Sic Semper Tyrannis

Stopping the Budget "Death" Slide

Do we all understand that the federal government's slide toward default and bankruptcy is going to destroy the US economy if we don't stop it?  Do we?  Really?  I don't think so.

Someone I have known for a long time called the other day.  He had read a book that convinced him that the end was coming for the US.  Fortunately, he said, neither of us would be much bothered by the collapse.  The obvious reason would be our absence from this post-apocalyptic scene.

Nevertheless, a certain regard for the fate of the people he and I have both striven, however futiley, to protect caused us to discuss the matter.

IMO, the solution is apparent:

- Let the Bush tax cuts lapse.  The GAO reckons that would increase revenues by 3.3 trillion dollars over 10 years.  The beauty of this is that the "sunsetting" of these tax reductions does not require any action on the part of anyone.  Congess is good at that.

- Let the Grand sequester occur beginning on 1 January 2013.  Once again GAO thinks that would cut 1.3 trillion dollars from spending over ten years and once again no action is required.

- Set Medicare eand Social Security eligibility at 67 with reduced benefits for SS at 62 as an option.  Means test SS payments.

- Stop operations and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This is costing the US more than 100 billion dollars a year.  BHO is now projecting our unfunded liabilities in Afghanistan out to 2024.  That would be 1.2 trillion.  The Operations and Maintenance costs of these wars is enormous.  Withdraw from Afghanistan.  Let the Afghans determine their own fate.  Tell the Afghan government, like all others, that harboring our enemies will bring violent retribution but not occupation.

- Reduce the US ground forces radically in line with prospects for future ground combats that are likely to be equipment intensive but limited in scope.  The sequester will force this anyway,  Why not get ahead of "the game?"  Keep SOF spending at present levels for the World wide CT effort.

- Stop subsidizing the Egyptian and Israeli governments.

All of that should add up to something like a 5 trillion dollar net change in our situation.  Would that not be helpful?  pl

"Tunisia after Arab Spring" Washpost

"...a vision of Islam that rejects democracy and elections. “Democracy’s freedom is absolute,” Ibrahim says, “and we don’t accept that. In our religion, freedom is limited to the freedom God gives you.”

Downstairs, Ibrahim’s father, Saleh Amara, explodes in frustration over his son’s new, post-revolutionary passion. Saleh and his wife have gone along with some of their 27-year-old’s new restrictions — okay, they’d stop watching soap operas and “Oprah” on TV, because there was too much sexual content — but Saleh says his son goes too far. Growing the long beard of the pious is fine, though it will probably limit his job opportunities. And if Ibrahim insists that his secular-raised, college-educated wife cover her hair and wear gloves, well, that’s his business. But how can he spurn free elections, the sweetest fruit of Tunisia’s revolution?"  Washpost

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I was taught Arabic grammar by a Tunisian.  He was an excellent teacher.  His mind was a product of the school system built under the French protectorate in Tunisia and continued after France withdrew.  That system was universal, had a unified curriculum for all and was free.  It extended through the university level.  My teacher "'Adil A."  had been trained to think as a man who was both Arab and French.  His mind worked like a clock constructed according to a set of rules devised by Rene Descartes.  The predominant theme in his thinking was always a rigorous logic based on real evidence.  We got on well.  Over the decades I visited Tunisia many times, often driving about the country with my wife.  We found most Tunisians in the major towns to be very like Adil.  They truly lived in two worlds.  They were the most bilingual people I have ever experienced.  One could walk down a street behind them in Tunis, Sfax or Bizerte and listen to them switch effortlessly back and forth from French to Arabic in their speech.  They were completely unconscious of the process.  In the countryside it was somewhat different.  In general, the smaller the village the more unaffected by Western education they were although all had some measure of the mixed post-colonial culture.

In this article a profound truth is spoken.  Beneath the acculturated Westernized layer in all the Arab states lies the bed rock of the high culture of Islam.  That high culture is ancient and potent.  In the Sunni countries, it is still locked in what to my judgment is an artificial devotion to pietism and rejection of "reform" in the religious sciences, but I am not a Muslim.  My religion, Catholicism, was forced to abandon similar positions half a millennium ago.  Sunni Islam has never experienced anything like the Protestant Reformation or Catholic Counter-Reformation.  All attempts at such movements have been defeated by the pious.

Bourguiba and Ben Ali were secular nationalist revolutionaris who were corrupted by the fruits of victory as revolutionaries often are.

