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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Syrian Refugee Policy Raises Serious States’ Rights Issue

by lgadmin November 25, 2015
written by lgadmin

The flood of refugees from Syria and other Middle East countries that the Obama Administration is preparing to distribute to communities across the nation raises very real and understandable security concerns among government officials at the state and local levels, and among the citizenry generally.  It is, of course, facile for President Obama to proclaim piously that he “is not a afraid.”  With the full protection of the U.S. Secret Service, the armed forces, and every law enforcement agency in the country protecting him, why should he fret?  The rest of us are not quite so lucky.

Whether we, or any nation, has any moral obligation to throw open its doors and accept tens of thousands of Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees at this (or any) juncture, and whether it is fiscally prudent for us to do so when we already are drowning in entitlement spending, are questions worthy of vigorous political debate.

In many respects, however, as important as are the security and fiscal concerns that accompany a plan to bring in tens of thousands of refugees from suspect nations and backgrounds, are the fundamental legal and constitutional questions that arise when the federal government imperiously claims absolute power to bring into the country whoever it wants and place them in whatever communities it wants, regardless of whether those states and counties want or can afford to maintain them.  This is why so many governors have declared their states will not be a party to such irresponsibility.  The federalism question underlying such concerns is why the Administration’s actions and threats should be challenged in court.

While a few Republican lawmakers in Washington are discussing these federalism issues, it is state governors and attorneys general who ultimately must shoulder the burden for fighting the Obama Administration if they want to have a realistic chance at putting a stop to the refugee lunacy. Even if congressional Republicans were to propose  legislation with real teeth — something the S.A.F.E. Act of 2015 passed last week largely lacks — it would never “earn” the signature of this president.  The battle should be joined in federal court; and quickly.

Under our Constitution, the president does possess broad authority regarding national borders and matters of citizenship; the immigration battles with Arizona clarified that principle just a few years back.  However, whether this power extends to welcoming foreigners into the country and then depositing thousands of potentially dangerous individuals into communities across the country, is an important and timely issue that demands resolution.  As a security concern for governors — whose responsibility to safeguard their citizens is no less important than the president’s — this challenge should be viewed as no less important than the challenges the states leveled against Obamacare.

The president’s plans for the refugees, and his blindness to the complex social, economic and national security issues that go well beyond the scope of the superficial and largely irrelevant “morality” debate, undermine the very essence of federalism and states’ rights. It is not that Republican (and one Democrat) governors do not want to host war-weary refugees looking for a safe place to live; but rather that they do not want to jeopardize the safety of their states by rushing haphazardly to respond to the World’s moral crusade du jour.

It is not as if there are not current examples of the price to be paid for a knee-jerk reaction to media and bleeding-heart calls for “compassion.” It took German Chancellor Angela Merkel only weeks to see how disastrous her grandstanding in support of the flood of refugees rushing to Western Europe from the Middle East and the Balkans last summer proved to be.

Europe’s rush to throw itself onto the altar of altruism, at the expense of national security, was illustrated tragically by the recent attacks in Paris; and it is precisely why the looming battle between Obama and the states is so important.

Obama’s political career is ending in a little more than one year (may I get an “Amen”), and what motivates his decisions is grounded less in the national interest than a personal one as he makes a last-ditch effort to build a legacy justifying the Nobel Peace Prize he received for no apparent reason at the start of his presidency. This perhaps is why he feels no shame when lecturing governors about how refugees “deserve love and stability and protection,” while ignoring the virtual lockdown in Brussels resulting from credible threats of major terrorism acts; or the warnings from European and his own intelligence agencies about the potential for terrorists to disguise themselves as refugees.

Obama’s decisions in this regard reflect a cognitive dissonance only possible for a leader who neither recognizes nor accepts responsibility for his actions, because he is — after all — The President.  Thank goodness we have at least some governors who do not share such an exalted — and dangerous — self-image.

 

Originally Published here via townhall.com

November 25, 2015 0 comment
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BlogFrom the Desk of Bob Barr

Is Trump America’s “Strongman”?

by lgadmin July 15, 2015
written by lgadmin

When it comes to public confidence in American institutions, conditions rival those of California’s epic drought. According to a recent Gallup poll, the American public is mired in a now eight-year period of historically low confidence in traditional institutions, including government, banks, religious organizations, and the news media. Only the U.S. military and small businesses enjoy greater public confidence than in decades past. Congress, no stranger to dismal approval ratings, “enjoys” strong confidence from only eight percent of Americans.

Under the tepid leadership of the Obama Administration, the United States appears to bow before strong leaders abroad, from Moscow to Havana to Tehran. Faith in America around the globe ebbs with each new “deadline” given Iranian negotiators in Europe. Every ISIS atrocity is played out repeatedly in social and mainstream media, and heightens fears of a “lone wolf” attack here at home. We indeed are in a time of fear and uncertainty.

