Capitalism is a tool. Fundamental principle: Any tool can be abused.

Dear Editor (10-21-19)
Nicolas Loris (Washington Times “Big Idea” column titled “Breathe free: Capitalism helps protect the environment”) ignores a fundamental principle regarding Capitalism. He is right in condemning the belief that capitalism is inherently evil in asserting “That’s like saying we should eliminate teachers to improve education.”
Education is like capitalism.  Both are tools that can improve our civilization’s health and sustainability. And, like any tool, it can be abused. Graduates of American universities are polar opposites of graduates of Pakistani madrassas.
Who (or what) is benefited by it -- or destroyed by it - is determined by the hearts, minds, and intentions of the users.
Thus capitalist greed for quarterly profits instead of the intention to improve the health of people and/or the environment is nothing short of murder. Americans die for lack of access to essential medical services while greedy capitalist use offshore accounts to avoid taxes or use their massive wealth to further rig an economic system to benefits themselves instead people or the environment.
There’s over $32 trillion dollars locked in such private offshore accounts stashed there kleptocrats, oligarchs, drug cartels, terrorists, and wealthy capitalists avoiding taxes.
What’s needed is an education and capitalist system that values people’s lives, our communities, and the environment instead of selfish wealth that benefits the whims and comfort of only the greedy.

US abandons Kurds...again! Principles vs Fundamental Principles

A reported US military principle supposedly holds that ‘elected leaders have a right to be wrong’.  And that ‘the military’s role is to execute orders’.     This principle is rightfully being tested by Trump’s rapid withdraw of US military support for the Kurds who were our best ally in fighting ISIS extremists in Syria and Iraq.


Retired General Joseph Votel, who stepped down this year as head of US Central Command, and other former top officers have issued sharp warnings in the days since the withdraw that left Kurdish forces exposed to Turkey’s better-armed military offensive and created another flood of refugees.  Votel recently coauthored an article in the Atlantic saying this “abandonment threatens to undo five years’ worth of fighting against ISIS and will severely damage American credibility and reliability.”


Retired Admiral William McRaven, who headed U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote in a recent opinion piece that the US is not powerful because of its military or economic might.  It’s because our “ideals of universal freedom and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the protectors of the less fortunate.”  He implied, that our President has betrayed that.


At what point do people in power and those who directly protect President Trump decide that his threat to both our Constitution and our national security is unsustainable?  The loss of our Constitution or our nation’s security may not be an existential threat to our union or the rest of humanity, but such threats do exist.   


At what point will those with the force of law (their pledge to defend the Constitution) or the law of force (the 2^nd Amendment) take action to remove the profoundly destabilizing force of a reactionary and morally rudderless leader?


Even without Trump’s dangerously delusional decision making our political system’s fundamental reliance on public voting is a dangerous problem we need to resolve.  Not because too few vote.  Or inevitable election tampering.   But because too many voters cast their ballot based on gut preference for a candidate or a single issue of self-interest instead of a researched and well-informed mindset of essential values, vital issues or a clear understanding of fundamental principles.  


This catastrophic flaw in our ‘Democratic system’ has entrapped both political parties into perpetuating multiple but irreversibly related unsustainable policies (deficit spending, increasing income inequality, global warming, species extinctions, immigration injustices, war on drugs, rising health care costs, subsidies on fossil fuel and large scale agriculture, an unjust criminal ‘justice’ system, legal political corruption, unrestrained campaign financing, social media, election reform, divided dysfunctional government…).  


At what point will our political systems and structures fail as a result of our culturally adopted principles of “peace through strength”, “market forces will solve the problem”, “freedom without accountability”, or “prayer will save us” – and give way to our finally codifying the fundamental principles that our nation was founded on.  Those “Truths’ that “We hold to be Self Evident” that “all” people are “created equal (according to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”) and “that they are endowed…with certain unalienable Rights” and “that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”?    Or, in summary, “Liberty and justice for all”.


There is a saying in the CIA that ‘there isn’t a problem that can’t be solved with a well place explosive’.  Let’s hope that it’s Trump’s fear of the ‘deep state’ or his moral decision that motivates him to abide by his pledge to protect the U.S. Constitution.  It should be increasingly obvious to him and his supporters that it is in everyone’s best interest to use the legal powers engineered into our Constitution by our founders instead of the violent powers they also offered us in the Amendments to it Constitution.


Just for the historical record, Trump was not the only U.S. President to abandon the Kurds.  President Woodrow Wilson had championed self-determination of the non-Turkish inhabitants of the defeated Ottoman Empire after World War I.  The leader of the Kurdish delegation arrived at the 1919 Paris peace talks with Wilson’s words in the pages of his Quran hoping his long-oppressed people would be granted their own state.  But Wilson signed off on the new borders that France and Britain pushed.  That divided the Kurds between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.   


