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Campaign Issues, Vol. I: Ron Paul and bin Laden

Saturday, May 14th, 2011

On May 11, Ron Paul gave an interview with WHO Newsradio 1040 in which he stated that he would not have ordered the bin Laden raid to occur “the way it took place in Pakistan“:

This is a problem for a lot of people; it leaves them with the idea that Paul would prefer bin Laden not face consequences for his purported role in multiple terror attacks over the last two decades. This is not Paul’s position at all, but it bears some scrutiny.

First, it’s worth mentioning that Paul called this one as far back as October 2003:

His analysis of our relationship with Pakistan hasn’t changed since that time, and it’s clear that he was ahead of the game early on. Paul didn’t have some secret information that lead him to be correct in 2003 — he simply used his understanding of our foreign policy in the Middle East and applied it to what he was seeing.

He was against spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was against risking thousands of military lives and those of countless foreign civilians to go after a terrorist who was in neither country. He was against attacking and occupying a sovereign nation without a declaration of war.

He was not against finding Osama bin Laden and bringing him to justice.

In November 2001, Paul introduced H.R. 3076, aka. the Marque and Reprisal act of 2001. He listed Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda by name as the targets of the proposed letters. These specifically grant the President authority to hire “privately armed and equipped persons and entities” to go outside U.S. boarders to seize bin Laden and any co-conspirators. The Constitution (Article I, Section 8) provides for Congress to grant letters of Marque and Reprisal to the executive branch as a response to threats against our national security.

The main idea behind this is that a relatively surgical force would be used to apprehend Osama bin Laden and any of his co-conspirators rather than an occupation force. Incidentally, it is a surgical force like this which actually achieved the goal of eliminating Osama in the end (of course, they were military rather than private).

So, given these facts, what is Ron Paul’s beef with the way things went down?

  1. Osama never stood trial nor had the chance to provide us with intelligence.

    2. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda operative accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks, was apprehended in Pakistan in 2003 by Pakistani intelligence forces. He is being held at Guantanamo Bay and is set to be tried by a military tribunal for the crimes of which he is accused. If he is convicted, he will almost certainly face the death penalty.

    Paul’s argument here is that if bin Laden was a higher-priority target than Mohammed, we would ostensibly want to gain intelligence from him and have him face trial as well. The current version of the raid holds that bin Laden was unarmed. He could have been captured alive. He almost certainly would have been executed after trial. It makes little sense to me that we would not want to gain intelligence from him nor want to see him tried.

    Incidentally, not everyone in Paul’s non-intervention camp agrees on this issue. Michael Scheuer is the former head of the CIA’s unit on bin Laden, and has sided with Paul on Afghanistan, Iraq, and blowback. He recently posted, “The death of Osama bin Laden is great news for the United States, and it is much better that he was killed rather than captured.”

  2. We used our military to invade a sovereign nation without permission.

    3. This is hardly a concern for most Americans — we’ve been doing that for a long time without regard for the Constitution. Some would argue that we’re entitled to go wherever we want with impunity to avenge 9/11, but I disagree strongly. My most concise argument is to reverse roles:

    Imagine that a private citizen of the U.S. has planned a successful attack on civilians in Pakistan. Our government is either incapable or unwilling to apprehend this citizen, and the Pakistanis want justice. Would they be entitled to enter our airspace and carry out a military operation without our permission? How would we react in that situation?

    The real question is whether we’re entitled to disregard the sovereignty of another nation just because we have superior military force.

In summary, Ron Paul was not opposed to capturing Osama bin Laden, nor to having him face justice. His concern is that we make our foreign policy and national security choices in a way that follows the Constitution and makes us safer in the long run.

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How to create an Insurgent

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Anyone remember these scenes from The Patriot? (A warning for the faint of stomach, such as myself: this is pretty graphic.)

I remember watching this movie for the first time, and it was pretty disturbing.

