In addition to funding wars, Congress appropriates trillions of questionable dollars to anyone in the U.S. to address COVID-19 and green technology without any evidence of effectiveness or need.

At least $18 trillion of our $34 trillion national debt can be attributed to some combination of undeclared wars, misinformation, and lies. Every taxpayer is left with the $260,000 tab that accompanies federally created inflation, decaying schools, rising interest rates, declining wages, sagging productivity, labor strikes, supply chain problems, increasing taxes, open borders, and terrorists in the homeland. These problems are not music to the ears of Americans who “get another day older and deeper in debt.”

The unfortunate aspect of this situation is that as much as one-half of the national debt might have been avoided by honesty from our presidents and a Congress willing to debate the critical issues of the day.

$18 trillion of policy mistakes that could have been avoided by a serious debate in Congress and good quality information.

 Vietnam (1965-1973). The U.S. was not attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin as it claimed, yet that lie was our excuse for waging a war against North Vietnam that killed 58,220 American soldiers, wounded 153,303, and another 1,643 are still missing. The war cost U.S. citizens $168 billion in the 1960s-1970s, which would be over $1 trillion today. The costs of that war continue today, with around $22 billion in compensation for injured veterans and lifetime benefits for their families. U.S. involvement in the war ended in 1973, but the U.S. withdrawal was a roadmap to its disgraceful surrender in Afghanistan.

 Afghanistan and Global War on Terror (2001 to 2022). After terrorists crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers in NYC and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the home of the terrorists. The global war on terror began and lasted for two decades. The U.S. stayed at war in the Middle East 18 years after President Bush declared “Mission Accomplished.”  Its cost is estimated at $8 trillion and over 900,000 deaths. Even after the war ended, the U.S. estimates $2.2 trillion for the future care of our veterans. After two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S. disgracefully abandoned the war and the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who worked to help the Americans. The U.S. also left $7.12 billion worth of equipment for the terrorists to use against us.

The Iraq War (2003 – 2011). The Iraq War was the result of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies falsely telling the American people Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destructions (“WMD”). Hussein did not have any WMD. Rather, the war was President Bush’s obsession to remove Hussein from power to correct what he believed was a mistake by Father Bush not to invade Iraq and eliminate Saddam Hussein. The cost of the Iraq war was $1.8 trillion and cost 550,000 lives.

Ukraine War (2022-present). So far, the U.S. has spent $115 billion on the Ukraine war with Russia. Presently, the U.S. Senate wants to give Ukraine another $60 billion. While the history of the Ukraine War is not written, there is considerable controversy over the U.S. role in the 2014 coup that overthrew the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. The U.S. and the EU certainly wanted a friendly Ukrainian government. The toppling of the Russian-friendly ruler and the installation of a pro-western ruler of Ukraine led to Russia invading and taking Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Complicating Ukrainian politics, in 2016, after a new Ukraine president was installed,  then Vice President Biden threatened to deny Ukraine $1 billion if the president of Ukraine did not fire Special Prosecutor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, a corrupt company that paid large sums of money to Hunter Biden to lobby the Obama administration to force Ukraine to end the investigations of its corruption. Now President Biden has forcefully stated he will support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” The final cost of war is unknown, and the cost of rebuilding Ukraine will be in the hundreds of billions.

Additional Wars (1950-2022). In addition to four major undeclared wars, the U.S. has been involved in the Korean War, Laotian Civil War, Permesta Rebellion, Lebanon crisis, Bay of Pigs, Dominican Civil War, Korean DMZ conflict, Cambodian Civil War, Lebanese Armed Forces, Grenada, Libya, Tanker war, invasion of Panama, Somali, Bosnian and Croatian wars, Kosovo war, intervention in Yemen, intervention in North-West Pakistan, second intervention in Somali Civil War, Ocean Shield, Operation Observant Compass (Uganda), intervention in Niger, Syrian Civil War, second intervention in Libya, Operation Prosperity Guardian (Red Sea conflict).

Cost of Covid (2019-2022). The federal government spent over $4.6 trillion during the Covid pandemic. Most of the money went to individuals and corporations to keep them afloat during the government-mandated shutdown and to Big Pharma for the vaccines that were never properly tested. There is considerable conflict over the usefulness of the Covid vaccines. Moreover, there are many who believe the lockdowns, school closures, fraud, lost productivity, and the rise in mental health cases will cost the U.S. many trillions in the future. The OECD estimates the cost of the lost learning in the U.S. will be $14.1 trillion. Congress never received any information from either Trump or Biden on the origins of COVID-19.

The Inflation Reduction Act (2023). The IRA is not about reducing inflation in any manner. It was about funding green technology. The IRA tax credits for anything “green” incentivized more pigs to show up at the trough than CBO estimated. Within months after the program started, Goldman Sachs raised its estimated cost of the credits to  $1.2 trillion for the same time period. The original forecast missed the cost of the credits for electric vehicles by $379 billion; energy manufacturing, $156 billion; renewable electricity production, $82 billion; energy efficiency, $42 billion; hydrogen, $36 billion; biofuels, $34 billion; and carbon capture, $31 billion.

