Debating the War on Drugs normally focuses attention on the obvious: the negative effects drugs have on society and the individuals who use them, the money spent on combating the illicit trade, and whether individuals have the right to choose to consume these substances.

The negative effects this war has on other nations and their people is widely ignored.

Trafficking these products in Central America, West Africa and the Caribbean contributes to instability and endangers national security. In both Colombia and Afghanistan, the illicit drug trade helps fund violent insurgencies which cause large regions of lawlessness, commit hundreds of murders, and actively kill government and allied military forces including, in the case of Afghanistan, our own men and women in uniform.

In Colombia, a 42 year civil war has raged between the government and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), an authoritarian left-wing organization that has killed countless Colombians and foreigners. Most of Colombia’s 3000 kidnappings are also the work of these revolutionaries. FARC receives $300 million a year by ‘taxing’ the thriving cocaine trade in Colombia, and more than half the world’s coca is grown in FARC controlled territories.

By legalizing and regulating cocaine, any market in the United States could be supplied by legal cultivation in Bolivia, which does not have the problem of a violent insurgency. Since most of the price of cocaine comes from the illegal nature of the product and the risk the suppliers must take, by legalization will hamper FARC’s cash supply and ability to terrorize the countryside.

Meanwhile, southern Afghanistan cultivates 80% of the world’s poppy crop (the plant used to create opiates). 53% of Afghanistan’s GDP now comes from the export of poppies. Currently the Taliban uses this to their advantage, funding themselves with much of the profits. Western troops in the country destroy the crop where they can, but despite our efforts, Afghan poppy production grew 17% last year to hit $4 billion. As a result, the Taliban profited handsomely:

The Taliban earned $200 million to $400 million last year through a 10 percent tax on poppy growers and drug traffickers in areas under its control, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, said in an interview. He estimates that Afghan poppy farmers and drug traffickers last year earned about $4 billion, half of the country’s national income.

American troops have made gains by adopting counter-insurgency tactics and winning the populace over to our side. However, it’s difficult to win support of impoverished citizens when our troops are physically destroying the people’s primary means of subsistence.

As long as the price of the poppy remains high (once again due to the illegal nature of the product), it remains the best crop with which to provide food for one’s family. We can enforce the ban and destroy the crops, but American and Coalition troops will be seen as the enemy. If we legalize the product and depress the price, the problem will be mitigated through market forces. It will become less profitable to cultivate poppy and the Taliban will not be able to fund themselves with the trade. Farmers will switch their crop to either something to eat themselves or whatever else is most profitable.

The interference with real conflicts is another problem with America’s unconstitutional War on Drugs that must not be overlooked.

Today, the Campaign for a New Policy on Iran, in conjunction with organizations such as DownsizeDC, are hosting a National Call-in for Diplomacy, in which people outside of D.C. are calling their representatives’ offices and demanding that the U.S. end years of hostilities toward Iran and begin unconditional diplomacy with them.

As a part of this campaign, Republican Congressman Ron Paul, Democratic Congresswoman Lynn Woosley, and Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee Bob Barr are using red phones set up in the Cannon Congressional Office Building to call directly to Iran to talk to people there. (As others were able to do in D.C. between the hours of 10 AM to 2 PM.) This is a historic opportunity to get the point across to our elected representatives that we want a foreign policy of diplomacy and good faith, not belligerence and distrust. For instructions, please follow the hyperlink to the event above.

One great thing about the Internet is that the past is so easily accessible. I rediscovered the following CNN news article from 2004 today, and there’s nothing like a few years to put things into perspective:

Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S.

Al-Jazeera releases full transcript of al Qaeda leader’s tape

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 Posted: 0107 GMT (0907 HKT)

(CNN) — The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group’s goal is to force America into bankruptcy.

Al-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday.

“We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” bin Laden said in the transcript.

He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, “using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers.”

“We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat,” bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it “easy for us to provoke and bait this administration.”

“All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations,” bin Laden said.

Al-Jazeera executives said they decided to post the entire speech because rumors were circulating that the network omitted parts that “had direct threats toward specific states, which was totally untrue.”

“We chose the most newsworthy parts of the address and aired them. The rest was used in lower thirds in graphics format,” said one official.

U.S. intelligence officials Monday confirmed that the transcript made public Monday by Al-Jazeera was a complete one.

As part of the “bleed-until-bankruptcy plan,” bin Laden cited a British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001, an amount that he said paled in comparison with the costs incurred by the United States.

Read the rest of the article here.

Perhaps Sun Tzu said it best:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

National security is critically important. There is more to national security than just foreign occupation, however. A strong economy, and strong manufacturing base, are both critical to national security. It’s time to reassess what is required to keep America secure, strong, and free.

I always use labels with caution, as one label may mean one thing to one person but something completely different to another person.

Last week I thought a lot about labels after a certain e-mail went out that recklessly used the term “true Republican.”

What is a “true Republican”? If only we could ask Senator Robert Taft.

Robert Taft was a Republican U.S. Senator from 1939 to 1953. He was the leading opponent of the New Deal in the Senate and led The Conservative Coalition in opposing it. He was also a leader of the Old Right-wing of the Republican Party. The Old Right were staunch non-interventionists.

His nickname? “Mr. Republican”.

But when you consider Taft’s non-interventionist views, is it possible that if “Mr. Republican” were alive today he’d be accused of not being a “true Republican”? There’s no doubt in my mind.

Imagine that: someone sending out an e-mail attacking Robert Taft, one of the most prominent figures in Republican Party history, for not being a “true Republican”. So here’s the question: who’s really the “true Republican” and who’s not? Who’s out of step with the Republican Party and who’s not?

I’ll leave those questions for the reader to answer, but it should be noted that non-interventionism within the Republican Party did not die with Robert Taft. In fact, the Republican Party has traditionally been the non-interventionist party. This was the case throughout the 20th Century.

It was Eisenhower who ran on ending the Korean War and did so when he became President. It was Nixon who was elected to end the Vietnam War.

In the ’90s it was Republicans who condemned U.S. intervention into Somalia and Clinton’s interventions and nation-building around the world, especially in Kosovo.

Even as recent as in the year 2000 non-interventionism was a key part of the Republican platform when then-Governor Bush ran on a platform of non-interventionism and no nation-building, and attacked Al Gore for the interventionism and nation-building of the Clinton Administration.

Here’s what he had to say on the subject in the second Presidential debate of the 2000 election that took place between him and Al Gore on October 11th, 2000:

MODERATOR: The use of the military, there — some people are now suggesting that if you don’t want to use the military to maintain the peace, to do the civil thing, is it time to consider a civil force of some kind that comes in after the military that builds nations or all of that? Is that on your radar screen?

