The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Lift the US Embargo on Cuba

Saturday March 7, 2020

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The US embargo on Cuba has been in effect for 60 years. It’s time to end it.

The embargo makes it a criminal offense for any American to spend money in Cuba or to do business in Cuba. If an American travels to Cuba and spends money there or does business there, he is subject to criminal prosecution, conviction, fine, and imprisonment by his own government upon his return to the United States.

The purpose of the embargo is regime change. The idea is to squeeze the Cuban people economically with the aim of causing discontent against Cuba’s communist regime. If the discontent gets significant enough, US officials believe, the population will revolt and re-install a pro-US regime into power.

Where is the morality in targeting the civilian population with death and impoverishment with the aim of achieving a political goal? Isn’t that why we condemn terrorism?
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New Putin-Erdogan Deal is Sugar-Coating the Turks’ Surrender

Friday March 6, 2020

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This week’s meeting between Presidents Putin and Erdogan in Moscow was cast as preventing a war between Russia and Turkey in Syria. War, however, was never on the horizon. Putin called Erdogan’s bluff, and the Turk folded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, accompanied by their respective senior national security advisers, met in Moscow on March 5. The purpose of this emergency summit was to negotiate the terms of a ceasefire that would bring an end to heavy fighting in Syria’s Idlib province that threatened to draw their two nations into direct military conflict. After more than six hours of meeting, a new agreement, packaged as an “additional protocol” to the “Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the De-escalation Area as of September 17, 2018” (better known as the “Sochi Agreement”), was agreed to by both parties.

A sputtering offensive

Over the course of a week, from February 27 through March 5, Syria’s Idlib province transitioned from being ground zero for a war between the Syrian army and allied forces, and heavily armed groups opposed to the rule of Syrian President Bashar Assad, into a geopolitical powder keg that threatened to pull the Turkish and Russian militaries into direct conflict with one another. On March 1, Turkey, following up on threats previously made by President Erdogan to drive the Syrian Army and its allies back to the line of demarcation set forth in the original Sochi Agreement, unleashed a major offensive, dubbed “Operation Spring Shield” and involving thousands of Turkish troops fighting alongside anti-Assad formations.
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The Salisbury Poisonings Two Years On: A Riddle, Wrapped in a Cover Up, Inside a Hoax

Thursday March 5, 2020

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I’ve said some stupid things in my time, but up there with the best of them was a comment I uttered to my wife on the morning of Tuesday 6th March 2018. The previous night the news had broken that an ex-spy by the name of Sergei Skripal had apparently been one of two people hospitalised on the Sunday afternoon on a bench in The Maltings in Salisbury. At that time the opioid, Fentanyl, was thought to be connected to it. Was this about to be a huge international story? Or was it going to soon be forgotten about? I was decidedly of the latter opinion. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “Probably just a drug overdose. It’ll soon blow over.”​

​Two years later…​

​Actually, two years on and most people have pretty much forgotten about it. Yes, they remember that it happened; yes, they remember that it was a mighty odd occurrence with a number of peculiarities about it; and for the people of Salisbury, I’m quite sure they will recall the police, the cordons, the helicopters, the place swarming with international media, and of course let’s not forget the baby wipes. But by and large, it happened, it’s done with, and the case was solved a long while ago.​

​Except that it wasn’t. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The fact is that two of the many Russians who were in Salisbury on 3rd and 4th March, and who were charged with the incident — Petrov and Boshirov — have never been charged with the subsequent incident in Amesbury.
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Quincy Conference: A 'Seat at the Table'...or a Kick in the Teeth?