Is the time ripe for America’s version of the Third World “strongman”? Will we see the arrival of a “macho” leader, riding in on a white horse with sword drawn, to rally a citizenry frozen in fear and uncertainty? Has this strongman already arrived? Is it Donald Trump?

Since first announcing his intentions to run for president last month, Trump has dominated the headlines with inflammatory rhetoric followed by blustery refusals to apologize. While most pundits believed (hoped?) Trump’s brash behavior would doom him to remain at the bottom of the presidential pile, his poll numbers continue to rise. Last week, CNN reported only he and Jeb Bush held double-digit support among GOP voters.

To Mainstream Media pundits, for whom isolation within the Beltway has dulled any sense of the pulse of the nation outside of Washington’s political aristocracy, Trump’s surge among conservative grassroots makes little sense. To them, the measure of a candidate’s viability is their performance as a “talking head” on Sunday shows; or their willingness to sit for fluff interviews in which no real questions are asked and no real answers given. And, while most candidates would jump at the chance to kiss the rings of the Establishment media, Trump understands the road to the grassroots does not go through D.C.; and in this understanding, Trump plays his hand to perfection.

As The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs noted recently, “Donald Trump is appealing to people . . . who hate politics, who hate politicians. [S]omeone . . . who they view as a straight-shooter, someone who’s different and fresh.”

In other words, Trump is the anti-politician politician; the classic “strongman” but in civilian, rather than military garb.

While candidates like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie have struggled to find a voice that resonates beyond their core supporters, Trump is bullying his way to the top using a tone and style reminiscent of the Latin American “strongman” leader. In typical “strongman” style, Trump is employing a dual combination of strength and simplicity — through his unapologetic style of campaigning and the comfort of policy solutions simple enough to broadly fit people’s preconceived notions of how to fix America’s problems. The combination of the two creates a visage of confidence, which compared to the weak vacillations of the Obama Administration, evokes a powerful emotional reaction to the point where Trump’s patently unserious political posturing is overlooked.

And this is what has the media so confused; they can only focus on the content of his speeches, not what people are taking from them. Trump is gaining ground on his competitors not for what he says — which clearly is intended more to provoke tempers than stir genuine debate — but for what his tone and demeanor symbolize. As Willem Dafoe noted in the movie “Boondock Saints,” it is all about “symbology”; and how Trump’s GOP adversaries respond to his symbology matters a great deal.

Rather than egging Trump on with petty insults, or attempting to engage him in a fruitless debate — both of which serve only to create a media spectacle the Left is more than willing to provoke – GOP candidates might want to take at least a few notes.

Republican voters clearly do not want another candidate who will go to Washington and simply perpetuate the Establishment culture by playing the same games that have left America’s problems to fester at home and abroad. Voters yearn for a candidate whose default position is not to play defense and back away from every challenge — whether at our own back door regarding illegal immigration from Mexico, the continued expansion of ISIS in the Middle East, or a federal court system usurping power from both the legislative and executive branches of government.

The field is wide open for a Republican candidate who recognizes the value of a bold leadership style, but who couples it with a more serious understanding and presentation of solutions befitting an American President rather than a Latin American Strongman.

July 15, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Message to Republicans — Motives Do Matter

by Liberty Guard Author March 4, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

“I didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Giuliana made this startling statement in defense of his earlier observation that Obama does not truly “love America.” Not surprisingly, Giuliani’s criticism had pushed the Left to apoplectic fits. Obama’s defenders rushed to the aid of their Savior-in-Chief; characterizing Giuliani as a washed-up “has-been” taking cheap shots at the man he failed to beat in 2008. Less expected, however, were the droves of Republicans who jumped aboard the “motives-don’t-matter” bandwagon.

While Giuliani’s initial criticism of Obama was not unlike that of other conservatives during the last six years, many Republicans lost no time jumping in front of the cameras to distance themselves from Giuliani and echo his mantra. “I don’t think it helps to question the President’s patriotism or motives,” said Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. He was joined by other Republican notables, including 2016 presidential hopefuls Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Jeb Bush observed it was proper to question the President’s “policies” but not why he does what he does.

Like most “outrages” on the Left, the Democrats’ blustering was a time-tested trick to force squeamish Republicans to back down. In fact, the Democrats were using the very tool they have employed so effectively for years – question Republicans’ motives. How many times, for example, have we heard liberal wags claim that any criticism of Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder reflects Republican racial animus; or that opposition to redefining marriage is motivated by “homophobia?” Even GOP efforts to reform welfare is attributed to a mean-spirited hatred of the “poor.” In these and countless other instances, Liberals openly and shamelessly question conservatives’ motives; often in very personal terms.