BUSH: I don’t think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That’s what it’s meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops.
…

I’m going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious.

Even John McCain, who recently said we might be in Iraq for “maybe 100 [years],” had this to say about U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1993:

There’s no reason for the United States to remain [in Somalia]. The American people want them home. I believe the majority of Congress wants them home. Our continued military presence allows another situation to rise, which could then lead to the wounding, killing or capture of American fighting men and women. We should do all in our power to avoid that. What should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal. And if we do not do that and other Americans die then I say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution. For us to get into nation-building, law and order, etc., I think, is a tragic and terrible mistake.

In the end, there is no denying that non-interventionist views have long been part of the Republican Party platform. They are deeply rooted within the Republican Party. They were the views of Robert Taft and they are the views of B.J. Lawson.

There’s also no denying that interventionist views have long been part of the Democratic Party platform. It started with Woodrow Wilson, who proclaimed that we should make “the world safe for democracy,” and continues to this day.

One must conclude that any Republican who promotes an interventionist foreign policy has accepted the Democratic party’s historic foreign policy, and has more in common with Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, than Robert Taft, “Mr. Republican.”

So who’s the “true Republican”?

I received an email today from a new supporter, along with some tough questions. With this person’s permission, I’ve posted our dialog here. Here is the note, with my responses inline.

Subject: Alrighty…

Mr. Lawson—

Based on what I’ve read on your website I think that you are the candidate who can beat David Price and that you are the candidate who can bring about the change that the 4th District needs. As I said on your website when I registered, I came into this as a steadfast Cho supporter. I have changed that position, and would like to help you win the nomination and then help you get elected.

I do want to pick your brain on just a couple of things…

1) On your website you mention the Durham Nativity School. I am curious as to how you propose spreading that model. I know the Nativity school and I agree that it is a great model and wish that something like that was offered to me before my junior year of high school But, how do you get that option out to everyone? I know that Dr. Paul argues for eliminating the Department of Education (1 of his positions that I agree with)…do you share this position?

The Durham Nativity School is a great model because it is so local — everything about it is finely-tuned to its environment, and reflects a highly-nuanced understanding of how to provide the best education for a population of challenged students. I don’t, however, see a need to “get that option out to everyone”. Rather, I see a need to provide as many options as possible so that the variety of student needs can be best served at the local level. It’s a subtle, but important, difference.

You see, Durham Nativity isn’t the right school for everyone. But it’s the ideal school for a certain population, and there SHOULD be more of them. However, there are other types of schools that are better for other types of students, and we need more of those, too! So how do we decide? In my opinion, at the state and local level, we need a lot more school choice. One avenue is through a combination of vouchers and charter schools, where the government no longer has a monopoly on providing services. More choice will inspire more options, as committed folks with an interest in a certain educational niche will be able to compete to provide the best education for a certain population of students.

Having said that, the business of educating children is absolutely not a federal responsibility. So the changes I reference above must be implemented by state and local governments in a manner that reflect the needs, priorities, and resources of the state and (hopefully) locality.

I also believe we should eliminate the Department of Education. The federal government should have no role in education, including providing financing for higher education. “Low interest loans” for college have unintended consequences by distorting the economics of higher education. Specifically, due to more “cheap” government money (that we really don’t have, anyway) in the form of student loans, the price of college tuition goes up because students can “afford” to pay more. Forget about the fact that students now take on greater amounts of debt, and thus have less freedom after they graduate due to the need to make student loan payments! Believe me, I know. It’s not a pretty sight.

2) The situation in Darfur was declared a genocide by the Bush administration almost 3 years ago. Since that time little has been done to help find a solution to the situation there. Despite a large public outcry for action, and the actions of several coalitions (such as the Save Darfur coalition) the situation continues to get worse and it seems as if the US Federal Gov’t has little, if any, interest in helping bring an end to the tragedy there. If elected to Congress what proposal would you offer to help bring a peaceful end to the situation in Darfur that does not require long term military action by the United States?

Darfur is a difficult situation that defies an “easy solution”. I am not as educated on Darfur as I need to be, but based upon my current understanding, here is what I see:

The genocide/conflict in Darfur is long-running, with multiple inciting factors. Access to basic resources like food and water is an issue, as are hostilities between Arab and African populations that began back in the 1980s. Given the duration of the conflict, and the fact that the government and militias have been at each others throats for a generation, there is no clear path to resolution through military intervention.

I do not believe that the U.S. military is capable of bringing peace at gunpoint to a region that has been engaged in a bloody civil war over the past twenty years. Furthermore, so-called “peace-keeping” missions handicap our military with rules of engagement that make them vulnerable to insurgent attacks, and limit their effectiveness in protecting the population. There’s a lot of risk, and little reward. Most importantly, I believe we must only put American lives at risk, and put American soldiers in a position of taking others’ lives, if our national security is under imminent threat. Darfur does not meet that criteria.

There is the concept of “Defense of Innocents”, which states that Deadly Force may be used to defend a victim if that victim would be justified in using Deadly Force him or herself. One might make an argument for intervention in Darfur based upon Defense of Innocents, but with such a long-running conflict, would we be able to clearly define an enemy? More importantly, if we intervene militarily and topple the current regime, then what? We’d be into another nation-building effort that we can’t afford, and would seed resentment and future conflict.

So what can we do? I believe free people in a free society can and should do a lot to help Darfur. Here are some thoughts for consideration:

1) Facilitate with diplomacy and by encouraging truly free trade and economic development that benefit the people. I disagree with sanctions, which typically have a perverse outcome. The rulers find a way to get what they need to stay fat and happy, while the sanctions actually hurt the average citizen. Based upon my reading, it sounds like that precise situation is happening in Sudan. China and to some extent Russia are actively trading with Sudan and providing her rulers with military equipment in an effort to secure access to her oil. China and Russia appear happy to ignore the sanctions and perpetuate the government’s abuse, while the sanctions reduce our ability to help.

2) Encourage sponsored immigration of victims from Sudan to the U.S. and other free countries. I am inspired by people like John Dau, who illustrates that committed individuals who have the opportunity to come to our country can then return with additional resources to make a meaningful difference. Our family has had a similar experience with a missionary we work with in Zimbabwe. Like John, our missionary friend Jonathan Daniels is actually from Zimbabwe, was adopted off the streets of Harare and raised by missionaries, and given the opportunity to live and study in the United States. Also like John, our friend now runs a mission in Zimbabwe that is well-organized, fully accountable, and entirely focused on helping the people. Natives of a country are usually more effective at seeding and advancing social change. Foreign diplomats and other outsiders can assist, but natives are typically essential to build broad coalitions. We need more John Daus, and Jonathan Daniels.

