California Libertarian Alliance

“Afghan insurgent attacks killed six U.S. soldiers Saturday, bringing the total to 1,171 — and counting. Eight years after achieving our initial war aims, disrupting al Qaeda and punishing its Taliban protectors, we have 94,000 troops in-theater, chasing “50 to 100″ Al Qaeda operatives, “maybe less,” says President Obama’s CIA director.”

“Good news, though: Construction of Kabul’s 900,000-square-foot Police Training Center is “progressing according to plan.” After $27 billion spent, Afghan police are still “illiterate, corrupt, and trigger-happy,” their instructors lament, but a spiffy new training complex can’t hurt.”

“Enough. With American casualties mounting, it’s clearer than ever that “Operation Enduring Freedom” has become a sickening waste of blood and treasure.”

Complete commentary  on another war without end by Gene Healy @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11975

The long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been back in the news recently, and we just had the bizarre spectacle of the Republican National Committee Chairman saying he didn’t like Obama’s war in Afghanistan, while the DNC chastised him for failing to support the troops.

Here are ten reasons to end the wars now. I hope you’ll take a look at some of the links.

1. American military and contractor casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. Iraqi and Afghanistan civilian and military casualties.

3. These wars are a tremendous waste of taxpayer money in a time of extreme deficits, high unemployment and a falling stock market.

4. Invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq feeds terrorism.

5. Osama Bin Laden and his co-conspirators who attacked the World Trade Center were Saudi Arabian.

6. As Congressman Ron Paul recently said: “In Afghanistan, we are fighting the Taliban, those dangerous people with guns defending their homeland. Once they were called the Mujahideen, our old allies, along with bin Laden, in the fight to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s.”

7. Most Republicans in Congress now admit Iraq was a mistake.

8. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s comments show that even the hawkish Republican Party can’t support this war with a straight face.

9. As James Madison said, “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” (Witness the PATRIOT Act.)

10. The U.S. military has been in Iraq over seven years, and in Afghanistan almost nine years. It’s time to give peace a chance.

(Note, the LP doesn’t necessarily endorse the organizations linked above. We encourage you to research these issues for yourself.)

Source: The Libertarian Party @ http://www.lp.org/blogs/staff/lp-monday-message-10-reasons-to-end-the-wars-now

“There’s a growing narrative that Iraq’s solidifying democracy makes the seven years of US war and occupation a worthy enterprise.”

“Some observers have even spun Iraq’s March 7 elections as proof that democracy promotion via military occupation can succeed. Don’t believe the hype. The Iraq war remains a mistake of mammoth proportions. And Iraq’s election represents a pyrrhic victory, as the economic, political, and moral costs of the occupation far outweigh any benefits.”

“First are the sacrifices in terms of blood and treasure. The broad consensus is that the war has cost the US economy well over $700 billion – with the meter still running. The Iraq war has also left nearly 4,400 American troops dead, more than 31,000 physically disabled, and countless more psychologically traumatized.”

Malou Innocent looks at the cost  to America and to Iraq of the Iraq War @ http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11658

“The U.S. is rarely at peace. It doesn’t matter which party or which politician is in power: American military forces will be on the move, invading a Third World nation here and threatening an emerging power there.”

“In January 2009 Republican George W. Bush yielded to Democrat Barack Obama, and the U.S. government increased military spending and expanded the war in Afghanistan. If a Republican is elected in 2012, recent history suggests that defense outlays will grow further, as Washington attacks another nation or two.”

“Enthusiasm for war crosses party lines — Robert Kagan recently wrote approvingly of the militaristic alliance between “liberal interventionist Democrats” and “hawkish internationalist Republicans” — both groups which have never met a war they didn’t want to fight. However, support for peace also is transpartisan. Such sentiments are perhaps strongest on the Democratic left, which increasingly feels disenfranchised by President Obama. A smaller contingent of libertarians, traditional conservatives, and paleo-conservatives has resisted the conservative movement’s adoption of war-mongering intervention as a basic tenet.”

Doug Bandow takes on the pro-war bipartisans @ http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=689

Chris Moody reports @ The Cato-at-Liberty blog:

In a Thursday panel at Cato on conservatism and war, U.S. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and John Duncan (R-Tenn.) revealed that the vast majority of GOP members of Congress now think it was wrong for the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003.

The discussion was moderated by Grover Norquist, who asked the congressmen how many of their colleagues now think the war was a mistake.

Rohrabacher:

“I will say that the decision to go in, in retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake. …Now that we know that it cost a trillion dollars, and all of these years, and all of these lives, and all of this blood… all I can say is everyone I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now.”

McClintock:

“I think everyone [in Congress] would agree that Iraq was a mistake.”

Source (includes video):http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/03/18/gop-congressmen-most-republicans-now-think-iraq-war-was-a-mistake/

“This is not the change we hoped for. President Obama rose to power on the basis of his early opposition to the Iraq war and his promise to end it. But after a year in the White House he has made both of George Bush’s wars his wars.”

“Speaking of Iraq in February 2008, candidate Barack Obama said, “I opposed this war in 2002. I will bring this war to an end in 2009. It is time to bring our troops home.” The following month, under fire from Hillary Clinton, he reiterated, ”I was opposed to this war in 2002….I have been against it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8 and I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don’t be confused.” ”

“Indeed, in his famous “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow” speech on the night he clinched the Democratic nomination, he also proclaimed, “I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that . . . this was the moment when we ended a war.” ”

David Boaz looks for the change we were promised, and finds that things have remained the same @ http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/30/its-the-end-of-2009-where-are-our-troops/

“If anyone still doubted that this administration’s foreign policy would bring any kind of change, this week’s debate on Afghanistan should remove all doubt. The president’s stated justifications for sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating the war amount to little more than recycling all the false reasons we began the conflict. It is so discouraging to see this coming from our new leadership, when the people were hoping for peace. New polls show that 49 percent of the people favor minding our own business on the world stage, up from 30 percent in 2002. Perpetual war is not solving anything. Indeed continually seeking out monsters to destroy abroad only threatens our security here at home as international resentment against us builds. The people understand this and are becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard by the decision-makers. The leaders say some things the people want to hear, but change never comes.”

Full Column on the Afghanistan War by Rep. Ron Paul (Rep-Texas) @ http://original.antiwar.com/paul/2009/12/07/who-wants-more-war/

The Libertarian Party (LP) today expressed its opposition to the Afghanistan war plans announced by President Barack Obama last night.

Wes Benedict, Executive Director of the LP, said, “Rush Limbaugh should buy Obama a nice cigar. The liberal president has done exactly what the conservative leader wanted: escalate the war.”

William Redpath, Chairman of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC), commented, “This is further evidence that the differences between Republicans and Democrats are, at most, rhetorical. This president, whose votes made him the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, has just announced an escalation of a foreign war. His campaign promise of ‘Change’ now sounds a lot more hollow.”

Full statement @ http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/libertarians-opposed-to-new-war-plans-for-afghanistan

“Donald Rumsfeld could have given the order to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, but he let him escape to Pakistan because he was afraid of angering U.S. allies in Afghanistan. This shocking report was published Sunday in the New York Times and several other outlets and is culled from information revealed in a detailed analysis released by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the crucial days in December 2001 when bin Laden and and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were pinned down in caves high up in the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan.”

Full column by Joe Wolverton II in The New American @ http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/2427-donald-rumsfeld-let-bin-laden-escape-into-pakistan

“What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on US soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the US, had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?”

“Most Americans would not stand for it. Yet the above hypothetical events are similar to what our government is doing in Pakistan.”

Full column by Rep. Ron Paul (Rep.-Tex) @ http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/003919.html