One might say that I simply have a weak stomach or that I’m unable to deal with reality. To the contrary, I believe there’s an extent to which the reality of war should disturb us. Something is fundamentally wrong when one human is responsible for the death of another. If I am in a car accident in which another driver is killed — even if I’m not responsible — I don’t shrug it off as bad luck; it’s a life-changing event. If someone is sentenced to death, it is usually because they have caused the death of another. Killing (voluntary or involuntary) is an action that we have no power to reverse. We take it seriously.

This reality does not disappear in war. Combatants do not enter into lethal engagements lightly. If they do, it is viewed as particularly heinous, even among soldiers.

So what does any of this have to do with insurgency?

Motivations

Mel Gibson’s character, Benjamin Martin, is hesitant to become involved in any conflict with the British at the beginning of the film. He has seen his share of violence in the French and Indian War. He knows how brutal things can be, and has himself committed atrocities. He does not want to expose his seven children to that kind of existence. Nothing the British have done in terms of disrespect, oppression, or even violence elsewhere in the Colonies is enough to rouse him. Neither freedom nor liberty are sufficient to inspire him. One single issue drives his hatred and willingness to die fighting, and that is the indiscriminate killing of his civilian son. From that point on, he becomes a member of the armed resistance. In modern terms, he would certainly be categorized as an insurgent.

Of course, we know that The Patriot is a fictional story loosely very loosely situated in historical context. What is not fictional, however, is the psychology behind Martin’s reaction. We humans will endure significant abuse and oppression before involving ourselves in armed resistance against a government force. No one wants to become a target, and we’ll usually try to evoke change via means that don’t get us shot.

All of that changes if you start killing our children. If that line is crossed, all bets are off.

Nearly a decade has passed since the September 11 attacks of 2001, during which time much has been made of an existential threat posed to our nation by Islamic extremists. According to Bush 43, our resultant war on terror will not stop until “every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” Furthermore, he claims terrorists “hate us” because we have a “democratically-elected government”, and because we have “freedom of speech.” Assuming it were possible to defeat every terrorist cell around the world, the argument is that we could commence with being free and secure once again.

This understanding of terrorist motivations has been accepted and repeated by our mainstream media outlets. It has been the party (both parties?) line ever since. Nearly a decade later, we remain in Afghanistan (to say nothing of our other entanglements) with no apparent intent to leave. It would appear that we have been incapable of achieving our stated goals thus far, and do not expect to achieve them in the near or foreseeable future.

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, has an alternate understanding of why terrorists are willing to attack the United States. He argues that the reason we’re attacked is not because we’re free or because of cultural issues, but rather due to our policies in the middle east. He bases that belief on Al Qaeda’s explicit claims: “Vote for whoever you want: Bush or Kerry or the devil himself. This does not concern us. Our concern is to purify our countries from aggressors and to stand up to whoever attacks us.”

Perspectives

Of course, there will always be anomalies like bin Laden or Zawahiri who are willing to fight for regime change. They are displeased with the oppressive leadership of Saudi Arabia, and with Israel’s policies in Palestine. These governments (and others) would lose significant influence without the United States, and he’s willing to fight to degrade that influence. However, your average Afghan resident has no direct interest in these issues. Many of these people have never even heard of the 9/11 attacks. They are doing well to feed themselves.

So why would they get involved with a group like Al Quaeda? — for the same exact reason as our fictional Benjamin Martin: because their loved ones are dying.

A few days ago, 9 Afghan children were killed in an operation when they were misidentified as insurgents. As disillusioned as I am, I have a hard time believing that NATO troops would intentionally kill children in reprisal to an attack. Regardless, this is by no means an isolated incident. In fact, Gen. Stanley McChrystal made the following comments about our early involvement in Afghanistan:

“We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force… [none of the cases in which] we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it.”