Motives do matter; so why are so many Republicans so squeamish about admitting this, especially when such criticism is pegged to important matters of national security and other fundamental policy issues? Common sense dictates they should know better. Giuliani, who first rose to national prominence in the 1980s as the hard-charging United States Attorney in New York City, certainly must recall that establishing a motive or knowledge of bad acts is an essential element of a successful prosecution. It’s Criminal Law 101.

In the political arena, inquiring into and understanding why a decision-maker undertakes certain actions as opposed to others — actions that may affect our entire economy or our nation’s defense — is a vital first step in developing alternative policies and correcting mistakes.

For example, the refusal by Republicans to subject the President’s motives to public debate is doing exactly what Obama is doing with regard to ISIS — criticizing the terror organization’s actions without understanding the reasons it commits atrocities. If we do not understand the mind of the enemy, we doom ourselves to flailing around in the dark against an adversary without any real hope of defeating him.

President Ronald Reagan orchestrated the defeat of the Soviet Union not simply by criticizing the self-evident inefficiencies of the Soviet economy, or the deplorable living conditions created by its authoritarian regime. He did so by enunciating the moral depravity at the core of the Communist philosophy, as the “evil empire” it was. Only by understanding and articulating what motivated Communists was Reagan able to outflank them; ultimately sending the USSR to the “ash heap of history,” as he predicted would happen.

As was true in the 1980s, so it is now in this 21st Century. Condemning the unconstitutional actions of the Obama Administration is appropriate and essential (even obvious). But this makes sense only if and when we begin to deconstruct the motivations for such actions in order to truly understand the enemy we face. Otherwise we are just shooting in the dark.

Many of today’s Democrats, reflecting the philosophy underlying this Administration, are no longer motivated solely by the benign desire to help others using the power of government. Instead, Obama and those in his Administration appear clearly to act based on a genuine disdain for and rejection of the American traditions of free markets, private property, and individual rights; principles they see as a moral blight on society rather than as a foundation from which to protect and strengthen our nation.

If the GOP truly hopes to defeat this brand of toxic “progressivism,” it had better learn to defend its positions aggressively, rather than backing down whenever the media or its political adversaries play the “motive” card.

March 4, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Obama’s Amateur-Hour Foreign Policy Endangers America And Our Allies

by Liberty Guard Author February 25, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

Shortly after the Iraqi city of Fallujah fell to the Islamic State (ISIS) in January 2014, President Obama was interviewed by The New Yorker. When asked about the loss of such an iconic city from the U.S. war in Iraq, Obama responded with his usual glibness: “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Less than six-months after he made those comments, Obama’s “jayvee team” would establish an Islamic “Caliphate” spanning two countries, with an estimated 31,000 fighters from all over the world pouring into its territory for a chance to die martyrs’ deaths while fighting the western armies of “Rome.”

Yet, even as ISIS grows in size and brutality, Obama and his Administration continue to harbor a fantasy world in which, to them, these horrendous acts of terrorists are on par with those committed here in America by Christians during the Jim Crow era;and fueled today in the global jihad not by religious zeal, but by poor economic conditions and anti-immigrant racism. This sophomoric view of the world is neither funny nor tolerable; it is in fact emboldening our adversaries from Moscow to Mosul, and from Havana to Beijing, with potentially devastating harm to the interests of the United States and our allies.

With few exceptions, Obama’s predecessors in the Oval Office navigated the complex and high-stakes arena of international diplomacy based on a sober assessment of the world as it is. Now, Obama and his advisors make decisions based on the world as they dream it to be; and, if reality happens to fall outside their tightly crafted narrative, it is either marginalized or dismissed outright.

This desperate attempt to shoehorn an increasingly unstable international environment into a situation in which Obama remains the stoic “Savior,” has turned the State Department into a sideshow, with spokespersons spouting gibberish that would be comical if not for the fact that these people represent the United States to the rest of the world.

In the tense standoff between Russia and Ukraine, then-State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki (who recently was promoted to the White House staff) tweeted a picture of herself holding a piece of paper with “#UnitedForUkraine” scrawled on it. The childish “diplomatic” gesture immediately prompted headlines such as, “Russia sends troops, Obama administration sends a selfie.” More recently, as ISIS leaders publicly execute Americans, Christians, homosexuals, and others it does not consider true believers, a State Department spokesperson suggested with a straight face a “root cause” for the growth of ISIS was a “lack of opportunity for jobs.”

As the White House tried to convince Americans that ISIS sprang-up out of Mesopotamia overnight – a fantasy that fit nicely with the reality that the Administration was utterly unprepared to deal the threat for many months — ISIS was very public about articulating its goals in the region; even publishing annual reports about its progress. In fact, it was Obama’s ill-advised and Hillary-backed intervention in Libya, sending that country tumbling into chaos, that ISIS found the foothold in the region it needed to expand.

