Earlier this week the commander of the US military forces in Afghanistantold Congress that the US needs to send a few thousand more troops into America’s longest war, which has already cost the lives of nearly 2,400 US soldiers, with over 20,049 wounded. read on...
Recently I was a guest on Joshua Bennett’s radio show on KFAR radio in Fairbanks, Alaska. Given the day, much of our wide-ranging, two-hour discussion focused on events of the last year and what may come in 2017, including what President Donald Trump will mean for United States intervention abroad and liberty in America.
Looking forward to the Trump presidency, I predicted, pointing to something similar that happened with President Ronald Reagan, that Trump would trade away following through on his stated desire to reduce spending in some areas in order to gain support in Congress for increased spending in other areas such as infrastructure and the military. The result, I concluded, would be a “compromise” of “increasing spending across-the-board.” read on...
In a new interview with host Michael Tracey at The Young Turks, libertarian communicator and former presidential candidate Ron Paul expressed much concern about President Donald Trump potentially appointing Elliott Abrams to be deputy secretary of state. Paul says Abrams has a “lousy” record. Continuing, Paul calls Abrams “the neocon’s neocon,” noting that “there has never been an intervention overseas that he didn’t seem to enjoy.”
Paul says in the interview that all of these interventions that Abrams supports did not “work.” Victory may be claimed in a sense from these interventions, Paul suggests, if they “remade the Middle East” so “we had thriving democracies there where civil liberties are being protected and [each country] had a constitution somewhat leaning toward ours.” But, in fact, Paul says “that isn’t the case” as the wars have caused more harm than good. read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted on Thursday. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. read on...
When US Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) attacked President Trump's supposed relationship to Russian President Putin -- "he is wrapping his arms around Putin" -- she exposed more than she intended. Her shocking ignorance of the basic facts of what is happening in Syria (she couldn't remember Aleppo) and in Ukraine (she confused Crimea with Korea) let out a little-known secret about your Representatives: they most often know no more about an issue than the bullet points handed them five minutes before an event by a staffer, or more frequently by their Party leadership. The idea that Congress is some great deliberative body -- or even a mediocre deliberative body -- is one of the great myths of our time. read on...
It is often not fully understood just how ignorant most US Representatives are when it comes to the finer details of foreign policy. Members get their news from an even narrower pool of information than many Americans, who are by and large abandoning the mainstream media. They read the Washington Post or they rely on their staffers, who read the Washington Post. Most Members enjoy being considered experts in the issues upon which they are voting, but the fact is they are very poorly informed.
However, there are gradations of moderately badly informed to "whaaat??!?? Did she really say that???" badly informed.
Those are the murky waters we often navigate when we sample the wit and wisdom of Rep. Maxine Waters, a 13 term Democrat from Los Angeles. read on...
In a recent interview at CNN, David Stockman, who is a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member and was director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration, critiqued the Trump administration for pushing militarism and the drug war that fuel the problems they are supposedly fighting.
Stockman explains that “we’re bombing, droning, we’ve destroyed the whole Middle East,” resulting in blowback against Americans, increased terrorism, and the creation of refugees. He further criticizes the immediate Trump administration action to expand the militarism inherited from the Obama administration — instead of curtailing it read on...
Shortly after the President Trump-authorized commando raid on Yemen, Fox News led the mainstream media in reporting on the great "treasure trove" of intelligence that was seized at the compound. With the claimed killing of a senior al-Qaeda official, the mission was proclaimed a success.
Soon the initial triumphalist reporting on the raid gave way to a much darker reality: an American was killed, millions of dollars in US military equipment destroyed, at least a dozen innocent women and children were killed, US military cover had been blown before the attack, the mission was poorly planned, the mission had been turned down twice by President Obama only to be dusted off by President Trump, and so on. read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted on Friday. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. read on...
President Trump eluded the White House press corps today to helicopter off to Dover Air Force Base for the arrival of the body of Chief Petty Officer William (Ryan) Owens, who was killed in a US commando raid in Yemen over the weekend. It was the first on-the-ground US military operation authorized by President Trump since he took office on January 20th.
While Trump was mourning the first American military casualty of his presidency, families in Yemen were mourning the deaths of their civilian relatives in the US raid. At least 16 women and children were killed in the US military attack on Yemen.
The Pentagon at first did not admit any civilian casualties in the raid. Then, when pictures (caution) made their way to the Internet of slaughtered women and children, the Pentagon adjusted its story to make the outlandish claim that al-Qaeda had recruited women into its fighting ranks and those women were killed in combat. read on...