Now they are gone and the new Tunisia must seek a balance between the "authentic" old way and the Europeanized Tunisia that I thought so pleasant and admirable.

Tunisia was the most Western.  Think about the other countries.  pl  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-tunisia-after-arab-spring-islamists-new-freedoms-create-new-muslim-divide/2012/04/28/gIQAN9yJoT_story.html?hpid=z4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_protectorate_of_Tunisia

 

Perception and Reality in Afghanistan (and the US)

"Every day seems to widen the gap between the goals the United States is seeking to achieve in Afghanistan and its ability to achieve them. Even apparent progress, like the Strategic Framework Agreement between the United States and Afghanistan, seems more a warning on the inability to define specific goals, milestones, and resources—coupled with growing restraints on U.S. military action—than an accomplishment."  Cordesman - CSIS

http://csis.org/publication/time-focus-afghan-good-enough

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The "Strategic Framework" is clever.  It is not a treaty.  It has no details.  It promises nothing but an "enduring partnership."  Ever heard of the "Rio Treaty?"  No?  It is document signed just after World War 2 that "ties together" the countries of the western hemisphere in a "strategic" relationship that requires nothing but consultation.  When convenient it provides a basis for action.  When it is not convenient...  Perfidy is a technique of statecraft.

 

"Nothing is too good for the troops...

... and that is what they will get.  Old Army Saying

BHO says that he and Michele, love their soldiers and will always be there for them and their families, always.  Are we looking at a future attempt to change the constitution?  Politicians promise soldiers the world in wartime, but later...

Today BHO spoke to a carefully staged military audience from a hangar at Bagram air base.  It was a scene remarkably like "carriergate" in the time of the Emperor George II.  A very unrepresentative group formed a background behind BHO.  It was chock full of African-Americans, women, other ethnic minorities and other groups near and dear to the Democratic base.  The force, especially the combat  force in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly recruited from small town white America.  What a cheap political trick!

After BHO finished, Christopher Matthews, Jim Moran and Jim Vanderhei of "Politico" commented on MSNBC.  Matthews, a man so in love with BHO that he swoons at the thought of him went on and on about the "Commander in Chief" this and the "Commander in Chief that.  Moran was equally adoring.  Neither one of these bloviators ever served a day in the armed forces and neither did the "Commander in Chief."  Romney and Cheny should be added of course to the list of "chickenhawks."  At least BHO is not a draft evader.  Vanderhei was so foolish as to suggest that this "carnie show" might not be well received by the US public.  He was suitably chastised by the "faithful."

Earlier today, Colonel (Ret.) Jack Jacobs said that if the US stays in Afghanistan after 2014, our forces will inevitably continue to be involved in combat operations.  We will have to provide staff planning, materiel, target intelligence, airlift etc.  This will be true even if we say we are no longer in the direct combat role there and even if we adopt the CT strategy that we should have adopted a couple of years ago.  The time for that has passed.  The American people will not longer accept it.

The child-scholars of Washington thinktankery are still waxing optimistic on shows like the Newshour, but they should.  they are going to "go down" with the shrinking overseas missions and budget of the armed forces.  They are going to go down just like John Nagl did. 

More tomorrow on  BHO's speech tonight as a re-enactor of Marcus Aurelius.  It will be broadcast from the legions' camps along "the Rhine" to the Senate and People of the USA.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Moran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Matthews

 

 

Romney gay advisor replaced by Senor the neocon

Grennel has been replaced by Dan Senor, the neocon "talking dog" who was the mouthpiece for the Coalition Privisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq.

"But Mr. Senor, we have no water, no electricity, no jobs and the country is in ruins..."

"Yes, well, but how is that freedom, uh?  How's that freedom?"

Senor can be seem on MSNBC wagering meals at some Manhattan steak house with "Lightning Joe" Scarborough.

We have been shown a possible future just as Ebeneezer Scrooge was at Christmas.  pl

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/05/01/top_mitt_romney_aide_quits_in_face_of_anti_gay_sentiment/

"A Game of Drones" by Ximena Ortiz

"America’s recent foreign policy has been enabled by a central idea: the United States does things differently. It wages wars differently. It suspends habeas corpus sparingly and with great restraint. It encroaches on liberties more gingerly. And it puts military men and women at risk with a respectful selectivity. To advance this mythology, the federal government has, time and again, insisted that it acts with painstaking precision when it resorts to military intervention or security-state measures at home. This, officials have consistently suggested, is the American distinction."  Ximena Ortiz

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/a-game-of-drones/#.T59SULmDMI8.mailto