Dubbed "The Surge" President Trump through his Attorney General have sent notice to law enforcement across the country that they need to be even MORE militarized and must receive more training on how to identify and punish Americans for crimes they have not (yet) committed. The FBI has a plan to go after "potential" threats by identifying, among others, "anti-government extremists." Who gets to decide? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
Not long after President George W. Bush declared a “war on terrorism,” I wrote that this war would end up being as perpetual as the federal government’s war on drugs. Some 18 years later, the US government’s killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria confirms how right I was.
After all, given all the media hype about the killing, you would think that the war on terrorism had been won and had finally been brought to an end. Some people were undoubtedly even getting ready for a ticker-tape parade in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the end of the war on terrorism.
Alas, not even close! Despite the much-ballyhooed killing of Baghdadi, there are still lots more terrorists, both big and little, in the world to kill. After 18 years of terrorism warfare, the Pentagon and the CIA are just getting a good start killing terrorists.
Indeed, the media is already speculating on who will replace Bagdadi as the new head of ISIS. Before too long, America will have another brand new official enemy to add to its long list of official enemies that need killing.
Haven’t we seen this picture, time and time again, in the war on drugs? Why, just recently we were treated to the federal spectacle of “El Chapo,” the notorious Mexican drug lord, being busted in Mexico, extradited to the United States, and, amidst great media hype, convicted and sentenced to life in a US federal penitentiary. read on...
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump’s actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s meeting this week with Trump, who is described as having had a “meltdown”. Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the paper writes that “it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of ISIS in the Middle East”.
Hang on a minute! Let’s pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short. read on...
You wouldn’t know it from today’s news headlines, but there’s a major scandal unfolding with potentially far-reaching consequences for the entire international community. The political/media class has been dead silent about the fact that there are now two whistleblowers whose revelations have cast serious doubts on a chemical weapons watchdog group that is widely regarded as authoritative, despite the fact that this same political/media class has been crowing all month about how important whistleblowers are and how they need to be protected ever since a CIA spook exposed some dirt on the Trump administration. read on...
Today's Liberty Report will rip three top stories from the headlines and break down what the mainstream media is not reporting on them. What's really going on as Lebanon's government continues to melt away in the face of sustained protests? What's the new US goal in Syria and what is the chance of achieving it? And what's going on with the new surprise witness in the House impeachment effort? A Ukraine-born US military officer and ally of John Bolton on the National Security Council Staff? Worried about a drop in US support for Ukraine? Smell bad? Former US diplomat James Jatras joins today's program to go behind the headlines. Watch it here... read on...
Long before and ever since the Blackwater Nisour Square massacre, the United States has employed contractors to pursue any particular US military agenda so desired, just about anywhere. However, under US law - depending upon who interprets it and when - US military contractors are not allowed to engage in aggression. Of course, the perception of "armed aggression" versus "self-defense" varies markedly, especially depending upon who or whom - ie which side - is doing the perceiving. The line between mercenary and contractor is indeed fine.
Besides the Nisour Square massacre, plenty of evidence exists that US military contractors do participate in military offensives, and invariably there is no independent observer to determine otherwise. The United States military employs contractors to train and instruct foreign troops in the use of arms and combat too, a technicality not addressed by the Anti-Pinkerton Act.
The presence of the United States military and its contractors in Syria is illegal. It is illegal according to Article 25 of the UN Charter; illegal according to the Syrian government and international law; and illegal according to the historically established principles of Westphalian sovereignty. In other words, the United States government is acting as a terrorist entity and insurgency in Syria. read on...
The long nightmare in Syria might finally be coming to an end, but not thanks to the United States and the administration of President Donald Trump. Trump’s boast that “this was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else” was as empty as all the other rhetoric coming out of the White House over the past two and a half years. read on...
Oct. 27, 1962, is the date on which we humans were spared extinction thanks to Soviet Navy submarine Captain Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov.
Arkhipov insisted on following the book on using nuclear weapons. He overruled his colleagues on Soviet submarine B-59, who were readying a 10-kiloton nuclear torpedo to fire at the USS Randolph task force near Cuba without the required authorization from Moscow.
Communications links with naval headquarters were down, and Arkhipov’s colleagues were convinced WWIII had already begun. After hours of battering by depth charges from US warships, the captain of B-59, Valentin Grigorievich Savitsky, screamed, “We’re going to blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all — we will not disgrace our Navy!” But Captain Arkipov’s permission was also required. He countermanded Savitsky and B-59 came to the surface.
Much of this account of what happened on submarine B-59 is drawn from Daniel Ellsberg’s masterful book, “The Doomsday Machine” — one of the most gripping and important books I have ever read. Dan explains, inter alia, on pages 216-217 the curious circumstance whereby the approval of Arkhipov, chief of staff of the submarine brigade at the time, was also required. read on...
Legendary founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, delivers a fascinating and very important talk at the 2019 RPI Summer Washington Conference: Murray Rothbard's views on the centrality of the war and peace issue to the libertarian movement. You will not want to miss this essential speech! read on...
President Trump is reversing his foreign policy decisions so quickly these days that it almost seems like he overturns himself before making the decision in the first place. Last week he was very clear that the US was pulling its troops out of Syria. “Bringing soldiers home,” he said. “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.” read on...
