MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Releasing an Intelligence Report on Shoot-Down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 It has been a year since the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, resulting in the death of 298 passengers and crew. The initial response by the US government supported the contention that the likely perpetrators were anti-government forces in southeastern Ukraine (the customary media misnomer for them...

How can the life of such a man Be in the palm of some fool’s hand? To see him obviously framed Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land Where justice is a game.—Bob Dylan, “Hurricane” Justice in America is not all it’s cracked up to be. Just ask Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. Despite the fact that Deskovic’s DNA did not match what was found at the murder scene, he was singled out by police as a suspect because he wept at...

When the US attacked Afghanistan the purpose was to remove the Taliban government which had given guest status to the al-Qaeda leadership. Only a few weeks later, that job was done. The alleged purpose of the occupation of Afghanistan then changed into hunting down al-Qaeda remnants. But those had already fled to Pakistan and elsewhere. The US military instead started to hunt and kill former Taliban members even when those were just local farmers or former Taliban leaders who had given up any...

This is the best book by Ron Paul that I have had the joy to read. It is an intimate look into the private thought life of Ron Paul as he grew up and lived in an age under the constant threat of war. He talks about his experiences growing up during World War II, how the events of the Korean war shaped his school years and how the war in Vietnam caught him up as a young medical practitioner.He talks about his intellectual journey and what resources brought him to a pro-peace philosophy. Of...

Last week’s successfully concluded Iran agreement is one of the two most important achievements of an otherwise pretty dismal Obama presidency. Along with the ongoing process of normalizing relations with Cuba, this move shows that diplomacy can produce peaceful, positive changes. It also shows that sometimes taking a principled position means facing down overwhelming opposition from all sides and not backing down. The president should be commended for both of these achievements. The agreement...

I have rarely found anything President Obama has done to be praiseworthy, and believe his domestic policies of Keynesian borrow and spend and incessant statist intervention in capitalist enterprise to be especially deplorable. But finally he has stood up to the War Party—and that could mark a decisive turning point in rolling back Washington’s destructive interventionism and imperial pretensions in the Middle East and, indeed, around the world. The Iranian nuclear agreement is a decisive...

There is a madness in how the mainstream US media presents the world to the American people, a delusional perspective that arguably creates an existential threat to humanity’s survival. We have seen this pattern in the biased depiction of the Ukraine crisis and now in how Official Washington is framing the debate over the Iranian nuclear agreement. In this American land of make-believe, Iran is assailed as the chief instigator of instability in the Middle East. Yet, any sane and informed...

It’s July 17th, which means that Ron Paul’s new book “Swords Into Plowshares” is finally available. And what a book it is. Only the hardest of hearts and most closed of minds could read Dr. Paul’s new book and fail to be convinced of the futility of war. But what interests us the most is Dr. Paul’s discussion of the connection between central banking and war. Almost since the first banks were developed, bankers have funded government wars in exchange for receiving privileges from government....

Social media sites such as Twitter and YouTube would be required to report “terrorist” videos and other content posted by users to federal authorities under legislation approved this past week by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The measure, contained in the 2016 intelligence authorization, still has to be voted on by the full Senate. The measure applies to “electronic communication service providers,” which includes e-mail services such as Google and Yahoo. “Posted content” would likely...

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that took place earlier this week, Air Force nominee for Vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Paul Selva, stated that the "Islamic State" was currently "no threat to the US homeland." Asked to prioritize the list of threats the US was actually facing, Gen. Selva gave the following answer: "Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and all of the organizations that have grown around ideology that was articulated by al Qaeda". While the merits...

“Who needs direct repression when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?”—Philosopher Slavoj Žižek Despite the best efforts of some to sound the alarm, the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded. All the while, the nation’s citizens seem content to buy into a carefully constructed, benevolent vision of life in America...

The EU and the US are the ones who created the chaos in Ukraine, said Daniel McAdams, of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. The countries on the EU periphery like Hungary have to take on the burden receiving thousands of refugees, he added. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has called for a crackdown on paramilitary units working in the country, saying no political force should have armed squads at its disposal. The statement came after a violent stand-off in the western town...

Once upon a time CIA Stations overseas received what was referred to as an “Operating Directive” which prioritized intelligence targets for the upcoming year based on their importance vis-à-vis national security. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, penetrating Moscow and preventing the KGB’s repaying the favor in kind loomed large as Russia and its allies represented the only genuine threat that could in fact destroy much of the United States. Today’s Russia retains much of that...