important to the world economy. China has already declared that it would be military involved in the prevention of closure of that important trade route. Again, in this scenario all that can happen is an escalation of hostilities.
The bottom line here is that no other nation in the world would trust the United States as a trading partner if this country were responsible, by negligence, for either a large scale genocide, or a larger scale war over trade routes and energy.
Libertarian philosophy is a good thing if it can be applied in a practical manner. In order to be practical, it needs to be applied universally. This can happen, but not with an isolationist attitude. The entire world is not going to become Libertarian simultaneously, so Ron Paul, and his supporters, should keep this in mind.
The big minus is the answer to the question "what if Ron Paul won the Republican nomination?" The electorate tends to vote for what it knows, rather than for the unknown. A victory for Dr. Paul in the nomination race, would mean a victory for the Democratic Party in the presidential race. The American public is not ready to accept the entire Libertarian agenda, and would rather have double digit unemployment figures and socialized medicine than the prosperity Libertarianism promises. In the long run, the economic ruin that would be caused by a Democratic administration, coupled with a Democratic Congress, would create enough backlash to make Libertarianism the next logical step, but that same backlash could also translate to more of "they can't win, so don't bother voting for them." As Libertarians, concerning Ron Paul as a Republican candidate, we need to be careful what we wish for.

What Purpose Does it Serve?

Even before General Petraeus delivered his report to Congress, he was being criticised for what he might say. MoveOn, a left wing extremist organization bought a discounted ($100K below the quoted rate) full page ad in the NY Times, which read as follows:

General Petreaus or General Betray us? Cooking the books for the White House.

Now, Jeffery Feldman, of the Huffington Post, claims that "Betray us," does not necessarily imply that the General is a "traitor," and that "cooking the books" does not necessarily imply that he is a "liar."
So, there you have it--MoveOn shelled out $65 grand to say nothing, which is something they should say more often.
Likewise, we can expect Democratic Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to declare that, when she said, "I have to suspend my disbelief, (when listening to the report)," she was not calling the report a lie, nor was she calling the General a "liar."
Such statements do serve a purpose: Now, we know for certain that, when politicians talk about the war as if it were a political issue, they say nothing.

For My Country on 9/11