The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Trump’s New Strategy for Afghanistan Is Neither New, nor a Strategy, nor Trump’s

Friday August 25, 2017

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For some time it has been clear that the White House of President Donald Trump was convulsed with a struggle among various court factions vying for the Emperor’s ear. Crudely oversimplified, these are variously described as:

1. The military "Junta" (Generals McMaster, National Security Council; Mattis, Pentagon; and Kelly, White House Chief of Staff;

2. The Goldman-Sachs "Globalists" (preeminently First Daughter Ivanka and First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner);

3. The "Populist-Nationalists" ("the two Steves" Bannon and Miller); and

4. The Regular Republicans who, to their credit, in 2016 chose to join the Trump populist movement over more conventionally "conservative" GOP candidates (Former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway).

It is understood that the first two factions were generally allied against the second two. Following Priebus’s ouster, the bellwether would be who got tossed out next: Bannon or McMaster. It was Bannon.

On August 18, with Bannon’s defenestration, it became clear that the Junta and the Globalists were firmly in charge. The only outliers left – besides somebody named Trump – are Conway and Miller. We’ll see how long they last. Any of them.
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Unlike Trump, JFK Didn't Bend the Knee

Thursday August 24, 2017

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Like President Trump, President Kennedy was subjected to the same type of pressure by the Pentagon and the CIA to engage in military action overseas. Unlike President Trump, however, Kennedy stood his ground and refused to succumb to the will of the national-security establishment. In fact, Kennedy is the only president in the post-World War II era who has stood up to the demands of what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”

After the CIA’s regime-change debacle at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, Kennedy never trusted the CIA again. It didn’t take long for him to have the same sentiment toward the Pentagon.

Like the CIA, the Pentagon was obsessed with regime change in Cuba. The national-security establishment was convinced that the United States would cease to exist with a communist “dagger” pointed at it from only 90 miles away. In the eyes of the Pentagon and the CIA, there was only one thing that could be done to save America — oust the communist regime in Cuba and replace it with a pro-US dictatorship, much like the Batista regime that that Fidel Castro had ousted from power in the Cuban Revolution.

The Pentagon understood the political and diplomatic problems associated with initiating a military attack another country, especially one that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. After all, that’s what Japan had done with its undeclared surprise attack on US forces at Pearl Harbor, an act that US officials had vehemently condemned.

The CIA had tried to get around that problem with its Bay of Pigs invasion by trying to make it look like the invaders were simply an independent group of Cuban exiles rather than trained agents of the CIA.

The Pentagon got around the problem by coming up with a plan that would make it look like Cuba had started a war with the United States and that the United States was simply acting in self-defense. That’s what Operation Northwoods was all about. Unanimously approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the plan called for terrorist attacks to be carried out here in the United States and for hijackings of American planes.
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US Liberals Cozy up to Antifa, America's Anti-Free Speech 'Taliban'

Wednesday August 23, 2017

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The liberal media is pushing the idea that any violence committed on the part of Antifa, the so-called 'anti-fascist' leftist group, is acceptable if it is directed at the political right. Such delusional thinking will only lead to civil war.

Following the recent spate of violence that rocked Charlottesville after right-wing groups assembled to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, it became quickly apparent the US media had a dog in this fight. And a vicious dog at that.

Liberals howled in pain after Trump called out not only the aggressive tactics of the "alt-right," but of the "alt left" as well, saying there was “blame on both sides.”

Writing in The Atlantic, Peter Beinart gave a startling apology for Antifa and its violent methods: "For starters, while antifa perpetrates violence, it doesn’t perpetrate it on anything like the scale that white nationalists do. It’s no coincidence that it was a Nazi sympathizer—and not an antifa activist—who committed murder in Charlottesville ... Second, antifa activists don’t wield anything like the alt-right’s power. White, Christian supremacy has been government policy in the United States for much of American history…" 

