The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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US Weapons Fuel Saudi Slaughter In Yemen

Wednesday August 17, 2016

The Saudis have purchased more than $100 billion in weapons from the US during the Obama presidency. Much of it has been used to attack next-door Yemen in attempt to restore a deposed president. Over the past several days the Saudis have bombed a school, a hospital, and a potato chip factory. Scores of civilians have been killed. Washington has yet to condemn the slaughter carried out by the Saudis with US weapons. Now the Saudis want another billion dollars worth of weapons from the US to continue their war of aggression. There is little push-back in military-industrial complex-controlled Washington. But is this foreign policy good for America?
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Trouble Follows When the US Labels You a ‘Thug’

Tuesday August 16, 2016

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There is a nasty pattern in American political speech, going back into the 1980s at least: when a senior US  official labels you a thug, often times wars follow. Thug is the safest word of American Exceptionalism.

So it is with some concern that lots of folks are pushing each other away from the mic to call Putin a thug (fun fact: Putin has been in effective charge of Russia for 15 years. As recently as the Hillary Clinton Secretary of State era, the US  sought a “reset” of relations with him.)

While the current throwing of the term thug at Putin is tied to the weak evidence presented publicly linking a Russian hacker under Putin’s employ to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computers, there may be larger issues in the background. But first, a sample of the rhetoric.

Putin the Thug

Obama on Putin: “a thug who doesn’t understand his own best interests.”

Mario Rubio on Putin: “A gangster and a thug.”

Paul Ryan’s spokesperson on Putin: “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug.”
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Trump Foreign Policy Speech - Cheers Or Jeers?

Tuesday August 16, 2016

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered a major foreign policy speech in Ohio yesterday which was once again a very mixed bag. On the one hand he promised an end to regime-change and nation-building, which if he had just stopped there and stuck to it would have been a positive development. Unfortunately his positions are less driven by principles and policy than by desire to please both the pro-war and antiwar factions. Therefore he swore to defeat radical Islamic terrorism by dropping even more bombs in the Middle East, obviously not understanding that it was US bombs in the Middle East that created the problem in the first place. He wants to blame Obama and Hillary Clinton for ISIS without understanding that they were just carrying to its conclusion the interventionist policies of George W. Bush. We take a look at the ups and downs of Trump's foreign policy speech in today's Liberty Report...
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While Beijing and Manila Talk, Washington Spoiling for a Fight

Tuesday August 16, 2016

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As much as Washington may hate it, the fact is Beijing and Manila are diplomatically discussing the situation in the South China Sea.

Champagne bottles are not popping yet, but Special Philippine envoy, former President Fidel Ramos, did go to Hong Kong, and on behalf of President Rodrigo Duterte, got together with Fu Ying, the chairwoman of the foreign affairs committee of the National People’s Congress. On the record, Ramos made sure that Manila is all in for formal negotiations.

The starting block concerns some fishy business - literally. Beijing and Manila may be on their way already to open the highly disputed Scarborough shoal, which falls right into what Manila describes as the West Philippine Sea, to both Chinese and Filipino fishermen, as in the joint development of fish farms.

Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, let it be known that Ramos’s visit to Hong Kong was just an opener. Of course his next step will have to be a trip to Beijing to talk to the high-stakes power players. Then the way will be paved for a formal Duterte state visit.
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New Yemeni Government Ready To Accept Al-Saud's Capitulation

Monday August 15, 2016

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Day by day the situation in Yemen becomes more difficult for the people on the ground. The Saudis have renewed bombing and seemingly hit everything in sight - no matter what. Food is running out. But Yemen now has a new legitimate government. And the Saudis will have to either follow the conditions it will set, or all-out lose the war.

UN supervised negotiations between the former Yemeni president Hadi, supported by the armed forces of various Gulf countries, and a delegation of the Houthi alliance with the former president Saleh have failed. The Saudis demanded total surrender to their demands: A retreat of the Houthi from the capital Sanaa, a complete re-installment of Hadi as president, and a handing over of all serious weapons. The Houthi/Saleh side could never have agreed to such conditions. The fighting on the ground continued throughout the four month negotiations.

When the failure of the negotiations was obviously imminent, Houthi and Yemeni army forces re-invaded Saudi Arabia. For 200 km of the Saudi-Yemeni border from the Red Sea to inland eastwards Yemeni forces initially invaded at 6 locations 5-20km deep. Video showed them in sight of the Saudi city Narjan, with half a million inhabitants, shelling the electricity station and military barracks. Laughably a joint statement from the governments of the UK, USA, Saudi Arabia and UAE demanded that:
the conflict in Yemen should not threaten Yemen’s neighbours.
Laughable. A Saudi war on Yemen is fine with them, to respond to such is not?
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It's August 15th - Where Is Your Gold?

