The big NATO 2016 Summit begins in Warsaw today. On the agenda is approving a NATO force of up to 4,000 troops to be stationed on Russia's borders in the Baltic. It will be the first regular troop deployment aimed at Moscow since the fall of the Berlin Wall more than a quarter-century ago. How would the US feel if a reconstituted Warsaw Pact expanded to include Cuba and Mexico decided to station thousands of troops on the US border with Mexico? Threatened? Yet Russia is not supposed to feel threatened? Also on NATO's agenda will be prodding European governments to begin spending more money on defense. Though Russia has been declared an "existential threat" by NATO, those countries directly in the line of Russia's fire do not spend money on defense. Is that odd? Today's Liberty Report is joined by Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger.... read on...
Almost two years after the firestorm that took place in Ferguson, Missouri, when a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager and militarized police descended in a brutal show of force to quell local protests, not much has really changed for the better.
SWAT teams are still bursting through doors, terrorizing families and leaving lives and property shattered.
And the military industrial complex is still making a killing (literally and figuratively) at taxpayer expense from the transformation of small-town police forces into extensions of the military.
What has changed is the extent to which Americans—easily distracted by all of the political mumbo jumbo being bantered around—seem to have stopped paying attention or being outraged about revelations of government corruption, wrongdoing and outright abuse.
Britain's vote to quit the European Union was a rude jolt to the encrusted world order. Now that the EU has been shocked into reality, NATO should be next. When NATO leaders convene for a summit in Warsaw on Friday, they will insist that their alliance is still vital because Russian aggression threatens Europe. The opposite is true. NATO has become America’s instrument in escalating our dangerous conflict with Russia. We need less NATO, not more.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in 1949 as a way for American troops to protect a warshattered Europe from Stalin’s Soviet Union. Today Europe is quite capable of shaping and paying for its own security, but NATO’s structure remains unchanged. The United States still pays nearly threequarters of its budget. That no longer makes sense. The United States should remain politically close to European countries but stop telling them how to defend themselves. Left to their own devices, they might pull back from the snarling confrontation with Russia into which NATO is leading them.
Russia threatens none of America’s vital interests. On the contrary, it shares our eagerness to fight global terror, control nuclear threats, and confront other urgent challenges to global security. Depending on one’s perspective, Russia may be seen as a destabilizing force in Europe or as simply defending its border regions. Either way, it is a challenge for Europeans, not for us. read on...
The Iraq war was a war of choice, not of necessity. That was the conclusion of the Chilcot Report today, the culmination of a seven year long investigation by the UK's Sir John Chilcot. In one sentence the horror of the US/UK attack on Iraq is laid bare. According to the respected British medical journal The Lancet, one million Iraqis died in the war that would not have died had the US/UK not attacked. That means more than a million died due to the lies of then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, then-President George W. Bush and the coterie of neocons who egged them on. A cakewalk? More like a death march. What are the chances of a real investigation here in the US of the lies used to get to attack Iraq? Ron Paul points out in today's Liberty Report that it is very unlikely. After all, the political elites in the US still believe in these kinds of interventions. read on...
Recently hacked emails show that NATO's then-Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove (USAF) was actively seeking to promote a conflict with Russia over Ukraine. He was also actively seeking to undermine President Obama's position opposing actions that could lead to war with Russia. Breedlove declared his own war on multiple fronts, secretly manipulating US public opinion using false stories of Russian tanks in Ukraine. He conspired with NATO-funded think tanks to propagandize the public through the use of military "information war" techniques. A glimpse into the deep state's conspiracy fact in today's Liberty Report... read on...
As we gather with family and friends to celebrate the July 4th holiday we should remember that we are not celebrating the state, but rather commemorating an act of secession from an oppressive government. We are celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain – a daring move by the Founders inspired by a desire for liberty.
Thomas Jefferson famously said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” That does not only mean that we should be prepared to defend against foreign invaders. Perhaps more importantly it means that we must retain the lessons from the original American revolt and guard against a government that views the people as the enemy. read on...
In its reporting on Brexit, the New York Times asks an interesting question: “Is the post-1945 order imposed on the world by the United States and its allies unraveling, too?”
Hopefully, it will mean the unraveling of two of the most powerful and destructive governmental apparatuses that came out of the postwar era: NATO and the US national-security state. In fact, although the mainstream media and the political establishment elites will never acknowledge it, the irony is that it is these two apparatuses that ultimately led to the Brexit vote:
The Times points out:
Refugees have poured out of Syria and Iraq. Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have absorbed several million refugees. But it is the flow of people into the European Union that has had the greatest geopolitical impact, and helped to precipitate the British vote.
But what was it that gave rise to that massive refugee crisis? read on...
In explaining Donald Trump and the train wreck of the Republican Party, neoconservative contempt has targeted cultural rot, immigrant haters, and according to the the National Review, prescription drug addicted hillbillies. These poor, dumb racists have latched on to a celebrity shyster who has no conservative principles and worst of all, no understanding of international affairs.
No self-reflection is even considered by neoconservatives or their strongest pro-war allies, evangelical Christians. In 2002-2003 I was in the center of both groups during the buildup to the Iraq War, as the media relations director for the Committee of the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) and as an evangelical Christian active in small groups, community outreach, and engagement with other “gospel-centered” evangelicals who were earnestly seeking to share the gospel with a world that desperately needed to know God’s love and mercy.
It never occurred to me that there were any contradictions in being a war propagandist, a missional Christian, and a fierce opponent of big government. I reported for duty at the CLI office on Pennsylvania Avenue, scheduling interviews for my boss, Randy Scheunemann and other members of the Committee such as Christopher Hitchens, our left-wing pro-war star. I spoke to The Weekly Standard magazine editor Bill Kristol daily, who had conceived the CLI with Scheunemann and Bruce Jackson of Lockheed Corporation. Following a New York Times story announcing the formation of the CLI, the media frenzy never slowed. read on...
Bill Gates’ philanthropic efforts are usually greeted with near-universal praise from people who believe he is a great humanitarian, but Bill Gates knows very little about sustainable, intelligent development.
Bolivia to Bill Gates: Go to Hell and Take Your Chickens with You
The billionaire recently sought to donate 100,000 chickensto impoverished countries. The leftist government of Bolivia, one of the nations to receive the poultry, refused the donation, describing Gates’ gift as “offensive.”
“He does not know Bolivia’s reality to think we are living 500 years ago, in the middle of the jungle not knowing how to produce,” said Bolivia’s minister of land and rural development. “Respectfully, he should stop talking about Bolivia, and once he knows more, apologize to us.”
Coop Dreams
Gates announced the chicken initiative — dubbed [Honestly, I am not making this up] “Coop Dreams” — earlier this month. read on...
Here's one great reason to visit the US capital this September: Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell will be back together again in Washington, D.C., speaking at the RPI "Peace and Prosperity 2016" conference! Lew Rockwell, the founder and CEO of the Mises Institute and editor of LewRockwell.com, was also Dr. Ron Paul's first Congressional chief of staff (1978-1982). We are so honored that Lew has agreed to return to what we know is not one of his favorite places -- the "belly of the beast" -- to speak on the importance of a pro-peace, non-interventionist foreign policy. read on...
