Reflections on Ramadi

Reflections on Ramadi

Editor's Note: This analysis was written by Stratfor's lead military analyst, Paul Floyd, who served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, a core component of the United States Army Special Operations Command. He deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan in a combat role. This piece was written for the American holiday called Memorial Day, commemorating the lives of U.S. veterans killed in combat. 

The Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen again into the hands of the Islamic State, a group born of al Qaeda in Iraq. That this terrorist organization, whose brutality needs no description, has retaken a city once fought for by American soldiers troubles me. I served two deployments in Ramadi, fighting al Qaeda. Comrades died in that fight. I was shot in Ramadi. My initial reaction, like that of many veterans, is to ask what the hell it was all for, when nothing seems to change. The whole endeavor was a costly bloodletting and it seems the price we paid yielded no actual benefit. Yet, Memorial Day is as much a day for reflection as it is for remembrance and commemoration. And in reflecting, I have had to sit back and define exactly what we are memorializing on this day.

Memorial Day is about honoring those who died fighting for our country. Often those memories — and the honor we attribute — are anchored to a specific place. It makes sense: soldiers fight and die in a physical, tangible environment, invariably somewhere that is far from home. Human nature makes us hold onto that tangibility for memory. Okinawa, Antietam, the Chosin Reservoir, Ia Drang and Belleau Wood are just a handful of names that evoke the weight of battles long since past. I have a reverence for those names, those places. We all do to a point: We bestow these places with an unconscious solemnity based on how many died there. As imperfect as it is, this is the way we measure any particular fight. Certain places become emblematic, normally where the fighting was at its most ferocious. I am often asked where I was wounded. I always respond Ramadi, though technically it was in the middle of farmland between Ramadi and Fallujah. Giving the technical answer, however, loses something in translation. Saying Ramadi instills a sense of significance in people's minds. Our mission that day was a function of what started in the city, but had spilled out into the periphery. 

Memorializing a place because of the weight associated with it is problematic on two fronts — it sets up a partial fallacy while ignoring what I believe to be another critical component that is often overlooked: Time....

The partial fallacy is in how we tie the significance of a soldier's last valiant action to the place where it happened. A soldier might die taking or defending a critical hill, for example, but they do not lay down their life just for the hill. No one joins the military to fight for a specific piece of terrain, city or inanimate object. We join to serve our country, which is accomplished by finishing the missions we are called upon to take. Viewing warfare as an extension of diplomacy by other means, soldiers are the ultimate executors of the national political will. A specific mission may well include the taking of a particular hill, but the soldier is not there for that specific piece of ground. They are there because the mission required them to be.

The other component we ignore is time. Once death is attached to a place and its significance established in our minds, it is meaningful from then on. It is hard to think of a permanent, physical place as having only temporary relevance in time when blood has been spilt there. There is a reason why the World War I battlefields of a century ago have such special relevance. The problem is, holding permanent unyielding sentiment for a place can override better judgment.

I ruminate on all of this when I hear calls to reintroduce U.S. combat troops to Iraq because of recent events in Ramadi. Many of the justifications for such action are not centered on military strategy, U.S. foreign policy or what would be best for Iraq. Instead, they are invoked by the fact that American lives were spent to win Ramadi in the past. The question remains: If Ramadi is back in the hands of militants, what did American soldiers die for in the first place?

My initial thoughts were informed by that exact reasoning. However, further questions immediately sprang to mind. I settled on two. Does the enemy's taking of a place that people died fighting for disparage their memory, and, should we let it influence our actions? For the first question I concluded no, though it is painful. The soldiers who gave their lives accomplishing a mission had an effect. Those effects were not limited to a single place. Wars are waged over an area and influenced by all the infinite actions that occur in that space at that time in history. An enemy's success in the present, even if it is in that same place, does not take away from a soldier's effect in the past. In this light, I find it hard to justify sending more soldiers to fight, where some will inevitably die, solely in an effort to protect the memories of those already dead.

Those memories do not need physical protection. This is why we have a day like today. Memorial Day is our formal acknowledgement of our comrade's sacrifice. We remember their actions and their willingness to give all to accomplish the mission. These memories are of course tied to place, but it should not be the defining feature. What happens now in a location such as Ramadi does not debase the past actions of those that fell there. They defined themselves outside of place, in service to country, and that is what I personally want to memorialize.

"Reflections on Ramadi is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

Democrats Say: We Fear Marco!

Democrats Say: We Fear Marco!
John Hinderaker, Powerline

The New York Times headlines: “Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats.” As well it should:

They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy.

An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.”

