The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Pence Goes to War: America Will Be Fighting Forever

Thursday June 13, 2019

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On May 25th Vice President Mike Pence was the featured speaker at the United States Military Academy commencement. His speech was predictably an encomium celebrating both the diversity and the success of the newly commissioned officers as well as of the system at West Point that had produced them, but it also included interesting insights into how he and the other non-veterans who dominate the policy making in the White House see the military.

Most media commentary on the speech was either shocked or pleasantly surprised by Pence’s prediction that the graduating officers would soon be at war. He said “It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen. Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere. And when that day comes, I know you will move to the sound of the guns and do your duty, and you will fight, and you will win. The American people expect nothing less. So, wherever you’re called, I urge you to take what you learned here and put it into practice. Put your armor on, so that when — not if — that day comes, you’ll be able to stand your ground.”

Pence may or may not have known that military academy graduates have only a five-year active duty commitment after graduation. Many do not stay in the service after that point, instead using their security clearances and resumes to obtain well paying positions with defense and national security contractors. If Pence was aware of that five-year window, he was implying that he expects multiple wars will involve the United States during his own remaining time in office, assuming that he and President Donald Trump are reelected in 2020. He might even be assuming that war is inevitable no matter who is in the driver’s seat in the White House because America’s numerous enemies, which he identified, cannot otherwise be dissuaded from their “nefarious behavior.”
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GI Suicide: Maybe It’s The Job?

Thursday June 13, 2019

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The suicide rate among veterans and, now, among active-duty GIs is at an historic high. The US Marine Corps, for example, just turned in an all-time record in 2018 for attempted and successful suicides in a year (354 active and reserve). Marine Colonel Dom D. Ford, writing in the Marine Times, is grasping at straws to explain the rising rates, from claiming there is too little Christian religion in the ranks to the Marines not being willing to accept counsel and advice
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State Department Emails Show Coordination Between Obama State Department and House Democrat Leader on Christopher Steele/Russia

Wednesday June 12, 2019

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Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation today released 16 pages of documents revealing former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer coordinating with then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) national security advisor, Daniel Silverberg to work on Russia dossier materials provided by Christopher Steele.

Steele is a former British spy and author of the anti-Trump dossier used to justify a series of FISA spy warrants targeting Carter Page. Winer is a former Obama State Department deputy assistant secretary who was implicated in working with Steele and Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal to circulate the anti-Trump dossier.

Judicial Watch obtained the documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on April 25, 2018 on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation against the State Department after it failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. US Department of State (No. 1:18-cv- 00968)).
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More US Dictatorship Against Cuba

Wednesday June 12, 2019

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Lamenting dictatorship in Cuba, the US government has decided to tighten restrictions on the freedom of Americans to travel to Cuba. Never mind that the restrictions were not enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. When it comes to fighting totalitarian dictatorship, the reasoning goes, it’s necessary to adopt dictatorial policies here at home.

Freedom of travel has long been considered a fundamental, natural, God-given right with which no government, not even the US government, can legitimately infringe. Recall the Declaration of Independence, which Americans will be celebrating on the Fourth of July. It holds that liberty is among the rights with which all people have been endowed by their Creator. When God endows people with certain rights, including the right of freedom of travel, it goes without saying that Caesar behaves illegitimately when he infringes on such rights.

The US national-security establishment, which has long been the driving force behind the US government’s forever war against Cuba, would no doubt point to the fact that Cuba is still headed by a communist regime. That of course was the mindset of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA throughout the Cold War, when, US officials maintained, the communists from Russia, China, and elsewhere were coming to get us and take over our nation as part of a supposed worldwide communist conspiracy that was supposedly based in Moscow. Cuba, they steadfastly maintained, was part of that worldwide communist conspiracy — a communist dagger pointed at America’s neck from only 90 miles away.
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The State Department's War On Americans Against War On Iran

Wednesday June 12, 2019

In an unfolding scandal you won't much hear about in the mainstream media, the US State Department has been caught funding NGOs that are attacking Americans who express opposition to the neocon policy of confrontation with Iran. This is beyond just propaganda and into the realm of actual attacks - exactly the tactics the US decries in authoritarian regimes overseas. Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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Right On Cue...The 'New ISIS Threat' In Afghanistan

Tuesday June 11, 2019

Afghanistan - the "good war" that never ends. Just when it seemed the US was making progress toward ending the longest war in its history, a new bad guy has emerged that, we are told, is far more threatening than the guys we've been fighting for 20 years. Forget the Taliban! We have to stay in Afghanistan to fight ISIS! Meanwhile, Trump has dropped more bombs on Afghanistan this year alone than Obama's average over five years. War is good for business. Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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Breaking Washington's Addiction to War

Tuesday June 11, 2019

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Washington is in a constant state of war frenzy. The question of how to manage global challenges seems to be always met with the same answer: threaten sanctions and move military assets. Thus, the US sends carrier strike groups toward Iran, into the Black Sea, into the South China Sea, and elsewhere to make it clear that force is the only language spoken by the United States government and its national security apparatus.
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Snowden Bombshell Six Years On: Has Anything Changed?

Monday June 10, 2019

Six years ago undercover CIA officer and NSA contractor Edward Snowden came out from the shadows to reveal that he was responsible for the greatest leak of secret government information in US history. Americans learned that the government was not spying on terrorists to keep us safe, but was actually much more interested in spying on us. The revelations led to "reform" in the form of the "FREEDOM Act." But have we recovered any of our privacy protections...or are we worse off...? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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Repeal the Espionage Act

Monday June 10, 2019

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World War I is the gift that just keeps on giving. Although the US government’s intervention into this senseless, immoral, and destructive war occurred 100 years ago, the adverse effects of the war continue to besiege our nation. Among the most notable examples is the Espionage Act, a tyrannical law that was enacted two months after the US entered the war and which, unfortunately, remained on the books after the war came to an end. In fact, it is that World War I relic that US officials are now relying on to secure the criminal indictment of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks head who released a mountain of evidence disclosing the inner workings and grave wrongdoing on the part of the US national-security establishment, especially with respect to the manner in which it has waged it undeclared forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Some news media commentators are finally coming to the realization that if the Espionage Act can be enforced against Assange for what he did, it can be enforced against anyone in the press for revealing damaging inside information about the national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. Therefore, they are calling on the Justice Department to cease and desist from its prosecution of Assange.

Of course, they are right, but the problem is that they don’t go far enough. Their mindsets reflect the customary acceptance of the status quo. The mindset is that we Americans simply have to accept the way things are and plead with the government to go easy on us.
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