This article is a lightly edited version of a paper presented at the Ron Paul Institute’s conference on peace and prosperity held on September 10, 2016 in Dulles, Virginia On September 9th the Washington Post featured a front page article describing how the Defense Department had used warplanes to attack targets and kill suspected militants in six countries over the Labor Day weekend. The article was celebratory, citing Pentagon officials who boasted of the ability to engage “multiple targets”...

Fifteen years, hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars later, the United States’ war on terror has spawned more instability, violence and chaos than we could have imagined when this undefined and never-ending global campaign began. Today, jihadist terror groups control more territory and are more of a threat to the world than they were on September 11, 2001. Last week, US-based security firm the Soufan Group estimated that many of the post-9/11 concerns about global terrorism...

Last week’s announcement of a record-breaking US aid package for Israel underscores how dangerously foolish and out-of-touch is our interventionist foreign policy. Over the next ten years, the US taxpayer will be forced to give Israel some $38 billion dollars in military aid. It is money we cannot afford going to a country that needs no assistance to maintain its status as the most powerful military in the Middle East. All US foreign aid is immoral and counterproductive. As I have often said,...

The latest from the Gallup Poll is that only 32 percent of Americans trust the print and TV media to tell the truth. Republicans, 18 to 49 year old Americans, and independents trust the media even less, with trust rates of 14 percent, 26 percent, and 30 percent. The only group that can produce a majority that still trusts the media are Democrats with a 51 percent trust rate in print and TV reporting. The next highest trust rate is Americans over 50 years of age with a trust rate of 38 percent....

The US military-industrial complex and the US mainstream media often describe the leadership of North Korea, headed by President Kim Jong-un, as crazy and irrational. But what could be more crazy and irrational than doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? What better way to describe the actions of the US national-security establishment and its loyal acolytes in the mainstream press whenever North Korea does something that they don’t like, such as engaging in...

Video footage appears to show US commandos fleeing a Syrian town under a barrage of abuse and insults hurled at them by fighters from the American-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group. The video appears to be the first evidence of US special forces cooperating with Turkish troops in their battle against Islamic State (ISIS).The incident illustrates the complex web of alliances and enmities in Syria, where many of America’s allies are fighting each other and some rebel groups that receive...

Oh, it was a very big deal, one of those Defining Moments our media likes to chortle over. There was Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson on “Morning Joe” being interviewed by a panel of pundits including Mike Barnicle. “What,” asked Barnicle, “would you do about Aleppo?” Johnson looked puzzled, because he was: “And what is Aleppo?” he answered. “You’re kidding,” said Barnicle. “No,” said Johnson. “Aleppo is in Syria,” explained Barnicle, looking and sounding both smug and...

Snowden is a helluva movie, kicking an audience’s ass on a number of levels. I had a chance to see the film last night at a preview event; it opens everywhere on September 16. Go see it.On one level the film presents Snowden’s story as a political thriller. A brave but frightened man, certain he is doing the right thing but worried if he can pull it off, smuggles some of the NSA’s most secret information out of a secure facility. He makes contact with skeptical journalists in Hong Kong,...

There is considerable chatter about who will win in some of the hotly contested congressional races around the country, but one thing is certain: whoever triumphs will soon be receiving a nice all expenses paid luxury trip to Israel to learn all about Benjamin Netanyahu’s views regarding what more Washington can do to support him and his government. The “educational seminars” are organized by the Israel Lobby, more specifically by a tax exempt entity referred to as the American Israel...

The following is a modified version of the speech I delivered at the Ron Paul Institute’s “Peace and Prosperity” conference in Virginia on September 10, 2016. On the Fourth of July in 1821, John Quincy Adams delivered one of the most remarkable speeches in American history. The speech is entitled, “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.” In his speech, Adams described America’s founding principles on foreign policy. He pointed out that there are lots of bad, monstrous things that go on in the world...

This talk was delivered at the Peace and Prosperity 2016 Conference of the Ron Paul Institute. Not long ago I was thinking about the legacy of Murray N. Rothbard, the brilliant scholar and the creator of the libertarian movement, as well as a dear friend to both Ron and me. Would that movement have come into existence without Murray? I don’t think so. And whatever might have developed in its place would undoubtedly have been less pro-peace, and more willing to reach an accord with the warfare...

“America’s strategic and economic interests in the Mideast and Muslim world are being threatened by the agony in Palestine, which inevitably invites terrorist attacks against US citizens and property.” -Eric Margolis Sun Media Sept 2 2001 (nine days before the Sept 11 attacks against New York and Washington DC.) As Americans enter the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on their nation, they still have not understood the true cause of these dreadful attacks. Who can blame them? Our...

In her recent address at the Jackson Hole monetary policy conference, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen suggested that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates by the end of the year. Markets reacted favorably to Yellen’s suggested rate increase. This is surprising, as, except for one small increase last year, the Federal Reserve has not followed through on the numerous suggestions of rate increases that Yellen and other Fed officials have made over the past several years. Much more...

I was fortunate enough to view a screening of the new Snowden movie Wednesday evening with some of the whistleblowers who have cameos in it and with its director Oliver Stone. I'm not allowed to review it until Saturday night, but it is a truly great movie and has the potential to be the most widely seen, heard, or read thing of any political decency or truth in the world this year. That's not, however, why I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad I watched Snowden because it gave me an extra several hours...

Here are 10 of the worst lies that have been peddled by the West regarding Syria, with the aim of giving people living in Western countries an entirely false view of the conflict that has been raging in the Middle East country since 2011. As in the case of previous US-led wars against Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya the lies told in relation to the ongoing conflict in Syria have been quite outrageous. 1. The West has failed to intervene in Syria - and that's been the problem This oft-repeated claim...

One of the most troubling aspects of the recently released documents from the FBI is a timeline established for when Clinton staffers used BleachBit to try to eradicate emails and prevent them from ever being recovered. It appears that staff may have deleted the email archive after the staff received a subpoena to preserve all such evidence. The staffer working for Platte River Networks (PRN) in Denver, Colorado reportedly had what was described as an “Oh Sh*t” moment when they realized that...