Governments Make Mistakes; unfortunately, the U.S. federal government does not learn from them.

 The total cost of these few policy mistakes is well over $18 trillion. As to the wars, Congress never declared any of them. As to Vietnam and Iraq, the American people were simply lied to.  As to the COVID cover-up, the most disconcerting fact is that the federal government continues to refuse to tell citizens the origins of COVID-19 or provide scientific studies to support the mandated vaccinations, lockdowns, closures, or other police state tactics.

The U.S. federal government appears to be incapable of learning from its mistakes. The U.S. involves itself in war after war, yet Congress rarely debates the need for the war before the president sends money, equipment, troops, or some combination of war assistance to the fight. The U.S. federal government passes society-changing policies like COVID and IRA and appropriates trillions to implement them with few, if any, members of Congress or the president even reading the summaries of the laws.

The American people deserve more for the $6 trillion they send to Washington each year and the $34 trillion the federal government borrowed in our name. Asking Congress to perform its constitutional responsibility to declare war before the president sends troops and/or equipment to fight the war is not unreasonable. Demanding the Executive to provide the science underlying major public health emergency orders is not unreasonable. Demanding our leaders tell us the truth, rather than lies, about what the government is doing is not unreasonable. Unfortunately, Congress and the president seem very content with living in a state of undeclared wars, perpetual misinformation, and lies.

William L. Kovacs has served as senior vice president for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, chief counsel to a congressional committee, and a partner in law D.C. law firms. His book Reform the Kakistocracy is the winner of the 2021 Independent Press Award for Political/Social Change. He can be contacted at wlk@ReformTheKakistocracy.com

The post Half the National Debt is from Wars, Misinformation and Lies appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The only word that describes the Biden administration is “absurd.” We have a “Government of the Absurd.”

The U.S. government spins its every statement in the hope citizens believe what is not true. Its political language is doublespeak. Words used by politicians no longer have meaning. There is no longer any communication between us and those running our government.

With 338 million people in the U.S., we elected a man described as “Sleepy Joe Biden.” He is gaffe-prone— decades of gaffes insulting blacks, Indians, women, disabled, to name a few. He also has a lifetime of plagiarism starting with law school papers and continuing onto the Senate floor and presidential campaigns. He refuses to answer questions from the press so he does not embarrass himself. Worse, when he finishes whatever he has to say, he turns his back not only on reporters but the American people as he leaves the room. When he does answer questions on policy matters, e.g., the infrastructure deal with Congress, his staff makes later announcements to “clarify,” i.e., “reverse” his “statements.”

These are his good days. On his bad days, he gets lost walking around the White House. And worse days may come as Russia builds its military forces on the Ukrainian border and China develops a hypersonic missile capable of surprise attack on the U.S.  And, while China patiently waits for the winter Olympics to be over, experts predict it will soon take over Taiwan.

The only person saving Biden from the Constitution’s 25^th Amendment (inability to discharge duties of the Office) is his vice president who seems even less “with it” than he. Recent polls find her approval rating at 28%, which is lower than Dick Cheney’s when he was waging war with the world. Even Democrat’s do not support her to run for president in 2024 or ever. Fortunately, for “Cackling Kamala,” she follows Mark Twain’s sage advice, “It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

A few of Biden’s policies illustrate his befuddlement in addressing human events.

Afghanistan

Biden secretly withdraws our troops protecting Bagram Air Base without telling the Afghans or our allies, surrenders Afghanistan to the Taliban, and orders the withdrawal of military troops before removing the civilians they are protecting. Biden’s secret withdrawal leaves thousands of Americans and our allies at the mercy of the Taliban. After a public outcry, a day later, he sends troops back to Afghanistan to airlift Americans and Afghan supporters out of the country. The airlift is chaotic, taking anyone the Taliban would let into the airport, not necessarily those who helped us. Biden’s goal is a press release puffing his feat as the biggest airlift in history.

In the middle of the chaos, the Washington Post reports the Taliban offered the U.S. control of the city of Kabul until the Americans left. This offer would have allowed U.S. soldiers to evacuate all Americans and Afghans who wanted out. General McKenzie, with orders from Biden to secure only the airport, refuses the offer and secures only the airport.

These actions are all in addition to leaving tens of billions in equipment for the Taliban; thirteen fallen heroes and several hundred Afghans dead at the airport.

Tony Blair, former prime minister of Great Britain, termed Biden’s withdrawal, “imbecilic.”. Even the Democrat propagandist, The Washington Post, called “This a moral disaster…”

Immigration policy

According to the US Department of State, “the United States accepts more legal immigrants as permanent residents than the rest of the world combined.” The U.S. has thousands of pages of policy on how citizens from other countries can legally enter the U.S. Rather than following U.S. law, the Biden administration abandons all legal procedures and encourages chaotic, illegal, immigration at the southern border.  Biden also puts the entire $53 billion per year cost of food, shelter, health care for up to two million illegals on the American people.