First, to suggest that Antifa is perpetrating "less violence" than that of its distant far-right cousin is a disingenuous and subjective appeal to moral relativism. Considering this anarchist group's tactics of hurling stones and incendiaries, swinging bats and utilizing home-made flame throwers, it is only due to sheer luck that nobody has been killed during one of their "protests." Equally disturbing is the anarchist group's reasoning for inciting violence, which is to shut down free speech and assembly on the part of the right. This they openly admit on their anarchist website, that carries the delightfully foreboding title, "It's Going Down."
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The Mini-Skirt Deception: How McMaster Got His Afghan ‘Surge’

Wednesday August 23, 2017

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According to reports, Gen. H. R. McMaster convinced President Trump to give up his longstanding opposition to the Afghan war by showing him this photograph, below, of Afghan women in what the media are describing as “miniskirts.” As the Washington Post put it:
One of the ways McMaster tried to persuade Trump to recommit to the effort was by convincing him that Afghanistan was not a hopeless place. He presented Trump with a black-and-white snapshot from 1972 of Afghan women in miniskirts walking through Kabul, to show him that Western norms had existed there before and could return.
The irony is that, in 1972, when this photo was taken on the grounds of Kabul University, Afghanistan was firmly in the orbit of the Soviet Union, as it had been since 1953, when Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan rose to power and instituted a series of progressive reforms, including equal rights for women. The next year, Khan deposed King Mohammed Zahir Shah, and Soviet aid poured in, alongside the Red Army.

More irony: it was the United States, alongside Washington’s then-ally Osama bin Laden, that overthrew the communist regime, and conducted a guerrilla war against the Afghan government and their Soviet sponsors. The last Soviet troops left in 1989 — and there were no more miniskirts to be seen anywhere in Afghanistan.

Gen. McMaster knows all this: our President does not. Does McMaster think he can bring communism back to Afghanistan? I jest, but with serious intent. Because the commies attempted what our President has vowed not to do in Afghanistan: they sought to create a nation out of a collection of mountain-guarded valleys, isolated bastions untouched by time or the vaunted ambitions of their many would-be conquerors.
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Freedom for the Speech We Hate: The Legal Ins and Outs of the Right to Protest

Tuesday August 22, 2017

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There was a time in this country, back when the British were running things, that if you spoke your mind and it ticked off the wrong people, you’d soon find yourself in jail for offending the king.

Reacting to this injustice, when it was time to write the Constitution, America’s founders argued for a Bill of Rights, of which the First Amendment protects the right to free speech. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was very clear about the fact that he wrote the First Amendment to protect the minority against the majority.

What Madison meant by minority is “offensive speech.”

Unfortunately, we don’t honor that principle as much as we should today. In fact, we seem to be witnessing a politically correct philosophy at play, one shared by both the extreme left and the extreme right, which aims to stifle all expression that doesn’t fit within their parameters of what they consider to be “acceptable” speech.

There are all kinds of labels put on such speech—it’s been called politically incorrect speech, hate speech, offensive speech, and so on—but really, the message being conveyed is that you don’t have a right to express yourself if certain people or groups don’t like or agree with what you are saying.

Hence, we have seen the caging of free speech in recent years, through the use of so-called “free speech zones” on college campuses and at political events, the requirement of speech permits in parks and community gatherings, and the policing of online forums.

Clearly, this elitist, monolithic mindset is at odds with everything America is supposed to stand for.
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The International Criminal Court is the Antithesis of Justice

Tuesday August 22, 2017

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If there was a prize for the world’s most ineffective institution, the International Criminal Court would win hands down.

Consider this: The court has been in operation for fifteen years, has spent over a billion Euros, and has convicted just four war criminals. Yes, that's correct. In a decade and a half, an institution proclaiming itself the world’s first permanent war crimes court has jailed just four war criminals.

In any other justice system that kind of abysmal conviction rate would get its chiefs sacked. But not the ICC. They continue to have a comfortable luxurious life in The Hague, ruling on the handful of cases that come their way, while the world’s wars rage fiercer than ever.​

One reason the ICC is such a disaster is the paradox at the heart of its existence.

The ICC is not part of the United Nations. Instead, it has authority over the 124 states that have joined it. But most states likely to commit war crimes don’t join the ICC. The result?  A court full of states that don’t commit war crimes.