Thursday March 5, 2020

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I hesitate to write this, as I am a fan of the Libertarian Institute. But one of their recent articles has me scratching my head. And though I have never named them before in a critical piece, I notice that one of my articles is linked in their article so I believe I should set the record straight because the topic is so critically important to our movement.
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The Myth of Moderate Nuclear War

Tuesday March 3, 2020

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There are many influential supporters of nuclear war, and some of these contend that the use of "low-yield" and/or short-range weapons is practicable without the possibility of escalation to all-out Armageddon. In a way their argument is comparable to that of the band of starry-eyed optimists who thought, apparently seriously, that there could be such a beast as a "moderate rebel."
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Some Thoughts on Idlib Dawn

Tuesday March 3, 2020

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The seesaw events of the last few days can be examined from the political dancing and posturing of the major players and from the combatants’ maneuvers on the battlefield. Obviously there is a lot of interplay between the two, but I think it is the soldiers who are driving this train rather than the politicians. I'm also way more comfortable at the grazing fire level than wallowing among the political class.

The SAA still is composed of a few well trained, well led and well equipped combined arms units capable of sustained heavy combat. They are constantly moved to where they are needed most. Most of the SAA positions are manned by lightly armed National Defense Forces (NDF) and local militias. These forces essentially man a picket line against the jihadis. They can defend against light probes, but cannot withstand a major jihadi assault especially when those jihadis are supported by Turkish artillery and armor. That is what happened at Saraqib when the 25th Division and Liwa al Quds were withdrawn to attack the al Zawhiya Mountains and the M4 from the south. It happened again when the 25th and Liwa Al Quds pulled out of that offensive to deal with Saraqib for the second time. Fortunately, the NDF and militias were able to withdraw rather than being overrun and destroyed.

In the face of the SAA success in Operation Idlib Dawn, Erdogan slowly ratcheted up the use of the Turkish Army to bolster his jihadi allies on the battlefield. The SAA adjusted. However, bombing of the convoy resulting in the death of thirty plus Turkish soldiers drove Erdogan to find a way to assuage his embarrassment. I think his retaliation with MLRS, artillery and drone strikes surprised the SAA and the Russians as well. Perhaps the Russians first thought the Turkish strikes were a face saving measure and would stop after the initial strikes. Erdogan thought this Russian pause was a sign of weakness and did not stop his attacks. Another blunder.
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MIT Study Finds No Evidence of Fraud in Bolivian Election That Resulted in a Coup

Monday March 2, 2020

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Back in November 2019, former Bolivian President Evo Morales was ousted in a coup after claims of election fraud from the Organization for American States (OAS). A new MIT study into the October 20th presidential election does not support the conclusions of the OAS and casts further doubt on the already flimsy claims. Much damage has already been done, Morales fled the country, members of his Movimento al Socialismo (MAS) party have been arrested, and dozens of his supporters were shot and killed by police in the unrest that followed the coup.

The claims of election fraud stem from a 24-hour pause of the preliminary count system on election day. The counting was paused after 84 percent of the votes were tallied, at the time it showed Morales leading his closest opponent Carlos Mesa by just under eight percent. When the counting resumed the next day, Morales’ lead increased to over 10 percent. In Bolivia’s election system, a candidate is required to have over 40 percent of the votes, and a 10 percent lead to their nearest opponent to prevent a runoff vote.

The OAS claims that during this 24-hour pause in the preliminary count, manipulations occurred that resulted in Morales taking a large enough lead to prevent the runoff vote. The new MIT study examined the data and concluded, "The OAS’s claim that the stopping of the trep (preliminary count) during the Bolivian election produced an oddity in the voting trend is contradicted by the data … Therefore, we cannot find results that would lead us to the same conclusion as the OAS. We find it is very likely that Morales won the required 10 percentage point margin to win in the first round of the election on October 20, 2019."
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Can the Fed Save Us from Climate Change?

Monday March 2, 2020

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The 1978 Humphrey-Hawkins Act requires the Federal Reserve to “promote” stable prices and full employment. Of course, the Fed’s steady erosion of the dollar’s purchasing power has made prices anything but stable, while the boom-and-bust cycle created by the Fed ensures that periods of low unemployment will not last for long.
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