The open border allows immigrants to self-select who will enter the U.S. and empowers drug cartels to determine who they will help immigrate to the U.S.  Also contrary to U.S. criminal law concerning the illegal distribution of drugs in the U.S., the open southern border is a green light for drug smugglers, resulting in a 233% increase in illegal drugs from Mexico, Central America, and China.

Surrenders’ energy dominance

At the end of the Trump administration, the U.S. was the dominant energy producer in the world. Trump embraced expanding the nation’s production of fossil fuels, oil and gas exports to our allies, lower energy prices, drilling on federal lands, and imposed sanctions on Russia’s proposed Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany, thereby preventing Russia from selling its oil in Europe.

In Biden’s first days in office, he terminates the Keystone pipeline, and drilling on federal lands, while removing Trump’s sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline. Biden so greatly restricts the production of U.S. oil and gas he is forced to beg Saudi Arabia and OPEC to increase production to avoid serious economic disruption. Biden’s cuts in oil and gas production increased the price of gasoline by 40% in seven months. Worse, sanctions on the Russian pipeline allow Russia to enter the European market. If Biden cannot make U.S. energy policy more aburd, he is now, in the middle of high energy prices and less production, considering shutting down the pipeline from Michigan to Canada, which will also directly impact supplies in  Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as Canada, this winter.

Masks— To wear or not to wear, that is the question!

Biden’s Center for Disease Control (“CDC”) tells us masks are not needed. Then it recommends we all wear masks. Then tells us if we are fully vaccinated, we do not need to wear masks. Then abruptly recommends vaccinated, unvaccinated people, and school children need to wear masks. Finally, Biden orders all federal employees, except postal workers, and employees of large businesses are vaccinated or be fired.

The constantly changing CDC guidance and mask mandates leaves the public confused, irritated and some rebellious, while our great Democrat leaders, who imposed the mask mandates, hit the birthday dinner circuit (Gov. Newsom)’ Obama’s birthday bash;  a $29,000 per person campaign dinner (Speaker Pelosi); a hair salon (Speaker Pelosi); White House events (Speaker Pelosi), and participate in large protests  (Chicago Mayor Lightfoot), all without wearing masks. Most telling is AOC in her white gown, people lifting her dress up a staircase, at the Met Ball, which should be referred to as the Hypocrites Dance. She is not wearing a mask but all the staff and waiters are masked so as not to harm the “dignitaries.” It Seems the government mandates are for us commoners, not the “Big guys” Who always have an excuse for not wearing a mask.

Biden proves his contempt for our dead heroes.

During the solemn ceremonies at Dover Air Force Base where the bodies of the fallen heroes were repatriated, Biden is photographed checking his watch as each body is taken off the plane. A father of one of the heroes stated “In reference to the checking of his watch, that didn’t happen just once. That happened on every single one that came out of that airplane. It happened on every single one of them. They’d release the salute, and he’d look down at his watch – on all 13 he’d look down at his watch.’

When stupidity turns into absurdity!

“The National Archives Records Administration has placed a ‘harmful language alert’ (trigger warnings) on records in the website’s catalog concerning the nation’s founding documents (i.e., the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence).”

The NARA statement warns readers our founding documents contain “…some content that may be harmful or difficult to view.”  The language “… may reflect outdated, biased, offensive and possible violent views and opinions.”

When the Constitution of the United States becomes an offensive document to the President of the United States, the person constitutionally responsible for executing the laws of the nation, we certainly have a government of the absurd.

When absurdity turns to killing civilians!

After the wacky surrender in Afghanistan, our fearless commander-in-chief needed to prove his manhood by proving he could take on terrorists. So, from “over the horizon” he launches a drone attack on high-level “state terrorists.” He brags for days how he “took action.” A week later it turns out  Mighty Joe Biden killed at least “10 Afghan civilians, including seven children—but not an Islamic State terrorist.”

The Biden administration is full of surreal characters whose worthless purpose in life is to foster their illusions of self-importance to America.  The beliefs of the president and his advisors, do not correspond to life experienced by Americans.  The Biden administration is a staged event. Nothing about it is real. There is no president. There is only some unknown person behind the screen, huffing and puffing to create the perception America has a president.

Perhaps the Biden administration is not a Government of the Absurd, it is the real Theatre of the Absurd and we have three years more of drama.

Image: Gage Skidmore (modifications by TLR).

The post The Government of the Absurd appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The withdrawal of all US government personnel from Afghanistan marked the end of what is often considered to be one of the least popular wars in American history and, more importantly, the end of a costly decades long nation-building initiative. While the operation was horrifically botched at the expense of American lives, the ending of this war is cause for celebration and reflection. Now, we must ask ourselves where do we go from here? 

The political establishment’s “War on Terror” has repeatedly been used as a justification to strip the American people of their constitutional liberties and greatly expand the size, scope, and reach of the government. One glaring example is the Patriot Act’s infringement on the 4th Amendment which protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Given that the Patriot Act enabled intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA to surveil the communications of any American citizen without their knowledge, it is clear to see how the powers granted to these agencies are ‘unreasonable’.