3) Get our own house in order with respect to human rights and civil liberties. We need a government that has the moral authority to build consensus in the international community so that all nations (including China and Russia) can put aside their competing needs for natural resources to help orchestrate change through diplomatic means. Such diplomacy should not be simply subsidizing or “buying off” corrupt regimes. It must be a dialog focused on addressing the root causes of the conflict, in this case both ethnic tensions as well as access to basic necessities like food and water. There is no easy answer for the food and water question, however, since desertification and drought have caused significant hardship and conflict. But free people in a free society should be able to work for positive change, without military intervention.

4) Finally, we need to stop the government’s mindless subsidization of our petroleum economy. Oil causes more pain and hardship around the world than most people realize, and Asia’s rapid growth is putting increasing pressure on limited global oil supplies. Yet we still think we can use our taxpayer and military to “secure oil supplies”, even though we’re borrowing money and debasing our currency to the point that our military expenditures are actually making the price of oil go up! Is burning gasoline in an internal combustion engine that’s essentially unchanged for 100 years the best we can do? I refuse to believe so, especially since I can walk around with a telephone that fits in my shirt pocket.

If one was cynical, one could argue that we’ve not intervened in Sudan because China is already colonizing Sudan for oil. With China and Russia providing military gear to the Sudanese government, and with China’s oil companies already deeply involved in Sudan’s energy economy, Sudan could be a flash point for a military conflict between the U.S., China, and Russia that no one would like. We need to not need so much oil!

3) Finally, you have said that you support an orderly withdrawal from Iraq. Do you propose setting a deadline for troop withdrawal? (Saying we’ll be out on this day, in this year) or just a gradual cutback over time? How long would your model take to complete?

It is Congress’ job to declare war. It is the military’s job, under the Executive Branch’s authority, to fight and win wars. Congress does not need to, nor should it, set a deadline for troop withdrawal. There simply needs to be a Congressional resolution that the “war” (which was never declared in the first place) is over, that the “authorization” to use force is rescinded, and the troops should return home as soon as possible. The specific logistics of an orderly withdrawal are for the military planners to execute, with emphasis on “orderly” (i.e., we’re not going to drop everything and run), and “as soon as possible”. We also need to stop building our permanent bases and figure out what to do with our embassy boondoggle.

There are still cleanup questions to consider such as the fate of the depleted uranium munitions used during the conflict. Depleted uranium is regulated as hazard nuclear waste here, yet we’ve scattered it all over Iraq to the detriment of their environment and their children. How much responsibility, if any, do we have for cleaning up after ourselves? That’s a tough question where I still have a lot to learn. One thing is certain — at least there is no shortage of government contractors to do the work!

While I wrap this up, I want to thank you for running. I wanted to thank you for being willing to step up to the plate and challenge someone like David Price.

While we both may not choose the same Presidential candidate (although if Fred were to drop out I’d have to take another serious look at Dr. Paul) seeing you elected to congress is something that I think we can both support

If you like me, you’ll love Ron Paul

I’ll have a contribution coming your way once I get paid in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for listening, or actually reading I guess…whichever.

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

- United States Constitution: Article I, Section 8

There are many in Congress who are obviously uncomfortable with the above responsibilities. Given our persistent failure to declare war since World War II, Congress has failed to live up to its responsibilities for a long time.

The responsibilities above do not describe isolationism, nor do they describe preemptive militarism. They describe a responsibility to first observe rules governing good behavior, and to use Deadly Force only in self-defense or Defense of Innocents.

It should go without saying that “defining and punishing Piracies… Felonies… and Offenses” must occur in an environment free from conflicts of interest. I found the following video to be an unexpectedly eloquent exposition of our current environment’s conflicts of interest:

I support our troops for their faithful service to our nation, and answering our nation’s call to duty. They have certainly lived up to their responsibilities.

It’s time for Congress to live up to its responsibilities, as well.

A friend forwarded me the transcript of Newt Gingrich’s speech to the Jewish National Fund meeting on November 15, 2007. Since foreign policy and economic policy are the most critical issues in this election, I thought it worth the effort to document my reaction to Mr. Gingrich’s influential words. I sent my friend the following email in response.

***

I have previously read and dissected this speech in some detail. Your email provides a timely opportunity to put my thoughts in writing. In some areas, I am in complete agreement. In others, disagreement. But that’s to be expected, as these are complicated issues. Let’s open up a dialog around these points. Quoting Mr. Gingrich:

GINGRICH TRANSCRIPT

I just want to talk to you from the heart for a few minutes and share with you where I think we are.

I think it is very stark. I don’t think it is yet desperate, but it is very stark. And if I had a title for today’s talk, it would be sleepwalking into a nightmare. ‘Cause that’s what I think we’re doing.

I gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute Sept. 10 at which I gave an alternative history of the last six years, because the more I thought about how much we’re failing, the more I concluded you couldn’t just nitpick individual places and talk about individual changes because it didn’t capture the scale of the disaster. And I had been particularly impressed by a new book that came out called Troublesome Young Men, which is a study of the younger Conservatives who opposed appeasement in the 1930s and who took on Chamberlain. It’s a very revealing book and a very powerful book because we tend to look backwards and we tend to overstate Churchill’s role in that period And we tend to understate what a serious and conscientious and thoughtful effort appeasement was and that it was the direct and deliberate policy of very powerful and very willful people. We tend to think of it as a psychological weakness as though Chamberlain was somehow craven. He wasn’t craven. Chamberlain had a very clear vision of the world, and he was very ruthless domestically. And they [Chamberlain] believed so deeply in avoiding war with Germany that as late as the spring of 1940, when they are six months or seven months into they war, they are dropping leaflets instead of bombs on the Rohr, and they are urging the British news media not to publish anti-German stories because they don’t want to offend the German people. And you read this book, and it makes you want to weep because, interestingly, the younger Tories who were most opposed to appeasement were the combat veterans of World War I, who had lost all of their friends in the war but who understood that the failure of appeasement would result in a worse war and that the longer you lied about reality, the greater the disaster.

And they were severely punished and isolated by Chamberlain and the Conservative machine, and as I read that, I realized that that’s really where we are today. Our current problem is tragic. You have an administration whose policy is inadequate being opposed by a political left whose policy is worse, and you have nobody prepared to talk about the policy we need. Because we are told if you are for a strong America , you should back the Bush policy even if it’s inadequate, and so you end up making an argument in favor of something that can’t work. So your choice is to defend something which isn’t working or to oppose it by being for an even weaker policy. So this is a catastrophe for this country and a catastrophe for freedom around the world. Because we have refused to be honest about the scale of the problem.

