Category: News

While it would be inappropriate to directly blame US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power for the tragic death of a little boy in Cameroon today, it would also be inappropriate to exculpate the ambassador.

The US Ambassador, who is the embodiment of the “humanitarian” interventionist cult that makes up the Left Wing faction of the Church of Neoconservativism, was speeding in her heavily-armed motorcade through the Cameroonian countryside at speeds over 60 miles per hour to make it to a photo-op with a group of victims of the Islamist Boko Haram organization.

Continue reading “‘Humanitarian Interventionist’ Convoy Kills Kid in Cameroon”

Heading into its sixteenth year, with no endpoint in sight, America’s longest war is its least talked about.

Afghanistan has not come up in any Republican or Democratic debate, except perhaps as one of a list of countries where Islamic State must be destroyed (left out is the reality that no Islamic State existed in 2001 when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban, who, by the way, are still not defeated.)

For her part, the only mention of Afghanistan from Hillary Clinton is a vague statement last year of support for Barack Obama’s decision to keep 5,500 troops in Afghanistan when he leaves the White House in 2017. Bernie Sanders’ web site has a long series of statement-lets that generally say things have not worked out well in Afghanistan, but stays away from much of a stance.

Continue reading “Why Don’t the Candidates Talk About Afghanistan?”

Over the weekend, the Saudi foreign minister threatened to sell $750 billion in US dollar holdings if Congress passes legislation removing the kingdom’s sovereign immunity from liability should Saudi official involvement in the 9/11 attacks be demonstrated. What would happen to the dollar should a huge dump like this occur? It would have significant impact on global markets, says Ron Paul in today’s Liberty Report. Why are the Saudis so nervous? Will their blackmail keep the 28 pages of the 9/11 Report secret? What will Obama say in Riyadh on Wednesday?

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Last week Dan Sanchez proposed that one way to protest war and criminally inept government is to stop attending political events and not voting in elections. I agree with him on this much: that to boycott public appearances by warmonger politicians makes a powerful statement. (On the other hand, chatting, texting, and taking selfies during a speech might embarrass a demagogue politician even more.)

But I definitely don’t agree with Dan when it comes to not voting. It isn’t necessarily clear to the powers that be what mere abstention signifies. They might take it to mean people have given up, beaten into what psychologists call learned helplessness. That would be positive reinforcement: nothing would please the political establishment more than for us to give up and accept serfhood.

Instead I believe it’s much better to take positive action by voting for antiwar and pro-peace candidates. This registers dissatisfaction with the war-duopoly much more directly and effectively. The Democrat/Republican establishment will covet every vote an antiwar Green, Libertarian or independent gets.

Continue reading “Voting for Peace: A Response to Dan Sanchez”

So once again people from The World’s Most Frightened Country (C) fully overreacted to nothing. One of the 230 million people worldwide who speak Arabic happened to be on an airplane and happened to use one of the most common expressions in his language.

Hilarity ensued. Bigoted, frightened, discriminatory hilarity, in keeping with the American Way.

UC Berkeley student Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, 26, above, whose family fled Iraq in 2002 after his diplomat father was killed under Saddam Hussein’s regime, was booted from a Southwest Airlines flight and questioned by the FBI after another passenger heard him speaking Arabic. Makhzoomi was flying home from attending a dinner at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon when he stopped to make a call to an uncle.

Continue reading “Student Thrown Off Flight After Passenger Heard Him Say ‘God Willing’ in Arabic”

I am very proud to call these two people friends:

Jesselyn Radack, who blew the whistle on Department of Justice malfeasance in the handling of the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh. Jess went on to become a key part of Edward Snowden’s defense team (full disclosure: Jess was also one of my lawyers in my own whistleblower struggle with the State Department.)

Tom Drake, who blew the whistle on NSA domestic spying in the years right after 9/11, and who is cited by Edward Snowden as an important example as he decided whether or not to further expose the unconstitutional acts of the National Security Agency. In return for his truth telling, Tom was rewarded by being prosecuted under the Espionage Act, a tactic the Obama administration has now used seven times against intelligence whistleblowers, more than all previous administrations combined.

We had a terrific lunch, and if only the walls could talk…

Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent. Reprinted from the his blog with permission.