Senate Joins House in Proposal for ‘Automatic’ Draft Registration

A Contrary to earlier reports, the U.S. Senate has joined the House of Representatives in moving toward a foolhardy attempt to ‘automatically’ register all draft-eligible U.S. citizens and residents for a possible military draft, by extracting and aggregating information obtained from other Federal agencies.

The proposal for “automatic” draft registration is among several previously-undisclosed provisions related to Selective Service in the newly-release version of the National Defense [sic] Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025 approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and to be considered by the full Senate.

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NATO Is 75: The Haunting of the Present by the Past

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is marking its 75th anniversary. Created in 1949 as a defensive alliance against an expansive Soviet Union, the alliance should have ceased to exist when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Instead, it continued to expand to the very border of Russia. Talk of Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet republics, joining NATO contributed to tensions that led to the Russia-Ukraine War, now in its third destructive and deadly year.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO expanded greatly. The specter of communism remains strong. Since this map was created, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO.

NATO’s resilience (perhaps “endurance” and “inertia” are better words) in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse demonstrates the power of institutions to sustain themselves long after they’ve lost their reason for being. While President Biden recently claimed to have created NATO, the alliance was really about containing communism in the aftermath of World War II. As European and American leaders openly admitted at the time, NATO kept the U.S. military in Europe while also shoring up U.S. imperial power around the globe. Few Europeans wanted a revived German military after the colossal destruction in part caused by German militarism in World Wars I and II.

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Believing in Nuclear Deterrence and Angels

“Despite the fact that deterrence remains an article of faith among the ‘realists’ who have orchestrated U.S. strategic policy and who continue to do so, despite its incoherence and instability, much of this faith is lip service only, analogous to deeply religious individuals who profess belief in heaven, yet rarely rejoice when a loved one dies. Thus, if the U.S. government really believed in nuclear deterrence — or in the billions of dollars spent on Ballistic Missile Defense — there wouldn’t be such hyperventilating about the threat posed by a nuclear armed North Korea or possibly by Iran in the future.” ~ David Barash

There’s a webinar coming up on July 9 about nuclear deterrence. I imagine it will be excellent. I’ve also just been reading a fantastic book on the topic called Threats: Intimidation and Its Discontents by David P. Barash. There’s an online book club with the author and free copy of the book coming up for that. Barash’s central thesis is that the idea of nuclear deterrence makes no sense. It’s kind of hard to see why anyone would argue with him.

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Starmer’s War Party Ascends to Power as Anti-War Candidates Secure Key Seats

July 4th, a day of freedom for Americans, has become a day of infamy for Britons opposed to Israel’s genocidal war in occupied Palestine. Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party and stalwart supporter of the Israel and its war crimes, has successfully led his party to a comfortable majority in the British House of Commons. His success is unsurprising as major polls correctly predicted how unpopular the Conservative Party has become after fourteen years of rule. Major factors contributing to this unpopularity were the Conservatives’ mismanagement of the economy and public services. Clearly, voters wanted an alternative to the disastrous policies of the Conservative Party; yet, Starmer’s Labour Party does not provide a true alternative.

Starmer truly revealed the ugly nature of the Labour Party under his leadership when he expelled anti-war crusader and former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, for not bending the knee when it came to baseless accusations of systemic antisemitism in the Labour Party. Starmer, clearly very afraid of the anti-war left, has also expelled Graham Jones who sensibly stated, “No British person should be fighting for any other country at all… It is against the law and you should be locked up.” Dissenting opinions in regards to the Israeli regime are obviously not inherently anti-semitic. Such an opinion is as idiotic as saying that someone is “sinophobic” for disliking the Chinese government. Nevertheless, political elites like Keir Starmer have continuously used baseless charges of antisemitism to silence free speech and unfairly sanction Labour Party members.

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