The one who should really scare them is Hillary Clinton, as her ineptitude as a candidate becomes more palpable with every passing day. But the strategists quoted by the Times have a point: at this stage, the Republican who poses the starkest and most favorable contrast with Hillary is Rubio:

Democrats express concerns not only about whether Mr. Rubio, 43, a son of Cuban immigrants, will win over Hispanic voters, a growing and increasingly important slice of the electorate. They also worry that he would offer a sharp generational contrast to Mrs. Clinton, a fixture in American politics for nearly a quarter-century who will turn 69 less than two weeks before the election.

Do you think? Are Democrats really figuring this out just now?

Characteristically, even as they acknowledge his potential strength as a candidate, the Democrats can’t resist ripping him. Note the silly stereotypes they engage in while doing so:

“I think they do underestimate him,” [John] Morgan added. “He’s energetic, he’s photogenic, and he will say whatever you want him to say.”

What is that supposed to mean? Marco has always been his own man. He got his start taking on the establishment, in the form of incumbent Republican Governor Charlie Crist. And he has been remarkably consistent on the issues.

This one is equally oblivious:

Mr. Gelber praised Mr. Rubio’s ability to use his family’s story to convey compassion for people marginalized by society, but he said he believed, as many Democrats do, that this was disingenuous.

“It’s a little maddening when his policies are so inconsistent with that,” Mr. Gelber said. “My head would explode.”

The Democrats have been in power for six years, while wages have fallen, unemployment and underemployment have persisted, poverty has increased, food stamp usage has reached unprecedented heights, and economic inequality has widened. Yet they are so thick-skulled that they think it is tautological that their policies favor the poor and the downtrodden. They apparently are unable to comprehend that conservatives like Rubio (and us) actually believe that conservative policies work best, especially for those who are trying to climb the ladder of opportunity.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why Democrats tend to underestimate not just a politician like Marco Rubio, but Republicans in general.

Invading Iraq

Invading Iraq

Mike Walker, Col USMC (retired)

All,

While watching a clip of Senator Marco Rubio being questioned about the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, I could not help but think of Dustin Hoffman in the Marathon Man.

“Is It Safe?” hissed Lawrence Olivier.

“Yes” moans Hoffman followed by painful drilling of teeth sans Novocain.

“Is It Safe?” Lawrence Olivier demanded again.

“No” moans Hoffman followed by painful drilling of teeth sans Novocain.

As a Marine who spent two tours in Iraq, I could empathize with Rubio. What is the answer to the question?

Beyond the ideologues that declared the War in Iraq a success or failure before Day 1, the answer is not so simple and for this veteran, it remains elusive.

Why? Because time has been of no help. 

If you had asked me when I was in Iraq in June 2003, my answer would have been an unqualified “Yes,” going into Iraq was the right call. Having been thrust into the horrors of the Saddam Regime, the idea of ridding the world of such an evil was an unmistakable good (see below if you are interested in my thoughts on that).

If you had asked me in June 2005, after reflecting on the price in blood and treasure – the deaths and injuries suffered by my fellow Marines, some of the greatest men and women I had and will ever know – while an insurgency that did not exist in June 2003 had spread across 13 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, the answer had to be “No.”

If you had asked me in June 2011, my answer was back to “Yes,” it was the right call. Violence was down by 90% and al Qaeda-in-Iraq was on the ropes, a beaten foe. The schools were open and a building boom unlike any since the mid-1970s was in full swing. Iraq was the 6^th fastest growing economy in the world, its GPD had quadrupled and unemployment had fallen from over 50% in 2004 to 11%. 

The future looked so bright and then in Syria came the rise of the Islamic State. 

What do I say now? The answer seems an obvious “No” as in 2005 but what about the “Yes” in 2003 and the “Yes” 2011? Nothing seems obvious anymore and what the future will hold is anyone's guess.

So here I sit, hands bracing the chair arms awaiting the question: Is IT Safe? Was IT a mistake?

And like Hoffman, I do not have the answer.

Semper Fi,

Mike

 

Really...?

Well, sheep are used to taking orders and clinging to their "known" patch of hillside.

A painter friend from Northern California who used to come down for the winters and stay with us, told me while I was complaining about Bill Clinton (while president), "Well, we didn't elect the pope!"

No, we elected the leader of the free world to manage our internal and external affairs. We have to be able to trust our leaders implicitly. Bill's wife and daughter couldn't trust him on a basic level.... Monica was just a year or two older than Chelsea, and he didn't even have to be out of the most public office in the world. If they couldn't trust him on that level how could we on vastly more complex issues? My friend didn't get it. 

There is a fundamental disconnect happening for so many that don't require leaders to be absolutely honest and focused on the role they have assumed. Without a doubt, the Clintons are a breed apart. They are not transparent, are not responsible for their actions, have agendas that supersede those of the citizens that depend on them and are really into having enough cold cash to "pay their bills". In spite of this, they have a following that appreciates the view of the Clinton's giving  the "whatever will float your boat crowd" the thumbs up... and not the rubes they are made.

