Home-grown non-state actors

So, regarding Hamadan v. US, if one of the several States (Alabama) calls up the unregulated Militia, and ships them to, oh I don't know, say France, or maybe Luxembourg or Tahiti, would they be treated any differently than if they went to the U.S. Territories of Puerto Rico or Guam? Would the Governor then be an international non-state actor like Hamadan or Bin Laden? Would Puerto Rico then become South Alabama?

What if Schwarzenegger sent the California Guard into, ummm, Mexico, for example, or if Montana invaded Canada? Not far, you understand, just far enough to secure the border and rename Tijuana to 'South San Diego Adjacent' and assert jurisdiction for taxation purposes over the drug cartels.

If Hamadan can come to the U.S. to wage war and receive the protection of the Geneva Convention, why can’t U.S. citizen William Walker and his army of volunteers secure a toehold in a foreign country and declare soveriegnty? Oh, because THAT foreign country doesn’t have a the same Constitution we do. Does International Law stop at the border or not?

Come on now, we're all asymmetrical here. If we're going to think outside the box, let's REALLY think outside the box. If a private company can equip an army and wage war under the protection of the Geneva Convention, why can't a separate State under the direction of the Governor, or the Nye County Sheriff?

What about you and me? Is a DBA good enough to separate us from the rabble of the common criminal? Remember when all the cowboys had to turn in their guns when they rode into Dodge City except for the guy riding shotgun on the Wells Fargo stagecoach? Was he exempt because he worked for a (big, important) company or was his gun protected as interstate transportaton under the 19th Century interpretation of the Commerce Clause? Do we need the wink-wink, nod-nod of the POTUS and Congress as quid-pro-quo for getting them all elected to become, harrumph, legitimate?

Does this decision promote Individual Rights, State’s Rights, Federalism or Internationalism? Will this 21st Century decision promote the End of the Era of Nation-States that operate under the Peace of Westphalia? That seems to me the direction the world is trending, and this decision plays in very nicely, thank you. “International Human Rights” are for suckers who play the game ‘lawfully’, i.e., not hard enough.

Americans Deserve Better

From "Robert Cox: Americans deserve better than Keller’s open letter":

Robert Cox, The ExaminerJun 29, 2006 7:00 AM

WASHINGTON - Who can argue when Bill Keller of The New York Times writes, as he did last Sunday, that the Founders “saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government” or that they were right to reject “the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the president at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.”

Yet during the past week, many have questioned The New York Times’ decision to publish a story detailing an ongoing counter-terrorism operation to monitor information about wire transfers through the SWIFT system, an international consortium founded by the world’s leading money center banks. Many have questioned what public interest The New York Times served by disclosing a duly authorized and appropriately disclosed counter-terrorist program that Keller acknowledges has helped to “catch and prosecute financiers of terror” and for which The Times has “not identified any serious abuses of privacy.”

This past Sunday, The Times’ executive editor published an open letter in which Keller incoherently weaves together disparate threads of past Times coverage of the run-up to the Iraq war, the Bay of Pigs invasion, administration criticism of media reporting of terror attacks in Iraq and other recent disclosures of covert intelligence operations appends a detailed critique of what purports to be the Bush administration’s case for holding off on the SWIFT story and ties up the entire package with the risible assertion that The Times decision was not borne of “any animus toward the current administration.” Nowhere does Keller address the particulars of why he felt it necessary to run the SWIFT story last Friday.

Americans deserve better.

Keller claims, “some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality” but the article cites only one expert, L. Richard Fischer, and presents him as unfamiliar with the details of the program. The New York Times quotes a “former senior counterterrorism official,” saying, “The capability here is awesome or, depending on where you’re sitting, troubling “the potential for abuse is enormous” without disclosing whether this former official might have some axe to grind against the administration. Richard Clarke, anyone? The paper claims “Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified.” Why is it “nearly 20” and not “19.” Will the Times go back to those 19 people and get them on the record now that the program has been made public? The Times’ claims “Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program.” How many is “some?” Fifteen? Two? If two, then which two?

It comes down to a matter of trust, something in short supply for most Americans when it comes to The New York Times. Since Sept. 11, The Times has published fabricated quotations (Maureen Dowd), fabricated datelines (Rick Bragg) and stories manufactured out of whole cloth (Jayson Blair). The Times, by many estimates, made the administration’s case for war by publishing now-discredited claims about Iraq’s WMD program (Judith Miller). Dan Rather may have made “fake but accurate” famous, but it was The New York Times that honed the practice to an art form. Maybe they could sell T-shirts?

It may not be wise to always take a president at his word, but The New York Times has not exactly cornered the market on journalistic integrity. Yet Keller exposes a vital counter-terrorist program in a story based almost entirely on anonymous sources and asks that we take him at his word. Sorry Bill, that ship sailed long ago.

