TGIF: Without the State, Who'd Drag Us into Other People's Wars?

This article was posted shortly before the International Court of Justice ruled provisionally that Israel's Gaza military operation can plausibly be described as acts outlawed by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The ICJ ordered Israel to take all actions possible to prevent the acts forbidden by the convention. But the court did not order a ceasefire. A full ruling will come later. The complaint against Israel had been filed by the Republic of South Africa.

What’s more off-putting than seeing U.S. government officials and their spokesmen trying to wriggle out of embarrassing questions about American support for Israel’s continuing atrocities against the people of the Gaza Strip? That's the location of just the latest conflict into which we Americans have been dragged by our caring rulers without our consent. The previous one, in Ukraine, is still going on, though largely forgotten. Isn't the state a wonderful thing? 

Theoretically, it's illegal for the U.S. government to give weapons to governments that will use them to violate people's rights. But that is exactly what the U.S. government has done for Israel over many decades. Hence the U.S. government's bobbing and weaving over Israel's unambiguous war crimes. Our "public servants" have to evade. What else can they do? They can’t acknowledge that Israel's policy is to systematically kill, maim, and starve large numbers of innocent noncombatants and to destroy their homes and society. Still, those officials can’t deny it outright either because, given what we mere citizens can easily learn from a variety of credible sources online, they would look like the know-nothing damn fools they are. So they subtly acknowledge the crimes by politely suggesting that Israel try not to kill so many noncombatants, even as they insist Israel's army remains the most moral army in the world. (Here is a video summary of the horrors that the U.S. government is abetting in Gaza.)

Why should Americans be forced to underwrite this nightmare for Gazans or other foreign conflicts? It certainly doesn't protect Americans -- on the contrary. (See 9/11.)  What makes it worse is that the forced assistance is crucial to the aggression. Israel could not continue to destroy Gaza if the U.S. government stopped sending ammunition, population-annihilating bombs, and spare parts. We Americans make the massive war crimes possible.

And it could get worse by bringing more direct U.S. intervention. The U.S. government is bombing Yemen -- without a congressional declaration of war. (Not that it would make the bombing better.) The U.S. military is also striking Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq because they have hit U.S. forces. But why are U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq? Why is Iran a player in Iraq? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. 

Even though we haven't consented to any of this -- individually, I mean, not by majority vote -- it's a shameful mark on the country. No doubt, some aggrieved people, who perhaps have lost children and parents in the onslaught, want vengeance. Like Osama bin Laden, they think the American people control U.S. foreign policy. Who can blame them for thinking that? American rulers, by bragging about democracy, say that all the time. It's absurd, but that fallacy is not confined to jihadists. American and Israeli politicians annihilate people for acts they did not commit or consent to.

This all adds up to a strong indictment against government per se. What other organization can steal our money and use it to help destroy other societies in our name without consent? Embroiling us in foreign conflicts is one of the government's tools, with many benefits to the political class and its clients. Although people with bad intentions will be attracted to that power, interventionism will be tragically misguided even when well-intended, as perhaps it often is. The interventionists can never really know what they are doing. Unintended consequences will abound, and optimistic predictions will quickly turn sour. No constitution could permanently curb, much less abolish that power because every constitution will have to be interpreted. Who do you think will do the interpreting?

What can conscientious objectors do? Stopping traffic at rush hour doesn’t work. Closing down railway terminals and sitting in at government offices are no better. Your meager one vote is impotent. In the short term, I see no way out. Over the long term? Try to convince enough people that we can't afford government either monetarily or morally.

TGIF: Games Politicians Play

Except for the civic religion on ostentatious display at the annual presidential state of the union address, one can hardly think of a reason for the tradition at all. It's not as though we learn something substantive or even hear a truthful material claim. (Yes, it could be useful in launching a president's reelection campaign.)

I'm sure someone somewhere has pointed out that democracy is not only a religion but also the opiate of the masses. When too few people could swallow the silly claim that the head of state represented the applicable deity, a new way was needed to assure the people's enduring acquiescence in their own subjugation. What better way than by having them believe that the power rested in their own hands? They had only to use it wisely (that is, by choosing those whom history if not Yahweh had ordained to rule). If they didn't, the fault was theirs alone. Thus no need for revolution or regicide. They needed only to traipse to the polls when called and participate more conscientiously in the collective exercise of their sovereignty. Helping to articulate and then loyally abiding by the General Will was the essence of freedom, after all. So stop complaining and participate civically!

The rest follows. The rites and holidays serve to remind us of our purported awesome power. Each year, then, the president goes before a joint session of Congress to report on the state of our union, with the cabinet (minus one) and the august justices of the Supreme Court duly assembled. The presidential box is graced by people who, for some very poor reason, allow themselves to be politically exploited by the occupant of the White House.

