Monthly Archives: October 2015

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US Military Adventurism: The Definition of Insanity

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September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: V...
September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: View of the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty. (Image: US National Park Service ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On October 22, US Army Master Sergeant Joshua L. Wheeler died near Hawija, in northern Iraq, while taking part in a mission aimed at rescuing prisoners from Islamic State forces. Wheeler is the first American soldier — or at least the first one we’ve been told about — to die in combat in Iraq since 2011.

I’m not an expert on US foreign policy in the Middle East, but I have long taken an interest in the subject, especially since Thanksgiving weekend of 1990, when I mobilized with my Marine Corps reserve unit and headed for Saudi Arabia to participate in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (that kind of thing tends to powerfully focus one’s attention). Over the intervening quarter century, I’ve reached one conclusion:

US intervention in the Middle East always makes things worse.

Sometimes more obviously and quickly, sometimes more subtly and slowly, but always.

Worse for the people there, and worse for Americans too.

The US overthrew Iran’s elected government in 1953, replacing it with the Shah’s authoritarian regime. It took 25 years for that poison fruit to ripen into revolution, a hostage situation, and an anti-American theocracy.

The US supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his eight-year war against Iran. Two years after that war ended, the US found itself kicking Saddam’s army out of Kuwait and establishing a permanent military presence on soil which Osama bin Laden deemed off-limits to infidels. You probably remember how that turned out.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 empowered Iran’s theocrats and various Sunni Islamist groups. The country remains a shambles more than a decade after that empty “victory.”

For nearly 40 years, since the Camp David accords, the US has  paid through the nose to keep a lid on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Consequently, the incentive is for both sides (as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who also get payoffs) to keep the conflict at a permanent simmer and occasionally let it boil over instead of settling it. If the conflict ends, so do the US aid checks.

As the old Alcoholics Anonymous saying goes, insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. And the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Let the Middle East solve its own problems. Let Master Sergeant Wheeler be the last American to die for this seemingly endless series of mistakes.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Spoiled Rotten: Who Owns Your Vote?

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RGBStock.com Vote Pencil

There’s a word that sets my teeth on edge, bubbling up among the commentariat every other year as election campaigns heat up. In this cycle I’m starting to hear it earlier than usual, mainly because prominent candidates — first Donald Trump, now Jim Webb — are rumored to be considering independent bids for the presidency.

Since the word is out there early, signifying a bad idea, I’m coming out early to combat that bad idea.

The word I’m referring to is “spoiler.”

You’ve heard the arguments, I’m sure: If everyone in Florida who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 had voted for Al Gore instead, we wouldn’t have ended up with George W. Bush (as a side note, if everyone who had voted for Harry Browne in 2000 in New Mexico had voted for Dubya instead, Florida wouldn’t have mattered).

“A vote for the Libertarian is a vote for the Democrat.” “A vote for the Green is a vote for the Republican.” “A vote for anyone but the candidate I support is a vote for the candidate I fear.”

Horseapples.

First of all, let’s get one thing straight: Your vote is yours and yours alone. It doesn’t belong to a candidate until you cast it for that candidate, and you don’t owe it to any candidate until he or she has — in your opinion and your opinion only — EARNED it. You have no obligation whatsoever to vote for someone else’s hypothetical “lesser evil” instead of for your own carefully considered greater good.

Secondly, the “spoiler” phenomenon is largely a myth. As a partisan Libertarian, I often hear the claim that people who vote Libertarian would instead vote Republican if they didn’t have a Libertarian option. That’s sometimes true, but decades of exit polling says that Libertarians “take votes from” Democrats in about the same ratio as “from” Republicans on average, and sometimes more so (for example, in the 2013 election for governor of Virginia, Libertarian Robert Sarvis’s voters said, by a two to one margin, that their second choice was Democrat Terry McAuliffe, not Republican Ken Cuccinelli).

Finally, even if “spoiling” is a real phenomenon, so what? If the candidate who wanted your vote didn’t get it, maybe that candidate should have worked harder to deserve it. If there’s any chance to bring one or both of the major parties around to the views of third party voters, that chance is represented by the “spoiler” factor: “What do we have to do to get back that 3%  we lost by last time?”

As you watch the 2016 campaigns unfold, keep these three things in mind. Vote your own priorities and let the chips fall where they may.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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The Death of an American Political Prisoner

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English: Anti-United States Internal Revenue S...
Anti-United States Internal Revenue Service symbol. Commonly used by tax protesters and tax reform advocates in the United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Irwin Schiff spent much of his later life in prison. He died in prison on October 16, blind and suffering from lung cancer, having been denied “compassionate release” to die at home with his family. So, who was this Schiff fellow? A mass murderer? Perhaps a serial rapist? Well, no. Irwin Schiff’s “crime” was saying and writing things the federal government didn’t want you to hear.

He thought the income tax was an illegal scam. He refused to pay it. Based on what were obviously his genuinely held beliefs, he urged others, in several books (including one that the federal courts ordered him to stop selling — apparently they don’t teach the First Amendment in law school any more) not to pay it either.

In theory, he went to prison for “tax evasion” and “filing false tax returns.” But that dog won’t hunt. If it was about money he allegedly owed the government, he’d have been left free to generate wealth that could be seized.

Irwin Schiff was a political prisoner. Period. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes.  His legal entanglements were about two things, and two things only: Shutting him up and making an example of him. If people listen to Irwin Schiff, they might emulate him and stop sending money to Washington. QED, Irwin Schiff must be silenced and caged.

At some point I guess I’m expected to assure you that I don’t agree with Schiff’s theories. I can’t say that, because I’ve never studied them thoroughly enough to form an opinion on them. I never bothered because, unlike Schiff, I’ve never operated under the illusion that it matters whether or not the income tax is “legal.” Since when does the US government (or any other government) follow laws when following laws is inconvenient?

Whether or not you or I agree with Irwin Schiff’s ideas is irrelevant to whether or not he should have been imprisoned. Suppose he was wrong six days a week and twice on Sunday. If so, so what? Let me say this again: He was imprisoned for publicly — and apparently persuasively, at least to some — disagreeing with the US government and for no other reason.

In acknowledging Irwin Schiff’s unjust imprisonment and untimely passing, take a moment to ask: Is this the America you thought you lived in? Is this the America you WANT to live in? Answer — and act accordingly.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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