The RPI Challenge

There is a vast industry in the United States that wants a hot war with Syria and Iran as well as increased confrontation with Russia and China. It is appropriate to refer to it as an industry because it has many components and is largely driven by money, much of which itself comes from Wall Street and major corporations that profit from war related business. Some prefer to refer to this monster as the Military Industrial Complex, but since that phrase was coined by President Dwight D....

The US threatened war within hours of an alleged chemical weapons attack taking place in Douma, northeast of Damascus.The US rush to conflict attempts to sidestep any meaningful investigation into the attack, fitting a larger pattern of Washington and its allies using baseless chemical weapon allegations for wars of aggression stretching back to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.US accusations and threats of war come at a pivotal moment in Syria’s now 7 year conflict in which the Syrian government...

In the days leading up to the Congressional vote on whether to go to war in Iraq years ago, Fortune Magazine had an article headlined “We Win – What Then?” The article said a prolonged war in Iraq would make American soldiers “sitting ducks for Islamic terrorists.” Another national magazine at that time, U.S. News and World Report, had an article headlined, “Why the Rush to War?” Now that war has been frequently referred to as possibly the greatest foreign policy mistake in US History.The...

The United Nations Security Council turned down a compromise resolution on Syria, proposed by Sweden and seconded by Russia seeking investigation on the alleged chemical attack in Douma. Five countries supported the resolution with two permanent members – United States and Britain – opposing it. Earlier, a resolution on the same lines which was supported by Russia and China was also opposed by the US and Britain.This is a significant political and diplomatic victory for Russia insofar as only...

A shooting war between the US and Russia appears imminent.Following overnight speculation that the US may launch an airstrike on Syria at any moment, this morning, in his latest fiery tweetstorm, after slamming the failing New York Times and again lashing out at the Russia collusion probe and Cohen's office raid, Trump tweeted that "Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners...

Last week’s shooting at YouTube’s California headquarters is certain to add momentum to the push for more gun control. Even before the shooting, YouTube was working to undermine gun rights by banning videos promoting firearms, including videos teaching safe gun usage.As is usually the case, this latest shooting took place in a state with restrictive gun laws. In fact, California’s gun laws may be the nation’s most onerous. California not only registers all firearm purchases, but California...

In her daily press conference on 5th April, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, mentioned a quiet resentment and fury that is building up amongst ordinary Russians over the way the Government of the United Kingdom has handled the case of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Strange though it may seem, I sense a similar feeling of anger and resentment building up here in the UK, as it becomes clearer and clearer that the official narrative has little or no connection with...

A child could see through the fake “chemical attack” supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria. But our President can’t, which raises the question: is he as stupid or stupider than George W. Bush? Or is he crazy?The bad news is: possibly both. And no, there is no good news.It was 6 in the morning this Sunday when the President of the United States sent out this tweet: Many dead, including women and children, in...

It's deja vu all over again.Remember when the US admitted Syrian "Rebels" have used chemical weapons? Or when earlier this year, now former Secretary of State blamed Russia for an alleged Syrian chemical attack despite admitting he doesn't know who actually did it? Or when the US finally admitted there was "no evidence" Assad used sarin gas? Or just last week, when Trump said that the US is finally pulling out of Syria as a result of the defeat of ISIS (much to the Pentagon's fury and...

The US military spent $60 million on a new section of power grid in Afghanistan’s northeast. It doesn’t work and may even put residents at risk, according to a report from the US government’s reconstruction watchdog.While the power lines have been built, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that mismanagement by the Army Corps of Engineers led to the grid remaining at best useless and at worst, dangerous.In 2013, the US Army awarded a $116 million contract...

President Obama's State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) spent nearly $9 million on an Albanian political reform campaign coordinated with billionaire George Soros, according to 32 pages of State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Working with Soros' Open Society Foundation, USAID channeled the funds into a "Justice for All" campaign aimed at reforming the socialist government's judicial system in...

Russia’s UN envoy blasted the UK’s attempt to blame the poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal on Moscow, describing the entire hoax as a “theater of absurd.”The extraordinary UN Security Council meeting was requested by Russia, following the announcement made by the secretive British Porton Down chemical laboratory, that it had not established that the Novichok nerve agent used in the poisoning was of Russian origin.According to RT, top British officials explicitly cited the Porton Down...

The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal continues to be front-page news. According to current reports Cambridge Analytica obtained private Facebook data, which it used to send pro-Trump material to targeted Facebook users. These reports have been met with outrage in Washington, D.C. The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation and U.S. senators have called for Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, to testify in front of Congress.Calls by Congress for increased oversight to prevent...

I was disappointed to hear President Trump so quickly reverse his position on removing U.S. troops from Syria. “We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong,” he told an Ohio audience just a week ago. That sounded refreshingly like candidate Trump’s promises of no more nation-building. Then he flipped his position and announced we’d stay.I do think Trump understands that our interventionist foreign policy is a massive waste of money and lives. He said in February, “As of a couple of...

Beyond the general concerns regarding the nomination of John Bolton as National Security Advisor, there is also the specific issue of his impending access to the most highly classified intelligence information that the United States possesses.There are a number of reasons why Bolton should be denied a clearance, including his well-known record of abusing subordinates at State Department and colleagues at the United Nations. Bolton also has a close personal relationship with Israel and its...

I have now asked a total of 50 questions around the Skripal case, which you can find here and here. Having gone back through these questions, as far as I can see only three have been answered by the release of public information or events that have transpired. These are:Are they (Sergei and Yulia Skripal) still alive?If so, what is their current condition and what symptoms are they displaying?Can the government confirm that its scientists at Porton Down have established that the substance that...