The humiliation of United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Warsaw last week was a good thing. The ancient Greeks, exercising their demonstrated ability to synthesize defining characteristics, had a word for it: hubris. Hubris is when one develops an extreme and unreasonable feeling of confidence in a certain course of action that inevitably leads to one’s downfall when that conceit proves to be based on false principles.
Pompeo was in Warsaw for a “summit” arranged by the US State Department in partnership with the Polish government to discuss with representatives of sixty nations what to do about the fractious situation in the Middle East. In advance, he promised that the meeting would "deliver really good outcomes." The gathering was initially conceived as a “war against Iran” precursor, intended to pull together a coalition against the Persians, but when it became clear that many of the potential participants would balk at such a designation, it assumed a broader agenda concerning “Peace and Security in the Middle East.”
Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria were not, not surprisingly, invited as some of them were the expected targets of whatever remedial action the conference might recommend. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu was, of course, present, tweeting in advance of the gathering that it would be all about “war against Iran.” He also characteristically delivered a warning that Iran was planning a “second holocaust” for his country.
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US President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy advisor John Bolton appears dead set on resuming his decades-long stand-off with Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega, hinting that Washington-backed regime change may be in the offing.
“The Ortega regime has sentenced three farm leaders to 550 years in prison for their roles in protests in 2018, where Ortega’s police forces reportedly killed 300 activists. As President Trump said Monday, Ortega’s days are numbered and the Nicaraguan people will soon be free,” the national security advisor to the US president tweeted on Wednesday.
The leaders of anti-Ortega protests were given jail terms this week, after they were implicated in the deaths of four policemen and a teacher during a shootout last July.
The Central American nation has been rocked by unrest since April last year, with protesters demanding the resignation of Sandinista party leader Ortega, who has been president since 2007, and convincingly won another five-year term in 2016.
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Conservatives, China, and the USA
A usually good conservative magazine has an article titled: “China’s New Aggression on the World Stage.” The text under the title reads: “China has long used Western capital to challenge the might of the West. Now it is moving forcefully, making demands of companies and countries, expanding its influence.” Yes, China is an authoritative state. But it is hard to take articles like this seriously.
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Praise for Prof. Walter Block from a Three-Time Student
It is great to see exuberant praise for Walter Block, a Loyola University economics professor and Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board member, at Loyola University’s The Maroon on Sunday. In an editorial, Loyola student Nathan Fryzek offers several reasons fellow students should enroll in one of Block’s classes, including the “main reason” that Block’s classes “are just so darn fun.”
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Five Minutes Five Issues: Yemen Vote, Legalizing Marijuana, Women Working, Democracy Promotion, Checkpoint Alert
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted is out. 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.
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Lew Rockwell Calls ‘Baloney’ on Claim Iran is a National Security Threat to the United States
Asked in a recent panel discussion at the RT show CrossTalk if Iran is a national security threat to the United States, Ludwig von Mises Institute Founder and Chairman Lew Rockwell answered that that claim is ‘baloney’ used for “justifying imperialism.”
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McAdams: Senate Finds 'No Collusion' Between Trump and Russia - Now What?
RPI Director Daniel McAdams joined RT America's "Watching the Hawks" program today to discuss yesterday's bombshell report that the Senate Intelligence Committee has nearly completed its two year investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and that it could find no evidence. As McAdams points out, this conclusion was hardly a surprise to many independent news and analysis sources but the damage has already been done: on the excuse of ferreting out "Russian influence" the media and social media companies have built a largely US government-funded Orwellian censorship network that isn't about to be unwound now that the basis for creating it has been proven false. Watch the interview below...
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