From the blog at www.lp.org:
WASHINGTON – Libertarian Party Chairman Mark Hinkle issued this statement today:
“I am glad to hear of the death of Osama bin Laden, who had no qualms about slaughtering American civilians.
“Unfortunately, bin Laden leaves behind an evil legacy in the United States: the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretaps, the ‘state secrets’ doctrine, and other violations of Americans’ civil and economic rights.
“Just like Osama bin Laden, these programs must be terminated.
“President Obama must also end the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. It’s time to stop being the world’s policeman. It’s time to bring all those troops home.
“Our government should also end its foreign aid programs, which create future terrorists by funding many dictators around the world.”
The Libertarian Party platform (section 3.3) states, “American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world. Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid. We recognize the right of all people to resist tyranny and defend themselves and their rights. We condemn the use of force, and especially the use of terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by governments or by political or revolutionary groups.”
In 2008, the Libertarian National Committee adopted resolutions calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.
Source:http://www.lp.org/news/press-releases/libertarian-party-celebrates-end-of-bin-laden-era
hari @ 9,
1) What makes you think the Chinese regime will be able to mobilize a billion infantry troops to invade, conquer, occupy and subdue a country thousands of miles across an ocean, defended by 75-150 million armed inhabitants, when it can’t even keep its own ethnic and religious minorities from rising up regularly despite 60 years of vicious repression?
2) You must not have got the memo — the Constitution was torn up and used as toilet paper long ago.
3) If the Chinese want to try to collect on the debt you’re referring to, I have no problem with making the current 537, and several thousand former, members of the organizations which incurred that debt available to give depositions in Beijing or permitting them, as their last organizational act, to liquidate their combined personal wealth to pay off the debt they entered into.
Absent that, I guess the lenders are screwed … but what does that have to do with me? I didn’t co-sign those loans.
Hey Marc. Our 150 million ain’t going to stand up to over 1 BILLION of them. Rate this country is going, we will probably have to tear up the US Constitution in order to pay off the debt that is held by the Chinese. Scary stuff.
Osama bin Laden was a thug. There is little doubt about that. I place little faith in US government statements about him; however, the first-hand interviews he gave and the translations of his illegitimate ‘fatwas’ and video exhortations confirm what kind of person he was. Like Tom Knapp said — Obama…. er… Osama made his intent and activities known.
The truth of the matter is that the United States government created bin Laden, and created the conditions necessary for him to be able to recruit followers and execute his plans. Just as the US government needed a bogeyman in order to whip up patriotic fervor so the masses would ignore the thuggery going on within our borders by our own government, bin Laden needed the US bogeyman in order to whip up religious fervor and win power and prestige from his followers.
The one way for the US government to prove its “justice” was different from that of every other regime on earth would have been to arrest bin Laden alive and give him a speedy trial. If found guilty by a jury of average Americans, he should have served his sentence with average American criminals (eg with no special treatment, subject to the same conditions as any other violent murderer), or with a swift and humane execution.
That was the one path the government chose not to take.
But more important, the government should not have created its bin Laden in the first place. There is only one way to eliminate new threats (and rest assured the government will find a new bogeyman soon): by disengaging from the world stage.
As immediate reforms to increase the safety of Americans in the short term, the US government should:
1) Remove all US troops from *all* foreign nations; discharge the majority of US troops to the [productive] private sector.
2) Demobilize the military and place most of the US fleet in mothballs
3) Continue developing defensive capability for deployment on our own borders
4) Discontinue *all* foreign aid, not just the foreign aid that goes to one particular nation or another — we don’t need a bigoted aid policy
5) Discontinue all government protection of US individuals and businesses overseas, instead allow them to purchase insurance for their own protection
6) Reduce or eliminate tariffs and most export/import regulation and subsidies; EXCEPT prohibit the importation of stolen goods or those made with slave labor
Taking US house organs off the international stage would eliminate most of the reasons others have to hate Americans.
Couple the above reforms with implementation of a true Libertarian society and the Statue of Liberty will once again be the symbol of the freedom movement for the entire rest of the world.
The Middle East has a host of centuries-long, simmering problems, not the least of which is the continued 6th-century treatment of women and religious and ethnic minorities, as well as a socialist economic system that makes it all but impossible for the hoi polloi to start new businesses and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
The region will not be our problem much longer. China’s harassment and suppression of their Muslim minority coupled with China’s increasing hunger for oil and other resources, puts the two peoples on a collision course — and they share a border. Look at a map. We have to use airplanes and ships to project force. The Red Army, in contrast, needs only to go on a hike.
Whether we withdraw or not, we are going to play a bit part in that conflict when it comes around. The most we will accomplish by continuing to meddle in the area will be further inflaming both a neo-superpower China and a rich Arab world.
Once US government policy is non-interventionist, all subsidies to Big Oil, including the military umbrella, as well as all subsidies (such as “free” roads) to people driving cars, can be repealed. These are among the few internal reforms that would push real — and voluntary — reductions in energy use by Americans.
If a free market were implemented here, even a 95% free market as in the 1800’s, Americans could probably figure out their way to a decent standard of living whether the rest of the world is in flames with all trade — oil and cheap Chinese trinkets — sitting on the bottom of the ocean. The US does not necessarily need the rest of the world in order to maintain a reasonable standard of living. The rest of the world, however, would be much less well-off without the US. If American grain and other food production were no longer available, starvation for some large communities would be a real possibility. On the other hand, maybe not — if a free market existed, Americans would be known as world-class smugglers once again (as prior to the Revolution).
Anarchy?
You mean like chaos, which is what we have now?
Or do you mean anarchy in the sense of a community of peace-loving free-marketeers?
I ain’t picking chaos, that’s for sure.
Oh, and China can’t waltz into a fight with 150,000,000 armed-to-the-teeth free individuals who know how to shoot.
I just about have written off the LP if these posts represent the party and its members. Wow. I am fiscally conservative and socially tolerant, but it appears that you all want no government and anarchy. THAT is scary. Yes, lets do away with all the military and just let the Chinese come in and take over or the Southern border to be overrun with people that will also overrun our social support systems. You guys can’t be real, but you are.
Now onto to finding a political party with “realistic” views. And I am not going to the D’s or R’s who are a bunch of criminals.
Too bad the Reform Party is dead.
@2
“DITTO”
@4
AMEN to that !!!
“The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other—instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” – Edward Abbey
Libertarian Moses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ-NpPx8vfw&NR=1
RHONDA JACKSON – I AM LIBERTARIAN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNMpOBT5eyo&NR=1
From one former soldier to another, what sacrifices? As I heard it reported, there were no U.S. government casualties in the raid that killed bin Laden.
Even if there had been, why should the Libertarian Party contribute toward the already over-adulatory attitude that many in this country have toward any government employee whose job includes wearing a uniform by taking up space in a press release to pay homage?
No mention of the Navy Seal troops– I guess the LP doesn’t care about their sacrifices.
Excellent and timely statement! Way to go, guys!
AMEN!