“Obama’s intervention in Libya was an abject failure, judged even by its own standards,” writes Alan Kuperman, a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. “Rather than helping the United States combat terrorism … Libya now serves as a safe haven for militias affiliated with both al Qaeda and [ISIS].”

The reason the Obama Administration so badly bungled the Libya intervention is the same reason why State Department spokespeople continue to speak of the war with ISIS in the same terms it would use to explain drug addiction or inner-city poverty: It refuses to accept the world and the actors on the international stage cannot be controlled with political messaging and spin. Therefore, rather than admitting even basic truths about the challenges it faces — like Islamic terrorists are actually Islamicand adhere zealously to a “theology that must be understood to be combatted” — this Administration prefers to trumpet so-called intelligence reports focused on specters and boogeymen with which it feels more comfortable, such as domestic “right-wing sovereign citizen extremist groups.”

Obama’s “Amateur Hour” foreign policy has managed to both inject America blindly into action in the name of preventing terrorism, while at the same time marginalizing other legitimate terror threats. At this juncture, halfway through Obama’s second term, and with the Congress seeming to lack the backbone to force the Administration to remove its rose-colored glasses and forsake its trademark “hashtag” diplomacy substituting for true statesmanship, we and our allies will continue to play defense while ISIS and other terror groups flourish in the vacuum left by America’s exit as a true leader on the world stage.

February 25, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

A President Wants War Powers. Will Congress Be Fooled Again?

by Liberty Guard Author February 23, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author

When the House and Senate reconvene this week following their Presidents Day recess, one of the hot topics of debate will be the request laid at their doorsteps earlier this month by President Obama, who wants the Congress to authorize him to go after ISIS.

Aside from the question of whether the president of the United States, who serves pursuant to the Constitution as commander i chief of the armed forces, even needs such authorization, there is every good reason for the Congress not to vote another Authorization for the Use of Military Force such as the one passed in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

As my mom urged me more than once, in words that served me well during my years in the political arena: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Unfortunately, both houses of the Congress appear predisposed to be fooled once again.

In the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush asked Congress for authority to employ military “force” against those individuals and entities responsible for or complicit in that morning’s attacks on the American homeland. Congress quickly complied.

What the Bush administration asked for — and what I and other members of the Congress believed we were granting at the time — was a limited and straightforward authorization for the executive branch to employ military “force” to go after al-Qaida and whoever else was responsible for or complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Boy, were we fooled.

No sooner did the ink dry on the AUMF than the Bush-Cheney administration began using it to justify all manner of actions, most having nothing to do with military “force,” to carry out a far-reaching anti-terrorism program of action abroad and at home. The resolution quickly morphed into a justification for massive surreptitious eavesdropping on American citizens, using torture in contravention of U.S. law, and conducting open-ended military operations in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe.

The abuse of the 9/11 AUMF continued throughout the Bush administration, and into the Obama presidency with few adjustments. And now, they want another one.

The problem here at its most fundamental is why such a thing as a resolution authorizing a president to take military action against individuals or entities that have killed American citizens and are aiming to further harm American individuals and interests, is necessary in the first place.

More important still is the question of how did a simple joint resolution of the Congress become the justification whereby the government overrode civil liberties guaranteed against such actions by the Bill of Rights; and why would the Congress even consider allowing it to happen again?

In the case of the 2001 AUMF, it was sleight of hand by the Bush administration that led Congress into thinking it was merely authorizing what the resolution stated explicitly it was authorizing — the use of force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. In fact, however, the resolution became the cover for the Bush administration to do whatever it wanted, wherever it wanted, and whenever it wanted, against whatever targets — domestic or foreign — the White House decided to label a “terrorist threat.”

The Bush administration correctly gambled that, once passed, Congress would not later limit the subsequent reach of the resolution for fear of being labeled “soft” on terrorism.

Today, more than 13 years later, there are those, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who advocate another broad, largely open-ended AUMF to fight ISIS wherever and whenever its elements may be found. While some members of Congress are raising concerns over such a decision, many are not; and even among those expressing reservations, most are focusing on the specific — and important — geographic and time parameters of the resolution, not on preventing the more important constitutional abuses lurking beneath the surface.

The Congress is being asked to leave in place the broad and constitutionally-problematic 2001 AUMF, even as it gives the executive branch additional powers. Recent history tells us this is a recipe for serious constitutional mischief.

Instead of toying with another joint resolution, why not look to the Constitution, which requires that Congress fund those specific military programs it deems appropriate, prohibit those it opposes, and requires the president to operate as commander in chief within the bounds of the Constitution? That course of action, of course, would force the Congress to carefully consider and debate not only military operations, costs and responsibilities; but to understand the Constitution and the limits it places on government action.

