For decades the US and Saudi Arabia have shared a peculiar relationship: the Saudis sell relatively cheap oil to the United States for which they accept our fiat currency. They then recycle those paper dollars into the US military-industrial complex through the purchase of billions of dollars worth of military equipment, and the US guarantees the security of the Saudi monarchy. By accepting only dollars for the sale of its oil, the Saudis help the dollar remain the world’s reserve currency....

Poor President Barack Obama flew to Saudi Arabia this past week but its ruler, King Salman, was too busy to greet him at Riyadh’s airport. This snub was seen across the Arab world as a huge insult and violation of traditional desert hospitality. Obama should have refused to deplane and flown home. Alas, he did not. Obama went to kow-tow to the new Saudi monarch and his hot-headed son, Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef. They are furious that Obama has refused to attack Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon,...

President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday has boomeranged. His good intentions were never in doubt – mend fences between the two countries. But what emerges is that it will need much more than one visit – maybe, even one full presidency cannot fulfill such a mission. According to Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again. Turki told CNN’s Christian Amanpour that there is going...

The Washington elite believe that the British people should serve Washington’s interest and not their own. To this end, President Obama has been sent to London to emphasize that the UK must remain in the EU. Does this make you wonder why it is important to Washington for the British people to surrender their national sovereignty to the European Union? If not, it should. It is easier and less expensive for Washington to control the EU government than to control 28 seperate governments. For...

Intense debate and international diplomatic blackmail has dominated the discussion of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, a bipartisan bill which would open up civil lawsuits against any foreign nations if they are found to be involved in the funding of a terrorist attack occurring on US soil.It’s not totally clear what the bill’s authors initially had in mind, but with the text explicitly started the liability under the act at 9/11/01, it is quite clear that the September 11...

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry say that allowing family members of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its complicity in that crime would set a terrible precedent that would open the United States up to lawsuits from abroad. Wonderful! Let the lawsuits rain down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream! Suing Saudis over 9/11 will only set a precedent if it succeeds, which is to say if there is evidence of Saudi complicity. We know that there is, according...

In 1974, when Friedrich Hayek won the Nobel Prize in Economics, he used his acceptance speech to deliver a warning to the world. Do not again fall for “the pretense of knowledge,” he counseled. Hayek was singling out economic policymakers who presume to possess the knowledge needed to confidently predict and design market outcomes, much as engineers precisely predict and design mechanical outcomes. Yet, as Hayek surely recognized, such epistemic arrogance is rampant throughout all social...

Secretary of War Ash Carter is concerned about America’s posture. No, it’s not about sitting with your back straight up and your knees placed primly together. It all has to do with how many enemies there are out there threatening the United States and what we have to do, globally speaking, to make them cry uncle. Ash outlined his views at a “posture hearing” before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 17th, part of a process intended to give still more money to the Pentagon, $582.7...

It all started so “harmless.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wanted to access the information of a person being investigated for mass murder so, the FBI said, it could try to prevent more terrorist attacks. A couple months later this has morphed into a situation where the FBI is offering to help police departments across America access secured information of any electronic device connected to criminal investigations and where members of the United States Senate are moving forward...