The RPI Challenge

In the aftermath of the suspiciously ill-planned and ill-executed coup attempt in Turkey, the government of President Erdogan has shut down the US military base in Incirlik. According to Stars and Stripes, the Turkish government, after putting down the partial military revolt, has closed the airspace over the US base at Incirlik and has even turned off the power to the base. In response, the US has placed troops on base at the "highest force protection level."The Turkish government has said...

Less than 24 hours before a man mowed down people with a truck in Nice, France, French President Hollande had confirmed that the state of emergency declared in the wake of the Nov. 2015 Paris attacks was going to expire on July 26, without renewal. During his traditional Bastille Day television interview, Hollande said, “We had to prolong the state of emergency until we could be sure that the law gives us the means to counter the terrorist threat effectively.”Last May, France passed a...

The French have a saying, "un malheur n’arrive jamais seul." That translates into "when it rains, it pours." This week, the heavens opened and poured on the nation’s national fete, Bastille Day. The day began with highly embarrassing revelations by a French satirical newspaper that the unpopular president, Francois Hollande, had a staff hairdresser making $11,000 a month at a time of national austerity. This was a genuine "let them eat cake" moment. That same evening, a frightful attack...

Fresh from declaring her support of Oberlin students in claiming the serving of sushi is cultural appropriation, actress Lena Dunham (creator of HBO’s “Girls”), is supporting producer Tami Sagher’s effort to get people to deface the posters for the Jason Bourne movie. The objection is to the inclusion of a gun. So Dunham and Sagher are calling for the work of other artists to be defaced because they disagree with the content. They are doing so without a hint of recognized hypocrisy. Despite...

It’s hardly a secret that the hardships of common people are getting worse by the year. Due to continuous attempts by Washington to redraw the map of the world, in many countries, American intelligence agencies have been particularly active in launching so-called “color revolutions” and staging military conflicts, bringing bitter hunger and poverty upon the heads of millions of people in the Middle East and other regions of the world. Consequently those events have triggered a massive and...

In the last few days, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have contained the following news stories: 1. “North Korea Cuts UN Line With US.” The story showed how the US government’s latest round of sanctions against North Korea failed, once again, to bring North Korea to its knees. Instead, in retaliation for the sanctions, North Korea severed the last diplomatic link to the United States, thereby eliminating any possibility of communications between the two regimes. The North Korean...

As the horrific carnage in Syria continues, a depressingly familiar chorus is rising from Washington. The new consensus is the same as it was in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: Bombing isn’t working, so let’s bomb more. A familiar coalition — generals, defense contractors, and politicians, along with think tanks and much of the press — is demanding escalation of our military campaign in Syria. There may be a limit to how many unwinnable wars the United States wants to wage in the Middle East,...

“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”—Martin Luther King Jr. The latest shootings—in Texas, Minnesota, Louisiana, Illinois, New York, Missouri and every other state in the...

The longest war in US history just got even longer. As NATO wrapped up its 2016 Warsaw Summit, the organization agreed to continue funding Afghan security forces through the year 2020. Of course with all that funding comes US and NATO troops, and thousands of contractors, trainers, and more. President Obama said last week that the US must keep 3,000 more troops than planned in Afghanistan. The real reason is obvious: the mission has failed and Washington cannot bear to admit it. But Obama...

A nation is its institutions. If those institutions are overrun and no longer exist, so too does the nation itself cease to exist. Institutions range from the offices of government, to education, to agricultural and economic development, to the management of natural resources, national infrastructure including energy and transportation, and security. These are the things we think about when we think about the concept of a modern nation-state. Contrary to popular belief, the invasion and...

This week’s Chilcot report on Britain’s role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was as polite and guarded as a proper English tea party. No direct accusations, no talk of war crimes by then Prime Minister Tony Blair or his guiding light, President George W. Bush. But still pretty damning. Such government reports and commissions, as was wittily noted in the delightful program "Yes, Prime Minister," are designed to obscure rather than reveal the truth and bury awkward facts in mountains of paper. And...

The suicide bombings in Baghdad by Islamic State, timed for maximum violence, are only the latest reminders that the United States should not downplay the group. Since the wave of Islamic State suicide bombings in May – killing 522 people inside Baghdad, and 148 people inside Syria – American officials have downplayed the suicide bombing strategy as defensive. Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy in the fight against Islamic State, said the group “returned to suicide bombing” as the...

Is the Dallas police shooting a false flag affair in behalf of gun control? Is it the result of a war veteran suffering from post traumatic stress disorder? Is the shooting the beginning of retribution for thousands of wanton police murders of US citizens in the 21st century? Or is there some other explanation?We will never know. The perpetrator is dead. The authorities will tell us whatever suits the purposes of authority.We could say that the police have brought this on themselves by their...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has basically said the upcoming presidential election belongs to Hillary Clinton, and we really needn’t do much more than wait out the clock until November, former State Department official Peter Van Buren told RT. The FBI recommended on Tuesday no charges be brought against Hillary Clinton, despite the confirmation the e-mails she used via an insecure server contained classified data. However, FBI Director James Comey called the Democratic presidential...

Britain's vote to quit the European Union was a rude jolt to the encrusted world order. Now that the EU has been shocked into reality, NATO should be next. When NATO leaders convene for a summit in Warsaw on Friday, they will insist that their alliance is still vital because Russian aggression threatens Europe. The opposite is true. NATO has become America’s instrument in escalating our dangerous conflict with Russia. We need less NATO, not more. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was...

Almost two years after the firestorm that took place in Ferguson, Missouri, when a white police officer shot an unarmed black teenager and militarized police descended in a brutal show of force to quell local protests, not much has really changed for the better. Unarmed Americans are still getting shot by police with alarming regularity. SWAT teams are still bursting through doors, terrorizing families and leaving lives and property shattered. And the military industrial complex is still...