From there, it's all pretty routine, and Joe Biden stuck to the script. Take his boast about creating a record number of jobs, shrinking the deficit, controlling inflation, and the like. We've heard it countless times before. If something has gotten worse, say, crime, vow to make it better but accept no responsibility.

Never mind that the job growth (attributable to enterprise) was predictable with the waning of the Covid-19 pandemic and other factors beyond the power even of the Oval Office. Never mind that huge budget deficits loom as far as the eye can see -- Washington is addicted to spending our money -- and that the debt limit has again been reached and will soon be raised. The sky's the limit, you know. That justifies forecasts of more Fed inflation and malinvestment, then recession and involuntary joblessness.

Never mind that the federal budget line labeled "interest on the debt" continues to increase and will tower over ever more spending categories. Never mind that Biden's Buy American policy means that the government will intentionally spend more of our money than necessary in procuring materials for infrastructure projects it should have nothing to do with anyway. (And leave foreigners with fewer dollars with which to buy what politically unfavored Americans make.)

Never mind that newly proposed price controls and regulations will lower the living standard of everyone, lower-income people included. And never mind that "illegal" immigrants aren't the problem with the welfare state or the source of fentanyl. (That would be the misnamed war on drugs.)

Mind none of that. Just jump to your feet multiple times and applaud. That goes even for you good folks at home -- just in case your smart TV is watching you back. (I'm just sayin'.)

I did enjoy the lively give-and-take that went on when Biden said that “some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset.” Republicans were heard to shout back, "No!" and "Liar."

That's another game they all play: pretending that Social Security and Medicare won't crash -- sunset is too gentle a verb -- on their own without any help from Congress. Both programs will be insolvent in the short term. The implicit crash provision was built into the original legislation in the 1930s and 1960s.

But before the people had a chance even to wonder if the chief executive was indeed lying, he engaged in classic misdirection by saying, “Let’s all agree — and we apparently are — let’s stand up for seniors.”

Everyone -- yes, everyone -- got to their feet and applauded. He might as well have said, "Let's all agree that the law of gravity has been suspended!"

The Republicans of course have their own overlapping game. They brand themselves as the party of limited government (but not of limited military or surveillance) and fiscal responsibility and expect us to pay no attention to the small men behind the curtain who spend oodles of our money just like their opponents do. They are bad wizards and bad men. Since raising taxes would go against the brand, they are, despite their incessant squawking, secret agents of deficit spending, which means inflation and recession. Of course, many Republicans -- MAGA and the other denominations -- thrill to the words Buy American and to any industrial policy as long as the prefix strategic is attached. That's music to their ears. And they don't want immigrants polluting the culture or labor market. The populists of left and right are substantially of one mind.

How reassuring that it's business as usual in old D.C. Thank goodness the adults are back in charge. The civic religion can proceed with its rituals mostly intact.

TGIF: Sam Harris on Saving Democracy from Voters

Neuroscientist/philosopher Sam Harris caused quite a stir recently by defending the social networks' conspiracy (his word) to suppress news coverage of Joe Biden's son Hunter's smoking-gun laptop shortly before Election Day 2020. Harris said the suppression was justified because Donald Trump was such a threat to America that he had to be defeated whatever the cost to the election's integrity.

In other words, according to Harris, such tampering is okay as long as he deems it necessary to save American democracy from the voters.

The social networks are privately owned, of course, but remember that Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that the FBI warned him, shortly before the New You Post broke the laptop story, that unspecified major Russian disinformation aimed at the election was about to surface. The authenticity of the laptop, with its damaging emails about Hunter Biden's lucrative business dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese entities while his father was the vice president, was known early on and has since been confirmed by others. Even the New York Times now concedes it. Allegations of Russian election tampering had as much merit in 2020 as they had in 2016, when Trump was portrayed by his critics as a Russian stooge.

But with or without prodding from the FBI, the social network operators, should not have suppressed the laptop story for a host of obvious reasons. These businesses acquired huge numbers of participants on the promise that they would be open forums. When they first began to interfere with that process, the networks let users down. To do this during a presidential election is a particularly egregious disservice. Why do people still depend on them for information? (No, this does not justify antitrust action.)

I leave it to others to debate whether Harris's assessment of Trump is accurate. I'm more interested in the principle Harris has set out.

Although I am as far from Trump fandom as anyone could be, the first question I would ask Harris is whether he considers himself the only person wise and trustworthy enough to decide if a candidate is sufficiently threatening to justify concerted suppression of unflattering information about the other candidate. If he says yes, then he's as self-centered as Trump. If he says no, he might do us the courtesy of spelling out how that decision would be made. Does he want a constitutional office created? How would the decider be chosen?

If he were to answer my questions, I would move on to this one: what makes him think that if his principle was adopted, he would like its future applications? Supreme Court justices have often disappointed the presidents who appointed them. For similar reasons, the decision makers anointed to carry out the Harris principle might somewhere along the way disappoint him. Harris must be a lousy chess player because he doesn't think even two moves ahead.

