A new Libertarian position on ISIS

We're now walking a fine line between the non-aggression principle and playing witness to murder.  While the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria hasn't attacked the United States homeland, neither were they ever libertarian-style freedom fighters simply trying to liberate Iraq from an occupying army.  They themselves were a conquering and occupying army trying to form a new state!

While ISIS may not be an existential threat to the United States--they don't have the power to destroy America--they certainly are an imminent threat.  They just keep growing and conquering and planting new cells in countries around the world.  Worse yet, they efficiently murder civilians at an industrial capacity not seen since the Yugoslav Wars.

I believe in blowback.  I believe that the U.S. government's actions abroad directly fanned the flames of Islamic terrorism worldwide.  However, while not intervening in future conflicts will prevent future blowback, nonintervention does nothing to dissipate the blowback that already exists.  So while the ISIS terrorist quasi-state may not an existential threat, they are an imminent threat and will one day directly attack Americans (and not in the Middle East).

I've seen what they do.  I've read the numbers of the literally tens of thousands of civilians they've murdered, including women and children.  I read the statistics of their murders and racketeering they boast about in their corporate-style Annual Report.  One doesn't need to buy into false flag propaganda to objectively match words with action, history with current events, to deduce that this terror group is here to stay until totally destroyed from the outside.

Libertarians too often hide behind the concept of nonintervention.  Well, here's the deal: no country or population ever hated the U.S. for saving people from being massacred.  They hated the U.S. for sticking around after liberation and then dictating to the people how they would live, what type of government they'd have, and what corporations they'd do business with.

This is but one reason why the U.S. government should no longer intervene in the war in Iraq and Syria.  Unfortunately, little good ever came from U.S. military intervention in the 21st century.  But intervention by individual volunteers is a different story.

Many may say that the war against ISIS, now encompassing Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya, is not a war any libertarian should support.  But here's my question to them: are you against a just cause and a just war, or are you specifically against the State intervening in foreign affairs?  When I say "individual volunteers" I mean that government should be left behind and individual free people should do what they know to be right, not taking anyone's tax dollars to do so.  There's a difference.

Many will say that ISIS was covertly founded, funded, and armed by the CIA.  Others say they're the Mossad's baby.  Most people accept that ISIS is the Al Qaeda splinter group--formerly Al Qaeda in Iraq--who broke away from Bin Laden's organization to wage sectarian war on Shia Muslims and establish a global Sunni state.

Frankly, it doesn't matter which government or entity is responsible for incubating this terrorist quasi-state.  These butchers need to be stopped.  As much as I loathe making this distinction, there's a huge difference between collateral damage in an airstrike that specifically targets a combatant, and deliberately beheading children for refusing to renounce Jesus.  There's a huge difference between civilians being caught in the crossfire and for the enemy to routinely march 300 civilians at a time into an open field and mow them down.

Evil exists in this world and it must be stopped by We the People, especially if our own government is at fault.

The best people to stop the butchers are: 1) the armies of the countries ISIS invaded; 2) the various guerrilla groups and citizen militias in the invaded countries; 3) international volunteer combatants, and volunteer aid workers; and 4) private security contractors hiring themselves to guard populations or assets in the combat zones.

The international volunteers fighting ISIS are heroes to me, reminiscent of the American guerrillas who individually took it upon themselves to fight the British Army from Concord to Boston.  The aid workers in this war also have a special place in my heart, reminding me of the missionaries in World War II who made it their mission to protect Chinese children from Japanese soldiers.

Keep the government out of Iraq and Syria.  Let volunteers and the private sector change the war effort from an imperial proxy war to a libertarian people's war of international liberation.  And when the day comes that ISIS is extinguished, let the international volunteers get the hell out of there and leave "nation building" to the actual nations!

Five Libertarian Ideas #14 - Muslims, Mexican border, Libyan militias, Bundy Ranch

Pat Dollard's call "for Americans to start slaughtering Muslims in the streets"

Folks, just to clarify, the kind of behavior this gentleman calls for is NOT acceptable. People are being slaughtered by criminals in Chicago yet this guy wants to punish Americans for the actions of extremists on the other side of the planet. This service member's blind hatred may be and probably is tied to extreme combat PTSD from the Middle East. If so, then this man is mentally not all there and should be pitied and helped, not shunned and scorned. -4/4