It is high time we demand that our representatives in Congress dismantle the Patriot Act and restore our 4th Amendment rights. As the great Austrian economist F.A. Hayek once declared in his book Law, Liberty, and Legislation, “​​Emergencies have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded”.

While we’re on the subject of limiting the functions of the state, incredibly unpopular state institutions like the DHS and TSA that were established in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks need to be abolished. The functions of these institutions are heavily intrusive and hinder many of our everyday tasks; let alone the fact that their existence has yielded little to no benefit to the American people. These institutions were established under the auspices of aiding our government in its effort to protect liberty from both foreign and domestic threats; instead, they’ve eroded much of our liberty and comprise nearly 60 billion dollars of our annual budget. It is safe to say that the extortion of the American people to fund such institutions is wholly unjustified. 

Lastly, libertarians must make a concerted effort to limit the executive branch’s ability to entrench the United States in the affairs of foreign nations without congressional authorization. The involvement of the state in foreign conflicts enables it to justify the greater taxation and coercion of its constituents under the justification of funding a war. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, son of the two-time presidential nominee Ron Paul, introduced legislation that aims to do just that earlier this year.

Senator Paul has a long-standing record of opposing the warmongering which has tragically become all too common among members of the legislative branch. Ever since he became a Senator for the commonwealth of Kentucky in 2011, he has tirelessly sought to reinstitute the requirement of Congressional authorization of American involvement in any war. Given the fundamentally libertarian nature of Senator Paul’s push to limit the warmongering capabilities of the political elite, we as libertarians are compelled to apply pressure to our representatives in Congress to support him in abolishing the war-making powers of the executive branch. 

When all is said and done, we should celebrate the end of the failed crusade in Afghanistan —but we should also be wary of becoming complacent. Now more than ever, we need to demand that our elected officials reverse the wrongheaded policies established in the wake of our engagement in the war in Afghanistan, and seek to ensure that no such intervention ever occurs again without the support of Congress.

To achieve these ends, I implore all readers to contact their local congressman and insist that they take a stand against future wars. Ron Paul said it best when he affirmed that, “The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”

Ali Motamedi is a high school senior who has been involved in the liberty movement for the past two years. He has an interest in a wide range of issues, but his influences especially include Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Image: Al Jazeera English

The post After Afghanistan: Where Do We Go From Here?  appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Sebastian Hughes on September 16, 2021

• Lieutenant General Thomas Spoehr, who oversaw the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the failure to prepare for the “worst case scenario” caused the withdrawal from Afghanistan to be far more chaotic.
• “We were down to the individual name and I think, as far as I know, we had left just one person in a jail and that person I got word had gotten successfully freed,” Spoehr described Iraq evacuation efforts.
• “No one wanted to mess with the U.S. on their way out because they were going to get hammered,” Spoehr said.

The Biden administration’s failure to prepare for the “worst case scenario” led to the chaotic final days of the war in Afghanistan, the former deputy commanding general who oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“You plan for the worst case and the worst case would never be to evacuate people out of Hamid Karzai airport,” former Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, current director of Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told the DCNF. “You would take … your base most able to be protected and evacuate from there.”

Spoehr described the Iraq withdrawal, which had a deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, as “heavily scripted, heavily planned,” and “orderly.” He said the Afghanistan withdrawal, on the other hand, was a “kind of Helter Skelter, get out before they get you kind of thing.”

The U.S. also had “a lot of combat power” in Iraq at the end of the withdrawal, Spoehr said. “I call it like a porcupine … no one wanted to mess with the U.S. on their way out because they were going to get hammered.”

Evacuation efforts were more organized in Iraq, Spoehr said. “We were down to the individual name and I think, as far as I know, we had left just one person in a jail and that person I got word had gotten successfully freed.”

The Afghanistan withdrawal was the opposite, where “hundreds of U.S. citizens, untold number of Afghans left behind … and in most cases you get the sense we have even no idea of some of their names,” he said.

The biggest mistake, Spoehr said, was thinking the Afghan army would be able to put up a fight against the Taliban. “They should have revised that and started thinking about what is the worst thing that could happen?”

He added that it was “ironic” current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who Spoehr reported to during the withdrawal, “had recommended to the administration to keep a stay-behind force of maybe ten thousand, maybe even fifteen thousand people in Iraq.”

“‘We want this withdrawal from Iraq to be something that does justice to all the service of the Americans that served here’” Spoehr recalled Austin saying.

U.S. forces had the advantage of land routes out of Iraq, as opposed to Afghanistan, where practically everything had to leave by air, Spoehr told the DCNF.

“We could get out to Kuwait. We could get out to Jordan. And so we had that going for us as well,” he said. “And we had also had lots of support coming up to us from Kuwait. So the units in Kuwait would send trucks up and come get our stuff, which again, a huge advantage over the situation we faced in Afghanistan.”

The Iraqi forces were also “capable” and “numerous,” in contrast to the Afghan army. “Most all of the equipment that was captured there was already in the hands of the Afghan army. They essentially either dropped it or surrendered it,” Spoehr said.

