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Five Things That Won't Work in Iraq

Thursday June 25, 2015

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In one form or another, the US has been at war with Iraq since 1990, including a sort-of invasion in 1991 and a full-scale one in 2003. During that quarter-century, Washington imposed several changes of government, spent trillions of dollars, and was involved in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. None of those efforts were a success by any conceivable definition of the term Washington has been capable of offering.

Nonetheless, it’s the American Way to believe with all our hearts that every problem is ours to solve and every problem must have a solution, which simply must be found. As a result, the indispensable nation faces a new round of calls for ideas on what “we” should do next in Iraq.

With that in mind, here are five possible “strategies” for that country on which only one thing is guaranteed: none of them will work.
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US Spoiling for More Wars, But Why?

Wednesday June 24, 2015

This week US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who comes to the Pentagon straight from the military-industrial complex, announced that 40,000 NATO troops and untold heavy military equipment would be deployed on the Russian border to deter Russian "aggression." Meanwhile, the US seeks to ramp up wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan. On top of it we learn this week that the US treats its "friends" much as it treats its enemies -- American spooks have been listening in to the phone calls of the last three French presidents. How long can this last? Until we go broke? Tune in to the Liberty Report for more...
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If You Want to Get Rid of ‘Racist Flags,’ How About Starting with the American Flag?

Wednesday June 24, 2015

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It looks like open season has been declared on the battle flag of Army of Northern Virginia, which is commonly referred to as the Confederate battle flag. But, if you are looking for a flag to ban as racist, you might as well start with the American flag.

After all, the American flag is associated with the United States government that sanctioned slavery from the enactment of the US Constitution in 1789 to the addition of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in December of 1865 — months after the end of the war with the Confederate States. The CS government, in comparison, existed for less than five years, with slavery legal the entire time.

The American flag flies now for a government whose drug war and larger law enforcement system is responsible for black Americans being harassed, arrested, and incarcerated in extraordinary numbers. Remember the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution makes an exception to allow slavery as “a punishment for crime.” This is an exception that has been employed much in America recently, with the number of people incarcerated in prisons and jails growing five-fold in the last thirty years.
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Shona Banda Drug Arrest: A Prime Case for Jury Nullification

Tuesday June 23, 2015

If there ever was a "poster child" for the absurdity of the drug war, the case of Shona Banda must be it. Suffering from an extreme case of Crohn's disease, the relief she found was from cannabis oil. When her 11-year old son made the mistake of mentioning in school the medicinal benefits his mother had received from ingesting the oil, the state swooped in and took away the child and brought the mother up on charges. She faces more than 30 years in prison for the non-crime of treating her own medical condition. Today on the Ron Paul Liberty Report...
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Keeping Government Bureaucrats Off the Backs of the Citizenry: The Supreme Court Responds

Monday June 22, 2015

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In one swoop, on June 22, 2015, a divided US Supreme Court handed down three consecutive rulings affirming the right of raisin farmers, hotel owners and prison inmates. However, this push back against government abuse, government snooping and government theft only came about because some determined citizens stood up and took a stand against tyranny.

The three cases respectively deal with the government’s confiscation of agricultural crops without any guarantee or promise of payment (Horne v. US Department of Agriculture); the practice of police gaining unfettered access to motel and hotel guest registries (City of Los Angeles v. Patel); and the use of tasers and excessive force by prison officials (Kingsley v. Hendrickson).

Whether these three rulings will amount to much in the long run remains to be seen. In the meantime, they sound a cautiously optimistic note at a time when police state forces continue to use advancing technologies, surveillance and militarization to weaken, sidestep and flout the Constitution at almost every turn.
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Echoes of Vietnam, or Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Monday June 22, 2015

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Words seem to mean different things in the Middle East. “Training” is a new term for escalation, and “Iraq” seems more and more like the Arabic word for Vietnam.

But the terms “slippery slope” and “quagmire” still mean what they have always meant.

In 2011, making good on a campaign promise that helped land him in the White House, President Barack Obama closed out America’s eight-year war in Iraq. Disengaged, redeployed, packed up, departed.

Then America went back. In August 2014, Obama turned an emotional appeal to save the Yazidi people from Islamic State into a bombing campaign. A massive tap was turned and arms flowed into the region. The number of American soldiers in Iraq zoomed up to 3,100, quietly joined by some 6,300 civilian contractors. The reputed mission was training – or whipping the Iraqi Army into shape.
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One Person Dead, a Tragedy; A Million Dead, a Statistic

Monday June 22, 2015

Recent police killings of unarmed individuals and the recent tragedy in South Carolina are horrific and they result in obsessive 24/7 media coverage. Isn't it strange that the thousands killed and maimed as a result of our aggressive foreign policy worldwide do not get nearly the same level of scrutiny? Is Stalin correct that mass killing is easier to ignore than a handful of individual cases? Or was Secretary of State Madeline Albright correct when she said that 500,000 dead Iraqis from US sanctions was "worth it" -- in other words just collateral damage or a mere statistic in the move to be rid of Saddam? Today's Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at these awkward questions...
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Will Seizure of Russian Assets Hasten Dollar Decline?

Sunday June 21, 2015

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While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the Russian government.

The timing of these actions is quite curious, coming as the Greek crisis in the EU seems to be reaching a tipping point and Greece, having perhaps abandoned the possibility of rapprochement with Europe, has been making overtures to Russia to help bail it out of its mess. And with the IMF's recent statement pledging its full and unconditional support to Ukraine, it has become even more clear that the IMF and other major multilateral institutions are not blindly technical organizations, but rather are totally subservient lackeys to the foreign policy agenda emanating from Washington. Toe the DC party line and the internationalists will bail you out regardless of how badly you mess up, but if you even think about talking to Russia you will face serious consequences.
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If Greece Defaults, Will the Fed Bailout Europe?

Saturday June 20, 2015

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The Greek crisis is dominating headlines this week, and promises to be the most important economic and financial topic of conversation through the weekend and into Monday. Neither the Greek government nor the European Central Bank (ECB) seem to be prepared to give an inch, and there’s every indication that things could come to head next week. If Greece does default, and if there is a resulting crisis in European markets, will the Federal Reserve get involved? To quote Sarah Palin, “You betcha!” How would the Fed do this? Read on to find out.

Although the euro is the dominant currency in Europe, a lot of debt in Europe is still denominated in dollars. The dollar being the world’s reserve currency and dollar markets being incredibly liquid, it just makes sense for a lot of companies to do business in dollars. But when a crisis hits and those businesses need dollars, they have to get a hold of dollars somehow. Banks in Europe have a limited supply, and once those dollars are gone, there is no dollar-printing central bank in Europe that can step in. Enter the Federal Reserve.
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Why The US Military Opposed New Combat Roles in Iraq

Saturday June 20, 2015

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The story published in the Washington Post on 13 June shows how the US military service chiefs - who make decisions on war policy in light of their own institutional interests - prefer an inconclusive war with IS and existing constraints on US involvement, to one with even the most US limited combat role.

The resistance of top US military officials to deepening US military involvement in the war against IS came in the wake of a major policy debate within the Obama administration following the collapse of Iraqi military resistance in Ramadi.

In that debate, senior State Department officials reportedly supported the option of putting US advisers into Iraqi combat units to direct airstrikes on IS positions and sending US Apache attack helicopters into urban combat situations. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, joined top military commanders in opposing that option, the Post story recounted. Dempsey was said to have concluded that the potential gains from such an escalation were not worth the costs in terms of possible US combat losses.
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