The big three powers, the United States, China, and Russia have have all refused to join, concerned about accountability. The US State Department puts it best, saying there are "insufficient checks and balances on the authority of the ICC prosecutor and judges," and the court has "insufficient protection against politicized prosecutions or other abuses.”
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One Step Closer to War: US, South Korea Hold New Military Drills

Monday August 21, 2017

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The US and South Korean large-scale combined joint exercise Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) begins on Aug. 21 to last till Aug. 31. There will be approximately 17,500 total US service members participating, with roughly 3,000 coming from off-peninsula - 500 more than last year. The numbers of all participants swell to a total of about 530,000 because South Korean servicemen (around 50,000), government officials and civilians also take part in the drills. The missions include: amphibious landings, intense live-fire exercises, counter-terrorism drills and simulated or tabletop battle plans.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow was deeply worried and considered the risk of military conflict between the US and North Korea "very high." He suggested a plan under which North Korea would halt missile tests if the US and South Korea would cancel the drills. China also objects to the exercise.

The UFG training event was initiated in 1976 and is conducted annually during August or September. This year, it is the first UFG exercise to be held after Pyongyang fire-tested intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking US territory, such as the island of Guam. North Korea feels threatened by a squadron of B-1B bombers on the island. The aircraft flying to the peninsula for taking part in the exercise could provoke it into launching ballistic missiles to spark a war. Last year, Pyongyang responded to the UFG by testing a nuclear weapon.

North Korea alleges that the drill is a precursor to a war planned against it. With bits of information coming from various sources pieced together, one can come to conclusion that this time it may be right. It’s not a routine training event.
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Oppose Fascism of the Right and the Left

Monday August 21, 2017

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Following the recent clashes between the alt-right and the group antifa, some libertarians have debated which group they should support. The answer is simple: neither. The alt-right and its leftist opponents are two sides of the same authoritarian coin.
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Escape from Aleppo

Sunday August 20, 2017

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AMMAN JORDAN – I haven’t seen many miracles in my decades of travel around the globe, particularly not in the strife-torn Mideast.

But last week I participated in a real miracle in Jordan as the splendid Four Paws International group staged a daring rescue of 13 wild animals trapped in the wartime hellhole of Aleppo, Syria.  It appeared to be a mission impossible.

Syria has been torn apart for the past six years by a bloody civil war that has killed over 400,000 people and reduced many parts of this beautiful country to ruins.  Half the population has become refugees.  The ancient northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, was laid waste.

Just outside Aleppo lies a wrecked 40-acre amusement park cum zoo that once held hundreds of imprisoned wild animals to entertain children.  The animals were abandoned in their cages in the midst of constant gunfire and shelling.  Many were killed; the rest were left to starve to death or die of thirst.  Some starving Syrians shared their meager rations with the animals.

No one else cared about these abandoned creatures that included five lions, two tigers, two Asian black bears, two hyenas and two Husky dogs.
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Everyone Is Wrong About North Korea

Saturday August 19, 2017

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Imagine a world where one country – country X – is bombing at least seven countries at any one time and is seeking to bomb an eighth, all the while threatening an adversarial ninth state – country Y – that they will bomb that country into oblivion, as well. Imagine that in this world, country X already bombed country Y back into the Stone Age several decades ago, which directly led to the current adversarial nature of the relationship between the two countries.

Now imagine that country Y, which is currently bombing no one and is concerned mostly with well-founded threats against its own security, threatens to retaliate in the face of this mounting aggression if country X attacks them first. On top of all this, imagine that only country Y is portrayed in the media as a problem and that country X is constantly given a free pass to do whatever it pleases.

Now replace country X with the United States of America and country Y with North Korea to realize there is no need to imagine such a world. It is the world we already live in.

As true as all of this is, the problem is constantly framed as one caused by North Korea alone, not the United States. “How to Deal With North Korea,” the Atlantic explains. “What Can Trump Do About North Korea?” the New York Times asks. “What Can Possibly Be Done About North Korea,” the Huffington Post queries. Time provides 6 experts discussing “How We Can Solve the Problem” (of North Korea). “North Korea – what can the outside world do?” asks the BBC.

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