U.S. troops conducted “deliberate cost-benefit analysis” when determining what equipment to leave in Iraq, Spoehr said. Reuters reported the Taliban is in possession 2,000 armored vehicles and up to 40 aircrafts left behind by the U.S.

“We looked at the shipping cost of what would it take to ship this back to the United States,” Spoehr said describing the process in Iraq. “And if that didn’t make sense for the American taxpayer, you know, we left it in Iraq and signed it over to the Iraqis.”

Then-President Barack Obama eventually had to send troops back into Iraq after the withdrawal due to the rise of ISIS.

The two withdrawals were different because the Taliban was already a sizeable threat when the U.S. left, Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told the DCNF.

“The ISIS problem emerged and then kind of was allowed to rebuild in our vacuum, whereas the Taliban was already substantial as we elected to interact, which was basically a concession,” Mulroy said. He expects the U.S. will be forced to return to Afghanistan in some shape or form, as does Spoehr.

“We’ll be back with at least Special Forces to conduct counter-terrorism operations. And I hope it doesn’t happen, but I mean we may have to go in bigger if terrorism really takes a fundamental hold back in that country,” Spoehr told the DCNF.

Mulroy blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the botched withdrawal.

“You have now Republicans essentially criticizing this administration for carrying out the plan of the last administration,” Mulroy said. “And then you have this administration claiming that … the plan that the last administration came up with was so terrible and then executed it.”

He praised the “herculean effort” by the U.S. military during the evacuation, but said it should not have been necessary.

“In today’s polarized society, even abject failure is portrayed as extraordinary success,” Spoehr said. “What would extraordinary failure look like if that was extraordinary success?”

The post ‘Get Out Before They Get You’: Lieutenant General In Charge Of Iraq Withdrawal Says US Didn’t Prepare For ‘Worst Case Scenario’ In Afghanistan appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

The segment is titled, “We are living through the biggest influx of refugees in history,” which in itself is an incomprehensible assertion given the reality that refugee admissions are at record lows. That’s Carlson’s first mistake.

Given the segment’s content, the intent appears to be to paint Afghan refugees in the worst way possible—as violent criminals who will ruin American society as we know it. Tucker points to Europe as proof of this.

“Afghan resettlement in Europe has been an utter failure,” Carlson said, before approvingly quoting a political scientist who claims that Afghan refugees are “notorious for barbaric attacks” on Europeans.

Even if that were true in Europe, that has not been the case with the United States. Population-size adjusted data on Afghan immigrants to the US shows they are almost twelve times less likely to be imprisoned than the average native-born American, implying low rates of criminality.

In contrast to illegal immigration to Europe, a refugee to the United States must undergo an arduous selection and screening process; a process which generally emphasizes the selection of refugees based on vulnerability-based criteria, such as prioritizing women and children.

In fact, 64 percent of all refugees admitted to the US are women or children under the age of 14. And estimates suggest that only 14 percent of the refugees resettled in the US in 2016 were males between the ages of 18 and 35 (i.e. the demographic with the highest propensity to commit crime.)

Even if we were to focus on foreign-born, working-age men specifically, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reports that this demographic group has crime rates four times lower than native-born, working-age men. Simply put: the data show that legal immigrants, refugee or otherwise, have comparable or lower crime rates than the native-born population.

To illustrate the non-effect that refugees have had on crime and terrorism in the US, consider the following:

In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order which torpedoed refugee resettlement efforts. The year prior to the executive order, the US had resettled 85,000 refugees. Two years after the order was signed, the US only resettled 22,533 refugees, which is a 73 percent reduction in refugee resettlement.

If it were true that refugees were a significant driver of crime, such a drastic policy reversal should have produced a clear effect on crime rates. And yet, a study published in American Political Science Review found that the policy change produced “no discernible effect” on violent crime rates.

Another study came to similar conclusions, failing to find “any statistically significant evidence” of an association between refugee settlement and crime or terrorism rates in counties across the United States. That’s mistake number two.

Finally, Tucker also asks: “Why is [refugee resettlement] our unique moral burden?”

This question is odd considering that the vast majority (86 percent) of refugees globally are sheltered by developing countries, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency data.

Of the 2.6 million Afghan refugees that already existed prior to the collapse of the Afghan government, the overwhelming majority of them have sought refuge in neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran. Over the last 20 years, the US has resettled a mere 20,841 Afghan refugees, or 0.8 percent of the total. In no stretch of the imagination is refugee resettlement a burden uniquely borne by America.

But given the United States’ status as a global superpower and our national relationship with the Afghan people, whom the US has fought a war against terror with for 20 years, our nation does bear a unique moral responsibility to accept the Afghan refugees who are desperately fleeing ultraviolent religious extremists.

Ultimately, reasonable people can disagree on how many refugees should be accepted, but the mindset should be to take as many as possible, not as few.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Image: YouTube Fox News (screenshot)

The post No, Afghan Refugees Won’t Drive Up Crime in America appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Kendall Tietz on August 25, 2021

• Dozens of California students and parents are reportedly stranded in Afghanistan after visiting the country on a summer vacation, the Los Angeles Times reported.