Wisconsin’s Shame: “I Thought It Was a Home Invasion”

The Wisconsin Method, birth of progressive thought... cheese and J.Stalin.

Wisconsin’s Shame: “I Thought It Was a Home Invasion”
David French, National Review

THEY CAME WITH A BATTERING RAM.” Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking.

She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram.

She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door.

 “I was so afraid,” she says. “I did not know what to do.” She grabbed some clothes, opened the door, and dressed right in front of the police. The dogs were still frantic.

“I begged and begged, ‘Please don’t shoot my dogs, please don’t shoot my dogs, just don’t shoot my dogs.’ I couldn’t get them to stop barking, and I couldn’t get them outside quick enough. I saw a gun and barking dogs. I was scared and knew this was a bad mix.”

She got the dogs safely out of the house, just as multiple armed agents rushed inside. Some even barged into the bathroom, where her partner was in the shower. The officer or agent in charge demanded that Cindy sit on the couch, but she wanted to get up and get a cup of coffee.

“I told him this was my house and I could do what I wanted.” Wrong thing to say. “This made the agent in charge furious. He towered over me with his finger in my face and yelled like a drill sergeant that I either do it his way or he would handcuff me.”

They wouldn’t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off.

The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and — according to Cindy — leaving her “dead mother’s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.”

Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop. 

“IT’S A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH.” That was the first thought of “Anne” (not her real name). Someone was pounding at her front door. It was early in the morning — very early — and it was the kind of heavy pounding that meant someone was either fleeing from — or bringing — trouble.

“It was so hard. I’d never heard anything like it. I thought someone was dying outside.”

She ran to the door, opened it, and then chaos. “People came pouring in. For a second I thought it was a home invasion. It was terrifying. They were yelling and running, into every room in the house. One of the men was in my face, yelling at me over and over and over.”

It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information.

Why were the police at Anne’s home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they’d seen police treat drug dealers on television.

In fact, TV or movies were their only points of reference, because they weren’t criminals. They were law-abiding. They didn’t buy or sell drugs. They weren’t violent. They weren’t a danger to anyone. Yet there were cops — surrounding their house on the outside, swarming the house on the inside. They even taunted the family as if they were mere “perps.”

As if the home invasion, the appropriation of private property, and the verbal abuse weren’t enough, next came ominous warnings.

Don’t call your lawyer.

Don’t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends.

The entire neighborhood could see the police around their house, but they had to remain silent. This was not the “right to remain silent” as uttered by every cop on every legal drama on television — the right against self-incrimination. They couldn’t mount a public defense if they wanted — or even offer an explanation to family and friends.

Yet no one in this family was a “perp.” Instead, like Cindy, they were American citizens guilty of nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to support Act 10 and other conservative causes in Wisconsin. Sitting there shocked and terrified, this citizen — who is still too intimidated to speak on the record — kept thinking, “Is this America?”

“THEY FOLLOWED ME TO MY KIDS’ ROOMS.”

For the family of “Rachel” (not her real name), the ordeal began before dawn — with the same loud, insistent knocking. Still in her pajamas, Rachel answered the door and saw uniformed police, poised to enter her home.

When Rachel asked to wake her children herself, the officer insisted on walking into their rooms. The kids woke to an armed officer, standing near their beds.

The entire family was herded into one room, and there they watched as the police carried off their personal possessions, including items that had nothing to do with the subject of the search warrant — even her daughter’s computer.

And, yes, there were the warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t talk to anyone about this. Don’t tell your friends. The kids watched — alarmed — as the school bus drove by, with the students inside watching the spectacle of uniformed police surrounding the house, carrying out the family’s belongings. Yet they were told they couldn’t tell anyone at school.

They, too, had to remain silent.

The mom watched as her entire life was laid open before the police. Her professional files, her personal files, everything. She knew this was all politics. She knew a rogue prosecutor was targeting her for her political beliefs.

And she realized, “Every aspect of my life is in their hands. And they hate me.”

Fortunately for her family, the police didn’t taunt her or her children. Some of them seemed embarrassed by what they were doing. At the end of the ordeal, one officer looked at the family, still confined to one room, and said, “Some days, I hate my job.”

For dozens of conservatives, the years since Scott Walker’s first election as governor of Wisconsin transformed the state — known for pro-football championships, good cheese, and a population with a reputation for being unfailingly polite — into a place where conservatives have faced early-morning raids, multi-year secretive criminal investigations, slanderous and selective leaks to sympathetic media, and intrusive electronic snooping.

Yes, Wisconsin, the cradle of the progressive movement and home of the “Wisconsin idea” — the marriage of state governments and state universities to govern through technocratic reform — was giving birth to a new progressive idea, the use of law enforcement as a political instrument, as a weapon to attempt to undo election results, shame opponents, and ruin lives.