Still, Harris's remarks do raise an interesting dilemma. It's not a new conundrum: what if democracy looks to be on a suicide course? Does the "sacred" principle of majoritarianism, which libertarians as individualists abhor, extend to the principle itself? Or is it proper to cripple democracy to save it?

Small-d democrats might say, "Yes -- temporarily." But there's the rub. The future is uncertain. Temporary in intent is not necessarily temporary in fact. Governments taught us that long ago. We know that people don't like to give up power, as Lord Acton taught us. Power doesn't only tend to corrupt; it attracts the already corrupt. Wouldn't that suggest that democracy should never be suspended or tampered with in the present for fear that the winner of an election might suspend or tamper with it in the future? What say you, Sam Harris?

If this problem is addressed only after it arises, it's probably too late. The time to think about it is before a democracy with few real limits on power is launched. The War Games line, spoken by the computer after learning that nuclear war is futile, applies: "The only winning move is not to play."

It's not as if the original classical liberals and their libertarian descendants didn't warn us. Individualist political economists and social philosophers long ago pointed to the dangers of a democratic state with the power to meddle in all aspects of people's lives. For these thinkers, the whole point of laissez-faire in the age of democracy was to keep elected rulers, and thus the electorate itself, out of our private peaceful productive affairs so that the contest for political power would not become socially and economically disruptively cutthroat. When the government is just about omnipotent, everyone will want to get to their hands on it -- if only for defensive purposes.

Even if those pioneering political economists did not want to dispense with government entirely (a few did), they understood that society essentially runs itself without a heavy-handed state because people generally understand that their best interests are served through cooperation with others. Thomas Paine, for example, in Rights of Man wrote:

Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.

Thus, at most, governments should be kept on a short leash, with their powers dispersed and their missions held to the barest minimum necessary to protect the peace, that is, individual rights. If we can eliminate the state altogether, even better!

What the good liberals didn't tell us -- because there's no magic formula -- is how to keep government to the bare minimum. Constitutions are no guarantee, are they? Today's libertarians are still working on cracking that nut. Most people are not going to read books on political philosophy or economics, even something as accessible as Frédéric Bastiat's The Law. So somehow we must strive to create a taboo against asking the government to do anything more than keep the peace in ways that respect everyone's rights. How do we do that?

TGIF: About Those January 6 Committee Extravaganzas

I admit it: I watched nearly every moment of the House committee extravaganzas on the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. I did more than that. I was transfixed. I couldn't even multitask.

Were the mislabeled "hearings" beyond all criticism? Of course not. They were choreographed, but only mildly so; the production effort lent an orderliness that I appreciated. I accept the point that the presentations had nothing to say about FBI-informant intrigue if it took place. Such mischief has occurred in the past, and if credible allegations exist, they should be pursued vigorously. Of course, it wouldn't let off the hook anyone who followed the directions of an agent provocateur. The same goes for other government misfeasance and malfeasance apart from Donald Trump's.

Still, even given all that, I see no good grounds for dismissing the presentations as worthless partisanship. The reason ought to be obvious. The presentations enabled us to watch senior White House, Justice Department, and Trump campaign lawyers and other key staff describe Trump's horrifying complacency as he entertained himself before, during, and after the violent outburst. Gruesomely riveting!

One need not be a small-D democrat to be concerned about what took place on January 6, 2021. The source of rational concern is not only the target of the violence. It is the violence itself. We've seen a good deal of domestic political violence in recent years, and I'm confident that no good would come from more. On the contrary, to the extent that violence becomes an acceptable political tactic, we will be in deep trouble. As Leonard E. Read, founding president of the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote in "On that Day Began Lies":

Consider the mob. It is a loose-type association. The mob will tar and feather, burn at the stake, string up by the neck, and otherwise murder. But dissect this association, pull it apart, investigate its individual components. Each person, very often, is a God-fearing, home-loving, wouldn’t-kill-a-fly type of individual.

What happens, then? What makes persons in a mob behave as they do? What accounts for the distinction between these persons acting as responsible individuals and acting in association?

Perhaps it is this: These persons, when in mob association, and maybe at the instigation of a demented leader, remove the self-disciplines which guide them in individual action; thus the evil that is in each person is released, for there is some evil in all of us. In this situation, no one of the mobsters consciously assumes the personal guilt for what is thought to be a collective act but, instead, puts the onus of it on an abstraction which, without persons, is what the mob is.

Apart from the direct threat from the violence, we must also consider the secondary threat: namely, that of the government's inevitable crackdown. If the violence becomes more widespread, average people will understandably demand safety, and the politicians will be only too happy to comply with less-than-discriminate force. A weak state response could prompt the emergence of a "strong leader," a Bonaparte, who promises to restore order forthwith.