I disagree with a simple World War II analogy for our so-called Global War on Terror. The “advantage” warring nations had in World War II was that the opponents were governments of specific nations, and those nations were not just ruthlessly oppressing portions of their own population, but they were taking over other countries.

We pushed Saddam out of Kuwait. Ignoring the fact that we helped him consolidate his power in the first place, he was invading another country’s sovereign territory, and we pushed him back. Likewise, Hitler started steamrolling across Europe, and the international community gradually woke up. There is a fundamental difference between countries bombing and putting boots on the ground outside their borders as acts of aggression, and the guerrilla war of international terrorism (even if it is state-sanctioned, or state-supported).

I think we’d agree that different conflicts require different tactics.

Let me work back. I’m going to get to Iran since that’s the topic, but I’m going to get to it eventually.

Let me work back from Pakistan . The dictatorship in Pakistan has never had control over Wiziristan. Not for a day. So we’ve now spent six years since 9/11 with a sanctuary for Al-Qaida and a sanctuary for the Taliban, and every time we pick up people in Great Britain who are terrorists, they were trained in Pakistan.

And our answer is to praise Musharraf because at least he’s not as bad as the others. But the truth is Musharraf has not gotten control of terrorism in Pakistan . Musharraf doesn’t have full control over his own government. The odds are even money we’re going to drift into a disastrous dictatorship at some point in Pakistan . And while we worry about the Iranians acquiring a nuclear weapon, the Pakistanis already have ‘em, So why would you feel secure in a world where you could presently have an Islamist dictatorship in Pakistan with a hundred-plus nuclear weapons? What’s our grand strategy for that?

Complete agreement. Pakistan is a danger as a nuclear power, and a devolving military dictatorship.

Then you look at Afghanistan. Here’s a country that’s small, poor, isolated, and in six years we have not been able to build roads, create economic opportunity, wean people off of growing drugs. A third of the GDP is from drugs. We haven’t been able to end the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. And I know of no case historically where you defeat a guerrilla movement if it has a sanctuary. [Empahsis mine] So the people who rely on the West are outbribed by the criminals, outgunned by the criminals, and faced with a militant force across the border which practiced earlier defeating the Soviet empire and which has a time horizon of three or four generations. NATO has a time horizon of each quarter or at best a year, facing an opponent whose time horizon is literally three or four generations. It’s a total mismatch.

Also in complete agreement. Specifically with the bold statement, I ask a slightly different question: How many times has an occupying foreign army defeated a guerrilla movement in its own country? Afghanistan broke the Soviet Union economically, and hastened the collapse of the USSR. We kicked the British out in the American Revolution — what were the odds of that happening at the time? Is Afghanistan our Waterloo, and will we go the way of the USSR trying to finance this war by borrowing money from China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia *and* our Federal Reserve at a rate of $1-3 billion per day?

Then you come to the direct threat to the United States , which is Al-Qaida. Which, by the way, we just published polls. One of the sites I commend to you is AmericanSolutions.com. Last Wednesday we posted six national surveys, $428,000 worth of data. We gave it away. I found myself in the unique position of calling Howard Dean to tell him I was giving him $400,000 worth of polling. We have given it away to both Democrats and Republicans. It is fundamentally different from the national news media. When asked the question “Do we have an obligation to defend the United States and her allies?” the answer is 85 percent yes. When asked a further question “Should we defeat our enemies?” - it’s very strong language - the answer is 75 percent yes, 75 to 16.

It’s clever to ask the question, “defend the United States and her allies”. There is no “mutual defense” in this world — we are truly the global policeman. Who is coming to our aid? I’d wager people answered yes based upon the phrasing “United States and her allies”, emphasizing the “United States” but minimizing the “allies”. Were they given the chance to prioritize, or distinguish between the two?

The question we need to be asking is how much we can afford for our defense, versus the defense of our allies. As an ardent student of history and economics, I know that our path does not end well if we pretend that we can defend the entire world. What will happen to our currency if we continue borrowing money from China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia *and* our Federal Reserve at a rate of $1-3 billion per day?

On the second question, “Should we defeat our enemies?”, well duh. Who would answer “No” to that one? I could have saved them $100,000 for that part of the survey. The real questions are, who IS our enemy? Is it an ideology? A technique? An entire religion? A nation? Lots of nations? Or are we at all acting against our OWN best interests?

The complaint about Iraq is a performance complaint, not a values complaint.

Specifically with regard to Iraq, I disagree. We may have thought we were going over there with the best intentions — WMD that were a “clear and present danger”, or to “get rid of a brutal dictator” (whom we, again, once supported as an ally). But what now? Saddam is dead. Who knows, maybe the WMDs are in Syria, but they’re not in Iraq. What is the “values” argument for spending billions building permanent bases and a massive embassy in a foreign nation that is not a clear and present danger to our national security? Bush himself knows that Iraq wasn’t responsible for 9/11, and Dick Cheney himself warned against going into Baghdad in 1994, as documented here:

http://blog.lawsonforcongress.com/2007/08/17/talk-about-cognitive-dissonance/

So why are we in Iraq?

And let’s be honest: What’s the primary source of money for Al-Qaida? It’s you, recirculated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy.

Now that’s what a serious national strategy would look like, but that would require real change.

Yes. That’s right. (Check out the final video at the bottom of my blog post above… at least we can laugh about it.) Even Alan Greenspan admits as much.

But please, don’t give me the “national energy strategy” and planned “hydrogen economy” line. Look, America — watch Newt Gingrich pretending to be a Soviet central planner!

There are a bunch of ways to get there, and it doesn’t require a national “strategy” that gives corporate interests yet another regulated monopoly on a hydrogen economy. It requires a free market and American ingenuity.

I’ve put my money where my mouth is on this topic. I made a donation to Duke that is being used by a nanotechnology professor with a fantastic track record developing innovative capacitors. We believe his nanotechnology has potential as “supercapacitors”, which would provide the energy density of batteries, and the power density of capacitors. That’s a type of “holy grail” for energy storage for transportation. There is another group in Texas (EEStor, backed by Kleiner Perkins and very secretive) pursuing a similar goal with different technology.

Are those the only potential solutions? Of course not. But we need our government to get out of the way and stop subsiding “cheap oil” (which is no longer cheap when we debase our currency) with an irrational foreign policy and protectionism that serves the oil industry.

When asked whether or not Al-Qaida is a threat, 89 percent of the country says yes. And they think you have to defeat it, you can’t negotiate with it. So now let’s look at Al-Qaida and the rise of Islamist terrorism.

Yes, Al-Qaeda is a threat. No surprise there either. But why must Newt Gingrich rely on a popular opinion poll to decide whether you “negotiate” or “defeat” Al-Qaeda? More importantly, why create a false dichotomy between “defeating” and “negotiating”?