Simply passing a resolution telling the president to “go after the bad guys” and worrying about the problems such action might cause later on, if at all, is so much easier.

Attorney Bob Barr of Smyrna is a former U.S. Republican congressman.

February 23, 2015 0 comment
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Liberty Updates

Liberty Update – Obama’s AUMF and Potential Repercussions

by Liberty Guard Author February 19, 2015
written by Liberty Guard Author
February 19, 2015 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Let Erik Prince And Blackwater Take On ISIS – To Kill Them, Not “Degrade” Them

by Liberty Guard Author October 29, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

Like many liberal criticisms of market-based solutions to public policy problems, the idea of privatized armies is likely to conjure images of rogue mercenaries advertising in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine. However, many of today’s paid civilian soldiers are highly skilled and professional former Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and Marines. They often are employed by private contractors because of their effectiveness as support staff, training instructors, security personnel, and occasionally as combat-ready operators. They are trained and ready to kill the enemy, not “degrade” him.

Such contractors have been instrumental in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; filling key positions with the State Department, the CIA, private companies, and others that the U.S. military either cannot, or will not, supplement. Most recently, insofar as responding to the rise of ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere in the region presents policy, budgetary and other conflicts for the Obama Administration, there is a new focus on using paid military contractors (PMCs) to “finish the job.”

Such a move makes sense; just as it has in other times and conflicts, dating back centuries.

The fact is, the history of warfare is replete with examples of highly successful paid armies. From the “Ten Thousand” army in Ancient Greece, to the iconic shark-faced planes of the “Flying Tigers” early in the Second World War, nations have come to rely on irregular, private armies to supplement or replace official military units. Even the elite Swiss Guard units in Vatican City charged with protecting the Pope began their storied history as 15th Century mercenaries.

Since the dawn of war, governments have used paid, private armies to protect kingdoms, carry out dangerous missions, and vanquish enemies. This reality is reflected even in the Constitution of the United States, which provides that Congress has the power to issue “Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” These devices are official governments licenses granted to private sailors to hunt down and attack enemy ships (Sen. Rand Paul’s father, former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, asserted that this power should be used today to fight piracy off the east coast of Africa).

The use of private militaries and Letters of Marque make sense on today’s battlefields, where victory is not necessarily determined by the biggest army, the most sophisticated air support, or the heaviest artillery. The modern enemy often does not wear a uniform, nor does he always fight for a single country or even a country at all. Even with the most fearsome fighting force on the planet, accomplishing military objectives in such an environment is a daunting task, long before U.S. politicians become involved.

Regrettably, our military today is led by a Commander in Chief so paralyzed by political pressure, indecision and timidity that the response to terror attacks on American citizens, such as those by ISIS, have become a waiting game for international cooperation to build in hopes of “degrading” and “managing” the attacks. The situation presented by an indecisive commander-in-chief is made worse by the infusion of hyper-partisan politics into today’s political debates in Washington. This makes success harder to define and more elusive at any rate, even as it squanders billions of taxpayer dollars on military strategies dictated by political consultants rather than field-grade officers.

It is the resulting uncertainty, in which ISIS festers and grows, that has led former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince to conclude that, “If the Administration cannot rally the political nerve or funding to send adequate active duty ground forces to answer the call, let the private sector finish the job.”

Using all-volunteer PMCs could avoid much of Washington’s political wrangling, and allow highly skilled, highly effective operators to conduct missions to destroy — not simply “degrade” — threats to America and our interests around the globe. This could be accomplished largely without leaving a job unfinished as troops are pulled from combat to meet political promises, or not given the resources they need because of budgetary constraints.

The use of American PMCs is also far better for national security than the current strategy of sending arms and money to unreliable, un-vetted and untrained “rebel” groups, whose only claim to our money and arms often is nothing more than the fact that some Washington policy makers have deemed them to be “on our side.” Those same policy wonks then watch with shock and amazement as their “allies” quickly surrender, leaving US-supplied weapons and munitions to be expropriated and turned against us by enemy forces. If we are going to spend taxpayer dollars using outside forces to fight terrorism, we might as well use PMCs who we at least can be sure are fighting for the right side.

It is true that the use of PMCs in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been without valid criticism; there were plenty of mistakes made with bidding, oversight, and accountability for misconduct during the massive and often too-quick build-up of U.S. interests in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. However, the conviction of four former Blackwater guards last week in the deaths of 17 civilians in Iraq, shows us that military contractors can, and should, be punished for failing to follow the same laws as members of the Armed Forces with whom they are working. Furthermore, as contractors, PMCs would be accountable for conduct, costs, and mission effectiveness in order to retain contracts for work. As more and more PMC groups are employed to handle military operations, the competition increases the incentive to do the best job for the lowest cost.