Monday August 15, 2016

When President Nixon closed the gold window on August 15, 1971, he sold it to Americans as a way to recover from the "war economy" of Vietnam and a way to combat inflation. As we know 45 years later, the proliferation of paper dollars has, if anything, made war all the more attractive, giving people the impression that it can be financed with dollars out of thin air. And inflation? While officially it sits at around zero, in fact you would need $594.28 to purchase today what you could purchase for $100 in 1971. The warfare state is driven by the fiat dollar. More on the fateful Nixon decision and its implications in today's Liberty Report...
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Rethinking The Cold War

Monday August 15, 2016

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The Cold War began during the Truman administration and lasted through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and was ended in Reagan’s second term when Reagan and Gorbachev came to an agreement that the conflict was dangerous, expensive, and pointless.

The Cold War did not cease for long—only from the last of Reagan’s second term and the four years of George H. W. Bush’s term. In the 1990s President Clinton restarted the Cold War by breaking America’s promise not to expend NATO into Eastern Europe. George W. Bush heated up the renewed Cold War by pulling the US out of the Anti-ABM Treaty, and Obama has made the war hotter with irresponsible rhetoric and by placing US missiles on Russia’s border and overthrowing the Ukrainian government.

The Cold War was a Washington creation. It was the work of the Dulles brothers. Allen was the head of the CIA, and John Foster was the Secretary of State, positions that they held for a long time. The brothers had a vested interest in the Cold War. They used the Cold War to protect the interests of their law firm’s clients, and they used it to enhance the power and budgets associated with their high positions in government. It is much more exciting to be in charge of foreign policy and covert activity in dangerous times.
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Election 2016: Liberty Loses No Matter Who Wins

Sunday August 14, 2016

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For all the hand-wringing about the threat to liberty and constitutional government posed by the major party presidential candidates, there is little discussion of how this threat is due to the political class’s long history of supporting expanded presidential power. There is also little talk of how the imperial presidency is just as much a creation of Congress as it is of power-hungry presidents.

Since war is the health of the state, it is not surprising that presidential power expanded in tandem with the expansion of the warfare state. Perhaps the best, and most terrifying, example of how “national security” has been used to justify giving the president dictatorial powers is the Defense Production Act.
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Shocking Report Finds U.S. Military Consistently 'Distorted, Suppressed, Or Substantially Altered' ISIS-Related Intel

Sunday August 14, 2016

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Last week the US House of Representatives Joint Task Force released their initial findings on the intelligence analysis of the US Military's Central Command (CENTCOM). The report found that, among other things, CENTCOM leaders "distorted, suppressed, or substantially altered analytic products" to paint US efforts to combat ISIS in a more positive light. Moreover, 50 percent of analysts within CENTCOM said that the "procedures, practices, processes and organizational structures hampered objective analysis" while another 40 percent said they had experienced attempts to "distort or suppress intelligence" within the past year.
The annual Analytic Objectivity and Process Survey , directed by the ODNI, was conducted from August through October 2015, and included responses from 125 analysts and managers within CENTCOM. The survey results were significantly worse than those of other IC agencies or COCOMs, and showed that a substantial number of CENTCOM respondents felt theirsupervisors distorted, suppressed, or substantially altered analytic products. Over 50 percent of analysts responded that CENTCOM procedures, practices, processes and organizational structures hampered objective analysis, and 40 percent responded that they had experienced an attempt to distort or suppress intelligence in the past year. Yet despite receiving these results in December 2015, CENTCOM and IC leaders did not take corrective actions to address many of the issues identified in the survey results
Frankly we're shocked by these findings which seem to suggest that the military intelligence gather process is motivated less by gathering quality intelligence intended to keep our country safe and more by political pressure intended to help re-elect the incumbent party to the White House.
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Even Nukes Grow Old

Saturday August 13, 2016

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Everything grows old. I’m told one day the stars and planets will turn to dust. So I suppose it’s no surprise that America’s arsenal of nuclear weapons is also showing signs of advancing age, and may have to be replaced.

One would think that the growing decrepitude of our nukes would be a fine time to dismantle and junk these horrible weapons. President Barack Obama has fulsomely preached for the past seven years on the need to get ride of the nukes. Very nice.

Yet once away from the microphones, Obama has let the military-industrial-financial complex generate plans to refresh and update the US nuclear arsenal in a massive project estimated to cost at least $1 trillion.

No major effort has been made to assemble the world’s declared and undeclared nuclear powers and hammer out a plan to junk all nukes and make sure they are not replaced. On the contrary, it’s full speed ahead in the devil’s workshop.

The US Air Force wants to replace by 2044 all of its 1960’s vintage Minuteman ICBMs with 642 new ground-based, silo-launched ICBMs. Some $7 billion was already spent over the past two decades modernizing them.
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