• At least 24 students and 16 parents from a school district in El Cajon, California, traveled to the country on a summer trip and are now waiting to leave along with thousands of others following Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban, the LA Times reported. The students are reportedly from different schools within the district in eastern San Diego County.

• Parents of students reached out to two liaisons of the FACE program “to hold their children’s spots in their classrooms while they were stranded in Afghanistan,” according to a media release from the school district obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Dozens of California students and parents are reportedly stranded in Afghanistan after visiting the country on a summer vacation, the Los Angeles Times reported.

At least 24 students and 16 parents from a school district in El Cajon, California, traveled to the country on a summer trip and are now waiting to leave along with thousands of others following Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban, the LA Times reported. The students are reportedly from different schools within the district in eastern San Diego County.

The superintendent of the Cajon Valley Union School District, David Miyashiro, said the families went to Afghanistan using special visas for U.S. military service, are considered allies by the Department of Defense and that the district has given government officials information to help them locate the stranded American travelers, the LA Times reported.

Mike Serban, is the head of the Family and Children Engagement (FACE) program and works with refugee families in the school district, was the first to find out about the stranded students and parents, the LA Times reported. He said he heard from families that they were worried their kids might lose their spots in school, so he reached out to Miyashiro about their concerns.

“Students and their parents who traveled to Afghanistan this summer to visit their extended family reached out to their community liaisons for assistance when the crisis in Afghanistan started,” the district’s release said.

Parents of students reached out to two liaisons of the FACE program “to hold their children’s spots in their classrooms while they were stranded in Afghanistan,” according to a media release from the school district obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The Cajon Valley Union School District Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Office that supports a global community of families has been in direct contact with their families and students stranded in Afghanistan,” the release said.

Miyashiro told school board members on Tuesday that he planned to meet with California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa about the situation, the LA Times reported.

“Congressman Issa and his staff are working diligently to determine the facts on the ground, any bureaucratic barriers that can be removed, and the best ways to help those stranded leave Afghanistan and return home safely,” Issa spokesman Jonathan Wilcox told the the LA Times. “We won’t stop until we have answers and action.”

Cajon Valley School Board member Jo Alegria said the families had plans to be back for the start of the school year on Aug. 17, but were unable to get on their scheduled flights back to the U.S., the LA Times reported. She said the district was helping students and parents get proper documentation to bring them home.

“The biggest concern is that the Taliban closed the airport,” Cajon Valley School Board President Tamara Otero told the LA Times. “We are so worried about our students that are stuck there. We’ll do the best we can to get them out.”

Serban and Issa did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. 

The post Dozens Of California Students And Parents On A Summer Trip To Afghanistan Are Reportedly Stranded appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

In “Patriotic Dissent: America In the Age Of Endless War,” Sjursen writes about never-ending wars, the culture of disinterest in foreign policy amongst the American populace, and what true patriotism looks like. Sjursen graduated from West Point and is an 18-year veteran who served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan before being medically retired. He previously authored “Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge” that told the story of his first deployment to Iraq.

Sjursen makes the point that “patriotism and nationalism” are not the same, and that questioning the current wars and America’s foreign policy is the patriotic thing to do. He further explores how “nationalism” is a blind obedience to the state and disregards the good of the individual—and even the collective community that makes the country.

Here’s the thing about Danny– he’s not a right-winger or conservative, but he is consistently antiwar. Watching the death and destruction of a decades-long conflict that doesn’t seem to be any closer to a possible “winning” scenario, has something to do with his perspective. Sjursen was in the Army long enough to be against the war.

Military and war-time service has that effect on people. Sjursen mentions the famous antiwar General Smedley Butler and his notorious pamphlet War Is A Racket. Butler was a career military man and spent his short time outside of the military arguing against war and the indecency of sending American soldiers into harm’s way for corporate interests that do not serve the country as a whole.

If Americans are truly concerned about patriotism and supporting those who put their lives on the line, maybe they should be less concerned about waving the flag at sporting events, and instead pay more attention to the caskets that come home draped in that flag. The caskets of American soldiers that are less than 1% of our country and the majority of them are from poor, rural, Southern areas. They often have military legacies in their family. They found opportunity in defending their country. But can most Americans point to where these soldiers died on a map or explain what they were fighting for?

Sjursen goes through the history of the antiwar movement in America and notes the largest organization devoted to ending America’s global expansion and policing was The Anti-Imperialist League that, “at its height, had hundreds of thousands of members, making it one of the largest antiwar organizations in American history.”

America’s storied history of questioning the government’s wars and foreign interventions is one of the major points of “Patriotic Dissent.” Sjursen mixes a historical record of America’s past wars with a plea to stop the never-ending war machine in a way that only a veteran can. Occasionally, the liberal-leaning and professed romantic former Army officer reveals personal details that give a depth to his perspective.