This is why the peaceful transfer of power after elections is desirable. To be sure, representative democracy places a distant second to complete and authentic individualist, free-market liberalism, but it beats gangs fighting in the streets.

So think back now to January 6. Trump clearly lost the election. His 60 attempts to persuade judges that the election had been stolen had failed. (Many of the judges were appointed by Trump or other Republican presidents.) He was told repeatedly by senior officials that he had appointed, from the attorney general on down, including expert investigators in election security, that he had no case -- but to no avail. A conspiracy to perpetrate such an election fraud and its coverup would make any other alleged conspiracy look like child's play.

Undeterred, Trump merely brought in a small group of toadies led by the faithful Rudy Giuliani to press his worthless case. Trump insisted he actually won the election by a landslide and set out to gaslight the American people into thinking there was something to that claim. Considering the lack of proof and all the contrary information he had been given, we are entitled to conclude that Trump never actually believed that he had been reelected. This was no delusion; rather I suspect it was merely a grand Trumpian scam that would surely rake in lots of money; it was also a what-the-hell longshot at retaining power. He apparently didn't care about anything else. In other words, he was playing with fire. At best it was gross negligence.

When he got nowhere with his staff and the courts, he encouraged a mob, which he had every reason to think would be unruly, to gather in Washington, D.C., on the day that Congress was to certify the states' electoral counts. Trump and his small circle worked every angle, including encouraging supporters to fraudulently pose as alternative electors in their states and trying to convince Vice President Mike Pence that he could exclude Biden electoral votes or at least delay Congress's certification by sending the matter back to the states -- when no vice president has any such power. Pence deserves credit here. I shudder to think what might have happened in the streets had Pence slavishly done what Trump pushed him to do.

The mob assembled as Trump requested, and he lifted their hopes that they could "stop the steal." Informed that some supporters had weapons and so wouldn't go through metal detectors for Trump's speech, he told security to remove the detectors because "they're not here to harm me." Then he urged the mob to march to the Capitol. Tens of thousands did so, breaking through doors and windows and signaling that they meant to threaten or harm those who stood in their and Trump's way. Thwarted by the Secret Service in his wish to go to the Capitol, Trump went back to the White House and watched the show from his dining room.

Repeated pleas by his staff that he call for an end to the riot fell on deaf ears. On the contrary, he tried to turn up the heat by condemning Pence on Twitter for his lack of courage. When his supporters chanted that Pence should be hanged, he was heard to say that maybe those supporters were onto something. Late in the day, when he finally made a video appeal to the rioters, he couldn't resist telling them: "We love you.... You're very special."

All in all, this was a sad day that capped a sad few months -- again, not because democracy is sacred, but because violence is uncontrollably toxic. Does the record establish Trump's legal liability for incitement to violence? I am not qualified to say. Moreover, we who distrust political power must be wary of vaguely defined offenses that originate in speech.

But Trump does seem to have left himself open to charges related to his failure to secure the Capitol despite repeated desperate pleas and to his obvious attempts to obstruct Congress. It was at least a dereliction of duty. (I highly recommend Walter Olson's "The Jan. 6 Committee’s Findings Have Met the Appropriately High Bar for Prosecuting Trump.")

Mob violence isn't the only thing to be feared in this world, but it ranks pretty high up there.

TGIF: Shades of Gray in the Russia-Ukraine War

If you're looking for morality tales -- clashes between the clearly good and the clearly bad -- I suggest you look elsewhere than the geopolitical theater. There we find only conflicts between shades of darker gray.

This seems to have been the case throughout history. Empires and would-be empires vied with rival empires and would-be empires for territory, resources, taxpayers, and soldiers. No surprise: governments will be governments, and that's not good. This is not to say the shades of gray did not differ at all, perhaps even significantly on occasion, but the objective was always, first and foremost, booty and control of people. The interests of commoners were rarely if ever the cause.

We see this in Russia's war on Ukraine. Let's be clear: Vladimir Putin and his Russian government freely chose to send military forces across the border into Ukraine. Their military personnel complied. They ultimately are responsible for their choices and therefore the death, injury, and mayhem that is taking place. (I make an exception for proven false-flag operations on the Ukrainian side, should any come to light.)

Now that the issue of primary culpability is out of the way, we can go on to talk about contributory culpability. I hope I've left little room for anyone to argue assigning contributory culpability to others is intended to let the Russian government personnel off the hook.

What sort of culpability do I have in mind? It's on the order of setting a trap and loading it with bait in order to lure a target. Russia had to choose to step into it, but those who set the trap did not have to do what they did. Hence, they contributed to a terrible situation.