Rather than wait for a vacillating Administration to build sufficient courage to “manage” a crisis and to “degrade” those who do us harm, we should send in trained and motivated, paid military contractors to do the job. I suspect they would rather kill than “degrade” our enemies; which is what most Americans would prefer they do.

October 29, 2014 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

In Defeating ISIS, We Must Not Defeat Ourselves

by Liberty Guard Author September 17, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

“Terror is theater,” New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote on Monday. “Burning skyscrapers, severed heads: The terrorist takes movie images of unbearable lightness and gives them weight enough to embed themselves in the psyche.” Over the weekend, ISIS, the newest terror kid on the block, posted another one of its beheading videos to the Internet, marking the third hostage to die in the organization’s effort to send chills down the spine of the Western World.

And, once again, it worked.

Ask any American right now about the top issue facing the country, and his answer is likely not to be a still-struggling economy, a healthcare system crumbling under ObamaCare, a flood of illegal immigrants at the border and the unprecedented Executive action granting them amnesty, or any number of serious, domesticissues yet-to-be-solved by Congress or the President. Instead, most Americans would suggest the biggest, most direct problem facing the nation is a terror organization as to which our national intelligence agencies remain divided on what threat, if any, it poses to American interests outside of the region currently under its control in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, with each online video, or mysterious “note” left along a border fence, Americans predictably are succumbing to this “terror theater,” especially as ISIS gains traction in a ratings-hungry Mainstream Media. The effects of this fear mongering are already noticeable; a recent Pew poll found that 62 percent of Americans are “very concerned” about the rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. While that might not surprise given recent events, what is alarming is the shift of the population back to a post-9/11 mindset that government can, and should, do “whatever it takes” to protect the nation, regardless of constitutionality or actual effectiveness.

Thanks to the revelations last year by Edward Snowden, we know where this type of “Nanny State” mindset will lead. For years, privacy watchdogs suspected exactly what Snowden revealed: the U.S. government is actively collecting, analyzing, and storing the digital communications of hundreds of millions of U.S. citizens, with virtually no court oversight or suspicion of wrong doing on the part of these citizens. We now know also that the CIA has been illegally hacking into the computers of the U.S. Senate committee tasked with the oversight of intelligence agencies.

To top it all off, when questioned about these clear violations of the Constitution, the top brass of America’s intelligence communities perjured themselves in front of Congress.

As a result of these revelations, for a brief moment there seemed to be a real opportunity to win back some of the freedom lost during the post-9/11 terror hysteria, when fear enabled the creation of today’s surveillance Leviathan. Headlines detailing the extent to which the federal government shredded the Constitution in pursuit of “terrorists” led to what Pew described as the “first time in nearly a decade . . . that more [people] expressed concern over civil liberties than protection against terrorism.”

Sadly, in the end, all President Obama and the Congress had to do was wait for the headlines to shift to the next emergency du jour, and their shenanigans would once again fade from the public’s radar.

As I wrote last week, fear is a powerful tool, and one used often by the government following 9/11 to diminish individual liberty in exchange for the promise of security. Clearly, the more government officials fan the flames of terror hysteria, the more willing Americans became to surrender their freedom for this illusion, as the recent Pew poll demonstrates, and makes us less reluctant to put a stop to the unconstitutional behavior of our government.

In a 2003 interview, General Tommy Franks described his top concern for America not as being an act of terrorism, but a “massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the western world . . . that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event.” A decade later, we see it does not take an event as devastating as a mass-casualty attack to shake our understanding that protecting liberty, not achieving “security,” is the real responsibility of government.

Global terrorism may be a modern problem, but our Founding Fathers warned about the desire to trade freedom for security. They also knew that freedom, once relinquished, is rarely, if ever, returned to the people.

This is precisely why civil liberties deserve a consistent and high level of concern by the citizenry. Our basic freedoms are not commodities that can be pawned, or loaned, whenever the real world out there rears its ugly head and we need a little extra “security.”

How America responds to ISIS is not just a test of the President, but of America as well. We should, and will – if the proper mix of special ops actions and targeted military training and equipment is put in place — defeat ISIS; but in allowing the irrational fear of terrorism to penetrate our imagination and once again grant the government a blank check of power, we will ultimately defeat ourselves.

September 17, 2014 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Can We Survive A Feckless, Egotistic President Afraid To Lead?

by Liberty Guard Author September 10, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

Fear. It is a basic, primitive emotion common to every living species on planet earth. It is the instinctual response that keeps animals alive in nature, and influences the thoughts and actions of humans. Edmund Burke once described the potency of fear saying, “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” Burke’s observations ring especially true in today’s hypersensitive, hyper-connected world of 24-hour news channels and social media, in which the flames of fear can be fanned in ways only dreamed of in ages past.