In the 1970s, the US encouraged Iraqi Kurds to rebel against Saddam Hussein who was the primary rival of our strong ally, the Shah of Iran.  A year later the Shah and Saddam struck a deal and the US cut off support for the Kurds.  Thousands were slaughtered by the Iraqi military.  


After Desert Storm in 1991 President H.W. Bush hinted of U.S. support for an uprising against Saddam.  Iraqi Kurds and Shiites did rise up, but American support never came, and they were gassed and gunned down by the tens of thousands while the world looked the other way. 

Notice the pattern?   There remains a fundamental flaw of the primary (not fundamental) principle of international law.  The United Nations only ‘legal’ capacity is protecting the rights of nations, not human rights within each nation’s borders.  


The fundamental principle of government according to Thomas Paine’s “Common-Sense” pamphlet, is the protection of human freedom and security.   This continues to be ignored today by most governments in the world, including the US.  And it will not end well for anyone (even the US) given the evolution of weapons and war.

Kurds in Syria betrayed by the world. Not just Trump.

Kurds in Syria have been betrayed by Trump and all US policy makers…from both political parties for decades.  The Kurds should have their own land...or at least be protected by some kind of police force dedicated to protecting human rights instead of national sovereignty.


Anyone closely following the situation in norther Syria must have strained their necks with head spinning and gone blind with eye rolling.  Warnings of blowback by experienced foreign policy and military leaders is consistent with uniformed US military service members who fought along side the Kurds in dismantling the last acre of the ISIS geographic califate and guarding ISIS prisoners.  Many of these US troops are sickened by Trump’s decision and initial approval of Turkey’s incursion which has given aid to four of our greatest adversaries (Russia, Iran, Syria, and the thousands of remaining ISIS fighters).  And, damaged relations with some of our closest allies (Israel and many NATO countries not to mention the Kurds and others in N. Syria fighting ISIS remnants). 

But the larger context is missed by most.  Syria’s problems have always existed but the country fell into chaos after Assad refused to assist Syrian farmers driven off their farms after 3 years of draught .  They migrated into the capital hoping for relief…then suffered from the Syrian government’s lack of response to their needs.  It was Assad’s forces violently crushed their protests that sparking the civil war.  The war that ISIS took advantage of…which we responded to by assisting the Kurd’s on the battlefield. 

There are several fundamental principles that have been violated that are continuing to contribute to the growing chaos.

#1.  The protection of human rights continues to be tertiary to the protection of national sovereignty and US short term interests.  Turkey’s right to invade Syrian territory fearing (with no actual proof) that the Kurds in Norther Syria were supporting the PKK which is labeled a terrorist organization, but in their own view a liberation movement in respond to a brutal Turkish government.

In reality, the largest population of people in N. Syria is not the Kurds. It is mostly Arabs.  Kurds are the second largest group with smaller factions of Christians and Turks.  There is distinctions made by Turkish air and artillery bombardments.  

#2.  The lack of any global police force to protect any innocent people in Northern Syria will results in even more refugees destabilizing the region and even nations beyond the region.  Trump’s tweets “We’re not a police force" in Northern Syria.   His tweet reflects the reality that we live in an increasingly chaotic and crime ridden world where war, invasions, WMD proliferation, genocide, assassinations, mass murder, lethal sanctions, human trafficking, and widespread corruption are as endless as the wars we are now involved in.  

#3.  Crimes committed by any sides in this conflict will likely not be prosecuted in courts… and only drive future conflicts, grievances, retaliations and fear based unjust lethal actions.   It appears flawed “realistic principles” will continue to be the guide to US foreign policy if the email today from The Center for New American Security is any indication of future military actions.   The email included a link to its November/December 2019 print edition of Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-10-15/nonintervention-delusion .  CNAS CEO Richard Fontaine essay there “addresses the most frequently expressed concerns about U.S. military interventions and concludes that, nevertheless, the use of military force will remain a key component of U.S. foreign policy.”  "That, in turn," Fontaine writes, "requires applying the right lessons from recent decades." Drawing from the recent history of U.S. military involvement and acknowledging the enduring concerns about forceful intervention, Fontaine argues, "Policymakers should accept that the use of military force will remain an essential tool of U.S. strategy." Identifying five common arguments raised by opponents of U.S. military intervention, Fontaine concludes that realistic principles should characterize America's approach to the use of military force. Rather than wholly reject the use of military force as a foreign policy tool.  He argues, policymakers should embrace guidelines for U.S. military interventions that prioritize clear objectives for the use of force, shared presidential and congressional support, the commitment of U.S. allies, and the reasonable expectation that the benefits of intervention would outweigh the costs. Zero mention of justice or the protection of innocent people as the highest priority.  In other words.  War as usual…accepting collateral damage when necessary.  No ‘rule of law’.  Just the law of force, with some improved care not to kill civilians.