We needed to defeat the Soviets in the Cold War, especially during the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy talked with Khrushchev at the height of the cold war. Was that a good idea? Or should we have just launched missiles? Ultimately, the USSR was brought down when it’s economy couldn’t keep up with its foreign policy. Again, will we go the way of the USSR trying to finance these wars by borrowing money from China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia *and* our Federal Reserve at a rate of $1-3 billion per day?

So then you look at Saudi Arabia. The fact that we tolerate a country saying no Christian and no Jew can go to Mecca, and we start with the presumption that that’s true while they attack Israel for being a religious state is a sign of our timidity, our confusion, our cowardice that is stunning.

It’s not complicated. We’re inviting Saudi Arabia to come to Annapolis to talk about rights for Palestinians when nobody is saying, “Let’s talk about rights for Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabia. Let’s talk about rights for women in Saudi Arabia.”

So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don’t even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable. This is a very fundamental problem.

I completely agree that other countries have horrendous records with respect to human rights. However, what about the example we are setting? Our hypocrisy is stunning not just in how we treat other countries, but how we behave ourselves. Look at the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Secret prisons, rendition, and a Canadian citizen who was wrongly tortured in Syria after being picked up by our security folks in a New York airport? Torture? “Is waterboarding torture?” What? What kind of fearful, paranoid nation have we become, and why must we behave so secretively and spy on our own citizens? How un-American.

When we don’t tell the truth, do we still call it lying?

And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today, they’re Saudis.

AMEN. This is where the problem is. Follow the money, it leads to the banking system. Depending on one’s degree of cynicism, it can be argued that the international banking system does best in a state of perpetual war. Enable conflict, create massive debts to fund war, and take over the countries when bankruptcy inevitably results. Buy low, sell high.

You keep pumping billions of dollars a year into countries like Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and you are presently going to have created people who oppose you who have lots of money. And they’re then going to come back to your own country and finance, for example, Arab study institutes whose only requirement is that they never tell the truth. So you have all sorts of Ph.D.s who now show up quite cheerfully prepared to say whatever it is that makes their funders happy - in the name, of course, of academic freedom.

Yes, follow the money. Why is it I can have a phone that fits in my shirt pocket, but the only car I can buy uses an engine whose underlying technology hasn’t changed in a hundred years? Why is it we think 30 miles per gallon is “great mileage”? What happened to American ingenuity?

So why wouldn’t Columbia host a genocidal madman? It’s just part of political correctness. I mean, Ahmadinejad may say terrible
things, he may lock up students, he may kill journalists, he may say, “We should wipe out Israel,” he may say, “We should defeat the United States,” but after all, what has he done that’s inappropriate? What has he done that wouldn’t be repeated at a Hollywood cocktail party or a nice gathering in Europe?

And nobody says this is totally, utterly, absolutely unacceptable.

How is talking to people unacceptable? I don’t mean giving a genocidal madman a bully pulpit, but one thing I learned in medicine is that there’s benefit in talking to EVERYONE. Don’t get me wrong, the folks who roll into the ED doped up with a bullet in their chest at 3am are not the type of people I’m going to invite over for dinner, but EVERYONE has a story. We’re all people created in God’s image (in my opinion, at least), with the capacity to do great and at the same time horrible things. Giving a nation, or a tyrannical leader, the “silent treatment” doesn’t make much sense, at least based upon my parenting experience.

This philosophy does NOT mean that I’m a pacifist. Far from it. But there are laws that dictate the use of deadly force in self defense:

http://blog.lawsonforcongress.com/2007/11/18/guidelines-for-the-use-of-deadly-force/

Why don’t these same principles apply in foreign policy?

Why is it that the No. 1 threat in intelligence movies is the CIA?

I happened the other night to be watching an old movie, To Live and Die in L.A. , which is about counterfeiting. But the movie starts with a Secret Service agent who is defending Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the person he is defending Ronald Reagan from is a suicide bomber who is actually, overtly a Muslim fanatic. Now, six years after 9/11, you could not get that scene made in Hollywood today.

Just look at the movies. Why is it that the bad person is either a right-wing crazed billionaire, or the CIA as a government agency. Go look at the Bourne Ultimatum. Or a movie like the one that George Clooney made, which was an absolute lie, in which it implied that if you were a reformist Arab prince, that probably the CIA would kill you. It’s a total lie.

Could it be that people don’t trust their own government any more? Could it be that corporate and special interests have overrun Washington that it’s difficult to distinguish the government from corporate interests? What’s the Constitutional justification for the Executive Branch having its own “private army” with global reach (ironically based in North Carolina)? How do you feel about Blackwater having a contract with Homeland Security to provide security services in the event of martial law/”national emergency”? How do you feel about homeowners in New Orleans being disarmed in the wake of Katrina? How un-American.

We actually have SEALs protecting people all over the world. We actually risk American lives protecting reformers all over the world, and yet Hollywood can’t bring itself to tell the truth, (a) because it’s ideologically so opposed to the American government and the American military, and (b), because it’s terrified that if it said something really openly, honestly true about Muslim terrorists, they might show up in Hollywood. And you might have somebody killed as the Dutch producer was killed.

Yes, we have brave and courageous soldiers faithfully serving their country. I believe most Americans strongly support our military personnel. I certainly do. But I question the wisdom of the way we use our military for nation-building interventionist adventures with no clear plan to success. If you don’t have a Congressionally-declared war with a defined enemy, and a specific objective, how do you know if you’ve “won”?

Does Hollywood really think Muslim terrorists would kill them if they “told the truth” about Muslim extremism? I don’t buy that for a moment. Check out the Web site, http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/. There’s no shortage of information about the horror of extremism. The folks running that Web site should be REALLY scared.

Oh, and about that Dutch producer Theo Van Gough. While his assassination certainly reflects extremism at work, he attracted notoriety for popularizing particularly vulgar terms to describe Muslims. You’ll have to follow the link, as I will not repeat them here. You could say less vulgar things here and be immediately shot by everyday gangbangers.

And so we’re living a life of cowardice, and in that life of cowardice we’re sleepwalking into a nightmare.

Complete agreement.

And then you come to Iran. There’s a terrific book. Mark Bowden is a remarkable writer who wrote Black Hawk Down, has enormous personal courage. He’s a Philadelphia newspaper writer, actually got the money out of the Philadelphia newspaper to go to Somalia to interview the Somalian side of Black Hawk Down. It’s a remarkable achievement. Tells a great story about getting to Somalia, paying lots of cash, having the local warlord protect him, and after about two weeks the warlord came to him and said, “You know, we’ve decided that we’re very uncomfortable with you being here, and you should leave.”