Mexican soldiers invading Arizona

Mexican Army troops working for drug cartels have infiltrated American soil at least 20 times in recent years. The most recent incursion happened between lightly armed US Border Patrol agents and heavily armed Mexican soldiers. WHY are our troops protecting outposts in other countries in undeclared wars when armed criminal insurgents are criss-crossing our country's border??? -4/4

Libya, the militia state

The US/UN intervention in the Libyan Civil War brought an end to the war so quickly... the rebel government couldn't consolidate power or establish any sort of legitimacy. Now Libya is carved up by 300+ militias, at least one of which is selling oil to North Korea. Great... Oh hey, have we caught Kony yet? -4/4


Bundy Ranch standoff

If the Bundy Ranch invasion ignites a freaking armed uprising, I'm gonna be one REALLY pissed off dude. At everybody. Liberty is worth fighting for; cows and land are not worth dying for. We've had too much death and destruction since 2001. I'd much rather try Gandhi's methods for resisting tyranny than John Brown's. -4/11
　


Bundy Ranch standoff, continued

Dear God, help us all. As more federal law enforcement arrives with a military-grade arsenal, militia groups from all over are flocking to Nevada for an armed stand off. I don't want there to be any killing. Peaceful resistance has not been exhausted. I want the ALL feds and ALL the militias alike to come home to their families. -4/11

 

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Mexican soldiers photo by "BSMFBSMF" in the public domain. Militarized police photo by Tony Webster courtesy of CC BY-SA license.  Both photos obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

FIVE LIBERTARIAN IDEAS #5 - Mexican self-defense militias, Disney movies, radical Islam, etc.

Weed clinic vs. drug cartel

Before medical marijuana was legalized in Arizona, underground medical clinics had little choice but to buy the drug in bulk from the Sinaloa cartel. When the drug was legalized for medicinal use, requiring clinics to grow their own supply, many clinic operators were assaulted and some murdered. This means that legalization of the drug in the U.S. is a threat to the cartels' finances and their authority. Let's peacefully neuter these terrorist organizations! –12/24

Christmas, Christianity, Free Will

Free will is a cornerstone of being human. Freedom of choice is a cornerstone of libertarianism. Christmas is one of my two favorite holidays. Today we observe the birth of One who came into the world to give us a choice: whether we would move forward or be left behind. Regardless of one's beliefs, we all have a choice, and I utilized my freedom to make MY choice. Merry Christmas! –12/25

Mexico’s self-defense militias

Murray Rothbard describes the militiamen at Concord as fighting a guerrilla war of national liberation. In Mexico's current civil war, towns are rising up to fight their oppressors. They've defied gun control, declared their communities autonomous, and replaced the corrupt militarized police with local militias. No group of people better represents libertarian national defense and self-defense than these patriots. –12/26

Grimm’s vs. Disney

I wish America grew up on Grimm's fairy tales instead of Disney. Our society has UNREALISTIC expectations of living happily ever after and everything being magical. Women want to be treated like princesses. Instead, I think men ought to treat women like queens... A queen ranks above a common man, but like queens, women must be poised, strong, and capable of being leaders. –12/27

Islam, terrorism, drug prohibition

Muslims are not a threat to our national security--RADICAL Islam is. The difference between Muslims and Al Qaeda is the same difference between Christians and the Ku Klux Klan. But the BIGGEST threat to our national security is paramilitary drug cartels in Mexico forging alliances with American street and prison gangs. The reason they have so much power is the same reason American gangsters grew powerful in the 1920s: GOVERNMENT PROHIBITION. –12/28

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UPOEG photo courtesy of enca dot com.

NO War with Iran!

While I disagreed with Rick Santorum on a number of items on his presidential campaign platform, one detail seemed to constantly stick out and it bothered me intensely.  Santorum had, and perhaps still has, a very hostile attitude toward Iran.  His statements led me to believe that under his presidency, the Global War on Terror would expand to include a new front in Iran.

2009 Iran election protests

Some may say that “we’ve been at war with Iran since 1979” and all that militaristic baloney, but the fact is that we really haven’t.  Our country’s armed forces are no more at war with Iran than with the Mexican drug cartels or the Canadian syrup smugglers.  Yes, I’m certain that the Ayatollah’s regime looks the other way as jihadists organize in rural Iran and make their way from Iraq to Afghanistan.  Such has been the case for years, but the very fact that the ex-Mujahadeen Taliban are armed with CIA-provided weapons from the 1980s is a testimony that our country really ought not to intervene in foreign conflicts when they don’t pose a direct danger to us.  After all, arming the Mujahadeen ended up arming the now-Taliban, and arming either side in the Syrian civil war will either support a bloody dictatorship or a rebellion whose ranks is rife with jihadists.