Fontaine argues that accepting the possibility of a long-term military commitment should form a crucial part of the U.S. approach to the use of force. To this end, he writes, "No grand strategy can be built on the presumption that military intervention is mostly an erroneous activity of yesteryear, rather than an enduring feature of U.S. foreign policy."  In other words, more ‘endless war’ while the evolution of weapons continues to work against us.  Amid all the pledges to dial back intervention and end forever wars, he adds, “Far more subtlety is needed when it comes to considering if, when, and how the United States should use force abroad.”   In other words, ‘no force of law’ or rule of law.

Imagine how safe US cities and streets would be if there were no police, and not enforcement capacity to protect innocent lives.   No system to hold law breakers accountable?  Would traffic lights, speed limits, and directional signs be useful in keeping the public safe?   That’s the world we have today.

How well would global aviation systems work if there were no FFA holding airlines accountable for crashes?   Could we rely on the honesty of the corporate airline inspectors to give us honest results of the cause of each crash?  Police and accountability of both citizens and the police are essential elements in any safe, reliable, and sustainable form government. 

According to Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense Pamphlet” protecting “the freedom and security” of the people is the only legitimate purpose of government.   With no government in place…we can expect neither freedom nor security in any reliable fashion.

'Game Changer' movie! OMG! Must watch for your own health and the planets.

My wife and I just watched a new movie called “Game Changer”.  OMG!  It will change the behavior of most men if they watch it (hint…it talks about improving erections).  This combined with the multiple other benefits to health, fitness, job performance, combat readiness, wise economic investing, protection of endangered species, and combating global warming... it’s a movie everyone should watch.



https://gamechangersmovie.com/



And, this movie is one of the best examples of how our culture has led us to believe (and our political system to legislate) false hoods based on alternative (but rational sounding) principles that are entirely inconsistent with fundamental principles (the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God). 



Any competent scientist or engineer should appreciate our need to engineer a new system of national and global governance if we really want to prevent wasting time and resources reaction to catastrophic disasters.  Codifying fundamental principles into US foreign and domestic policy is essential to preventing of most of the problems we face.  

World Mental Health Day Oct 10, 2019.

Is the world getting crazier, or is that just a mental malfunction?


We keep doing the same things over and over again…Trump and us…expecting a different result.  

Change is coming…but it won’t be an improvement until we use our minds for solving problems instead of defending faulty principles.


https://wfmh.global/world-mental-health-day/


How healthy can we be if we are well adjusted to a profoundly sick society?

How can we be mentally healthy if our mind has the capacity to believe anything?

And not do what we know we should.

Or get distracted from important things by trivial things?


Here’s a hypothesis.

Our mind evolved as a problem-solving tool allowing us to find food, a mate, shelter, and develop tools for making our lives easier and initially safer.  But most of those primal needs/desires are mostly taken care of now and our minds somehow started protecting ideas/concepts/beliefs that are ultimately harmful to our body and spirit.  And eventually lethal to our minds capacity to remember what’s really important and use what we know to solve important and increasingly urgent problems.

Too many people will now kill and/or die to protect a belief, idea, or concept.  We will go broke, weak, or ill from investing our limited time and money in things that only hurt us in the long run, as well as those we love, our nation, and even nature that we ultimately depend on for survival.

Our minds are now challenged by fake news and eventually deep fakes.  We debate issues passionately believing everything we think. And, hating those that disagree with us.


Making matters worse, we have forgotten that there are "Truths" that "we hold" to be "Self-evident”… that all people are created equal and endowed with certain rights.  


The dysfunction in our government and our democracy is going to get worse before it gets better.  Why?
Because we are more likely to suffer things that are sufferable…until motivated to change by significant pain and suffering, than to make them right before suffering.


The CIA has a saying “There’s no problem that can’t be solved with a well placed explosive.”  

We would be so much wiser to solve problems using our minds guided by our hearts (the Golden Rule) instead of our wallet, comforts, or foolish ideologies.

AEI report offers new (to them) means of defeating terrorism.

https://www.criticalthreats.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Beyond-Counterterrorism.pdf

AEI resident fellow Katherine Zimmerman’s latest publication, Beyond Counterterrorism, offers a new strategy for countering the Salafi-jihadi movement.  Perhaps they should consider supporting and achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Counterterrorism may have "stopped another 9/11 attack on the US homeland, but it has not stopped al Qaeda and the Islamic State from growing much stronger than they were in 2001." 

The US has effectively "targeted al Qaeda’s and the Islamic State’s terrorist networks and with partner military operations denied them control over large territories and populations. Yet al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as part of the Salafi-jihadi movement, have more territory, more fighters, and more capabilities than ever before."

