The RPI Challenge

A series of interviews of Democratic presidential candidates opposing President Trump in the 2020 election by the Council of Foreign Relations in New York reveal that the perceptions regarding US-Saudi ties have dramatically changed in the Washington beltway. Two issues during the past one-year period made all the difference — the brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi and the war in Yemen where Saudi atrocities have come into focus. Trump’s argument to remain committed to the Saudi ally had boiled...

The Mideast has its own variety of crazy humor. The Saudis have been blasting and bombing wretched Yemen, one of this world’s poorest nations, since 2015. These US-supported attacks and a naval blockade of Yemen imposed by Saudi Arabia and its sidekick ally, the United Arab Emirates, have caused mass starvation. No one knows how many Yemenis have died or are currently starving. Estimates run from 250,000 to one million. The black humor? The Saudis just claimed they were victims of Iranian...

From the abstract of a (paywalled) piece about the never ending US war on Afghanistan: Slow failure: Understanding America’s quagmire in Afghanistan The United States government has no organised way of thinking about war termination other than seeking decisive military victory. This implicit assumption is inducing three major errors. First, the United States tends to select military-centric strategies that have low probabilities of success. Second, the United States is slow to modify losing or...

Like a Japanese Kabuki dance Washington is in the grasp of War theater. Many pundits and members of Congress are filling the airwaves and offering up quotes demanding action. Demanding retaliation. We have to stand up to Iran. Only one little problem, the intel on the attack on the Saudi oil installations remains sketchy and hidden. If the missiles were fired from Iranian territory then our intel collection certainly captured the launch or tracked the origin of the drones or missiles used in...

As we marked the 232nd anniversary of the signing of America’s governing charter in 1787, we have ample evidence that it continues to be violated by the federal officials charged with upholding it. Last month, The Young Turks (TYT) news and talk network obtained the FBI’s 2018-2020 “Consolidated Strategy Guide,” which not only referenced the targeting of so-called “Black Identity Extremists” (BIE’s) but also those designated as engaged in “Anti-Government/Anti-Authority Extremism,” “Abortion...

During Dr. Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential campaign, as we were quietly sitting in a car, Dr. Paul suddenly asked me, “John, do detectives look for the motives of criminals?” I replied, “Well sir, the good ones certainly do. Knowledge of the motive can help prevent future crimes.” This very brief interaction stuck with me through the years. I knew Dr. Paul was right. Knowledge of motive was crucial to understanding the deterrence of criminal, terror, and military attacks. I came to understand...

A new spy story has been making the rounds in Washington, but this time it involved a brave Russian official who allegedly was allegedly recruited while in the Russian Embassy in Washington in 2007 and then worked secretly for the CIA until he was exfiltrated safely in 2017 lest he be discovered and caught. The tale was clearly leaked by the Agency itself to CNN by way of “multiple Trump administration officials.” The CNN headline Exclusive: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017...

Non-interventionism is a foreign policy strategy that seeks to minimize the use of direct military force against other nations, while maintaining diplomatic ties. It is a strategy that the American Founders recommended, but has largely been ignored. The corporate media and scholars alike often confuse non-interventionism in American foreign policy with isolationism, which is often associated with anti-diplomacy, minimal trade with other nations, and a focus solely on the homeland, without...

Something extraordinary happened in Sacramento last week. The people protesting California’s increasingly draconian vaccine-mandate legislation—most of them mothers of vaccine-injured children—stopped playing by the rules. On Monday, Senate Bill 714—the companion bill to SB276 which puts the determination of medical exemptions from any of the vaccines required for school into the hands of the state—was before the California State Assembly for a vote. Six women had already been arrested,...

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.” —Justice William O. Douglas, dissenting, Colten v. Kentucky, 407 US 104 (1972) Forget everything you’ve ever been...

American democracy and capitalist prosperity are dying on the vine of Empire. And this weekend's drone attack on the largest oil processing facility on the planet is a graphic case of why. So is the related picture above. The scene is of Yemenis burying a busload of children who were obliterated by American-made bombs delivered by American-made Saudi aircraft, which were being navigated to target by US command and control assets. This particular cruel foray was just one of thousands of sorties...

Here we go again! Israel is caught red handed spying against the United States and everyone in Congress is silent, as are nearly all the mainstream media which failed to report the story. And the federal government itself, quick to persecute a Russian woman who tried to join the NRA, concedes that the White House and Justice Department have done absolutely nothing to either rebuke or punish the Israeli perpetrators. One senior intelligence official commented that “I’m not aware of any...

The recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities by Yemeni Houthi forces demonstrate once again that an aggressive foreign policy often brings unintended consequences and can result in blowback. In 2015 Saudi Arabia attacked its neighbor, Yemen, because a coup in that country ousted the Saudi-backed dictator. Four years later Yemen is in ruins, with nearly 100,000 Yemenis killed and millions more facing death by starvation. It has been rightly called the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the...

When I was 20, I studied at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute, in the waning days of the Soviet empire. Most of the Russians I met were amusingly free of stress caused by following news. Why would they bother? Bull-factories like Rossiskaya Gazeta and Leningradsaya Pravda were basically collections of dreary government news releases rewritten to sound like news reports. I saw newspapers in Leningrad shredded into slivers of toilet paper, used in place of curtains in dorm rooms, even...

Following the early morning attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil processing facility—the largest oil processing plant in the world—and a similar drone attack at the Khurais oil field on Saturday, the neocon senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, has called for attacking Iran. It is now time for the U.S. to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries if they continue their provocations or increase nuclear enrichment. — Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) September 14, 2019 Although...