The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
The Ron Paul Peace and Prosperity Institute
Subscribe to the Institute View Us on YouTube Follow Us On Twitter Join Us on Facebook Join Us at Google Plus

Search Results

for:

Daniel McAdams

Beirut Bombings at 30: Interventionism Kills

Wednesday October 23, 2013

Beirut Memorial

Today, October 23, 2013, marks the 30th anniversary of the US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Some 241 American servicemembers were killed. These deaths were the direct result of US intervention in an area where there was neither US interest nor any threat to the United States.

Although after the bombing President Ronald Reagan initially pledged to stay the course in Lebanon, within months, facing waning support and a realization that his was a futile policy, he decided to withdraw the US military.

The US troops were sent in after the June, 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which was supported by the US government at the time. Resentment ran high at the US (and French) military presence, increasing with the gradual involvement of US forces on one side of the conflict. Following the grisly September 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacres, carried out by the Israel-allied Phalangists facilitated by the Israeli Defense Forces, the temporarily withdrawn US forces were sent back in to Lebanon where they became magnets for increasing resentment and therefore targets for attack. It was recklessness.
read on...

British Press Shills for Syria War With 'Baby Snipers' Story

Sunday October 20, 2013

Baby Bullet

The Times of London yesterday published a sensational Syria story based on an interview with British doctor David Nott, who had volunteered his medical expertise in Syria over the past several weeks. Dr. Nott said that he had seen several pregnant women come in with abdominal wounds. He speculated that snipers must have been playing some sort of game where they would target the fetuses of pregnant women -- a grisly business to be sure.

Said Dr. Nott:
It seemed to me that it was some sort of a game they (the snipers) were having with each other... One day we'd have pregnant women being brought in with gunshot wounds to the uterus. Not just one or two, but seven or eight, which meant to me they (the snipers) must be targeting pregnant women.
Nott "heard local rumors" that these snipers, who seemed were playing a game, were Chinese or Azeri mercenaries fighting with Assad's government forces.
read on...

St. Tony Does Tirana...Again

Wednesday October 9, 2013

Saint Tony

War has been very good to former British prime minister Tony Blair. He has gone from humble humanitarian interventionist pushing Iraq's "liberation," to a $30 million dollar yearly income and a private $11,000/hr jet plane. What a success story!

Of course he knew full well the evidence justifying the Iraq attack was bogus. He simply instructed his spooks to "find the intelligence" to support his decision to go to war. The US, desperate to show a broad international coalition supporting the Bush Administration's own lies about Iraq, welcomed Blair's lies like a long lost brother.

In the meantime, millions died and trillions of dollars went up in smoke. Never mind, Blair soon landed a brilliant opportunity with a huge South Korean oil company that, coincidentally enough, had significant interests in the "liberated" Iraq. For some strange reason, Tony Blair fought tooth and nail to keep his new job and great success secret. What modesty!
read on...

What Can Be Learned From the Golden Dawn Arrests?

Thursday October 3, 2013

Golden Dawn

Greece's far right Golden Dawn party looks like a rather nasty piece of work. Supporters have been photographed in what appears to be Nazi-esque salutes; its party logo looks suspiciously like a swastika. The party has nonetheless skyrocketed to prominence in Greece in the aftermath of EU-imposed austerity programs, which have bailed out foreign speculators in Greek debt at the expense of the Greek economy.

The party, which was formed in the 1980s, came from electoral nowhere to win seven percent of the votes in the 2012 elections. Its platform is clearly populist, anti-bailout, anti-immigration. Party workers have made inroads in Greek society distributing food and other assistance to a Greek population that has seen its formerly southern European standard of living descend to third world level existence with the smugly approving oversight of Brussels.
read on...

Mother Agnes Mariam Attacked...By Human Rights Watch!

Wednesday October 2, 2013

Mere Marie Agnes De La Foi

Since when does a human rights organization take to arguing the case for a military attack that will kill scores of innocent civilians? If you are Human Rights Watch, it's all in a day's work. The US regime's favorite "human rights " organization, which once praised the Obama Administration's continuation of its predecessor's torturous CIA "extraordinary rendition" program, pulled out all stops to bolster Obama's claims that the Syrian government was responsible for the August 21st chemical attack near Damascus.