"Winning the forever war" has always required the adoption of a new strategy to weaken the Salafi-jihadi ideology.  And, not just reduce the terrorist threat.

Zimmerman argues what has been known for decades by others.  She suggest that the US must reframe its approach to counter the Salafi-jihadi movement.  She states working with partners, the US must seek to sever Jihadist ties with local communities by offering communities a viable alternative to the Salafi-jihadi movement.  Dah!  

Ms. Zimmerman and AEI now believe this is what’s needed to “weaken and ultimately isolate the movement.” The terrorist vanguard has effectively “penetrated local gov­ernance and institutions in some communities by strengthened their ties to local communities and expanded significantly across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia believing its relationships with Sunni Muslim communities are its source of strength.

These relationships and influence within local communities enable the Salafi-jihadi movement to achieve its strategic objectives of transforming the Muslim world through imposing its form of governance… building “relationships through delivering basic goods or services, including defending the community.”   Wow.  They just figured this out? 

“Al Qaeda fixed sewers and delivered water and fuel in Yemen. Its courts in Somalia and Mali offer the fair resolution of local disputes. Its operatives dispatched to Syria to organize against the Assad regime. The Salafi-jihadi vanguard then uses its local ties to com­munities to start shaping them in its image and to strengthen itself by securing resources and sanctuary and building a position from which to eventually over­throw Muslim governments.”

They do “not require that the community share its ideological con­viction but seeks to expand its adherents over time.”

War “conditions have weakened communities and made them vulnerable to the Salafi-jihadi vanguard’s preda­tory efforts”.  AEI scholars now be believe that “The requirement is not to resolve all local conflicts or strengthen governance globally but to target the approach where the Salafi-jihadi vanguard is operating”.

AEI thinkers are failing to understand that terrorist migrate to any community lacking effective governance, justice, and basic services.  These thinkers to get it right when they state that providing “communities a viable alternative to the vanguard empowers the community to reject them.”

AEI thinkers assert “The US should attack the means by which the vanguard has built its relationships with communi­ties, which will weaken the movement and relegate it again to the fringes of society.” This only makes sense if it means improving the living conditions of the communities before al Qaeda comes.

This certainly sounds a lot like “development” work that progressives have been pushing for decades.  It was officially recommended in the 1980 bi partisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger as a way to reduce the future appeal of terrorism.

https://www.criticalthreats.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Beyond-Counterterrorism.pdf

Perhaps AEI will now be more interested in (and even support) the idea of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a way of really preventing the spread of terrorism instead assuming it can be beat militarily.

National Sovereignty over human rights will prove disasterous.

In marking the 95th birthday of former President Jimmy Carter most praises of  his leadership failed to emphasis his wisdom in putting the protection of human rights globally at the top of US foreign policy priorities.

His 1980 bipartisan Presidential Commission on World Hunger was unanimous in predicting the increased lethal and costly global problems that would threaten our national security if we failed to eliminate the worst aspects of global hunger and poverty by the year 2000. We failed, and the threats just keep coming.   Even the US military and intelligence agencies agree that global warming exacerbates many of the elements it considers in defending our freedom and security.

With all the attention the UN, progressives, and wise conservatives are giving Climate Change it does appear that the UN is more devoted to “Saving the planet, not the people: The U.N. places climate above all” as a September 2019 Washington Times editorial asserts.

But most Americans (liberal and conservative) fail to understand (or remember) that the UN was created purposefully with a limited capacity to put the protection of national sovereignty above all else.  It remains a confederation of states with no power of enforcement. 

When the US federation of states originally gained the power of enforcement if erred in putting the sovereignty of states rights over human rights which resulted in a bloody civil war that killed more American than all the wars our nation has fought in since then…combined.  The past codification of that profoundly flawed principle continues to haunt our nation today in spite of its national correction.

Modern International law's incapacity to enforce any human rights is perpetuating multiple threats.
It’s unfortunate that the mainstream media offers zero mention of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the nations and hundreds of organizations of the world have agreed upon. It remains the only comprehensive approach to nearly every threat that humans, the environment, and nations face today.   

Each of these goals deserve the greatest sustained attention from every government, corporation, political party, media source, and UN agency until they are achieved on or before the 2030 deadline.  

Only by putting the protection of human rights and the environment above the rights of nations will we be able to protect our cherished freedoms and our own national security.  

The SDGs are effectively the only comprehensive approach that can addresses the root causes of nearly every injustice that fuels the threats we face.  The only other option is to take the chance of creating a global bill of rights and give the UN the capacity to enforce it.

Otherwise, as General Mattes suggested, "we need to buy more bullets".  And anyone with at least one functional brain cell knows that bullets won't stop pandemics, cyber-bioweapons-drone attacks, extreme weather conditions, species extinctions...and ultimate our own existence as a civilized species.