A friend pointed out to me that in this White House interview Obama told Thomas Friedman (paraphrasing) that during the process of ISIS overrunning much of northern Iraq he deliberately withheld massive air attacks on ISIS so that he could maintain political pressure...
It is going to cost the US $3.4 billion, but Commander of NATO's European Command Gen. Philip Breedlove announced that the US will be sending thousands of additional troops to deploy on Russia's border in the Baltics, as well as in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. This...
Iraq, the failed state that over 4,600 (and counting…) Americans died to free from some evil tyrant 13 years ago, is still ranking high internationally in something. Unfortunately, that something is corruption. A couple of other places where America has been...
Last September the Japanese Diet (parliament) passed legislation "reinterpreting" the nearly 70 year old strictly antiwar constitution to allow for the Japanese military to take part in overseas military operations not directly tied to the defense of Japan. Tens of...
US backing for the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was supposed to be all about democracy. As Washington tells it, the people took to the street demanding democratic reforms and Assad did not listen, so he lost his legitimacy and needed to be overthrown....
Fifty years ago this year, Murray N. Rothbard offered his thoughts on National Review, the flagship magazine of American conservatism, which had commemorated its tenth anniversary in late 1965. He went on to tell the full story in The Betrayal of the American Right,...
The media focuses like a laser on terror attacks like we saw in Brussels last week. The endless news cycle pores over every detail, every angle. But what happens when US-backed Saudi jets bomb a market in Yemen, killing five times as many as died in Brussels? Silence....
For thousands of years, states (or equivalent ruling organizations and elites) certainly have acted as if they could enforce virtuous behavior—always of course according to the particular conception of virtue they happened to cherish. And many continue to do so today....
Since terrorism’s tragedy is again in the news, it is timely to revisit perhaps one of the biggest acts of terrorism in modern history – the illegal invasion and destruction – ongoing – of Iraq. March 20th marked the thirteenth anniversary of an action resulting in...
Much has been reported on United States presidential candidates trying to one-up each other at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, DC last week as they pledged their intentions to, as president, stand with Israel....
It was not long after last week’s horrifying bombings in Brussels that the so-called security experts were out warning that Europeans must give up more of their liberty so government can keep them secure from terrorism. I guess people are not supposed to notice that...
Over at The Intercept, journalist Glenn Greenwald has written a powerful and insightful examination of how media provides Americans with many details regarding the deaths and suffering caused by terrorist attacks in “western” nations but shields Americans from...
The recapture of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra was the single biggest defeat for ISIS since it declared its caliphate, but the West does not seem interested. Why? Because then they’d have to give some credit to Russia. Indeed, it must have been a tough weekend...
We know for certain that the CIA and other elements of the "deep state" are deeply involved in rigging and influencing elections overseas. Decades of history have shown us this much. But how much might they be involved in our elections at home? And with the US telling...
The big news out of Syria over the past couple of days has been that Syrian government forces with the help of the Russian military have taken back control of Palmyra from ISIS. The fall of Palmyra and subsequent destruction of the spectacular Roman ruins there by...
The nuances of foreign policy do not feature heavily in the ongoing presidential campaign. Every candidate intends to “destroy” the Islamic State; each has concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea, and China; every one of them will defend Israel;...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted 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. Listen to the show here: Read a transcript of the show,...
Earlier this month while delivering a public lecture in Kiev, “The Challenges of an Ever-Changing World,” former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an inspiring remark for anyone who might have been thinking that life in Ukraine was bad: “You should go to...
On March 23, 2011, at the very start of what we now call the ‘Syrian conflict,’ two young men - Sa’er Yahya Merhej and Habeel Anis Dayoub - were gunned down in the southern Syrian city of Daraa. Merhej and Dayoub were neither civilians, nor were they in opposition to...
No sooner had the smoke cleared in Brussels than the security "experts" began telling the Europeans they must sacrifice more of their liberty for the promise that their governments would keep them safe. Never mind that the big lesson from Brussels is that their...
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