Many experts analysts have long pointed out that the U.S. government at least since the late 1990s has knowingly been provoking Russia by expanding NATO up to the country's western border, incorporating most of the allies and some of the republics of the late Soviet Union. For years the U.S. government and other NATO officials have talked publicly about inviting the former republics Ukraine and Georgia to join. Everyone knew that Ukraine was an especially sensitive matter because it had long been a buffer between Russia and states to the west, Poland in particular. The Soviet Union had been invaded three times in the 20th century, twice by Germany and once by Poland, both NATO members since the demise of the USSR.

The warnings against NATO's march eastward were too many to count and came from people as diverse as Henry Kissinger and Noam Chomsky, Soviet-rollback guru Paul Nitze and Soviet-containment architect George Kennan. The current director of the CIA, William J. Burns, warned in 2008, when he was George W. Bush's ambassador to Russia, that no Russian leader -- conservative or liberal -- would ever stand for the admission of Ukraine and George into NATO. Burns's leaked memo was written shortly after publicly NATO declared that it welcomed applications for membership from those states.

That was 14 years ago and six years before the U.S. State Department helped foment a Nazi-backed coup that drove a Russia-friendly but democratically elected president from power -- even though he had been making concessions to the opposition in the streets, including a call for early elections. What motivated the U.S. government was that president's intention to reject an exclusive economic and political relationship with the European Union in order to accept a loan with liberal terms from Russia.

Aside from the overt NATO talk, there's the matter of the U.S. government's putting missile launchers in Poland and Romania. As outfitted, they are for defensive anti-missile missiles, but that could be changed. Moreover, defensive missiles obviously can be useful in an offensive campaign. Remember that Donald Trump, the reputed Russian agent, had earlier denounced the Reagan-era treaty that banned intermediate-range nuclear weapons from Europe and elsewhere. No one could have been surprised when all this was worrisome to the Russians. (Recall what happened in 1962 when the Soviet Union tried to put missiles in Cuba. John F. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade on the island and was ready to launch a nuclear war if the missiles were not removed.)

Since the Russian invasion, Joe Biden and his foreign policy people have denounced Russia sanctimoniously for its violations of international law and brutality, including the inexcusable deaths of noncombatants. It is not inappropriate to ask when an American president has ever respected international law when it was inconvenient for U.S. objectives. In the 21st century alone, American presidents have launched illegal aggressive wars in the Middle East and other places to effect regime change and other geopolitical objectives even partially on behalf of other states, such as Israel. In the process Americans have killed untold noncombatants. They have tortured prisoners. They have wreaked sickening destruction, creating hordes of refugees -- and so on. Yet day after day, lying American officials -- but I repeat myself -- admonish Putin for his bad behavior. There's nothing like setting a good example.

The Ukrainian leaders must also share in the blame. Those leaders who have been West-leaning have not been shy about aspiring to join NATO, knowing full well how the Russians would interpret those words. Since the 2014 coup -- in response to which Russia annexed a long-standing security area, the Crimea with its Russian naval base, to keep it out of NATO hands -- Ukrainian presidents could have made overtures to Russia, assuring that they would not seek NATO membership and offering to make Ukraine neutral in the manner of Austria since 1955. They did not do that, even though the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor, was elected on a peace-with-Russia platform.

Superfically, Zelensky is an appealing figure. He's young and charismatic, and he wears t-shirts. His country has been invaded, which of course puts him in a sympathetic light when he appears on television. But is that the whole story of the man? It also seems that despite the terms of the Minsk agreements, he has been unwilling to talk to leaders in the heavily Russian-ethnic Donbas region, in the far east of Ukraine, about home-rule. Two provinces there, Luhansk and Donetsk, have since declared their independence, which Russia has recognized. The Ukrainian military has been shelling the area since the 2014 coup, and Donbas forces have fought back. The casualties on both sides have been high.

Moreover, as Jacques Baud, an intelligence expert who has worked for NATO, the UN, and Swiss strategic intelligence  writes:

On [March 24, 2021], Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree for the recapture of the Crimea, and began to deploy his forces to the south of the country. At the same time, several NATO exercises were conducted between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, accompanied by a significant increase in reconnaissance flights along the Russian border. Russia then conducted several exercises to test the operational readiness of its troops and to show that it was following the evolution of the situation. [Aaron Mate's video interview with Baud is here.]

Baud also writes, "In violation of the Minsk Agreements, the Ukraine was conducting air operations in Donbass using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press noted this, but not the Europeans; and no one condemned these violations."

It begins to look as though Zelensky has cavalierly used the Ukrainian people for his own ends: instead of seeking peace, he sought or was willing to risk war with Russia, assuming the U.S. government and other NATO states would back him up with perhaps more than arms shipments. He still demands a NATO no-fly zone, which would all but assure a new world war and perhaps an all-out nuclear war. So he also shares in the responsibility.

As usual, there's blame aplenty to go around.

TGIF: Joe Biden, What the Hell?

