5 Times America Intervened in the Middle East

1.  In 1953, America and the United Kingdom teamed up to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Modaddegh.  This leader intended to bring the oil profits back to his own country instead of allowing foreign oil companies to control the valuable resource.  America promoted its involvement by connecting the Iranian leader to Communism, but we now know that the true motive was oil profits.  The leader that we put in power, the Shah, held power for over two decades.  He ruled as a tyrant who killed anyone who spoke out against him or his government. 


2.  In the late 70's America helped train and arm the Mujahideen to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.  One of the prominent members was a young Osama bin Laden.  And as we all know, Bin Laden went on to lead one of the largest terrorist groups, Al Qaeda.


3.    In the 1980's, America aided Saddam Hussein in Iraq's war against Iran.  America provided strategic satellite imagery and advice to Saddam, knowing his history of using chemical weapons and intent to use chemical weapons on the Iranians as a result of America's involvement.  Recently declassified CIA documents proved that we were well aware of Iraq's use of chemical weapons, despite what they were telling the American public at the time.  The use of chemical weapons in war has been banned since 1925 under the Geneva Protocol.  Iraq never ratified the Geneva Protocol, but America did in 1975.


4.  In 2011 - 2012, America approved the shipment of arms from Qatar to the Libyan rebels in their fight against Muammar Qaddafi.  Many of these arms were ending up end the hands of Islamic militants, including Al Qaeda.  There was very little oversight of the transfer of arms at the time.    They have since been confirmed to have ended up all across the middle east from Mali to Syria. 


5.  In 2013, America began providing training and arms to the Free Syrian Army in their civil war against the Assad regime in Syria.  The FSA slowly devolved into ISIS, and they turned their efforts to northern Iraq.  As ISIS took city after city in Iraq, it grew stronger and stronger, taking left over American military equipment that was abandoned after the Iraq war.


Maybe it's time we stop intervening in the Middle East.  Just sayin'.

Police and the Use of Force

Police brutality has been a hot topic for the past several years now.  With the increased access to camera phones (thanks to capitalism), police are being held accountable more than in years past.

Every situation comes down to the basic concept of the appropriate use of force.  When is force necessary?  When is force justified?  I'd like to give my thoughts on the recent shooting of Deven Guilford in Michigan in February 2015.

Click here to read CNN's report if you are unfamiliar with the case.

There are two videos posted at the end of the article.  Discretion advised.  The first video is the side-by-side cell phone video with the officer's body camera.  The second is an in depth analysis in defense of Deven Guilford.  

If someone told you that a routine traffic stop for flashing your high beams would lead to a murder, you wouldn't believe them.  What could escalate a situation to that point?  There is undoubtedly several decisions that both the officer and the 17 year old could have made differently to better resolve the situation.  The teen could have been honest from the beginning and said he didn't have his license on him.  The officer could have explained the bright light situation to the teen instead of making the teen paranoid that the officer was purposefully lying.  The teen could have simply accepted the officer was lying to him and not pushed him any further.  The officer could have avoided further escalation -- and paranoia for the teen -- if he didn't play the semantics game with the question "can I see your badge number?"   In hindsight, many mistakes were made.

But it is clear to me when the situation got out of control:  the moment the officer quickly opened the door and attempted to pull the teen from the car.  This was the first use of force.  This obviously caught the teenager by surprise, but he calmed down and complied once he got his cell phone camera back on.  The teen followed the order to "get on the ground" as he got on his knees.  The teen followed the order to "get on your belly."  The teen followed the order to spread his arms.  All of this while being threatened with a taser.  As the officer approaches, the face-down teen says "I don't have a weapon."  Despite the teen following every order, the officer still found it necessary to throw the teens phone away and forcefully attempt to cuff him as the teen pleads "Officer what are you doing? Officer!  Officer!".  This was the second use of force.   The teen began to struggle, still face down, and the officer jumped up and deployed his taser.  This was the third use of force.  The resulting struggle ended the 17 year old's life.

So back to my original question:  When was force necessary in this situation?  Sure, the teen was being argumentative, but does that justify force?  The verbal exchange never involved threats of violence at all.  Does the initial reaction of the teen not wanting to get out of the car justify force?  He eventually complied with every command.

In the end, it was determined that the officer followed all the correct procedures and training, broke no police regulations, and no charges were brought against him.

Let me restate that: police training/procedures can justify the death of a 17 year old during a routine traffic stop.  This is the problem.  As I highlighted above, the officer was responsible for escalating the situation with the use of force.  Opening the car door and attempting to pull the teen out is justified based on our current laws.  If the officer's training/procedures would have included being infinitely patient with a verbally argumentative subject, then this could have been avoided.  Officers are supposed to be the ones trained to keep their cool and manage the situation -- not the American people.  We don't have "how to get pulled over" training classes.  The worst part is (and this is from the second video) that the final report mentions on behalf of the officer that "self-defense is justified if there's a belief that deadly force is needed, but that belief does not have to be correct."  What about on the teen's behalf?  Is the same not true if he feels threatened?

Then there is the argument for protecting against police shootings.  Police are trained to be super defensive and pro-active against what they perceive as a potential threat.  Our laws have become more and more lenient, allowing police to justify the use of force in situations where none was necessary.  But what about the American people?  We don't get to write our own procedures and regulations that protect us against over-zealous cops who are allowed to use force to defend against a potential threatening situation.  Simply having a bad attitude is enough to warrant the use of force -- the last time I checked a bad attitude isn't against the law.