Our fear of illness feeds the hype about an Ebola virus “epidemic” sweeping across America. International headlines appear anytime someone vomits on a plane. Overlooked is the reality that Ebola thrives only in areas with poor sanitation, nutrition, and healthcare access; and can in fact be prevented and contained in societies like ours where proper sanitation, nutrition and healthcare are the norm.

We fear mass shootings. Although such incidents are extremely rare, and almost always perpetrated by an individual suffering from mental health issues, schools now are mobilized to routinely practice “lock downs,” and have implemented idiotic “zero tolerance” programs with unthinkingly absurd results – such as suspending a child for making hand gestures in the shape of a gun while playing at recess.

Our fear of airline crashes, stoked by the recent disasters involving Malaysian Airlines planes, has recently led to three commercial airliners landing prematurely because of arguments between passengers over reclining seats.

Fear mongering unfortunately is a highly effective tool of government; well-known to the current and previous administrations, which have used Americans’ fear of terror attacks since 9/11 to dramatically and dangerously increase government power in ways previously considered far out of limits, both legally and morally.

As the United States government has engaged in fear mongering to achieve political gains domestically, so have governments and organizations in other parts of the world. Even a relatively small terror organization, ISIS, demonstrated clearly its understanding of the power of fear, in releasing online videos of beheadings to create an image of power. In Russia, Vladimir Putin has kept the international community trapped in a game of cat and mouse with that country’s escalation of tensions in Ukraine, through the savvy use of media and machismo.

Were Ronald Reagan in power today, such displays of terror from these regimes and terror outfits would have been quickly assessed and responded to with clarity of purpose and result. When two U.S. servicemen were killed in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin nightclub, it took Reagan only 10 days to launch airstrikes against the responsible party, Muammar Gaddafi, very nearly killing him in the attack.

Unfortunately, none of Reagan’s hallmark traits of poise and resolve resonate in today’s Oval Office. Instead, we have Barack Obama – a president so thoroughly disinterested in projecting even the appearance of leadership that a round of golf trumps serious consideration of dealing with blatant terrorist acts targeting American citizens. A president so afraid to lead in the international arena, that the response to terror attacks on American citizens such as those by ISIS, is to wait and see whether the “international community” will first “come together” to help “degrade” and “manage” such attacks on US citizens and against his policies directly. A president whose avowed goal is to eventually bring terrorists “to justice” rather than killing them, destroying their sanctuaries and hunting them down like the curs they are.

Can one even imagine a Ronald Reagan, or Margaret Thatcher, mouthing such nonsense? Reagan did not exhibit fear or allow fear to direct his actions as commander in chief in dealing with terror threats from Qaddafi, or when confronting far broader foreign policy issues, such as standing toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union and forcing the “evil empire” to its knees? Reagan never was satisfied with “degrading” the Soviet Union or Qaddafi; his aim in fact and in rhetoric was to defeat them completely. Reagan was a leader who – importantly – knew how to lead; no metrosexual president he.

Is it any wonder Putin does as he pleases, or why terrorists in Iraq openly taunt Obama by name with the severed heads of American journalists? What have they to fear when they know that even as a U.S. Ambassador was assassinated in a terror attack in Benghazi, this Administration’s first, and virtually only, response was to duck responsibility with lies and misinformation?

Even at home, Obama’s fecklessness defines his Administration. This is obvious repeatedly in his utter refusal to work to accomplish anything of substance by actually acting as president. Being president is easy once you have been elected to that high post. Actually serving as president – proposing specific programs and legislation, and then working with the Congress, the media and interest groups actually to accomplish those — takes hard work. Contrary to the liberal myth that Obama is a great “leader,” his only substantive domestic accomplishments came during his first term when Democrats had control of the House and the Senate. Although his actual accomplishments during that interregnum were disastrous substantively — ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank – these were actual accomplishments. But, even so, it was not in fact Obama himself who lent the horsepower to achieve the results; it was the Democrat leaders in the Congress who did the heavy lifting.

Unlike other presidents during whose administrations major legislative victories were had – LBJ and the “Great Society,” or Ronald Reagan’s rebuilding of the domestic economy and America’s military power – Obama shuns the hard work necessary to achieve such results. Instead, he relies on speechifying and unilateral action. Signing executive orders and other presidential documents is easy (even if unlawful and unconstitutional). Such actions demand nothing of a president — none of the hard work on the Hill his predecessors, both liberal and conservative, engaged in to avoid gridlock when power was not firmly in the grip of their political party.