What's going on with Joe Biden? Is he oblivious to the fact that Russia has about as many strategic nuclear weapons as the United States has? Is he taking advice from the neocons, who apparently believe that we should not fear a nuclear holocaust because that's exactly what Vladimir Putin wants us to do? (I presume Putin also wants us to believe that the earth is round. Should we give that up too?)

How else to explain Biden's astounding statements in recent days, particularly while meeting with NATO representatives in Brussels and with U.S. troops in Poland? That's right: 9,000 U.S. troops are now in southeast Poland, not far from the Ukrainian border. Poland of course is a member of NATO, which means that if Poland clashes with Russia, the U.S. government has treaty obligations to its ally. To be clear, here's Article 5, which embodies the principle that NATO describes as being "at the very heart" of the treaty":

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. [Emphasis added to indicate ambiguity in the provision that isn't often acknowledged.]

Are Biden's off-the-cuff-and-wall remarks signs of dementia? Or are they just the Bidenesque "Kinsley gaffes" we've become accustomed to? (A Kinsley gaffe occurs when someone important speaks his mind when he or his handlers know he shouldn't.)

By now, Biden's irresponsibly provocative remarks have made the rounds. He has said that Russia's use of chemical weapons in Ukraine would bring a NATO response, but left the nature of the response vague. His administration seems to be shying away from explicitly declaring "red lines."

And yet, when ABC News asked Biden, "If chemical weapons were used in Ukraine could that trigger a military response from NATO?" Biden responded, "It would trigger a response in kind. Whether or not -- you're asking whether NATO would cross -- we'd make that decision at the time." (Emphasis added.)

Say what? Response in kind? Does that mean he might order a chemical-weapons counterattack?

As others have pointed out, even a de facto red line is an invitation for a false-flag attack in which a Ukrainian group, hoping to bring NATO into the fight, would use chemical weapons while making the perpetrator appear to be Russian. This sort of thing seems likely to have happened in Syria.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky is still lobbying for even more NATO intervention (in addition to arms and sanctions) in the form of a no-fly zone, which is now called "close the sky." The shameless public appeal includes this video, with the lyric "If you don't close the sky/I will die." The lyricist neglected to point out that if the sky is closed and the U.S. Air Force shoots down a Russian jet, we all could die in a nuclear exchange.

Biden still says no to closing the sky, but if he started saying the opposite, who'd be surprised?

As everyone knows, while abroad Biden also seemed to call for regime change in Russia with this ad-lib: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power." History teaches that implied policies such as that do not facilitate ceasefires and peace. The Gaffer-in-Chief and his people tried to walk it back, but the attempts were lame. "I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel," he said while insisting he wasn't walking back his statement, "and I make no apologies for it." (American presidents are always morally outraged whenever countries they don't like do what the U.S. government regularly does.)

A White House official dutifully insisted that what his boss meant "was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change." If you buy that, they have a bridge you might be interested in.

Biden also appeared to tell U.S. troops stationed near the Ukrainian border in Poland that they would soon be in the war zone and that in fact some have already been on the other side of the border: "You’re going to see when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re gonna see — you’re gonna see women, young people standing in the middle — in front of a damned tank just saying, ‘I’m not leaving, I’m holding my ground.'”

In clarification mode, Biden explained that the words when you're there referred to the training of Ukrainian forces in Poland. Oh really? They're going to see women and young people blocking Russian tanks in Poland? What's he trying to tell us now?

The Deputy Assistant White House Gaffe-Follow-Upper quickly clarified, "The president has been clear we are not sending US troops to Ukraine and there is no change in that position.”

Yeah, yeah. So that means the guy's head is full of cotton.

Finally, Biden amazingly said two important things about the sanctions he's imposed on the Russians: first, that he never said the sanctions would force the Russian government to alter its Ukraine policy because he knew they wouldn't have that effect, and second, that sanctions will create food shortages (and so higher prices) for Americans and by implication, other non-Russians the world over.

As to the first, that was an outright lie or a case of senility. A long list of administration officials did indeed say the sanctions would work. As to the second, how can Biden -- father of noted entrepreneur Hunter Biden -- justify making innocent people go hungry?

Given the two things Biden has admitted, what is the point of the sanctions? Does it make him feel better?

Joe Biden, what the hell?

US Troops to Ukraine?

Is Joe Biden set to deploy U.S. troops to Ukraine? Watch him address the troops near the Ukrainian border in Poland (1:35) and listen for the words "you're gonna see when you're there."

Biden Puts His Foot in It Again

People like Joe Biden never learn from history and never think long-term. It's the double whammy. By declaring that Vladimir Putin must not remain in power, Biden has incentivized Putin to stand firm lest he end up like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi -- that is, dead. The lesson goes back at least to World War II, when the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan. Historians and commentators have criticized that policy for perhaps prolonging the war by discouraging internal attempts to overthrow the government.