“Patriotic Dissent” was informative and interesting as the bookish, Phd-holding author is revealed as a historically astute antiwar activist. A firsthand account of life in the Army at home and in overseas wars, it will make you laugh, smirk, and cry. Although it is written somewhat like a college textbook, it feels more like an elaborate journal kept for years. “Patriotic Dissent” is a soldier’s plea for strength and peace in his republic.

Read more from Daniel Sjursen at www.skepticalvet.com and follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet.

The post Book Review: “Patriotic Dissent” by Daniel Sjursen appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Nineteen years of war means some of the soldiers fighting this never-ending war were not even born when it began. President Trump is currently reducing the number of troops in the country known as “the graveyard of empires.” Bringing American soldiers home is gaining popularity and it is long past time.

General Mattis writes about how the US military was caught off guard by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in his book Call Sign Chaos. He recalls how, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he expected the military would be sent to Afghanistan because it had been known to be a terrorist hotbed housing the likes of Osama bin Laden and Islamic extremists for years.

There is never going to be a perfect solution to any issue in the imperfect world that we live in. The best we can do is carefully look at a situation and prescribe solutions that minimize harm. An unprecedented 19-year war with a poorly defined and ever-changing goal of winning is looking more like a failure.

Over 2,000 American service members and over 1,000 American contractors have lost their lives in this conflict. The US has spent billions of dollars in their efforts to defeat the terrorists and stabilize the country. Yet, Afghanistan is still plagued by violent attacks. They had over 3,000 attacks in 2010 and over 1,000 in 2018. The deaths of Afghans from domestic violence caused by Islamic extremists and collateral damage have reached into the tens of thousands during the time we have been there spilling blood and treasure.

The Washington Post published a previously secret government report called The Afghanistan Papers. It sheds light on something that many of us have recognized over time—the war in Afghanistan was flubbed. The US government knew fairly quickly that it was a failure, yet we kept spending money and blood in the “graveyard of empires”.

James Dobbins, a former US diplomat, is quoted in the Afghanistan Papers as saying in 2016,

“We don’t invade poor countries to make them rich. We don’t invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan.”

General Mattis felt that the military’s role was to kill a specified enemy and leave. Whatever happened after that was not proper for him as a military man to worry about. However, Mattis watched increasing destabilization, a vaguely defined enemy, and a murky definition of “winning” coming from Washington.

He recalls working toward one of the first basic goals of the Afghanistan war, which was to take control of Rhino Base, that would give US forces a stable starting area to fight Islamic terrorists in the country. He was thrown a confusing comment from a commanding officer that sternly told him they were not conducting an “invasion” of Afghanistan. That comment was, at best, a game of semantics that only hindered the military on the ground from having a clear vision of what they were doing. At worst, it was an indicator that higher-ups in the military and civilians back home had no idea what they were getting into.

General Douglas Lute served as the Afghanistan war czar for both the Bush and Obama White House. He said in 2015,

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan – we didn’t know what we were doing.”

The US didn’t have a clear end-goal to work towards in the Afghanistan war. Without realizing what winning looks like, there never was a chance to plan an organized invasion and withdrawal. The military was blindsided by what was being asked of them after entering Afghanistan – organize a functioning civilized society complete with free markets and democratic government, in the desert that had no history of systems like this. In other words, they were asked to nation-build a democracy in one of the most dangerous and unstable places in the world.

Trump has not been serious about governing in many ways and has not ended all wars. However, he has NOT started a new war. In addition to the war in Afghanistan, America is providing funds to Saudi Arabia as they fight a war in Yemen. Since 2015, the US has assisted the Saudis in a campaign of death and destruction that can only be described as genocide. But Americans boots are not on the ground in Yemen.

Under Trump’s leadership, Republicans are regaining the correct mantle of anti-war or —at least skepticism of never-ending policing of the world. The Conservative Political Action Conference in February of 2020 was bursting with enthusiasm for less war. During Trump’s speech, the room chanted “bring them home” in reference to American troops fighting forever-wars on far away foreign soil. That is a welcomed change from the war-hawk neocons who dominated DC Republican policy 15 years ago.

The Afghanistan War has been fought for 19 years. It’s too long. We can’t keep asking soldiers to die in a war that is older than they are. Bring them home.

The post 19 Years in the Graveyard of Empires: Bring Them Home appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

As American troops withdraw from Afghanistan, all that remains in the broken country is the tattered remains of American arrogance. The Bush triumvirate, composed of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, fomented this arrogance. These three imagined themselves as 21^st Century military and cultural innovators, re-pioneering the nature of war to always ensure that American exceptionalism (AKA exporting democracy) would prevail no matter the conditions on the ground. Combining airstrikes with proxy forces would surely defeat al-Qaeda and their Taliban protectors they thought. And at first, they appeared correct. Bush declared victory in 2004 and the country seemed peaceful.

But there were warning signs. America’s light troop presence allowed high ranking al-Qaeda members like the notorious Osama bin Laden and Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Omar to slip into Pakistan. Settling in the mostly autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan gave both al-Qaeda and the Taliban breathing room to regroup. This helped the Taliban in particular as it gave them the strength to organize an insurgency that still plagues Afghanistan to this day.