Most Americans have never heard of these raids, or of the lengthy criminal investigations of Wisconsin conservatives. For good reason. Bound by comprehensive secrecy orders, conservatives were left to suffer in silence as leaks ruined their reputations, as neighbors, looking through windows and dismayed at the massive police presence, the lights shining down on targets’ homes, wondered, no doubt, What on earth did that family do?

This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform.

Largely hidden from the public eye, this traumatic process, however, is now heading toward a legal climax, with two key rulings expected in the late spring or early summer. The first ruling, from the Wisconsin supreme court, could halt the investigations for good, in part by declaring that the “misconduct” being investigated isn’t misconduct at all but the simple exercise of First Amendment rights.

The second ruling, from the United States Supreme Court, could grant review on a federal lawsuit brought by Wisconsin political activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth, the first conservatives to challenge the investigations head-on. If the Court grants review, it could not only halt the investigations but also begin the process of holding accountable those public officials who have so abused their powers.

But no matter the outcome of these court hearings, the damage has been done. In the words of Mr. O’Keefe, “The process is the punishment.”

It all began innocently enough. In 2009, officials from the office of the Milwaukee County executive contacted the office of the Milwaukee district attorney, headed by John Chisholm, to investigate the disappearance of $11,242.24 from the Milwaukee chapter of the Order of the Purple Heart. The matter was routine, with witnesses willing and able to testify against the principal suspect, a man named Kevin Kavanaugh.

What followed, however, was anything but routine. Chisholm failed to act promptly on the report, and when he did act, he refused to conduct a conventional criminal investigation but instead petitioned, in May 2010, to open a “John Doe” investigation, a proceeding under Wisconsin law that permits Wisconsin officials to conduct extensive investigations while keeping the target’s identity secret (hence the designation “John Doe”).

John Doe investigations alter typical criminal procedure in two important ways: First, they remove grand juries from the investigative process, replacing the ordinary citizens of a grand jury with a supervising judge. Second, they can include strict secrecy requirements not just on the prosecution but also on the targets of the investigation. In practice, this means that, while the prosecution cannot make public comments about the investigation, it can take public actions indicating criminal suspicion (such as raiding businesses and homes in full view of the community) while preventing the targets of the raids from defending against or even discussing the prosecution’s claims.

Why would Chisholm seek such broad powers to investigate a year-old embezzlement claim with a known suspect? Because the Milwaukee County executive, Scott Walker, had by that time become the leading Republican candidate for governor. District Attorney Chisholm was a Democrat, a very partisan Democrat.

Almost immediately after opening the John Doe investigation, Chisholm used his expansive powers to embarrass Walker, raiding his county-executive offices within a week. As Mr. O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth explained in court filings, the investigation then dramatically expanded:

Over the next few months, [Chisholm’s] investigation of all-things-Walker expanded to include everything from alleged campaign-finance violations to sexual misconduct to alleged public contracting bid-rigging to alleged misuse of county time and property. Between May 5, 2010, and May 3, 2012, the Milwaukee Defendants filed at least eighteen petitions to formally “[e]nlarge” the scope of the John Doe investigation, and each was granted. . . . That amounts to a new formal inquiry every five and a half weeks, on average, for two years.

This expansion coincided with one of the more remarkable state-level political controversies in modern American history – the protest (and passage) of Act 10, followed by the attempted recall of a number of Wisconsin legislators and, ultimately, Governor Walker.

Political observers will no doubt remember the events in Madison — the state capitol overrun by chanting protesters, Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state to prevent votes on the legislation, and tens of millions of dollars of outside money flowing into the state as Wisconsin became, fundamentally, a proxy fight pitting the union-led Left against the Tea Party–led economic Right.

At the same time that the public protests were raging, so were private — but important — protests in the Chisholm home and workplace. As a former prosecutor told journalist Stuart Taylor, Chisholm’s wife was a teachers’-union shop steward who was distraught over Act 10’s union reforms. He said Chisholm “felt it was his personal duty” to stop them.

Meanwhile, according to this whistleblower, the district attorney’s offices were festooned with the “blue fist” poster of the labor-union movement, indicating that Chisholm’s employees were very much invested in the political fight.

In the end, the John Doe proceeding failed in its ultimate aims. It secured convictions for embezzlement (related to the original 2009 complaint), a conviction for sexual misconduct, and a few convictions for minor campaign violations, but Governor Walker was untouched, his reforms were implemented, and he survived his recall election.

But with another election looming — this time Walker’s campaign for reelection — Chisholm wasn’t finished. He launched yet another John Doe investigation, “supervised” by Judge Barbara Kluka. Kluka proved to be capable of superhuman efficiency — approving “every petition, subpoena, and search warrant in the case” in a total of one day’s work.

If the first series of John Doe investigations was “everything Walker,” the second series was “everything conservative,” as Chisholm had launched an investigation of not only Walker (again) but the Wisconsin Club for Growth and dozens of other conservative organizations, this time fishing for evidence of allegedly illegal “coordination” between conservative groups and the Walker campaign.