We have survived inept presidents, like Jimmy Carter. We have survived really bad presidents, like Woodrow Wilson. And we have survived narcissist presidents such as Bill Clinton. However, America has never endured a president, who appears so afraid, so egotistical and so seemingly disinterested as this one. We must pray we can survive such a man for the next two years.

September 10, 2014 0 comment
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From the Desk of Bob Barr

Middle East Has Become Obama’s ‘Ground Hog Day’

by Liberty Guard Author August 13, 2014
written by Liberty Guard Author

“That’s my boy!” cheered one photo posted to Twitter this week by Australian Khaled Sharrouf — a terrorist currently fighting in Syria for the ISIS terror group. The photo featured his young son — holding in two clutched hands the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

Such are the macabre and deteriorating conditions in a part of the world on the verge of having been pushed to the side once the war in Iraq fell off the front pages of America’s newspapers. Unfortunately, while America’s attentions, including those of President Obama, turned to internal political squabbling, the ObamaCare fiasco, and other domestic problems, the terrorists of ISIS were hard at work. Finally, when ISIS officially captured the city of Mosul in early June, Washington realized the book on the Iraq War was not yet finished; “mission” still not “accomplished.” Now, nearly two months after ISIS launched its bloody offensive in northern Iraq, the group has its eyes set on Baghdad and on nationhood, committing grotesque atrocities in the process.

One might wonder how a relatively small group of militia fighters could, in a matter of weeks, erase more than a decade of hard-fought victories won with the sacrifices of body and blood by U.S. forces. It might be more easily comprehended if such gains had come in the form of a surprise attack from the shadows of the Middle East; however, such is not the case. According to the New York Times, ISIS in fact has been very public about articulating its goals in the region, going so far as to publish annual reports about its progress since 2006, when it was first established in Iraq.

Yet, in an Administration beset by systemic “intelligence failures,” with the President admitting time and again about reading of world events from news coverage, the virtually uncontested rise of ISIS is not really surprising. Nor is Obama’s delayed, haphazard response to the worsening conditions in the Middle East. Only now, after months of brutal killings of Christians, other ethnic minorities, and Iraqi military personnel at the hands of these Muslim fanatics, has Obama finally authorized limited airstrikes against ISIS targets; limited to the extent that even the Pentagon admits they will likely have little effect on the group’s overall strength now that it has become entrenched in the territories under its control.

Today’s frightening reality in Iraq is a failure shared by both major political parties here at home; and more specifically, both Republican and Democratic leaders who enabled back-to-back Administrations to engage in a dangerous game of nation-building that left America’s interests at home and abroad even more vulnerable than before. Despite spending hundreds of billions — if not trillions – of U.S. taxpayer dollars in Iraq removing Saddam Hussein and “rebuilding” the country’s infrastructure, we are left now with a humongous, hollow embassy complex (but one we still must defend), in a capital city under siege because of our withdrawal of virtually any way to protect our interests in the country plagued by long-simmering tribal and religious warfare.

Worse still — as the situation with ISIS proves — America is forced to defend these interests with a foreign intelligence capability that apparently remains unable to penetrate this part of the world. This deficiency exists despite a massive and expensive push to rebuild a foreign intelligence system that had failed to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union a generation ago, was caught flat-footed more than a decade ago on 9/11, and dropped the ball again two years ago in Benghazi.

Because this intelligence network is so badly broken, there has developed a default position of blindly and repeatedly assuming “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This is why the Obama Administration’s answer to nearly every Middle Eastern crisis (which have come with increased frequency since Obama took office) is to arm the rebel group du jour – usually one that appears or claims to support American interests today, but works against us the next. Libya, Egypt, and Syria, come quickly to mind. At the same time, we have appeared strangely hesitant to openly and strongly support the one faction in that part of the world that consistently has been a friend to the U.S. – the Kurds.

Even Hillary Clinton has sloughed off her mantel as Obama’s former Secretary of State and jumped on the bandwagon — criticizing Obama’s recent foreign policy decisions and suggesting Obama erred in refusing to “build up a credible fighting force” within Syrian factions opposed to Bashir Assad’s regime. Of course, this would be the same factions the CIA covertly trained last year, and which now apparently have allied with ISIS in Iraq — supplying them with weapons, some of which almost certainly came from the United States.

Like the Bill Murray character in “Groundhog Day” – forced to relive that day over and over again – we seem to be caught in a similar time-loop of our own making. Unfortunately, unlike the movie, this Administration learns nothing to help us get off the merry-go-round with each new episode of violence in the Middle East. Even more tragically, this is real life, with real-world consequences for our inability or unwillingness to learn from past mistakes, to understand who our real friends are, and to comprehend the very real limitations on our ability to change societies in that part of the world that has resisted such efforts for millennia.

August 13, 2014 0 comment
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