And so he goes to the hotel, where he is the only hard-currency guest, and says, “I’ve got to check out two weeks early because the warlord has told me that he no longer will protect me.” And the hotel owner, who wants to keep his only hard-currency guest, says, “Well, why are you listening to him? He’s not the government. There is no government.” And Bowden says, “Well, what will I do?” And he says, “You hire a bigger warlord with more guns,” which he did. But then he could only stay one week because he ran out of money.

But this is a guy with real courage. I mean, imagine trying to go out and be a journalist in that kind of world, OK? So Bowden came back and wrote Guest of the Ayatollah, which is the Iranian hostage of 1979, which he entitled, “The First Shots in Iran’s War Against America.” So in the Bowden worldview, the current Iranian dictatorship has been at war with the United States since 1979. Violated international law. Every conceivable tenet of international law was violated when they seized the American Embassy and they seized the diplomats. Killed Americans in Lebanon in the early ’80s. Killed Americans at Khobar Towers in ‘95 and had the Clinton administration deliberately avoid revealing the information, as Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI, has said publicly, because they didn’t want to have to confront the Iranian complicity.

And so you have an Iranian regime which is cited annually as the leading supporter of state terrorism in the world. Every year the State Department says that. It’s an extraordinary act of lucidity on the part of an institution which seeks to avoid it as often as possible.

Yes, we’ve done a great job in Iran. Ever since we ran out Mohammad Mossadegh to prevent him from nationalizing their oil industry. Did I mention oil is a problem?

But while Iran’s leadership is a problem, the country is not without internal dissent. Will we be better able to facilitate positive change in that country while making war in the country next door to them? Have we learned nothing from Iraq? What kind of government would we “install” if we topple the current regime? How would that government be perceived by the people?

Mike Dukakis’ campaign self-destructed with his “revolving door” prisons, and weekend furloughs. The “neo-conservatives” have destroyed the Republican party with a “revolving door” foreign policy. Depose one government, wait ’till the next one becomes a tyrannical dictatorship, subvert/invade/replace, lather, rinse, repeat.

Is there another way? I strongly recommend reading the history of our interventions, and also check out Ron Paul’s book, A Foreign Policy of Freedom. There must be another way, because the past hundred years have shown that our current policy of addressing long-term problems with short-term solutions doesn’t work all that well. What will happen to our country if we continue borrowing money to fund endless wars from China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia *and* our Federal Reserve at a rate of $1-3 billion per day?

And you have Gen. Petraeus come to the U.S. Congress and say publicly in an open session, “The Iranians are waging a proxy war against Americans in Iraq .”

I was so deeply offended by this, it’s hard for me to express it without sounding irrational. I’m an Army brat. My dad served 27 years in the infantry. The idea that an American general would come to the American Congress, testify in public that our young men and women are being killed by Iran , and we have done nothing, I find absolutely abhorrent.

I am ALSO so offended, and find our inaction so abhorrent, that it’s hard for me to express it without sounding irrational.

I am offended that our brave soldiers are being killed in Iraq at the hands of Iranians, Syrians, Saudis, and Pakistanis who have come to hate us. But should we “end this” by a nuclear strike that wipes out all of those countries in the Middle East? Seriously. We’re better than that. Can we admit it’s time to come home? Or should we still be in Vietnam? Why are our soldiers in harm’s way at all? Read this commentary on a Wall Street Journal column from the Council on Foreign Relations:

http://blog.lawsonforcongress.com/2007/12/27/why-were-in-the-gulf/

I am offended that our Congress has given our Executive Branch carte blanche to initiate and manage hostilities when the Constitution authorizes NO SUCH THING.
I am offended that we refuse to talk and trade with other nations, and instead choose sanctions and deadly force.
I am offended that we haven’t let Israel act in HER own defense, with her fantastic second-strike capabilities including a fleet of nuclear-armed submarines that render suicidal any pre-emptive attack.
I am offended that we have failed to learn from our own history of failed foreign interventions.
I am offended that we think the “Defense of Innocents” doesn’t apply, and that we can unleash preemptive deadly force against a nation that “might be” a threat.
I am offended that we have suspended due process.
I am offended that we spy on our own citizens.
I am offended that we have done nothing to end the conflict and bring our brave troops home in an orderly, but immediate fashion.
I am offended that we haven’t demonstrated how to fight a stateless war against common criminals through cooperative international police work instead of unilateral militarism.

So I’m preparing to come and talk today. I got up this morning, and a friend had sent me yesterday’s Jerusalem Post editorial, which if you haven’t read, I recommend to you. It has, for example, the following quote: “On Monday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, ‘The problem of the content of the document setting out joint principles for peace-making post-Annapolis has not been resolved. One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime’s insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state. We will not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined.’ “

What truly bothers me is the shallowness and the sophistry of the Western governments, starting with our own. When a person says to you, “I don’t recognize that you exist,” you don’t start a negotiation. The person says, “I literally do not recognize” and then lies to you. I mean the first thing you say to this guy is “Terrific. Let’s go visit Mecca. Since clearly there’s no other state except Israel that is based on religion, the fact that I happen to be Christian won’t bother anybody.” And then he’ll say, “Well, that’s different.”

Yes, the challenge to Israel’s “right to exist” is a huge problem. We need to respect and support Israel’s sovereignty, and we need start asking questions whether our actions in the Middle East are helping, or hurting Israel’s sovereignty. As Ron Paul said:

“Israel has not and will not benefit from our persistent involvement in the Mideast. Since our dollars flow to both Arabs and Israelis, we will not be inclined to let either side to decide for itself what is in its own best interest. Israel, under today’s circumstances, cannot retain its sovereignty, for we will always feel compelled to criticize their actions if, in our opinion, these actions always destabilize the area.” (A Foreign Policy of Freedom, page 22).

Additionally, Israel is a military force that has proven herself capable of standing on her own two feet. Israel’s nuclear program is a “public secret“, and she is estimated to have between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons. This past July, Israel purchased two additional German-built diesel-electric submarines, which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons. These submarines provide an excellent “second-strike” response, and an effective deterrent against nuclear aggression.

Finally, it goes without saying that it is beyond hypocritical of us to be providing arms both to Saudi Arabia and to Israel. As the New York Time reported in July:

In addition to promising an increase in American military aid to Israel, the Pentagon is seeking to ease Israel’s concerns over the proposed weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by asking the Saudis to accept restrictions on the range, size and location of the satellite-guided bombs, including a commitment not to store the weapons at air bases close to Israeli territory, the officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/washington/28weapons.html

What are we thinking? Are we really helping Israel here?