As Obama was ready to teach Syria a lesson via Tomahawk cruise missiles, Human Rights Watch stood virtually alone in the world on the president's side. The human rights group was not busy trying to help the victims or promote international diplomatic efforts to end the crisis. They were instead feverishly engaged in a convoluted effort to prove that the missiles that purportedly carried the poison gas could only have come from Syrian government positions. They had no investigators on the ground, yet they determined independent of facts that the Syrian government must have been responsible. This is the job for a human rights group? To help a president make the case for war?
read on...

Kenya Mall Attack: The Bitter Fruits of Interventionism

Wednesday September 25, 2013

Kenya Shooting

In his speech yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama devoted little time to the recent slaughter of some 62 shoppers at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya.

Said Obama, in toto:
But even a glance at today’s headlines indicates that dangers remain. In Kenya, we’ve seen terrorists target innocent civilians in a crowded shopping mall. And our hearts go out to the families of those who’ve been affected.
Yes, what happened in Kenya is a terrorist act. But for Obama to tell the rest of the story would undermine his narrative and unravel Washington's strange relationship with the al-Qaeda affilliated al-Shabaab organization that claimed responsibility for the attack. Al-Shabaab, or "Mujahideen Youth Movement," in fact owes its birth to US interventionism in Africa, as it sprang up from the ashes of the Islamic Courts Movement that had ruled Somalia until a US-sponsored invasion by Ethiopia destroyed the Courts Movement in 2007.
read on...

American Exceptionalism: Putin, the Neocons, and Ron Paul

Friday September 13, 2013

When Russian President Vladimir Putin took his American counterpart to task in a recent New York Times Editorial over Obama's invocation of the standard neoconservative boilerplate "American exceptionalism" to justify an aggressive US foreign policy, US neocons shrieked in unison. How dare he, they cried.

But to the neoconservatives, American exceptionalism has nothing to do with civil liberties, personal freedom, limited government, free markets, and the like. It is only the exeptionalism of the US sword, going abroad to seek monsters to destroy. It is only the exeptionalism of military might to force the world to follow US dictates.

Putin pushed back against this kind of false and ahistoric American exceptionalism and, likely because his argument made so much sense to the average American who is sick of war and aggression overseas, the neoconservatives suffered fits of convulsions and intestinal distress. Neoconserative Senator Robert Menendez, who has long dreamed of another Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, felt like he "wanted to vomit" after reading Putin's words. House Speaker John Boehner felt "insulted" by Putin. John McCain felt his intelligece insulted by Putin's comments.
read on...

Hillary Mann Leverett: 'Obama Made Two Unforced Errors, in Libya and Syria'

Tuesday September 10, 2013

Listen to Ron Paul Institute Academic Advisor Hillary Mann Leverett on the always-terrific Robert Wenzel Show discuss the intricacies of the Middle East. Ms. Mann Leverett is a rare breed of international affairs expert: she knows the region like nobody else, her expertise both inside and outside government is unquestionable; yet she retains a realistic rather than messianic view of what should be the US role in the world. How lucky her American University students are to have such a professor! And we greatly value her friendship as well.
read on...

Congressional Danse Macabre Has Begun

Monday September 2, 2013

Danse Macabre1

The first draft of the White House's war authorization legislation was leaked today, signaling the opening round of the danse macabre, in which the bargaining and maneuvering over what Congress and the president both want -- war on Syria -- begins its public journey from conception to law.

As according to past practice, the first draft is considered "too broad" for some Members and Senators. Senator Patrick Leahy opened the bidding, emerging from a closed-door classified intelligence briefing (the kind where the doctored intercepts and phony satellite photos are spread out before Members to better help them make the "right" decision) stating that the first draft of the war authorization was "too open-ended," but that he is certain it will be amended in the Senate. 

Similarly, Republican Senator Pat Roberts felt the first draft was too open-ended but was given assurances that the White House would work with Congress to reach an acceptable version.

There will be fighting and sharp words along the way. Members will be coy and make impassioned speeches. It is all for show.

It is important to make this clear to readers: The fight is not between whether the House and Senate will pass or reject the president's request for authorization to attack, but rather what kind of force authorization will ultimately be brought to the Floor for passage.
read on...

Subscribe

Authors

Tags