The Freedom Watch

The risk of taking on Syria

"I lived in Lebanon in the fall of 1983 when the Reagan administration ordered the Marine peacekeepers deployed in Beirut to open fire on a Muslim militia. The commander bluntly warned Washington that a strike would have dire consequences for U.S. policy and his troops. 'We'll get slaughtered down here,' he predicted. Nonetheless, the cruiser Virginia stationed offshore fired 70 deafening rounds on the Lebanese fighters. It was supposed to be a quick hit. It was supposed to send a warning. But 34 days later, on Oct. 23, a yellow Mercedes truck carrying the equivalent of 6 tons of explosives drove into the Marine barracks as the peacekeepers slept." Continue reading →

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Syrian rebels get 400-ton shipment of arms

"Gulf-based supporters have sent a 400-ton shipment of arms to Syria’s outgunned rebels, one of the biggest to reach them in their two-year-old uprising. The consignment – mostly ammunition for shoulder-fired weapons and anti-aircraft machine guns - came into northern Syria via the Turkish province of Hatay in the past 24 hours, and was already being handed out. Syria’s conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim insurgents against President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect follows an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, has ignited sectarian tensions across the region. Qatar and other Sunni-led Gulf states have backed the insurgents, while Shi’ite power Iran remains one of Assad’s main allies." Continue reading →

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Politics of Bombing Syria Is Secondary to the President’s Power

"He will claim that it is not an act of war but a one-time retaliation. He will claim that he has the authority by his power to conduct foreign policy. Precedents that go back to the earliest days of the republic support the latter claim, even if the Constitution has nothing to say about the conduct of foreign policy. Obama, the constitutional lawyer, understands this. If he decides to bomb Syria, he will. His only political calculation will be what degree of public and Congressional support he wants to secure, but he has no doubt that he has the power to bomb. He already has been using this power in Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere since he became president." Continue reading →

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Amnesty International Sells Out

"From my perspective, you have caved in to the special interests of the US government, treading softly with them and their allies and jumping on the abuses of their designated enemies. I even notice that one of your options on this questionnaire is 'Amnesty’s investigative efforts to shine a light on war crimes being committed in Syria.' Talk about a drumbeat for war! We heard this blather before in the runup to Iraq. If you are so interested in war crimes, why are you so accommodating to the war crimes committed by the United States? It’s a shame. I have been a proud member for decades, but no longer." Continue reading →

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The Last Secular Arab Country

"The US regime, with its trained and financed local jihadi army, is in the process of destroying the last non-Islamist Arab regime: Syria. Like all empires, the US seeks to make trouble in order to dominate and enrich itself and its compatriots, governmental and corporate. Oh, and here is one effect of a jihadi takeover: the ancient Christian communities in Syria, there since the time of the Apostles and protected by Assad and his father, will be ethnically cleansed, with many murdered in the process. So the cannibal rebels promise." Continue reading →

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US Admits What Ron Paul Said: “Nobody Knows Who Set Off The Gas”

"The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no 'slam dunk,' with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria's chemical weaponsstores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say. [..] An intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander, the officials said. Another possibility that officials would hope to rule out: that stocks [..] were deployed by rebels in a callous and calculated attempt to draw the West into the war." Continue reading →

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Federal Regulators Consider Seat Belt Ignition Interlocks on Automobiles

"The seatbelt ignition interlock would prevent the automobile from starting unless the seatbelt was clasped. Back in 1974 the government required interlocks on nearly all 1974 year model vehicles. However, public outcry led Congress to banish the mandate. This week the NHTSA reportedly rejected a petition from BMW that would allow the German automaker to skip certain crash testing requirements if it installed seatbelt interlocks in front seats. BMW outlined three different potential types of interlocks including one that would prevent the vehicle from being started. Another would prevent the driver from shifting out of Park and a third would allow the vehicle to be driven only at low speeds." Continue reading →

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Cities Crackdown on Private Transport

"The Dallas City Council was scheduled to vote on a substantial city code rewrite that will redefine everything from who can dispatch a car to who can drive a limo to the cost of a limousine's off-the-lot sticker price (has to be more than $45,000). The rewrite will 'require limousine service to be prearranged at least 30 minutes before the service is provided.' The addendum item says 'the use of computer applications and other technologies by some providers of limousine service has distorted certain distinctions between limousines and taxicabs, and that it's high time the city 'establish those distinctions to help the public understand the differences between those types of passenger transportation services.'" Continue reading →

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Non-American spouse of American abroad narrowly avoids becoming a U.S. person

"In February 2013, an IRS examiner combing over the couple’s return wanted to know whether the wife’s act of submitting a 'married filing jointly' Form 1040 had accidentally turned the husband into a U.S. person, even if they had not explicitly made a § 6013(g) election for a nonresident alien spouse to be treated as a resident alien for tax purposes. Such treatment would saddle him with an obligation to file Form 3520 on what the IRS hilariously calls 'foreign trusts' and what the husband probably thinks of as 'my local & fully-tax-compliant retirement account' — and since the would-be joint return apparently didn’t include any 3520s for him, the couple would have been subject to penalties." Continue reading →

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