There are many reasons I can name why our country shouldn’t go to war against Iran.  The first is that we’re financially drained and our young veterans are incredibly war-weary after nearly twelve years in Afghanistan, Iraq, and North Africa.  Another is that I believe in the concept of blowback.  The combination of the CIA’s operations in 1980s Afghanistan and the permanent occupation of Saudi Arabia (the Muslim holy land) after Desert Storm both resulted in Al Qaeda’s war declaration on America, as well as the capability of radical Islamists to plan and carry out attacks on the West from Afghanistan.

Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army—a Shi’a Islamist militia—gave the coalition untold amounts of grief in southern Iraq.  Lord only knows what fragile stability in Iraq, paid for by the blood of American, British, and Iraqi troops—will be undermined if Sadr’s militia answered the call to help their Shi’a brothers in Iran.

I remember Santorum protesting against Ron Paul’s opinions by trying to spout out the militant nationalistic rhetoric that “we’ve been at war with Iran since 1979!”  Paul had an excellent point: the Iranian people’s grievances against American intervention pre-date the Ayatollah’s propaganda to 1953.  In the name of waging the Cold War, the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, replacing him with a puppet prime minister and giving dictatorial power to the Shah, Mohammed Reza.  In the eyes of the Iranian people, it was America that instigated the dictatorship of 1953-79.  In their memory, they’re not blind to the fact that the Reagan administration supported Ba’athist Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.  If we go to war against them, it will play directly into the xenophobic propaganda of the Ayatollah’s regime, and it will rally Iranian patriots to hold their nose and support the Ayatollah in fighting for their country.

However, there’s one reason in particular why I wish to avoid that war at all reasonable cost.  During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran sustained the majority of casualties.  The Iranian war machine was able to last as long as it did because Ayatollah Khomeini founded the Basij—the national militia—three million strong by 1985.  One of the main duties of the Basij at the front lines was to serve as human shields.

For every offensive, there were thousands of teenage boys, many as young as ten and twelve, who marched forward in columns toward the enemy.  Their job was to martyr themselves on the battlefields by stopping bullets with their bodies in order to draw the fire away from the army behind them.  They did their job exceptionally well and hundreds of thousands of Iranian teenagers died that way.

Scenes from the Iran-Iraq War

I disagree with their cause for dying.  Most of them were convinced they were simultaneously fighting for their country and for Islam.  I, on the other hand, am a Bible-believing Christian.  In Matthew 28 Jesus gives us the great commission to go to the corners of the world and teach the Good News of the Resurrection and afterlife.  I know for a fact that if my country goes to war against Iran, there will be many thousands of teenage boys meeting our troops at the border.  These boys’ job will be to serve as bullet catchers, and they’ll do their job exceptionally well.

This war with Iran will kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians—Basij, poor-bastard draftees in the army, and many civilians through collateral damage.  Not only will these human beings, created in the image of God, be slaughtered by the combined war machines of two countries, but they will never hear the Gospel.  They will never have the opportunity to be saved.  They will forever be robbed of the privilege of answering the great commission themselves, teaching other brothers and sisters about Jesus Christ and living in peace.  To make matters worse, dead people cannot build a libertarian society.  I don’t want these people to suffer or die in another decade-long war.

I know many people suffer under the Ayatollah’s regime today, but we must not free them through military might.  I believe the people who will free Iran are the Iranians themselves.  These people will be the internet hackers who bring Western books, movies, music, and ideas into a country where orthodoxy is the law.  These people will be the brave missionaries who risk their lives to teach the Bible and story of Jesus of Nazareth—whom I call the Christ—to the hungry souls in the Underground Church.  These people will be the black marketers, the rebels who ignore such anti-liberty policies like bans and embargoes and import merchandise to sell to Iranians under the table.

How many times now have they taken to the streets to protest against their government?  How many more times will their protests be silenced by riot police and the Basij?  It can’t be much longer until Khameini dies of old age, or the Iranian people rise up successfully.  Frankly, I’m in favor of new ideas—religious, political, and social—being the driving force behind the New Iranian Revolution.  That’s why I say NO war with Iran.

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Iran protest image by Milad Avazbeigi and used via CC BY 2.0 license.  Iran-Iraq War montage courtesy of Wikipedia and used via CC BY 3.0 license.  Both images were obtained from Wikimedia Commons.