In the second John Doe, Chisholm had no real evidence of wrongdoing. Yes, conservative groups were active in issue advocacy, but issue advocacy was protected by the First Amendment and did not violate relevant campaign laws. Nonetheless, Chisholm persuaded prosecutors in four other counties to launch their own John Does, with Judge Kluka overseeing all of them.

Empowered by a rubber-stamp judge, partisan investigators ran amok. They subpoenaed and obtained (without the conservative targets’ knowledge) massive amounts of electronic data, including virtually all the targets’ personal e-mails and other electronic messages from outside e-mail vendors and communications companies.

The investigations exploded into the open with a coordinated series of raids on October 3, 2013. These were home invasions, including those described above. Chisholm’s office refused to comment on the raid tactics (or any other aspect of the John Doe investigations), but witness accounts regarding the two John Doe investigations are remarkably similar: early-morning intrusions, police rushing through the house, and stern commands to remain silent and tell no one about what had occurred.

At the same time, the Wisconsin Club for Growth and other conservative organizations received broad subpoenas requiring them to turn over virtually all business records, including “donor information, correspondence with their associates, and all financial information.” The subpoenas also contained dire warnings about disclosure of their existence, threatening contempt of court if the targets spoke publicly.

For select conservative families across five counties, this was the terrifying moment — the moment they felt at the mercy of a truly malevolent state.

Speaking both on and off the record, targets reflected on how many layers of Wisconsin government failed their fundamental constitutional duties — the prosecutors who launched the rogue investigations, the judge who gave the abuse judicial sanction, investigators who chose to taunt and intimidate during the raids, and those police who ultimately approved and executed aggressive search tactics on law-abiding, peaceful citizens.

For some of the families, the trauma of the raids, combined with the stress and anxiety of lengthy criminal investigations, has led to serious emotional repercussions. “Devastating” is how Anne describes the impact on her family. “Life-changing,” she says. “All in terrible ways.”

O’Keefe, who has been in contact with multiple targeted families, says, “Every family I know of that endured a home raid has been shaken to its core, and the fate of marriages and families still hangs in the balance in some cases.”

Anne also describes a new fear of the police: “I used to support the police, to believe they were here to protect us. Now, when I see an officer, I’ll cross the street. I’m afraid of them. I know what they’re capable of.”

Cindy says, “I lock my doors and I close my shades. I don’t answer the door unless I am expecting someone. My heart races when I see a police car sitting in front of my house or following me in the car. The raid was so public. I’ve been harassed. My house has been vandalized. [She did not identify suspects.] I no longer feel safe, and I don’t think I ever will.”

Rachel talks about the effect on her children. “I tried to create a home where the kids always feel safe. Now they know they’re not. They know men with guns can come in their house, and there’s nothing we can do.” Every knock on the door brings anxiety. Every call to the house is screened. In the back of her mind is a single, unsettling thought: These people will never stop.

Victims of trauma — and every person I spoke with described the armed raids as traumatic — often need to talk, to share their experiences and seek solace in the company of a loving family and supportive friends. The investigators denied them that privilege, and it compounded their pain and fear.

The investigation not only damaged families, it also shut down their free speech. In many cases, the investigations halted conservative groups in their tracks. O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth described the effect in court filings:

O’Keefe’s associates began cancelling meetings with him and declining to take his calls, reasonably fearful that merely associating with him could make them targets of the investigation. O’Keefe was forced to abandon fundraising for the Club because he could no longer guarantee to donors that their identities would remain confidential, could not (due to the Secrecy Order) explain to potential donors the nature of the investigation, could not assuage donors’ fears that they might become targets themselves, and could not assure donors that their money would go to fund advocacy rather than legal expenses. The Club was also paralyzed. Its officials could not associate with its key supporters, and its funds were depleted. It could not engage in issue advocacy for fear of criminal sanction.

These raids and subpoenas were often based not on traditional notions of probable cause but on mere suspicion, untethered to the law or evidence, and potentially violating the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The very existence of First Amendment–protected expression was deemed to be evidence of illegality. The prosecution simply assumed that the conservatives were incapable of operating within the bounds of the law.

Even worse, many of the investigators’ legal theories, even if proven by the evidence, would not have supported criminal prosecutions. In other words, they were investigating “crimes” that weren’t crimes at all.

If the prosecutors had applied the same legal standards to the Democrats in their own offices, they would have been forced to turn the raids on themselves. If the prosecutors and investigators had been raided, how many of their computers and smartphones would have contained incriminating information indicating use of government resources for partisan purposes?

