Category: News

GLENN GREENWALD: You know, it’s just such a somber reminder of the fact that while there are huge differences between Republicans and Democrats, …there are also huge areas of continuity, where it makes no difference who ends up winning. And what’s so remarkable is the Afghanistan War is now in its 17th year, under its third president. Obama—Trump is the third president to escalate it, after campaigning against it. And we barely ever talk about it anymore….

—Greenwald: Supporting U.S.-Russia Relations Should Be Encouraged, Not Viewed as Sign of Treason, democracynow.org

There’s that lay definition of mental illness where you come to believe you’re the only sane person left in the room. I think that’s where I am right now.

In last week’s address to State Department employees, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated out loud what has been America’s foreign policy forever, the idea that basing our policy too heavily on values creates obstacles to advancing our national interests. Tillerson basically restated the Kissinger line of realpolitik, which is what the U.S. had been doing since WWII even without a snooty name to it: offering lip service to rights and human values and democracy as expedients while supporting scum bag dictators as they fit our real needs.

Continue reading “John McCain, Human Rights, and Our National Mental Illness”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) published an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday taking Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to task for Tillerson’s recent comment that our national security goals overseas may on some occasions preclude the export of our human rights values. In McCain’s view, it is our duty always and everywhere to export American values and help “liberate” oppressed masses overseas. But what about McCain’s own record? How are the people doing in those countries “liberated” by the policies he has endorsed? Is the average Iraqi, or Libyan, or Syrian better off now, after US military intervention to “promote our values”? Most likely McCain’s article is meant to scuttle tomorrow’s meeting between Tillerson and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. Will McCain succeed? We discuss in today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Washington, DC – On May 8, 2017 IRmep (Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy) Director Grant F. Smith filed an emergency motion (PDF) asking the US Court of Appeals for an injunction on the immanent transfer of US foreign military assistance to Israel.

On May 5 President Trump signed into law a temporary spending measure designed to keep the US government running until September. The law included $3.7 billion in foreign aid to Israel.

Continue reading “IRmep Asks Appeals Court To Block Trump Transfer of $3.7 Billion in US Aid to Nuclear Israel”

President Trump is off to Saudi Arabia and Israel later this month, with stops at the Vatican and at a NATO summit. Since the election, a once-critical Trump has flip-flopped on Saudi Arabia, now he’s expected to provide further US assistance to the ongoing Saudi war on Yemen. But much of the Saudi visit will no-doubt focus on something Trump shares with the Saudi leadership: violent antipathy toward Iran. We preview the President’s trip in today’s Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Neocon Anne Applebaum has never seen a bed she did not expect to find an evil Russian lurking beneath. More than a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, she cannot let go of that hysterical feeling that, “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!” In screeching screed after screeching screech, Applebaum is, like most neocons, a one trick pony: the US government needs to spend more money to counter the threat of the month. Usually it’s Russia or Putin. But it can also be China, Iran, Assad, Gaddafi, Saddam, etc.

There is no doubt that Applebaum is a true believer that Putin wants to destroy our democratic institutions, but there is also a more pedestrian way to understand her endless obsession: it pays well to hype up big threats. In fact, according to a mandatory Polish government disclosure (her husband was Polish defense and foreign minister before being forced out in disgrace after an eavesdropping scandal), Applebaum has made out like a bandit for a humble journalist and think-tanker.

Continue reading “Neocon Anne Applebaum: Give Me Money To Fight ‘Russian Disinformation’!”