The US Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is poised to rush to the floor a bill that would give the president total war authority anywhere on the globe, perhaps even including on US soil. All in the name of fighting ISIS, Congress is about to crown the president with unlimited war powers. In today’s Liberty Report we discuss the dangers of the incredible shrinking Legislative branch of government:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Most normal people look at the smoldering cemetery that is post-“liberation” Libya, the gruesome graveyard of an almost-“liberated” Syria, the 14 year slow-motion failed regime change in Afghanistan, blood-drenched Iraq, and they are horrified. Washington Post’s neocon nag Jennifer Rubin looks across that bloody landscape and sees a beautiful work in progress.
She writes today in the online edition of the Post that despite what we might be hearing from some “libertarian/populist pols masquerading as conservatives,” the interventionist enterprise is chugging alone just fine. Democracy promotion at the barrel of a gun is every American’s “white man’s burden” whether he likes it or not.
Never mind that Syria has been nearly leveled by almost five years of an Islamist insurgency that was but a few weeks from success when Russia stopped it in its tracks. The real villain is the secular Bashar al-Assad, writes Rubin. After all, he “is partnered with Iran and spurs support for Islamist rebels…”
Assad “spur[s] support for Islamist rebels” by waging war on them for six years? Or does she somehow deny that Assad is fighting the insurgents who seek to drive him from power? Both cannot be true.
Continue reading “WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin: More Regime Change, Please!”
A Saudi-backed opposition committee representing the rebels fighting to overthrow the Assad government in Syria have agreed on a chief negotiator for peace talks scheduled to begin in Geneva next week. The rebels will be represented by Mohammed Alloush, political leader of Jaysh al-Islam.
Mohammed Alloush’s brother, Zahran, led Jaysh al-Islam until he was killed in an airstrike at the end of December. Under Zahran’s rule, Jaysh al-Islam was a fiercely Islamist group that insisted strict Sharia law must govern Syria. He maintained close ties with the al-Nusra Front, otherwise known as al-Qaeda in Syria.
John Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, put together a detailed profile of the then-leader of Jaysh al-Islam. Should this group fulfill the US/Saudi/Turk/Israeli/Qatari wish of overthrowing Assad in Syria, there is little reason to believe the bloodshed would stop. In fact it may only really begin in earnest if they succeed in gaining power. Here is Landis on Zahran:
Zahran calls for cleansing Damascus of all Shiites and Nusayris. (“Nusayris” is the old term that referred to the Alawites prior to the adoption of “Alawite.” It is considered a term of abuse by Alawites).
Continue reading “Al-Qaeda Allies to Represent Opposition in Upcoming Syria Peace Talks”
Free trade — not corporatist, managed trade — is the best guarantor of peace and prosperity. Protectionism leads to trade wars which very often lead to hot wars. In the US presidential race the issue of tariffs and other taxes on trade have begun to enter the conversation. We should remember how dangerous this kind of isolationism is, especially to working and middle class Americans. In today’s Liberty Report, Ron Paul explains the importance of real free trade:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
The two US Navy riverine command boats intercepted in Iranian territorial waters yesterday were sent on their way along with the crew of 10 US sailors after brief detention on Iranian soil. According to news reports, the well-armed warships either suffered mechanical or navigational difficulties which caused them to enter Iranian territory (although it may well have been a game of cat-and-mouse to test the Iranian response). The US sailors were apparently treated well, enjoyed what appeared a decent meal in relaxed surroundings, and in the end apologized for the mistake and praised their treatment by the Iranians.
Thanks to President Obama’s policy shift on Iran toward engagement and away from isolationism, Secretary of State John Kerry was able to telephone his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Zarif and quickly defuse what just months ago would have been a far more serious situation.
This should be a good-news story about the value of diplomacy and reducing tensions with adversaries, but Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was having none of it. That Kerry expressed his appreciation to the Iranians for swiftly releasing the American sailors only showed the Obama Administration’s “craven desire to preserve the dangerous Iranian nuclear deal at all costs evidently knows no limit,” said McCain in a press release.
Continue reading “Sen. McCain Furious That Iran Treated US Sailors Well”
The quick resolution of the potentially difficult situation of US sailors caught inside Iranian territorial waters should have been celebrated in Washington as a triumph of diplomacy. With the Naval personnel in Iranian custody, Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned his Iranian counterpart and was able to talk the crisis back down to a relative non-event. This, of course, infuriated the neo-cons who saw it as a sign of weakness that the US did not respond with bombs instead of words. More in today’s Liberty Report:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