With the investigations now bursting out into the open, some conservatives began to fight back. O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth moved to quash the John Doe subpoenas aimed at them. In a surprise move, Judge Kluka, who had presided over the Doe investigations for more than a year, recused herself from the case. (A political journal, the Wisconsin Reporter, attempted to speak to Judge Kluka about her recusal, but she refused to offer comment.)

The new judge in the case, Gregory Peterson, promptly sided with O’Keefe and blocked multiple subpoenas, holding (in a sealed opinion obtained by the Wall Street Journal, which has done invaluable work covering the John Doe investigations) that they “do not show probable cause that the moving parties committed any violations of the campaign finance laws.” The judge noted that “the State is not claiming that any of the independent organizations expressly advocated” Walker’s election.

O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth followed up Judge Peterson’s ruling by filing a federal lawsuit against Chisholm and a number of additional defendants, alleging multiple constitutional violations, including a claim that the investigation constituted unlawful retaliation against the plaintiffs for the exercise of their First Amendment rights. United States District Court judge Rudolph Randa promptly granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, declaring that “the Defendants must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation.”

From that point forward, the case proceeded on parallel state and federal tracks. At the federal level, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Randa’s order. Declining to consider the case on the merits, the appeals court found the lawsuit barred by the federal Anti-Injunction Act, which prohibits federal courts from issuing injunctions against some state-court proceedings. O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth have petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari and expect a ruling in a matter of weeks.

At the same time, the John Doe prosecutors took their case to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals to attempt to restart the Doe proceedings. The case was ultimately consolidated before the state supreme court, with a ruling also expected in a matter of weeks.

And so, almost five years after their secret beginning, the John Doe proceedings are nearly dead — on “life support,” according to one Wisconsin pundit — but incalculable damage has been done, to families, to activist organizations, to the First Amendment, and to the rule of law itself.

In international law, the Western world has become familiar with a concept called “lawfare,” a process whereby rogue regimes or organizations abuse legal doctrines and processes to accomplish through sheer harassment and attrition what can’t be accomplished through legitimate diplomatic means. The Palestinian Authority and its defenders have become adept at lawfare, putting Israel under increasing pressure before the U.N. and other international bodies.

The John Doe investigations are a form of domestic lawfare, and our constitutional system is ill equipped to handle it. Federal courts rarely intervene in state judicial proceedings, state officials rarely lose their array of official immunities for the consequences of their misconduct, and violations of First Amendment freedoms rarely result in meaningful monetary damages for the victims.

As Scott Walker runs for president, the national media will finally join the Wall Street Journal in covering John Doe. Given the mainstream media’s typical bias and bad faith, they are likely to bring a fresh round of pain to the targets of the investigation; the cloud of suspicion will descend once again; even potential favorable court rulings by either the state supreme court or the U.S. Supreme Court will be blamed on “conservative justices” taking care of their own.

Conservatives have looked at Wisconsin as a success story, where Walker took everything the Left threw at him and emerged victorious in three general elections. He broke the power of the teachers’ unions and absorbed millions upon millions of dollars of negative ads. The Left kept chanting, “This is what democracy looks like,” and in Wisconsin, democracy looked like Scott Walker winning again and again.

Yet in a deeper way, Wisconsin is anything but a success. There were casualties left on the battlefield — innocent citizens victimized by a lawless government mob, public officials who brought the full power of their office down onto the innocent.

Governors come and go. Statutes are passed and repealed. Laws and elections are important, to be sure, but the rule of law is more important still. And in Wisconsin, the rule of law hangs in the balance — along with the liberty of citizens.

As I finished an interview with one victim still living in fear, still shattered by the experience of nearly losing everything simply because she supported the wrong candidate at the wrong time, I asked whether she had any final thoughts. “Just one,” she replied. “I’m hoping for accountability, that someone will be held responsible so that they’ll never do this again.” She paused for a moment and then, with voice trembling, said: “No one should ever endure what my family endured.”

– David French is an attorney, a writer, and a veteran of the Iraq War. This article first appeared in the May 4, 2015, issue of NR.

Neville Chamberlain and Barack Obama, the Similarities Run Deep

Neville Chamberlain and Barack Obama, the Similarities Run Deep
Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

Sen. Tom Cotton recently told Jeffrey Goldberg that it is unfair to Neville Chamberlain to compare his appeasement of Hitler to Barack Obama’s appeasement of Iran. Chamberlain, Tom reminded us, had been told that the British military was unprepared to fight Germany. Thus, he was in a position of weakness. President Obama, by contrast, is in a position of military strength.

The Senator is right insofar as the issue is negotiating posture, which is what he and Goldberg were discussing. But we shouldn’t forget that a major reason why Britain found itself so unprepared to deal was because Chamberlain had allowed its military strength to diminish dramatically.

Herein lies another similarity between Obama and Chamberlain. Obama doesn’t want to spend the money required to maintain full U.S. military preparedness, and the U.S. military is less prepared now than when Obama took office.