We will never know the full extent of the damage caused by The New York Times in disclosing the SWIFT monitoring program but have no doubt it was not a benign act. Whatever agony Keller may have gone through in deciding to publish the story will pale in comparison to the agony of the victims of the next terror attack, an attack that might have been prevented save for Keller’s choice.

Playwright David Mamet once wrote of elites “you’re all the same … It’s always ‘What I’m going to do for you.’ Then you screw up and then its ‘we did the best we could. I’m dreadfully sorry’ and people like us live with your mistakes the rest of our lives.”

We may be living with Keller’s mistake for a long time to come.

Robert Cox is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and president of the Media Bloggers Association. Examiner

Envy, Fear of Envy and Black Magic

We’ve all got the “been there, done that” scars from High School, but most of us have forgotten what the effect a dense-cluster peer group has on the individual. Jack Wheeler, writing for the Freedom Research Foundation, inadvertently brushes against it while disassembling the liberal mind’s bent to cultural suicide in his article The Secret of the Suicidal Liberal Mind.

Inner city schools have cultural acceptance issues that seem to go beyond the us-against-them teenage mindset. ‘Trying’ is discouraged because ‘failing’ is subject to ridicule, is the common meme, therefore let no one fail.

Wheeler instead points to research done by cultural anthropologists that the primitive culture’s belief in black magic and witchcraft is associated with envy and the fear of envy. His thesis is that, “What the Left calls ‘exploitation’ is what anthropologists call ‘black magic.’”

What may be more important in educational examples is that peer pressure is envy of success, and that fear of envy is keeping the man down. You stick out, you become a target. Better we all suffer than anyone leave the hood.

Read the article. Some of you may have to wash it through your mind to get past the neo-con agitprop, but bear in mind the rest of us have to do the same thing from the other side every day with the daily newspaper.

Fight Jihadis through Haiku

The Belmont Club has a thread with haikus in the comments worth reading. Any takers here?

"Slug strains against the coming dawn, slides across the knife edge lest he bake."

"Sailors watched in awe shaking fists at plunging zeros. Now Murtha drools."

"Dumb Jihadis. China skins who it kills; Europe buys for cosmetics."

"Jihadi, your hell is eternity spent with others just like you."

"Youssifiyah dust brings tears, but it won’t jam a weapon’s receiver."

"Cut and run? Cut Jihadi throats. Let their blood run. After that we leave."

Illegal Immigration and Theocracies vs. Nation-states

Much of the “Immigration issue“ obviously comes from people who are not following the rules. The debate gets clouded when it becomes obvious that no one knows what the rules really are. A lot of similar discussions happen with modern politics versus the Constitution when someone jumps up and says, “I don’t care what it says, that’s not what it means!” Some good examples are the Drug Exemption to the 4th Amendment, double-jeapordy not attaching for civil suits, well-regulated militia means the National Guard -- and don’t even get me started on abortion!

A great thread I picked up in "Camus' Catch: How Democracies Can Defeat Totalitarian Political Islam" from Democratiya began discussing the concept of how non-state actors obviate the Peace of Westphalia, and whether or not we are witnessing the end of the era of Nation-states.

OK, that’s a mouthful. This is a huge and complex subject, generally unexplored in the public’s mind, and quickly shows how the Geneva Conventions have become antiquated. To address one specific issue, what happens when a religion demands its tenents be enforced as the law of the land? Are there any exceptions that do not lead to the slippery slope where a secular government evolves into a religious government? What does a government do when any religion/group of people band together and demand exception? When does religion bear responsibility to maintain peace under the common international doctrine of Westphalean diplomacy?

Secular states simply cannot except religious adherents from its laws.
Discuss. Compare and contrast the Branch Davidians with Islamists vis a vis religious freedom and justifiable state actions.

Second Issue:

At what point does Mexico bear the responsibility for ‘encouraging’ diaspora? When does it become an act of War? If you read carefully the second parameter of criteria from the Failed State Index by the Fund for Peace developed using U.N. definitions of genocide, it is clear that Mexico’s actions border on genocide (emphasis mine):

2. Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating Complex Humanitarian Emergencies.
Forced uprooting of large communities as a result of random or targeted violence and/or repression, causing food shortages, disease, lack of clean water, land competition, and turmoil that can spiral into larger humanitarian and security problems, both within and between countries.

Is the Mexican diaspora 1) forced and 2) repression? (Hint: ‘Yes’ is the correct answer.)

If you believe the Mexican government is pursuing policy at the state level to ‘encourage’ its citizens to leave and get jobs in the U.S., then when does encouraged become coerced becomes forced?

"Zarqawi's End"

"Video: The Airstrike Remix"

Video courtesy of the U.S. military.
Re-mix courtesy of Michelle Malkin.
Airspace courtesy of free Iraq.
Motivation courtesy of 9/11.