With that kind of admission from a General, it’s not hard to see why the likes of bin Laden would find recruiting much easier. Consider this reaction by Mohammed Bismil, adult brother of two of the young boys who were killed last week: “The only option I have is to pick up a Kalashnikov, RPG or a suicide vest to fight.” Another quote comes from a relative of injured civilians in a May 2010 attack: “If the military keeps doing this, the people will go into the mountains to fight them. When I saw my daughter injured, all I could think about was putting on a suicide jacket.” (see video below at the 36:50 mark for the interview)



Conclusions

I recall my sense of queasiness being mingled with some level of satisfaction as I watched Mel Gibson unleash his holy wrath on a platoon of British soldiers with the expertise and stealth of a ninja. (It was like seeing the Punisher and Batman rolled into one.) His son had just been killed needlessly. He had a right to revenge. He had a mission to save his oldest son. He was achieving an honorable goal and making aggressors pay.

Of course that is an easy position for me to take. I’m an American white man; I can identify with this guy on a cultural level. I would be devastated if a child or a brother were murdered by an outside military force. I could almost see myself taking that kind of retribution, given the chance. It should be easy to understand the motivations of someone who has seen their loved ones killed by foreign forces, someone who has not been inundated with messages about the evils of the Taliban and Al Quaeda. We may see the man with an RPG or suicide jacket as an insurgent — a terrorist — but he sees himself protecting the family he has left and pursuing a righteous vengeance. Perhaps it would behoove us to consider how impossible it would be to see things any differently in those shoes, and to direct our policies accordingly.

One thing is clear: if we continue to kill civilians, we also deliver fiercely-dedicated recruits to Al Quaeda and its allies. Our long list of failures in this regard leaves no doubt that our declared enemy has grown stronger and that we have become less secure as a direct result of our presence in Afghanistan.

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Clinton on economics, Part One

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

It seems Comedy central finally found something funnier than Colbert.

I will be reviewing a segment on the Daily Show regarding the current bailout situation. Part two of this blog will cover the second half of Clinton’s interview.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill Clinton Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Hopefully, by this point you’ve heard at least part of the outrageous legislature proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Seriously??? This guy should be replaced and charged with treason for even proposing such a bill. Fortunately, many citizens have been calling their Senators and Representatives, demanding that they vote against it. What we’re seeing now is an upwelling of constituents and members of Congress who recognize that we’re in an untenable situation. Unfortunately, it seems most lack a fundamental understanding of how we arrived at this predicament in the first place.

Clinton says if we put up this $700 billion, we should have a moratorium on foreclosures, and then have each mortgage reviewed for possible write-downs. It sounds like a good plan, but let us examine just how it would work:

The moratorium would have to be very short term and the manual reviews completed quickly. On the surface, it seems like “homeowners” (I use that term loosely, because I would not consider someone who has a 0.5% stake in a house the owner) would get a break. They get a chance to have the bank write down their debt without losing their house. The bank only loses interest they would’ve earned with the larger debt, and it doesn’t become insolvent and risk a run — the federal government underwrites the loss (that means we pay for it). Even assuming that congress could find qualified reviewers and implement this plan quickly, there are fundamental flaws.

Foreclosure is simply a means of enforcing debt. If you can’t pay your mortgage, the bank is able to keep the interest you’ve paid them over time, and the property which was collateral for the loan. The borrower loses any money he or she has invested in the house, and is unlikely to secure another loan for some time, due to credit reporting. You might be asking yourself a few questions at this point. If the banks have been implementing so many foreclosures, and if they have gained both the property and the interest paid since the origination of the loan, then why are they failing? It would seem that they are now richer than they were when they started. That makes sense, but it is not the truth. If you read my post about creating money from debt, you’ll remember that when you obtain a mortgage, the bank is not actually loaning you their own money. Literally, they are just writing that amount into your account out of thin air. Our government allows that check to be treated as real currency and to be payable in real dollars at other financial institutions where the seller might deposit or cash it.

