The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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An ‘Epidemic of Graft’ – Anti-Corruption Efforts in Afghanistan Fail Hard

Thursday October 20, 2016

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The US spends spends $5 billion of your tax money a year in “aid” to Afghanistan, plus billions more for the cost of the thousands of American troops and Pentagon-sponsored military contractors there.

An “Epidemic of Graft”

One of the (many) reasons why all that money has accomplished close to jack squat in 15 years of war is corruption. Extraordinary amounts of US money simply disappears, siphoned off at high levels, passed on as bribes to suppliers and Taliban hustlers at the lower levels. It is, according to one study, an “epidemic of graft.”

Transparency International ranks Afghanistan as one of the top five most corrupt countries in the world (Iraq, another US project, is also in the top tier.) The UN says half of Afghans paid a bribe in 2012; that figure was as high as 70 percent in some areas of the country. The same survey found that corruption was roughly tied with security as the issue of greatest concern to Afghans.
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Are The Russians Rigging Our Elections?

Thursday October 20, 2016

In last night's presidential debate, Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton accused the Russians of manipulating the US electoral system to get Republican candidate Donald Trump elected president. She claimed:
We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election.
She went on to say that if elected, Trump would be "Putin's puppet." In other words, that the president of the United States would be an agent of a foreign power. Is there any truth to the claim? You might be surprised how much we learn when delving into foreign manipulation of elections. Join us in today's Liberty Report...
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Assange's Fate

Wednesday October 19, 2016

The saga of Julian Assange seems to be drawing to a climax – one that will decide the fate of this historic whistleblower who, for years, has been a giant thorn in the side of governments everywhere.

His role in exposing the machinations of the US government over the years earned him the plaudits of liberals – until the Bush era ended, and he started exposing the crimes of the Obama administration and – most pointedly – the hypocrisy and venality of Hillary Clinton and her journalistic camarilla. Now we see right-wing figures like Sean Hannity and – yes! – Donald Trump praising and defending him, while the ostensible liberals take up the cry of the Clinton campaign that he’s a “pawn of the Kremlin” and a “rapist.”
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Trump/Clinton Final Debate: Questions We Would Ask

Wednesday October 19, 2016

Despite the salacious coverage in the media of sex, lying, corruption, etc., there are actually some important issues we face for the future that we are not hearing in the presidential campaigns. What do the major candidates have to say about the military budget? About the drug war? About executive branch power grabs? Not much. We're not expecting a sudden focus on the real issues in tonight's debate so we are going to ask the questions that should be asked tonight but probably won't...in today's Liberty Report...
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Western Doublethink on Aleppo & Mosul Obscures Terror Complicity

Wednesday October 19, 2016

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The Syrian and Iraqi cities of Aleppo and Mosul have strikingly similar situations – yet the Western media perform a complete mental flip over the respective conflicts.

Consecutive reports in news broadcasts set new standards of doublethink by presenting the battles underway in each city as diametrically opposite, when in fact they’re the same. Both are crucial sites for the defeat of illegally armed insurgents. 

Aleppo and Mosul, each located far north in neighboring Arab countries, are the second major cities after their respective capitals of Damascus and Baghdad. Both were important industrial hubs before being seized by internationally blacklisted terror groups.

Islamic State (IS or Daesh) grabbed Mosul in 2014 from where it declared a Wahhabi caliphate encompassing Iraq and Syria. Whereas Aleppo has been under siege since 2012 from the ideologically-related terror group known as Jabhat al Nusra (renamed Jabhat al Fatah al Sham).
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After Mosul Falls, ISIS will Flee to Syria. Then What?

Tuesday October 18, 2016

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Syria’s army and Hezbollah and Iranian allies are preparing for a massive invasion by thousands of Isis fighters who will be driven out of Iraq when Mosul falls. The real purpose behind the much-trumpeted US-planned “liberation” of the Iraqi city, the Syrian military suspect, is to swamp Syria with the hordes of Isis fighters who will flee their Iraqi capital in favour of their “mini-capital” of Raqqa inside Syria itself.

