Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire WikiLeaks: Who's Hiding What and Why - Fred Reed

Our foreign policy was in the spotlight last week, which is exactly where it should be. Almost two years ago many voters elected someone they thought would lead us to a more peaceful, rational co-existence with other countries. However, while attention has been focused on the administration�s disastrous economic policies, its equally disastrous foreign policies have exacerbated our problems overseas. Especially in times of economic crisis, we cannot afford to ignore costly foreign policy mistakes. That�s why it is important that U.S. foreign policy receive some much-needed attention in the media, as it did last week with the leaked documents scandal.

Many are saying that the WikiLeaks documents tell us nothing new. In some ways this is true. Most Americans knew that we have been fighting losing battles. These documents show just how bad it really is. The revelation that Pakistani intelligence is assisting the people we are bombing in Afghanistan shows the quality of friends we are making with our foreign policy. This kind of thing supports points that Rep. Dennis Kucinich and I tried to make on the House floor last week with a privileged resolution that would have directed the administration to remove troops from Pakistan pursuant to the War Powers Resolution.

We are not at war with Pakistan. Congress has made no declaration of war. (Actually, we made no declaration of war on Iraq or Afghanistan either, but that is another matter.) Yet we have troops in Pakistan engaging in hostile activities, conducting drone attacks and killing people. We sometimes manage to kill someone who has been identified as an enemy, yet we also kill about 10 civilians for every 1 of those. Pakistani civilians are angered by this, yet their leadership is mollified by our billions in bribe money. We just passed an appropriations bill that will send another $7.5 billion to Pakistan. One wonders how much of this money will end up helping the Taliban. This whole operation is clearly counterproductive, inappropriate, immoral and every American who values the rule of law should be outraged. Yet these activities are being done so quietly that most Americans, as well as most members of the House, don�t even know about them.

We should follow constitutional protocol when going to war. It is there for a reason. If we are legitimately attacked, it is the job of Congress to declare war. We then fight the war, win it and come home. War should be efficient, decisive and rare. However, when Congress shirks its duty and just gives the administration whatever it wants with no real oversight or meaningful debate, wars are never-ending, wasteful, and political. Our so-called wars have become a perpetual drain on our economy and liberty.

The founders knew that heads of state are far too eager to engage in military conflicts. That is why they entrusted the power to go to war with the deliberative body closest to the people � the Congress. Decisions to go to war need to be supported by the people. War should not be covert or casual. We absolutely should not be paying off leaders of a country while killing their civilians without expecting to create a lot of new problems. This is not what America is supposed to be about.

Every now and then I feel a peculiar need to try and fit in.

I think my above post makes about as much sense as any of the those from the good "conservatives" on here who are jabbering in circles while trying to manufacture some reasonable justification for Obama's war.

It's one of the more ridiculous things I've seen on this forum (and that's saying something),..but the same people who believe that Obama is a foreign born, Marxist, Muslim subversive,.support his war initiatives in the middle east!

Like I said,..the warmongering mentality is a sickness,...it's serious bent noodle shiit when it reaches the level witnessed on here.

Incidentally, it means that a consistent libertarian can't advocate laws against libel or slander either. Your reputation doesn't belong to you: it consists of thousands of individual opinions that each belong to the individuals who hold them. Thus, when somebody adjusts those opinions, he can't be said to have committed any offense against you.

(However, depending on circumstances, he may have committed fraud--against the folks whose opinions he adjusted, not against you--which is actionable.)

A strict libertarian, perhaps not. But what of the Christian?
The good Lord calls it bearing false witness. It can in fact leave a victim if his reputation among his peers is falsely shot full of holes.
And, that the unwise listener believes a rumor is as much his own fault, if not more, than the guy doing the telling. The good Lord speaks of that as well, that one is called rumor mongering. The wise liistener doesn't necessarily believe but remembers and watches just in case.

Suppose a bunch of Syrian civilians get murdered, and the Syrian government blames it on a group of Brits in the UK and demands that they be handed over for prosecution, and the British government refuses to extradite them.

Does that mean Syria is justified in invading England?

Or does it only work that way when it's brown people?

War is a terrible thing requiring terrible acts. The American people can barely stick hamburgers in their mouths without feeling guilty about it.

This leak was meant not only to expose intelligence, but to put Americans on another guilt trip and thereby derail the war effort. If Americans were strong, we'd just brush it off and call for more. But America is a pussified state without any resolve or stomach for reality.

jorge, what you don't seem capable of comprehending is that I deny the Founders were isolationists, i.e., it is my contention that it amounts to propaganda for your side to characterize their foreign policy as such. It is therefore your burden to argue that they were, if you wish to contend against my position.

Another view of the WikiLeaks scandal, from Ron Paul:

The FFs were the complete OPPOSITE of isolationists

You make some good posts sometimes, but all I can say about that one is "F.U."

War is a terrible thing requiring terrible acts. The American people can barely stick hamburgers in their mouths without feeling guilty about it.

This leak was meant not only to expose intelligence, but to put Americans on another guilt trip and thereby derail the war effort. If Americans were strong, we'd just brush it off and call for more. But America is a pussified state without any resolve or stomach for reality.

Don't confuse morality with law. The two are mortal enemies
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Laffin'...you see things through a most peculiar kaleidoscope,Barak!!

War is a terrible thing requiring terrible acts. The American people can barely stick hamburgers in their mouths without feeling guilty about it.

This leak was meant not only to expose intelligence, but to put Americans on another guilt trip and thereby derail the war effort. If Americans were strong, we'd just brush it off and call for more. But America is a pussified state without any resolve or stomach for reality.

That's certainly the spin that is disseminated by the ruling class. You're to be commended for swallowing it so effortlessly and regurgitating it so accurately.

Another view is that Americans by and large hate the Bush/Obama wars and think they're stupid, immoral, wasteful, dangerous, and counterproductive; and that this outrage--rather than fear or pusillanimity--is where their lack of support comes from. In this view, publishing additional evidence of atrocities and other criminal behavior committed by the US government and its henchmen, then, would serve to reinforce the existing popular contempt for the ruling class's war drums.