There’s yet another similarity — one that hadn’t occurred to me until I recently studied the Chamberlain years. I had always considered Chamberlain a thoroughgoing mediocrity — “not a bad Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a bad year,” as Lloyd George described him.

In fact, though, Neville Chamberlain was a brilliant machine politician. In contrast to his predecessor, the relatively easygoing Stanley Baldwin, Chamberlain leveraged his position to dominate British politics in almost dictatorial fashion.

Most of the English press was in his pocket. Not only would leading publications generally refuse to print opinion pieces critical of the government, it tended not to report developments adverse to it.

In the House of Commons, Chamberlain, through his enforcer David Margesson, imposed iron discipline on Tory members. The few who spoke out against appeasement were punished, often ruthlessly, as Lynne Olson showed in her book Troublesome Young Men.

Thanks in large part to these efforts, Chamberlain was able to remain Prime Minister even after the failure of appeasement became clear, as Hitler’s forces stormed through Europe while England continued to dither. Indeed, Chamberlain, on the strength of Tory backing, continued to hold a position in Churchill’s government. And he was able to undermine the “troublesome young Tories” by persuading Churchill that they were plotting to install Lloyd George as Prime Minister, according to Olson.

Only Chamberlain’s intestinal cancer (which killed him within a few months of being diagnosed) ended his government career.

We see with Chamberlain the same curious dynamic present in the Obama presidency. At home, a tough-as-nails administration/political machine that takes no prisoners and rarely compromises; abroad, a feckless operation with a pattern of caving to belligerent adversaries.

How should we explain this disconnect? Is it simply the familiar phenomenon of a bully backing down when confronted by a true tough guy? Or is some esoteric personality disorder at work?

I don’t know. But it seems likely that, as militarily unprepared as England was, if Chamberlain had behaved towards Hitler the way he did towards Harold McMillan, Europe would have been spared plenty of bloodshed. And if Obama behaved towards Ayatollah Khamenei and Vladimir Putin the way he behaves towards John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, Iran and Russia wouldn’t be stealing America’s pants to the detriment of world and national security.

A Greek Tragedy: The Sin of Eco-PC

A Greek Tragedy: The Sin of Eco-PC

Col Mike Walker, USMC (ret.)

All,

As Greece prepares to exit the Euro currency confederation in full crisis mode let us put a large share of blame for the crisis on economic political correctness (Eco-PC).

That is not to say that responsibility for the underlying financial meltdown lies anywhere but with Greece, but Eco-PC made this crisis far worse than needed and everything centers on one word: AUSTERITY.

None of the players could bring themselves to tell the truth: The Greek Government went broke.

Even a miraculous return to pre-Great Recession levels of prosperity combined with full and honest tax payments by the Greek people can save the day as existing statutory entitlement programs exceed 100% of even those unrealistic cash flows (and let that be a lesson to us all).

And that leaves nothing to pay government employees or the military or for any government services or to pay back the monies they borrowed to keep a sinking ship-of-state above water for the last several years. That is right: Even if Greece defaults on 100% of the money owed to folks around the world, it will still go broke.

For perspective, we are talking about a country with a per capita GDP well below Mississippi, the poorest state in America (which also begs the question: So what if the tiny Greek economy leaves?).

To avoid telling those truths the Eco-PC gang came up with AUSTERITY as a substitute for this reality: THE GREEK GOVERNMENT IS DEAD FLAT BROKE.

Thus began the mischief as the word “austerity” is so opaque as to mislead almost everyone and that is exactly what happened.

If you follow the debates, the inescapable conclusion is that the “austerity” measures are optional. Even worse, that means they are not really needed. “Austerity” became a wrong visited upon the people of Greece by evil others (usually spelt G-e-r-m-a-n-s).

Good grief!

As the “responsible” leaders (both inside and out of Greece) were trapped in a PC lie, the inescapable reality that “broke” means “broke” and the government spending cuts must happen and must happen now was lost in translation, Eco-PC translation, that is.

The “responsible” leaders lost their credibility, the lifeblood of elected politicians, and the extremists gained power.

So here we are, Greece ruled by stale Marxists stuck in the 1970s without a clue as to how to proceed, European leaders stuck with a fiscal collapse of the Greek Government that they lack to courage to accurately describe and the Greek people still wondering why in hell anyone would “choose” to enact an austerity plan, as if they ever had a choice.

Eco-PC sucks. 

When you are broke, tell the truth, pick yourself up and get back in the race. That's life! (And thank you Frank Sinatra)

Mike

The CSG* Can’t Shoot Straight: THE FUTURE WE SEEK? Seriously?

The CSG* Can’t Shoot Straight: THE FUTURE WE SEEK? Seriously?

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

Abandon Poland to SEEK a “reset” accord with Putin who then invaded Crimea and Ukraine?

That is failure writ large.