But back to Mr. Gingrich:

We tolerate this. We have created our own nightmare because we refuse to tell the truth. We refuse to tell the truth to our politicians. Our State Department refuses to tell the truth to the country. If the president of the United States , and again, we’re now so bitterly partisan, we’re so committed to red-vs.-blue hostility, that George W. Bush doesn’t have the capacity to give an address from the Oval Office that has any meaning for half the country. And the anti-war left is so strong in the Democratic primary that I think it’s almost impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to tell the truth about the situation.

And so the Republicans are isolated and trying to defend incompetence. The Democrats are isolated and trying to find a way to say, “I’m really for strength as long as I can have peace, but I’d really like to have peace, except I don’t want to recognize these people who aren’t very peaceful.”

Yes, I agree. We tolerate incompetence, and we are creating a nightmare because we refuse to tell the truth.

I just want to share with you, as a grandfather, as a citizen, as a historian, as somebody who was once speaker of the House, this is a serious national crisis. This is 1935 or 1936, and it’s getting worse every year.

None of our enemies are confused. Our enemies don’t get up each morning and go, “Oh, gosh, I think I’ll have an existential crisis of identity in which I will try to think through whether or not we can be friends while you’re killing me.” Our enemies get up every morning and say, “We hate the West. We hate freedom.” They would not allow a meeting with women in the room.

Well, we’re killing them, too. Do they hate us because we’re free? Or might there be other reasons? I’m not saying we can rehabilitate the extremists who are already brainwashed into irrational terrorists. They require police work, secure borders, international cooperation, and a strong defense.

My concern is for the next generation of impoverished, illiterate kids growing up in an environment of perpetual war, hatred, and depleted uranium munitions. Are they going to hate us too? It seems rational that hate will flourish in the current environment. That’s why I’m so passionate about this situation — their children are going to be a problem for MY children. The longer we persist in our current course, the more ingrained hatred will become within those still impressionable.

I was once interviewed by a BBC reporter, a nice young lady who was only about as anti-American as she had to be to keep her job. Since it was a live interview, I turned to her halfway through the interview and I said, “Do you like your job?” And it was summertime, and she’s wearing a short-sleeve dress. And she said, “Well, yes.” She was confused because I had just reversed roles. I said, “Well, then you should hope we win.” She said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “Well, if the enemy wins, you won ‘t be allowed to be on television.”

I don’t know how to explain it any simpler than that.

I don’t understand Gingrich’s point here. I do not fear a tyrannical regime of Islamic fundamentalists overthrowing, or taking over, our government. I don’t fear a transformation into an Islamic theocracy.

I’m more concerned that my children were not able to carry any political signs at last night’s First Night “People’s Parade” in downtown Raleigh. Yes, that’s right. The event was billed as a “Positive Protest”, and described on the event’s Web site as:

Positive Protest Posters
What have you got to say about 2008? Start a commotion with a positive protest poster to carry in the People’s Procession!

Children were given posterboard and paints, and allowed to create signs to carry. But my wife was told that my children’s signs couldn’t be painted to say “Lawson for Congress”. We snuck by with “My Daddy for Congress”, even though they didn’t like that either. In my eyes, it seems like the enemy has ALREADY won.

Why should I fear Islamic fundamentalists when my children can’t even paint an uncensored positive message on a posterboard?

I’ll stop my assessment here. In my opinion, his subsequent plan is based upon seriously flawed assumptions.

Oh, and did I mention… what will happen to our country if we continue borrowing money from China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia *and* our Federal Reserve at a rate of $1-3 billion per day?

Look forward to continuing the conversation, and happy new year!

BJ

William (B.J.) Lawson
Candidate for Congress, North Carolina’s 4th District
http://www.lawsonforcongress.com

***

For completeness, I’ve included the remainder of Mr. Gingrich’s speech (with recommendations to disrupt Iran) below.

Now what do we need?

We need first of all to recognize this is a real war. Our enemies are peaceful when they’re weak, are ruthless when they’re strong, demand mercy when they’re losing, show no mercy when they’re winning. They understand exactly what this is, and anybody who reads Sun Tzu will understand exactly what we’re living through. This is a total war. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. You’ll be able to tell who won and who lost by who’s still standing. Most of Islam is not in this war, but most of Islam isn’t going to stop this war. They’re just going to sit to one side and tell you how sorry they are that this happened. We had better design grand strategies that are radically bigger and radically tougher and radically more honest than anything currently going on, and that includes winning the argument in Europe , and it includes winning the argument in the rest of the world. And it includes being very clear, and I’ll just give you one simple example because we’re now muscle-bound by our own inability to talk honestly.

Iran produces 60 percent of its own gasoline. It produces lots of crude oil but only has one refinery. It imports 40 percent of its gasoline. The entire 60 percent is produced at one huge refinery.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan decided to break the Soviet empire. He was asked what’s your vision of the Cold War. He said, “Four words: We win; they lose.” He was clearly seen by The New York Times as an out-of-touch, reactionary, right-wing cowboy from California who had no idea what was going on in the world. And 11 years later the Soviet Union disappeared, but obviously that had nothing to do with Reagan because that would have meant he was right. So it’s just a random accident the Soviet Union disappeared.

Part of the war we waged on the Soviet Union involved their natural gas supply because we wanted to cut off their hard currency. The Soviets were desperate to get better equipment for their pipeline. We managed to sell them through third parties very, very sophisticated American pipeline equipment, which they were thrilled to buy and thought they had pulled off a huge coup. Now we weren’t playing fair. We did not tell them that the equipment was designed to blow up. One day in 1982, there was an explosion in Siberia so large that the initial reflection on the satellites looked like there was a tactical nuclear weapon. One part of the White House was genuinely worried, and the other part of the White House had to calm them down. They said, “No, no, that’s our equipment blowing up.”

In the 28 years since the Iranians declared war on us, in the six years since 9/11, in the months since Gen. Petraeus publicly said they are killing young Americans, we have not been able to figure out how to take down one refinery. Covertly, quietly, without overt war. And we have not been able to figure out how to use the most powerful navy in the world to simply stop the tankers and say, “Look, you want to kill young Americans, you’re going to walk to the battlefield, but you’re not going to ride in the car because you’re not going to have any gasoline.”

We don’t have to be stupid. The choice is not cowardice or total war. Reagan unlocked Poland without firing a shot in an alliance with the Pope, with the labor unions and with the British. We have every possibility if we’re prepared to be honest to shape the world. It’ll be a very big project. It’s much closer to World War II than it is to anything we’ve tried recently. It will require real effort, real intensity and real determination. We’re either going to do it now, while we’re still extraordinarily powerful, or we’re going to do it later under much more desperate circumstances after we’ve lost several cities.

We had better take this seriously because we are not very many mistakes away from a second Holocaust. Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. Our enemies would like to get those weapons as soon as they can, and they promise to use them as soon as they can.