TGIF: Joe Biden, Let's Not Go to War with Russia

Here's a good idea: let's not go to war against Russia. Let's not even rattle a saber at Russia (or China, for that matter) because even wars that no one really wants can be blundered into. Many losers would be left in the aftermath, even if nuclear weapons were kept out of sight, but no one would win. So as that smart Defense Department computer says in the 1983 movie WarGames, "The only winning move is not to play."

The crisis du jour is Ukraine; before that, it was Georgia, both former Soviet republics. For some inexplicable reason, Russia's rulers get nervous when the U.S. foreign policy elite treats Russian historical security concerns as of no consequence. Could it have something to do with the several invasions of Russia through Eastern Europe in the past? Jeez, from the way the irrational Russians behave, you'd think their American counterparts never invoked U.S. security concerns (usually bogus) as a reason for military action. As if...

But maybe it is time for America's rulers to take Russian worries into consideration. Even for those of us who are no fans of Vladimir Putin and the government he runs, this seems like good advice – if for no other reason than narrow American self-interest. At least, that's how it looks from the view of regular Americans, who might appreciate for a change what Adam Smith described as "peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice."

Anyone who has paid attention to U.S. foreign policy since the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance, 1989-91, would realize that America's bipartisan foreign-policy elite has taken precisely the wrong tack by baiting nervous Russian nationalists at every turn. Despite promises to the contrary, that elite has led the charge to add members to the NATO alliance, taking the anti-Soviet military and political organization right up to the Russian border and staging military exercises uncomfortably close. The U.S. has also sold weapons systems to NATO-member Poland, formerly a member of the Warsaw Pact.

Putin insists that NATO not expand any further, but Biden told him to shut up. The U.S. position is that NATO's inclusion of former Soviet possessions is purely an alliance affair. Meanwhile, Biden threatens more harsh economic sanctions and even more U.S. troops to Eastern Europe if Putin doesn't acquiesce by, among other things, moving his troops away from the Russia-Ukraine border

Let's also recall that in 2014 the U.S. stood behind a neo-Nazi-supported coup against an elected, Russian-friendly president in Ukraine, knowing full well how the Russians would react. Fearing U.S./NATO encroachment, Putin's government annexed Crimea with its strategic warm-water Black Sea naval base, which has been part of the Russian security system for over 200 years. Nevertheless, and most relevant to today's heightened tensions, Putin declined an opportunity to annex eastern Ukraine (the Donbass region full of ethnic Russians ) when a majority there voted for independence from Kiev.

You didn't have to know too much about European history to see how provocative the U.S.-sponsored regime change in Ukraine would be. To make matters worse, Ukraine and Georgia have become de facto NATO members, but only because the U.S. elite has not yet convinced its European counterparts to give those two former Soviet republics official membership. That, however, hasn't stopped Washington from extending a security guarantee to Ukraine that is all too much like the one that NATO members extend to one another. Biden has just reinforced that guarantee.

Which Americans are ready to die for Kiev?

For some reason it's easy for Americans, who can be as nationalistically self-centered as anyone, to assume that any ratcheting up of tensions with Russia must be the Russians' fault. The establishment media have no problem presenting this as an indisputable fact. But how do they know it's true? They never furnish evidence. Foreign-policy expert Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute has a much more evidence-bound take:

Moscow’s behavior has been more a reaction to aggressive moves that the United States and its Ukrainian client have already taken than it is evidence of offensive intent. Russian leaders have viewed the steady expansion of NATO’s membership and military presence eastward toward Russia’s border since the late 1990s suspiciously and they have considered Washington’s growing strategic love affair with Kiev as especially provocative.

Moreover, Carpenter adds,

Ukraine’s own policies have become dangerously bellicose. The government’s official security doctrine adopted earlier this year, for example, focuses on retaking Crimea, the peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 following the West’s campaign that helped demonstrators overthrow Ukraine’s elected, pro-Russian president. Statements by President Volodymyr Zelensky and other leaders have been disturbingly bellicose, and Ukraine’s own military deployments have further destabilized an already fragile situation.

Carpenter points out that while the United States is far more powerful than Russia in conventional terms, "unless the United States and its allies are willing to wage an all-out war against Russia, an armed conflict confined to Ukraine (and perhaps some adjacent territories), would diminish much of that advantage. Russian forces would be operating close to home, with relatively short supply and communications lines. US forces would be operating far from home with extremely stressed lines. In other words, there is no certainty that the US would prevail in such a conflict."

Would the Biden administration then back down or go nuclear? Who is eager to find out?

Those considerations aside, the U.S. government should simply stop fanning the Russophobic flames simply because a war would be incredibly stupid.

