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Own-Goal in Baghdad: ISIS to Shut Down Airport Using US Weapons

Is Baghdad about to fall to ISIS, a group which the US media has told us is more evil than evil itself (except, of course, for the Khorasan Group, which is far more terrifying)?

Media reports that ISIS is only a few short miles from Baghdad, having established themselves in the notorious (for US torture) Abu Ghraib suburb of Baghdad and pressing ever closer to the "green zone" hosting the Iraqi government offices as well as the (Vatican-sized) US embassy compound.
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Crimes and Hope: Ron Paul's Conversation With Lew Rockwell

Two legendary voices for peace and liberty are at the top of their game in this historic conversation between Ron Paul and his first Congressional chief of staff, Lew Rockwell. Having worked so long for Dr. Paul I can say it sounds in many ways like the conversations we would have in his Congressional office in the 2000s-2010s. I imagine Lew Rockwell, who went before my colleagues and me, in Dr. Paul's Congressional office sitting down and bouncing ideas off of him. Listening to Dr. Paul's perspectives and latest thinking. Taking that as inspiration for further research. It brings back so many memories.
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How Much is Obama's War on ISIS Going to Cost? You Don't Want to Know!

How much is Obama's new war on Iraq and Syria going to cost? If you believe the woman who was right about the costs of the last US war on Iraq, Harvard Professor Linda J. Bilmes, it's going to cost a fortune. 

In a critically important article Professor Bilmes wrote for the Boston Globe this week, the author of The Three Trillion Dollar War (with Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz) points out that although the US has already spent approximately one billion dollars thus far on President Obama's plan to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, the price tag is going to climb steeply —and quickly — from there.

Direct costs of the president's plan will likely be on the order of $22 billion per year, but that is only the start.
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Is Turkey Playing Chicken With US on ISIS Fight?

Is Turkey manipulating the US attack on ISIS to serve its own regional goals? The Erdogan government has demanded that the US re-focus its priorities toward removing Assad rather the Islamic State (ISIS) if the US wants to have Turkey's support in the operation. RPI Executive Director Daniel McAdams was interviewed about Turkey's goals and actions on RT...
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Operation Voldemort: The War Which Must Not Be Named

There is an interesting dimension to the ongoing circumvention of the Constitution over our latest undeclared war. While some Administration officials are finally calling our attacks in Syria as a “war,” the discomfort over defining this indefinite campaign has led to equal discomfort over naming it. After two months of airstrikes and statements that the campaign will likely go on for years, the Administration still have not named this war. The choice would now seem obvious: Operation Voldemort, the war which must not be named.

Usually, the military loves to give inspiring names to its campaigns, though sometimes the name can reveal a bit of insecurity like “Operation Just Cause” in Panama — a name that only seemed to amplify the questions of the legality or legitimacy of the invasion. Once coined, the name then appears on everything from government contracts to legislation to service medals.
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Libya Up Next (Again) On Obama's 'Bomb the World' Tour?

While the media tends to tread lightly on the subject (they were, after all, war cheerleaders), it is nevertheless widely known that President Obama's war on Libya to spread democracy and save the Libyan people from a dictator did not quite turn out as advertised. 

On March 28, 2011, the president announced of his attack on Libya:
We are succeeding in our mission... Because we acted quickly a humanitarian catastrophe has been avoided and the lives of countless civilians...have been saved.
Fast forward just a bit and it is obvious that his confidence in the righteousness of his bombing mission is misplaced. Shortly after the president proclaimed "Mission Accomplished" in Libya, the radical Islamists with which his administration had allied to overthrow Gaddafi gained the upper hand and began to unleash a whole new kind of terror on the Libyan people. And, famously, on US diplomats as well.
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'Comply Or Die’ is Not The Law

In 1975, as the elected sheriff of Utah’s Davis County, William "Dub" Lawrence helped organize one of the state’s first SWAT teams. On September 22, 2008, his son-in-law, Brian Wood, was killed by that SWAT team outside his home following a 12-hour standoff.

After suffering a breakdown of some kind, Wood called 911 to report (falsely) that he had beaten and raped his wife. SWAT operators used chemical weapons to force Wood from the pickup truck in which he had taken refuge, then treated him to a barrage of rubber bullets, projectile bean bags, and pepper-spray rounds, in addition to tear gas and flash-bang grenades. While Wood was prone and helpless, he was shot with a Taser at least eight times by one officer, and an unknown number of times by a second — before being shot at point-blank range by another officer wielding a .308-caliber rifle.
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Surveying the Empire: RPI's Daniel McAdams on the Robert Wenzel Show

Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, ISIS, Hong Kong — why is the US at war with much of the rest of the world? Why does the government lie to trick so many Americans into backing their impoverishing and dangerous plans? Who is behind this warmongering and why?

RPI Director Daniel McAdams is on the Robert Wenzel Show at the Economic Policy Journal today to survey the expanse of the US empire.
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Israel Lobby Supports Jabhat Al-Nusra, Insurgents In Aleppo Surrounded

Israel gives cover and opened a corridor for Jabhat al-Nusra along the Golan height demarcation line to reach south Lebanon and the southern approaches to Damascus.

There seems to be no concern in Tel Aviv that one day Jabhat al-Nusra could turn against Israel too. That is somewhat astonishing as both Hizbullah and Hamas started with Israeli support as counterweights to the Palestinian Liberation Organization only to later become the most capable foes of the Israeli occupation forces. One might have thought that Israeli strategists had learned from such foolishness.
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