I suggest we defeat our enemies and create a different situation long before they have that power.

I just finished reading this fascinating commentary in the Wall Street Journal about why an American military presence is essential in the Persian Gulf, compliments of Mr. Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations. Here are some favorite quotes:

While U.S. import needs are projected to grow significantly, U.S. dependence on Persian Gulf energy is not, thanks largely to expected production increases in the Western Hemisphere and sub-Saharan Africa. U.S. energy imports from the Persian Gulf are expected to remain below 20% of total consumption. The oil market, of course, is global, and if something were to happen to the Middle Eastern supplies, prices would rise world-wide, and the U.S. economy would be seriously disrupted. But domestic supply is not the key to American interest in the Gulf.

OK, excellent. So we don’t need to be there to secure our domestic energy needs.

For the past few centuries, a global economic and political system has been slowly taking shape under first British and then American leadership. As a vital element of that system, the leading global power — with help from allies and other parties — maintains the security of world trade over the seas and air while also ensuring that international economic transactions take place in an orderly way. Thanks to the American umbrella, Germany, Japan, China, Korea and India do not need to maintain the military strength to project forces into the Middle East to defend their access to energy. Nor must each country’s navy protect the supertankers carrying oil and liquefied national gas (LNG).

Wait… so our soldiers and tax dollars are paying to secure energy supplies for Germany, Japan, China, Korea, and India? Does that make sense?

For this system to work, the Americans must prevent any power from dominating the Persian Gulf while retaining the ability to protect the safe passage of ships through its waters. The Soviets had to be kept out during the Cold War, and the security and independence of the oil sheikdoms had to be protected from ambitious Arab leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

Oh, I see. So it really is up to us. Since we’re the ones who helped put Saddam in power in the first place, we had to clean up that mess ourselves.

But wait — does anyone really believe that widespread piracy and looting of supertankers would prevail without a U.S. military presence? Would the oil companies, shipping companies, sellers, and buyers tolerate such chaos? That’s a ridiculous assertion on many levels: there are other sources of oil outside the Middle East, and the countries in the Persian Gulf are highly incented to get their oil safely to market. After all, they can’t drink it.

The end of America’s ability to safeguard the Gulf and the trade routes around it would be enormously damaging — and not just to us. Defense budgets would grow dramatically in every major power center, and Middle Eastern politics would be further destabilized, as every country sought political influence in Middle Eastern countries to ensure access to oil in the resulting free for all.

Hmmm… but our defense budget would shrink. And we would not need to borrow as much money to finance our deficits from (gulp) Japan, Saudi Arabia, the UK, China, and our Federal Reserve. Finally, what exactly is a “free for all” in this context? The oil certainly isn’t free for all, or free for any. It will only be available to those who have a valuable currency with which to purchase it.

The potential for conflict and chaos is real. A world of insecure and suspicious great powers engaged in military competition over vital interests would not be a safe or happy place. Every ship that China builds to protect the increasing numbers of supertankers needed to bring oil from the Middle East to China in years ahead would also be a threat to Japan’s oil security — as well as to the oil security of India and Taiwan. European cooperation would likely be undermined as well, as countries sought to make their best deals with Russia, the Gulf states and other oil rich neighbors like Algeria.

Is Mr. Mead suggesting that our current world is a “safe and happy place”? The amount of global insecurity and suspicion today is already staggering. Even more ironically, Mr. Mead then implies that we’re keeping China on a short leash to prevent her from threatening her Asian neighbors, when we are actually dependent on China’s willingness to lend us money to defend her oil tankers.

America’s Persian Gulf policy is one of the chief ways through which the U.S. is trying to build a peaceful world and where the exercise of American power, while driven ultimately by domestic concerns and by the American national interest, provides vital public goods to the global community.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that our Persian Gulf policy is an exemplar for how to build a peaceful world. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

Regardless of whether you own a weapon, every American should take a gun course that includes guidelines for when Deadly Force may be legitimately used in self-defense. While taking such a course recently, I was struck by the obvious parallels between personal defense, and national defense.

At least in North Carolina, there are four conditions that all must be present to justify use of Deadly Force in self-defense:

• There must be an real and immediate threat of death, serious injury, or sexual assault such that a normal person believes Deadly Force is necessary.
• The threat must be otherwise unavoidable.
• You cannot instigate the dispute: “If you start a fight, you lose your rights.”
• You cannot use excessive force.

These four criteria have interesting implications. First, regarding the immediacy of the threat: a history of violence and/or a fear of future violence do not justify the use of Deadly Force. For example, a repeatedly battered wife who chooses to kill the abusive husband between assaults is not justified in using Deadly Force. The husband must be physically threatening/attacking her for Deadly Force to be justified.

Regarding the concept of “avoidability”, in North Carolina there is a “Duty to Retreat” such that you must attempt to avoid or exit the hostile situation if possible. An important exception to the Duty to Retreat is if you are on your own property. In that case, obviously, you are in your “retreat” and can use Deadly Force if the other conditions exist.

Here’s an interesting case study, however. You’re an armed citizen awakened by a noise downstairs. You and your shotgun peek around the corner and see someone pulling silver out of the dining room cabinet. Are you justified in using Deadly Force at that time? Perhaps surprisingly, you are not. Deadly Force can only be used in defense of life or physical harm. It is not justified in defense of property. If the thief tries to surrender or escape when he hears the action on your shotgun, you cannot fire. But if he starts running towards you, you are more justified in using Deadly Force.

Even more interesting: You’re an armed citizen awakened by a noise downstairs. You and your shotgun peek around the corner and see someone forcing his way in through the back door. Are you justified in using Deadly Force at that time? Thanks to something called the “Castle Doctrine”, you are. While your castle’s perimeter is being violated, you are justified in using Deadly Force. Once the trespasser is inside, however, he must be a real and immediate threat to your life or physical safety.

Another important point is that you are justified using Deadly Force in defense of an innocent victim, but only if all four criteria above are met and the victim would have been justified in using Deadly Force him/herself. Especially important is the third criterion, or identifying the true instigator in the fight. Are you justified in defending an elderly lady being beaten by a group of muggers? How about walking into a convenience store and seeing two men struggling on floor, when one man reaches for a knife? In the first case, the true victim is fairly obvious. In the second case, however, it’s impossible to know who instigated the conflict. In other words, there’s no “Defense of Innocents” if you stumble onto a fight between the Hatfields and McCoys. In that case, as a citizen, diplomacy is the only solution.

Is it reasonable to think that the our guidelines limiting use of Deadly Force for citizens and law enforcement officials would also apply to us as a sovereign nation, and “global citizen”?