Do we err on the side of officer safety or citizen safety?  Lenient procedures/training only allow the bad-apples to abuse their power.  In my opinion, we err on the side of the American people.  The job of an officer is to serve and protect.  Let's pay them more money for the dangerous work they do, and let's adjust the standards at which they are held when it comes to the use of force.

Net Neutrality and Comcast

Net Neutrality is a joke.  It is an attempt to fix a symptom of a bigger problem -- lack of competition.

Supporters of Net Neutrality will tell you that lack of regulation is what allowed Comcast and Time Warner to become the powerhouse that they are.  That is just not the case.

How did this happen?

The Cable Communications Act of 1984 established the first set of regulations around cable companies.  Local municipalities were given the power to act as a franchisee to license cable operations in their areas.  The cable companies were subject to a franchise fee, facility and equipment requirements, as well as some broad requirements to provide access to local content/programming.

This resulted in very few instances of cable companies overlapping their coverage area.  Do you remember when you would travel to your relatives' house in the next town over and all their channels were different?  That's because your cable providers differed from town to town.  It just wasn't cost effective to negotiate for franchise rights with the local municipality, duplicate an existing network of physical cables, and be forced to compete with another company.

So cable companies did the most logical thing to expand business -- they merged.  The Wall Street Journal posted a great chart that shows the consolidation of cable companies over the past two decades (image below).  Twenty years later, Time Warner Cable and Comcast are consistently the most hated companies in America.

 

Government Regulation

So how do we fix this problem?  Some people argue that government regulation is the answer.  In almost every case, when the government attempts to regulate a private industry it results in higher prices for the consumer.  Another proposed solution is to make the cable lines a public utility and regulate it similar to phone lines.  How much have phone lines evolved over the past 50 years?  When a company's profits are regulated by the government, it removes incentives to reinvest or reinvent the technology.  With something as powerful as the internet, the last thing we want to do is hinder its growth.

The Solution

The solution is to break up the monopolies horizontally.  The physical cable network should not be owned and operated by the same company that provides the internet service.  That is the root cause of all the problems.  Allow ISP's to purchase non-discriminatory usage of the cable lines and do not allow ISP's to write language into their contracts that restrict their competition from using those same lines.  This promotes actual competition and removes a huge barrier to entry for the ISP market.  

"Net Neutrality" would be a positive by-product as well!  The companies that own the physical infrastructure don't care what data is moving through their lines because they have no interest in the content as long as the ISP's are paying for the usage.  The ISP's, on the other hand, would still be able to favor one source of content over another if the free market supports them.  With the introduction of more competition, the free market would be able to decide which ISP's win and lose based on quality of service instead of government bureaucrats and lobbyists.

If you look at Comcast right now, they are a content provider (e.g. Hulu) and a data mover (ISP), not to mention they are heavily invested in the physical infrastructure of the internet.  So naturally, Comcast will take advantage of opportunities to limit/hinder the growth of its competition.  That is a huge conflict of interest for the consumer who wants cheap, high quality internet content in a variety of options. 

Vaccination Q & A

Do vaccinations work?  Yes.  There is absolutely no denying that fact.  Feel free to ask Google yourself.  The evidence is overwhelmingly positive.

Should the government require vaccinations?  In a perfect world, no, the free market would have led us to vaccinations because it is the safe and efficient thing to do.  However, we are too far down the path to go back now.  You are free to choose if you want to send your kids to public, private, or home school.  In order to go to public school, the government requires your kids to be vaccinated (with some exceptions).  This is no different from a private business setting their own rules and regulations.  The government is free to regulate the services it provides.

Should we have any freedom to choose which vaccinations we give our kids?  Yes.  The most dangerous viruses are the ones that are required by most states before kids can enter public school -- measles, tetanus, polio, etc.  Flu and other less dangerous viruses, however, are completely up to you.  Not all flu vaccinations have high success rates, and the flu strains are rarely fatal. 

Do vaccinations cause autism?  This is a theory, currently.  There are studies that are inconclusive at best. 

Should we continue to research vaccinations and their effects?  Absolutely.  If there is even the slightest doubt that vaccinations could be harmful in anyway, then it's our responsibility to keep researching and testing until that doubt is gone. 

Should we continue to seek improvements in vaccinations that make them as safe as possible?  Yes. 

Are there people who are overreacting about vaccinations causing autism?  Yes.  There is a current trend right now for all those "forward thinking" people that involves not getting your children vaccinated.  Despite all evidence supporting vaccinations, there are parents who would rather risk the spread of diseases to their kids and others instead of risking the theory of vaccinations causing autism.

Should parent's get their kids vaccinated?  Yes.  And if you are scared of vaccinations causing autism, a common compromise is to spread out the timeline that your child receives the vaccinations.  Senator Rand Paul, a doctor, chose to stagger the vaccinations over a period of time for his children.  In my opinion, this is the best strategy to avoid any potential side effects.

Are vaccinations being blown out of proportion for political reasons?  Of course.  Politicians would make an issue out of cutting the edges off sandwich bread if they thought it would gain them political advantage -- especially in an election year.