For weeks now, Western media and the American experts it likes to quote have been predicting a Stalingrad-style battle to the death by Isis inside Mosul – or a swift victory over Isis followed by inter-sectarian Iraqi battles for the city. The UN is warning of massive refugee columns streaming from a besieged city. But the Syrians – after witnessing the sudden collapse and evacuation of Palmyra when their own army retook the ancient Syrian city earlier this year – suspect that Isis will simply abandon Mosul and try to reach safety in the areas of Syria which it still controls.
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CNN: It Is Illegal For Voters To Possess Wikileaks Material

Tuesday October 18, 2016

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There was an interesting segment on CNN last week where CNN anchor Chris Cuomo reminds viewers for it is illegal for them to “possess” Wikileaks material and that, as a result, they will have to rely on the media to tell them what is in these documents. The legal assertion is dubious, but the political implications are even more concerning. Polls show that many voters view the media as biased and this is a particularly strong view among supporters of Donald Trump who view CNN and other networks openly supporting Clinton or attacking Trump.

More importantly, the mainstream media has reported relatively little from the Wikileaks material and has not delved deeply into their implications, including embarrassing emails showing reporters coordinating with the Clinton campaign and supposedly “neutral” media figures like Donna Brazile, formerly with CNN, allegedly slipping advance question material to Hillary Clinton. The credibility of the media is at an all-time low and most voters hardly feel comfortable with this material being reported second-hand or interpreted by the mainstream media. So is it really illegal for voters to have this material?

Cuomo was about to discuss embarrassing emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s inbox but he stopped to remind viewers “remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents,” Cuomo says. “It’s different for the media, so everything you’re learning about this, you’re learning from us.”
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Battle For Mosul: Not False Flag, False Hope!

Tuesday October 18, 2016

The US mainstream media is falling all over itself telling us how critical it is to attack Mosul, Iraq. The city of a million inhabitants has been under ISIS control for the past two years and the fight against ISIS will get a major boost if the terrorist group is expelled. How funny that the media sings a radically different tune when it comes to another town also under siege by terrorists. Aleppo in Syria has been held by al-Qaeda terrorists for twice as long as Mosul has been held by ISIS terrorists, but while the New York Times screams that no human cost is too great to liberate Mosul they at the same time accuse the Syrian government and its allies of wantonly slaughtering civilians in Aleppo. How to explain? The US mainstream media feels it is their duty not to report facts and dig up the truth behind government obfuscation, but to be complicit in government obfuscation of facts. A sad state. We look at the battle for Mosul in today's Liberty Report...
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The Horror of Endless Interventionism

Monday October 17, 2016

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When the US government invaded Iraq in 2003, I wonder how many US officials contemplated the possibility that the cycle of death and destruction that they were initiating would be continuing 13 years later. And yet, here we are — more than a decade after Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched — and US and Iraqi soldiers are, once again, battling over control of Mosul. 

The battle for Mosul is being met with considerable indifference or nonchalance among many Americans. After all, there are so many more important things to talk about, such as sex scandals. But the fact that US troops are still fighting, killing, and dying in Iraq 13 years after the US invasion of the country (and 26 years after the US government’s Persian Gulf intervention) is truly remarkable. 

Not surprisingly, the US mainstream press and the US national-security establishment are doing their best to put their best spin on the upcoming battle for Mosul. They are showing how US warplanes are “softening” up the enemy with bombing raids on the city. They are reporting how Iraqi troops, counseled by US military advisers, are readying for their long-awaited attack to liberate the city from ISIS, which is the group that came into existence as a direct consequence of the US invasion of Iraq.
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Who Brought the World to the Brink of World War III?

Monday October 17, 2016

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Who has the major responsibility for creating the confrontation between the US and Russia in Syria? How have these two major nuclear powers moved closer and closer to the brink of World War III?

At the moment, one clear way to resolve this clash is for Syria’s armed forces to win an unambiguous victory over the forces seeking to overturn the existing government. Bloody as it may be, the defeat of the rebel forces will defuse the military portion of the conflict between the US and Russia, at least within Syria. Russia, invited by Assad to aid him militarily, has been following that path.

Obama has haltingly and unevenly been following a different but also effective path, which is that the US pull back from the brink, that it stop calling for Assad’s resignation, and that it not directly become involved in attacking Syrian forces.

However, loud and aggressive voices within his administration and within the US government urge greater US military involvement. Hillary Clinton is counted more in this camp than not with her call for a no-fly zone in part of Syria if not all. Only 3 months remain before she is inaugurated and moves the US closer to the brink.
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