TGIF: Imperial America, Which Never Left, Is Back

In a cliche-ridden foreign-policy speech delivered at the State Department on Thursday, President Joe Biden declared that "America is back"--on the global stage, presumably, as policeman of the world, but certainly not a disinterested policeman. The problem is that it never left.

Despite some uncouth rhetoric and regular New York Times headlines regarding "American isolationism," Donald Trump never withdrew the U.S. government from its meddling role in the world. He baited Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, and ended no war or U.S. assistance to other wars. Far from leaving NATO or punishing its members for not paying more for their military forces, he oversaw its expansion--which had only one purpose: to aggravate Russia. Yes, Trump apparently removed some troops from Germany--does anyone have a good reason why they are still there?--but Biden promised to change that. He also wants to add Georgia and Ukraine to NATO, which of course--*wink*--would never make Russia nervous.

If that's what he means by "America is back," let's us shout in unison: Thanks, but no thanks!

Not that we should be surprised by Biden's position, considering that his foreign-policy team consists of Obama administration retreads who act as though there's a world of difference between intervention and humanitarian intervention.

Biden put Russia and China on notice: "The days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions—interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens—are over."

Hang on. We've never been given evidence that Russia, which has a weak economy and limited military, interfered with an election--quite the contrary--or engaged in cyberattacks. By the way, we know the U.S. government does that sort of thing routinely, even with respect to Russia and its allies. Moreover, if Vladimir Putin's government poisons its citizens--obviously something to be condemned by all decent people--how is that an aggressive action against against the United States or any other country? By that curious standard, U.S. persecution of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, et al. could be construed as aggression against others.

I will give Biden credit for agreeing with Russia to extend the New START Treaty on nuclear weapons. (Putin's so-called puppet, Trump, pulled out of such treaties.)

And on China:

And we’ll also take on directly the challenges posed by our prosperity, security, and democratic values by our most serious competitor, China. We’ll confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.

Note the words: "Our most serious competitor." One way to reduce tensions among states is to stop seeing them as competing economic entities. America doesn't compete with China in the global marketplace because America is not a homogeneous entity with a single scale of preferences. An American consumer and a Chinese merchant may have a harmony of interest; likewise an American manufacturer and a Chinese consumer or producer. (Concerns about intellectual property can be taken care of by repealing the relevant laws. Ideas cannot legitimately be owned.) But Biden. like Trump, is locked into the mercantilist worldview in which nations compete against each other. That's why Biden promises to reinforce the "Buy American" policy, costing taxpayers more for stuff that the U.S. government could buy for less from foreign manufacturers. "Buy American" also distorts the international division of labor, making everyone less prosperous.

Regarding Biden's other charges against China, one need not approve of the oppressive Chinese government to understand that something is wrong when no government but the U.S. government is allowed to have a sphere of influence ("backyard"), which thereby extends to the whole world. In a world of states, that sort of policy is asking for trouble.

So Biden's speech wholeheartedly embraced America's role as the global overseer, self-appointed to keep everyone on good behavior, strangely alternating between invocations of altruism and "naked [national] self-interest." We know where that took us in the past.

Biden promised to end assistance to Saudi Arabia's "offensive" actions in Yemen. Fine. But how will he define "offensive"? We might have a clue in what Biden said right after this promise:

At the same time, Saudi Arabia faces missile attacks, UAV strikes, and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries.  We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people.

Bear in mind that the Saudi regime is one of the most repressive in the world.

So nothing will really change. If Biden wanted to make a constructive difference to that region, he would end the long-standing multi-front covert/overt war against Iran, including all the sanctions Trump imposed. Biden didn't otherwise mention Iran in the speech, yet he says he wants to reenter the nuclear deal, which Trump stormed out of. The way to do that is end the sanctions, which harm and even kill innocent people.

While we're talking about the Middle East, let us note that Biden said nothing about Israel and Palestine, despite all the damage Trump did there on behalf of the Israeli state and against the long-suffering Palestinians. We already know from his Senate confirmation hearing that Secretary of State Tony Blinken has no problem with what Trump did: from moving the embassy to Jerusalem to declaring the settlements in the de facto annexed West Bank just fine and dandy. Massive annual military aid to Israel--without any conditions whatever--of course will continue. That policy of course gives propaganda opportunities to other regimes that the U.S. government can then condemn as destabilizing. But which party is the real destabilizer?

Also among the no-mentions was Afghanistan. How can Biden give his first speech on foreign policy without discussing the country's longest war? That is really remarkable. The names Iraq and Syria also do not appear in the speech. Amazing.

As long as government exists, the proper foreign policy is nonintervention. Policing the world inevitably invites defensive and deterrent responses, which are then used as pretenses to counter so-called "aggressive" actions. It also makes fortunes for military contractors. The result is perpetual war in which liberty and prosperity must suffer.

TGIF--The Goal Is Freedom--appears occasionally on Friday.