Failure on the media’s part kept this insurgency from resonating with the American public. By relegating Afghan coverage to the back pages, Americans became complacent and disinterested. This, combined with the fact that few body bags came home during the 19-year conflict, Americans gradually lost the awareness that we were still at war in Afghanistan.

But interest wasn’t the only thing Americans lost. As of December of 2019, the United States spent about $2 Trillion on fighting the Taliban. But there are other, non-quantifiable losses that the American public incurred. Afghanistan is the world’s foremost opium producer, accounting for about 90% of the worldwide heroin supply. Thousands upon thousands of Americans have undoubtedly suffered because of the inability to stifle this production.

My heart goes out to all the soldiers who have lost their lives in this once noble pursuit. My heart throbs because they were not only put in harm’s way for a result that will be much like the one they initially encountered but also because of the horror and torment they were subjected to. Witnessing suicide bombings and the horrors of war is not a thing I would wish on anyone. It seems that American soldiers were truly never safe in Afghanistan, whether they were patrolling the countryside or relaxing at base. While on patrol, they battled an enemy they could see. But on base, they waged war against an imperceptible, and for some, a more dangerous foe. Upon return to the U.S., Afghan war veterans have reported cancer diagnoses at staggering rates, which is probably attributable to exposure to radiation at several bases in Central Asia. What’s even more tragic is that the government refuses to acknowledge the link between being stationed at these cancer-causing bases and future sickness. As a result of this, sick veterans must cover their own medical costs.

We also cannot forget the thousands of innocent civilians who have lost their lives due to indiscriminate bombings and airstrikes carried out by American forces. Countless Afghans and Pakistanis have lost their lives because of these strikes and tragically, they are forgotten, seen as collateral damage in the mission to secure American exceptionalism in Afghanistan.

American arrogance has paved the way for all this to occur. But this arrogance has achieved nothing substantial. The situation on the ground is no better now than it was on September 10, 2001. All that remains is the American military, withdrawing with its tail in between its legs, like a wounded pup. Left behind are the memories of those lost in battle—both Americans and Afghans—as well as the scars all those directly and indirectly affected by the war carry.

Will America learn from this mistake? Probably not, as complacency has found a home in America. Indiscriminate killing of civilians as well as deflecting of accountability are as much a part of the American Dream as apple pie and baseball. American arrogance reigns unabated.

The post Forgotten and Full of Folly: America’s War in Afghanistan Draws to a Close appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

“Then your favorite president wouldn’t have been able to conduct his foreign policy.”

Wow, that went from 0 to Iran-Contra very quickly. It was a discussion between me and my college professor. His reference to my “favorite president” meant Ronald Reagan. Reagan is indeed one of my favorite presidents because, as I alluded to before, his foreign policy was much more limited and informed than others we have seen.

My strong and loud declaration that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional might have been a bit dramatic. I tend to take extreme positions just for the heck of it and it happened a lot in college. I was known as that libertarian girl. You know, the one still making isolationist arguments when discussing World War 2, passionately defending over-the-counter birth control and legalizing prostitution, carrying a Gadsden flag around campus, and fervently insisting the 17^th Amendment is wrong.

No one that I can see is arguing that the War Powers Act is completely unconstitutional, but some in Congress are finally demanding their constitutional power when it comes to war approval.

On January 9, the House passed a resolution to limit a president’s ability to wage war with Iran. All Democrats voted for it except for eight members who are known to be moderates and/or facing difficult reelections in districts that Trump won.

All Republicans voted against it except for three. The dissenting Republicans include: Matt Gaetz (R-Fl), Thomas Massie (R-Ky), and Francis Rooney (R-Fl).

Neither Congressman Gaetz nor Massie are against Trump, but, let’s be honest, anti-Trump hysteria is likely the main motivator behind the Democrats’ new-found concern about executive overreach and endless war. However, for Gaetz and Massie, the principle of congressional approval for war is the main thing at stake.

We have been at war in the Middle East for 18 years. The authorization for military force in Iraq was passed in 2002 and they’re still using it. Gaetz is adamant that this resolution did not criticize Trump for killing the Iranian General Soleimani. He celebrates what he calls the “Trump Doctrine” where we “kill the terrorists and come home”. He voted for this resolution because if any president wants to drag us into another war, they need to gain congressional approval.

The thing about limited government is it doesn’t matter if it’s your guy or my guy in office. If the government is limited, we have more checks and balances to keep one man from calling all the shots. If you worried about Obama misusing power, limit government. If you worry about Trump misusing power, limit the government.

What usually happens is that Democrats get concerned with overreach, congressional approval, checks and balances, and constitutional limits when it is a Republican in office. Then, act like nothing is wrong when their preferred candidate has the power. Republicans do the same thing. Governmental power is rarely limited in a serious way and so we have a behemoth federal government, and an ongoing war that is older than some of the soldiers fighting it.

The War Powers Act might not be unconstitutional, but a resolution to limit presidential power to declare war is definitely sensible… and conservative.

The post Where War Powers Belong appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.