Distancing us from Israel while SEEKING an accord with Assad and the Islamic Republic that butchered their peaceful progressives?

That is failure writ large.

Declaring victory in Iraq only to give large parts of it to the Islamic State and hate-filled Shi’a militias controlled by the Islamic Republic?

That is failure writ large.

Intervene in Libya, declare victory (once again), abandon it and cede it the Islamic State?

That is failure writ large.

Declare Yemen a success only to see destroyed in a civil war between the Islamic Republic and the Islamic State?

That is failure writ large.

The CGS is the most incompetent national defense team in American History.

And every one of our enemies knows it!

Mike

*To use their own vulgar language, CSG = Chicken Shit Gang

Test Prep Idiots

Barron's AP Test Prep Guide equates Clarence Thomas with Fascists...

Test Prep Idiots

Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

All,

You likely did not read about Barrons’ apology for their inanely written AP European History study guide.

It is worth the read and you will be rewarded with quite a chuckle. 

The specifics are that Clarence Thomas is officially a “fascist” but the underlining principle is that for mainstream historians, the bar for accuracy has remained unchanged for the last century or so but for the too influential far-left historians, as the Barron’s “clown show” demonstrates, there is no bar for historical accuracy.

What makes this a hoot (and ironically so) is that the definition of “fascist” is untethered to European history. Barron’s fairy tale it is not founded in objective historical research or mainstream or even progressive interpretations but lies wholly in far left “goofism” (that still passes as history in too many quarters).

Here is the Orwellian “doublethink” that Barron’s guide foisted upon its readers: That “fascism” is a reactionary movement of the capitalist right. Seriously?

Fascism or nationalist socialism was a major post-First World War radical socialist movement that welded together nationalism and socialism and by socialism we mean the European definition of the term used at that time i.e. state control of the means of production (after all, the guide was supposed to be about European history). 

Recall that the topic at Hitler’s first meeting with the German Worker’s Party was about how and when to end capitalism, Mussolini was a life-long socialist, and listing all the anti-capitalist socialist policies they adopted after coming to power would take pages to recite.

Its great rival was communism that argued for not just state control but state ownership of all means of production. There was also a strong internationalist strain in communism as opposed to the nationalist focus of fascism.

Here is where the Bozo’s at Barron enter the twilight zone. 

One thing that Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Trotsky all agreed upon was that the future lied in radical socialism. As a corollary point of agreement, all believed that liberal democracies were inescapably destined for the dustbin of history (great phrase that, Leon).

None of this has anything to do with Justice Clarence Thomas (a life-long advocate of liberal democracy). 

It is apparent that the Thomas entry stemmed from bias and intellectual dishonesty. So why does this ilk of historical silliness persist?  

Two reasons: Ideology and ignorance.

Ideological Bias

By the 1930s, the communists and fascists were locked in an immense struggle and the far-left in the West became mostly sympathetic to communism as compared to fascism (remember, liberal democracies were abhorred but also considered a dying breed and thus only of passing danger to the revolution). 

This led the far left to transform the word “fascist” into a pejorative which they combined with the adoption of “reactionary” and a host of similarly demeaning terms to describe nationalist socialists, a vocabulary that far leftists use to this day.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the workers’ paradise: The Second World War came along. 

As hoped for by the far left, nationalist socialism was defeated and communism emerged victorious but deeply troubling, those doggone liberal democracies also emerged victorious and stronger than ever.

What to do? 

The far left never admits a fundamental mistake and it could not waste all the great propaganda efforts against fascist nationalist socialism so they took a lesson from Goebbels: If you repeat a lie often enough it can become the truth. (BTW, Goebbels was a more radical socialist than either Hitler or Mussolini)

The result was a brilliant display of “doublethink.” 

The very same liberal democracies that eradicated fascism as a global threat, that opposed its brutal socialist control of society in favor of basic human freedoms and limited powers of government were now conflated into their opposite by the far left, the ultimate application of doublethink.

The problem of course is that doublethink is always a lie. 

When leftist historians equate Justice Thomas with a fascist then their ideological bias is on full display.

Analytic Ignorance

I guess too many leftist historians failed Algebra I in high school. Putting communism on the far left and fascism on the far right may be fine if the subject is socialism. Otherwise, the argument lacks reason and any sense of good judgment.

Once non-socialist economic systems enter the mix, a linear model becomes impossible. Where do libertarianism or economic liberalism fit in? Where do free-market economies land except far away from the two extremes of communism and fascism? More subtly, where does a protectionist vice an “open door” economic system appear? 

Perhaps even a two-dimensional model is too simplistic but it would do an immensely better job than the dull-witted and stale leftist one-dimensional model presented by Barron’s authors.

An honest historian could never have compared Justice Thomas to a Hitlerite (or Leninist for that matter). 

Shame on the authors and shame on Barron.

Semper Fi,

Mike