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Has US Foreign Policy Changed?

Saturday October 19, 2019

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While the dramatic US withdrawal from Syria is making headlines, little is being said about proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan or Iraq. The United States has invested trillions of US dollars in all three wars, with great loss of life, and little to show in positive results. But is there a bigger picture in Washington? Recent events outline an emerging pattern that may point the way to a new potential strategy for the execution of US foreign policy. 

As pointed out by author and intellectual Tom Luongo, the departure of Joseph "Operation Iraqi Oil" Dunford as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 30th was a significant geopolitical event. Recall that Dunford was the highest-ranking military officer and regular military advisor to the president. 

Dunford on Syria:
"Our primary partners on the ground, the Syrian Democratic Forces, have been successful in recovering a large swath of ground in northeast Syria.. The SDF’s recent operations in the town of Shaddadah effectively severed the last major artery that connected Raqqa and Mosul.  Over time, the size of the Syrian Democratic Forces, and specifically the Arab component inside the Syrian Democratic Forces, has grown.  And our focus right now is on continuing to – continuing that trend to grow the capabilities of the Syrian Democratic Forces.."  
Dunford On Afghanistan:
"Last summer highlighted, though, that the Afghan forces continue to need our support to build their capacity, specifically in areas like logistics, special operations, aviation capability, what I’d call broadly ministerial capacity."
And as Dunford stated in 2016, "First, the Russian military presents the greatest array of threats to U.S. interests.  Despite declining population, shrinking economy, Russia has made a significant investment in military capabilities," addressing the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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So, Admiral McRaven Just Called for a Military Coup, Kinda

Friday October 18, 2019

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Admiral William McRaven, famous for being the guy who told the guy who told the other guy who told the other guy who told that guy to go kill bin Laden, has essentially called for a military coup against the President of the United States in a New York Times Op-Ed.

He begins with something to get the blood up, a call to the good military stuff, invoking generals who are “highly decorated, impeccably dressed, cleareyed and strong of character, [yet] were humbled by the moment” at a change of command ceremony. Then a little history, invoking the WWII Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner to today’s CIA and Special Operations community, who had “faith that these values were worth sacrificing everything for.” In case it wasn’t clear, they “personified all that is good and decent and honorable about the American military,” his Op-Ed’s intended audience.

Then, invoking that oath that requires the military to protect America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, McRaven explains to them why they are being now called to battle: “The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within.” This is not subtle.
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To End the Wars, Attack the Right From the Right

Thursday October 17, 2019

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Sadly, the antiwar and anti-national security state inclinations of American liberals and progressives have weakened since the days of President George W. Bush. Partisan incentives during Barack Obama’s presidency combined with the FBI-CIA-Democratic Party-media plot to falsely accuse President Trump of high treason with the Russians, or at least terribly insufficient patriotism, for the last 3 years have done much to confuse liberals about where they should stand. There’s no question that many great leftist writers and readers out there have stayed great, but overall the numbers tell a sad story. One might wonder though if liberal voters’ hearts are really in it outside of current circumstances. It seems the general presumption still stands that, while Democratic politicians and appointees love war, their voters do not.

But that’s okay either way. We currently have a Republican president. Attacking America’s interventionist foreign policy from the left would not be likely to do much good anyway. It’s the rank and file right that is still seen as supporting a "muscular" foreign policy. But what if they don’t?

The convenient thing about being libertarian is that we’re better than the left and the right on the things they’re actually good on (e.g. drugs, gays and cops; gold, guns and taxes). This gives us the opportunity to meet our interlocutors halfway while simply asking for a little consistency. Attack the left from the left and the right from the right. Let them be right, just now even more right than before. The Tenth Amendment Center’s Michael Boldin calls this "the Horton rule" (not to be confused with Horton’s Law, which is about how none of this ever works).
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Truth Is A Kremlin Talking Point

Thursday October 17, 2019

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In response to a statement during the Democratic primary debates by presidential candidate Andrew Yang that both Russia and the United States have engaged in election interference, liberal pundit Molly McKew tweeted, “I now retract any vaguely nice thing I ever said about Yang knowing technology things because he answered the question on Putin with moral equivalency and a Kremlin talking point.”

If you’re in the mood for some depressing amusement, just type the words “Kremlin talking point” without quotation marks into Twitter’s search engine and scroll through all the results which come up. Just keep on scrolling and observe how this label, “Kremlin talking point”, gets bleated by mainstream empire loyalists to dismiss subjects ranging from the rigging of Democratic primaries to criticism of US regime change wars to endless US warmongering to concerns about new cold war escalations to disliking John McCain to criticism of Nancy Pelosi. Any criticism of the status quo which cannot be labeled false or misleading gets labeled a “talking point” of Russia/Putin/the Kremlin by those who support and defend the status quo of US-centralized imperialist world hegemony.

Yang’s statement about US intervention in foreign elections is indisputably true, of course. Both alternative and mainstream media outlets have thoroughly documented the fact that the US government’s own data shows them to have interfered in scores of foreign elections, far more than any other nation on earth. This includes an interference in Russia’s elections in the nineties that was so brazen they made a Hollywood movie about it. Former CIA Director James Woolsey openly admitted on Fox News last year that the US still interferes in foreign elections to this very day.
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DC’s Atlantic Council raked in funding from Hunter Biden’s corruption-stained employer while courting his VP father

Thursday October 17, 2019

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With its relentless focus on corruption in Russia and Ukraine, the Atlantic Council has distinguished itself from other top-flight think tanks in Washington. Over the past several years, it has held innumerable conferences and panel discussions, issued a string of reports, and published literally hundreds of essays on Russia’s “kleptocracy” and the scourge of Kremlin disinformation.
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Bipartisan Support For Turkey Sanctions - A 'Victory' For Trump?

Wednesday October 16, 2019

Republicans and some Democrats seem to be settling for heavy sanctions on NATO ally Turkey for its incursion into Syria, with hawks like Lindsey Graham softening his tone over Trump's decision to pull US troops from the line of fire. Do they see the shift in public opinion and are shifting their views? How will sanctions work on Turkey? Watch today's Liberty Report...
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Politics Drops Its Pretenses

Wednesday October 16, 2019

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Can the increasing politicization of life in America be stopped, or even slowed?

To be sure, average Americans do not want this. Most people prefer not to lead overly political lives, beyond perhaps voting once in a while and grumbling about taxes or potholes. Most people prefer to focus on work, family, hobbies, sports, or a million other pursuits instead of politics. We watch the game instead of attending the Tuesday night city council meeting. But increasingly we all feel the pressure, drawing us inexorably into a highly-politicized world which demands we take binary "sides" on Trump, impeachment, abortion, guns, climate change, and far more. This politicization seeps into our jobs, family lives, neighborhoods places of worship, social interactions, and even our sports and entertainment. 

The most salient feature of national politics in 2019 America is its lack of pretenses. The two political Americas, represented by Red and Blue teams, no longer pretend to share a country or any desire to live peaceably together. Much has been made of this cold civil war on both the Left and Right, and much of what has been made is probably over-hyped. Americans, after all, are materially comfortable, soft, addled, diabetic, and rapidly aging; the over-65 population is set to double in the coming decades. Hot civil wars require lots of young men with nothing to lose who are not busy playing Fortnite. But the overall mood of the country is decidedly hostile and suggestive of irreconcilable differences.
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