In order to keep their balance sheets straight, the banks keep two separate accounts. One says how much they have written on all those outstanding loan checks, and the other says how much they have been paid back. Just like they didn’t actually have that money to lend you in the first place, they don’t get to keep it when you pay it back. When you make a payment, part goes to principle and part goes to interest. The principle amount is deducted from your overall debt to the bank, and hence it is also deducted from the total amount the bank has lent out on those loan checks. In simpler terms, the money disappears back into nothing since it didn’t exist to begin with. The banks have a limit on how many of those loan checks they can lend out from thin air, and this is called fractional reserve banking. Typically, they can lend up to 9 times the amount they have on reserve at the central federal reserve bank. So, when they get principle payment back from you, they are free to lend out that money again to someone else and earn even more interest on it. The interest amount is the bank’s profit which goes to pay employees, stockholders, or it may even be deposited at the central bank to allow them to lend out even more money.

What happens when there is a foreclosure and you can’t pay it back? In that case, the overall amount the bank has lent out on those checks stays high. Therefore, the money is not freed up for them to lend out to others. They have lost both the interest you would have paid them and the interest they’d earn if they had freed up that money to lend out to others. On the upside, they do have the house and land as collateral. So… can’t they just sell that? Yes, but it will usually not cover the amount of unpaid principle, and it costs the bank money to take over the maintenance of the house. When someone loses their house due to foreclosure, they’re usually not a happy camper. When I was trained in mortgage lending, I was told that often people will destroy the house out of spite or take whatever materials can be sold for scrap (metal, wood, etc.). Even if the house is in good condition, there is another problem. Too many houses on the market drives the price down, which means the bank cannot recuperate their costs. As you can see, foreclosure isn’t going to make the bank richer.

You might also ask yourself why the Congress can’t just change the laws and allow the banks to lend out more money to gain interest. If the fractional reserve requirement allows nine dollars to be lent out for one dollar on reserve, why not make it ten? Or twenty? Or a hundred? What difference does it really make as long as we save the banks? Wouldn’t this be better than paying 700 billion dollars to bail them out? Absolutely not, and the reason is inflation. As the banks are creating money from debt, that money is being circulated in the economy. More money being moved around for the same amount of goods and services is called inflation. It means the money is worth less than it was before. Now you understand why a dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to; there are too many dollars in the system. Sometimes less really is more. The federal reserve wouldn’t want to increase the ratio because it would lead to hyper-inflation, a severe and rapid reduction in the value of money. This is one of the factors that caused the Great Depression, it is why counterfeit money is illegal, and it is the cause of economic turmoil in many other countries.

So then, what if Clinton’s moratorium on foreclosures becomes law? Consider this: why would someone worry about paying their mortgage if they can’t lose their house? They wouldn’t. You pay your mortgage before you pay your cell phone bill because you can’t live without your house. Once the threat of losing it is gone, you are free to use your money for other purposes. People won’t pay back their mortgages because foreclosure isn’t an option. The banks will have lent out the $700 billion from the government as new mortgages, which also won’t be paid back in a timely fashion because, once again, foreclosure isn’t an option. In this case, the banks are still out of money and back in the position they were, only now the government has invested stockpiles of money to stave off collapse for a short period of time. Not only this, but it exacerbates the inflation problem described above. The money out there from these bad loans is not being repaid so that it can disappear back into nothing. Also, $700 billion are being infused into banks allowing them to create even more money from debt. This will cause hyper-inflation and the complete collapse of the dollar much sooner than even the first scenario I described above.

In the second half I’ll discuss how Congress plays into all of this, President Bush’s plea for cooperation, and what it would look like if we just let the banks fail. See you then!

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the patriot

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

A man who is willing to speak like this in Congress is not out for his own gain.

Feel free to read the transcript.

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money makes the world go ’round?

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Anyone who is interested in understanding the composition of our economy and the fiat currency system should watch this video. I’ve never come across such a clear and succinct presentation of this material. You may not agree with all of the opinions expressed, but the explanation of our currency system and how the Federal Reserve fits into it is accurate. I worked at a financial institution for almost four years and never came to a full understanding of the Fed’s role and activities.

Fair warning, it is 45 minutes long, but well worth your time, in my opinion.

EDIT:

On the recommendation of my friend, Jordan, I also viewed Money as Debt, and find it to be a great companion to the video above. The first video focuses on the origins and roles of the federal reserve, while the second gives a summary of how currency evolved and how it is generated in our nation today.

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