As the military trial of Bradley Manning begins, The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake has a great piece explaining how the guy who leaked 700,000-plus documents to Wikileaks has changed the way the U.S. government functions.
Read more via How Bradley Manning Changed the War on Terror – and Politics – For the Better – Hit & Run : Reason.com.
Enjoying Nature on vacation in the Mermac River valley in Missouri. This hippie isn’t ashamed of his love of Peace & Nature and all the good things they provide in harmony…
The largest criminal organizations in the world are governments. The bigger they are, the more capable of perpetrating atrocities. Not only do they obtain great wealth through compulsion (taxation), they also have an ideological mystique that permits them uniquely to get away with murder, torture, and theft.
The U.S. government is no exception. This is demonstrated by, among many other things, the atomic bombings of noncombatants in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World II. But let’s examine a lesser-known case, one we might know nothing about were it not for David Vine, who teaches anthropology at the American University. Vine has written a book, Island of Shame, and a follow-up article at the Huffington Post about the savage treatment of the people of Diego Garcia, part of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Americans may know Diego Garcia as a U.S. military base. It “helped launch the Afghan and Iraq wars and was part of the CIA’s secret ‘rendition’ program for captured terrorist suspects,” Vine writes.
Read more via The U.S. Base on Diego Garcia: An Overlooked Atrocity The Future of Freedom Foundation.
May was Iraq’s deadliest month in nearly five years, with more than1,000 dead — both civilians and security personnel — in a rash of bombings, shootings, and other violence. As we read each day of new horrors in Iraq, it becomes more obvious that the U.S. invasion delivered none of the promised peace or stability that proponents of the attack promised.
Millions live in constant fear, refugees do not return home, and the economy is destroyed. The Christian community, some 1.2 million persons before 2003, has been nearly wiped off the Iraqi map. Other minorities have likewise disappeared. Making matters worse, U.S. support for the Syrian rebels next door has drawn the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government into the spreading regional unrest and breathed new life into extremist elements.
The invasion of Iraq opened the door to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which did not exist beforehand, while simultaneously strengthening the hand of Iran in the region. Were the “experts” who planned for and advocated the U.S. attack really this incompetent?
Read more via Iraq Collapse Shows Bankruptcy of Interventionism by Rep. Ron Paul — Antiwar.com.
The following is a statement by Advocates for the Disabled and Seriously Ill
In a recent report, the National Cancer Institute NCI, part of the Federal government’s National Institutes of Health NIH, stated that marijuana “inhibited the survival of both estrogen receptor–positive and estrogen receptor–negative breast cancer cell lines.” The same report showed marijuana slows or stops the growth of certain lung cancer cells and suggested that marijuana may provide “risk reduction and treatment of colorectal cancer.”
Read more via In Case You Missed It, Government Confirms And Reports That Marijuana Prevents Or Cures Certain Cancers – Liberty Crier.
As the U.S. Fifth Army inched its way up Italy in 1944, its command constantly pondered which towns should be spared bombardment. Monte Cassino was destroyed. The centers of Rome and Florence were saved. The Pieros of Sansepulcro were reprieved at the last minute (I believe by an art-loving gunner). These decisions were taken out of respect for the civilized values that the Allies believed they were defending, even if they cost soldiers’ lives. The Allies were right.
Now we are arguing about Dresden again. Yesterday its people commemorated the night, 50 years ago, that Bomber Command devastated their city, roasting at least 25,000 of its inhabitants in the notorious firestorm. They would like us to apologize. To them it was an act of pure savagery, planned at Stalin’s request and aimed at civilians and refugees from the east. The war was all but over and military installations around Dresden were not targeted. The attack was a modern version of medieval ” putting a city to fire and the sword.”
Read more via Dresden: Time to Say We’re Sorry The Future of Freedom Foundation.
President Obama has an eerie and alarming ability to detach himself from his own dubious actions.
This character trait was on full display in his speech on Thursday at the National Defense University.
When he talked about the need to shut down Guantanamo, he said: “Look at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are holding a hunger strike. Is that something that our Founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave to our children?”
Wise words, but hollow ones.
Read more via Obama Gets Slippery on Killing U.S. Citizens | The Progressive.
It is often said that libertarians arrive at their views from different routes. Some by Ron Paul (a conservative Christian), others by Ayn Rand (a devout atheist), others still through studying economics or history. Some grow up in libertarian homes. We are all on a journey, and those of us who call ourselves libertarians (whether we assume that title proudly or apprehensively) often criss-cross each other along the way.
Joseph Charles Putnam has recently self-published a book titled A Bible Based View of Liberty and Free Governments. Putnam definitely comes at his libertarian-leaning viewpoints from a different route than I have. Putnam describes himself as “limited government ‘Constitutional’ libertarian,” and his book is a manifesto of his viewpoint on Scripture and its relationship to liberty.
Read more via Review: A Bible Based View of Liberty and Free Governments | LibertarianChristians.com.
