The RPI Challenge

photo: US militaryThe question of how the Islamic State funds its sprawling caliphate has been discussed in the past: we first broke down the primary driver of ISIS revenue well over a year ago, in September 2014, when we explained that "ISIS uses oil wealth to help finance its terror operations." Daily Signal's Kelsey Harkness explained the breakdown as follows: According to the Iraq Energy Institute, an independent, nonprofit policy organization focused on Iraq’s energy sector, the army of...

Wars are expensive. The recruitment and sustainment of fighters in the field, the ongoing purchases of weapons and munitions, as well as the myriad other costs of struggle, add up. So why isn’t the United States going after Islamic State’s funding sources as a way of lessening or eliminating their strength at making war? Follow the money back, cut it off, and you strike a blow much more devastating than an airstrike. But that has not happened. Why? Donations Many have long held that Sunni...

Something very odd is going on in Washington. I recently attended and spoke at a conference in Washington on “realism and restraint” as a broad formula to reform US foreign policy. Most presentations reflected that agenda more-or-less but oddly one of the speakers said that it was necessary for the United States to mark its place in the world while “carrying a big stick” while another panelist asserted that it was a core mission of the American people to “help other countries striving to be...

Exactly 26 years ago last week, peace was breaking out in a manner that the world had not experienced since June 1914. The Berlin Wall—-the symbol of a century of state tyranny, grotesque mass warfare and the nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over the planet—-had come tumbling down on November 9, 1989. It was only a matter of time before the economically decrepit Soviet regime would be no more, and that the world’s vast arsenal of weapons and nuclear bombs could be dismantled. Indeed, shortly...

The horrific attacks in Paris on Friday have, predictably, led to much over-reaction and demands that we do more of the exact things that radicalize people and make them want to attack us. The French military wasted no time bombing Syria in retaliation for the attacks, though it is not known where exactly the attackers were from. Thousands of ISIS fighters in Syria are not Syrian, but came to Syria to overthrow the Assad government from a number of foreign countries -- including from France...

Let’s discuss conscientious objection. For those who don’t know what it is, conscientious objection is a moral or religious opposition to war. It is essentially the refusal to participate on moral or religious grounds. So I am a conscientious objector. Interestingly enough, before I conscientiously objected, I was an F-15E fighter pilot. I deployed twice to Afghanistan, and I sincerely regret to say that I have killed people. That is a heavy burden for an honest person to carry whether it’s...

On Friday the 13th, Paris, the City of Light, was plunged into darkness and fear. At least eight young jihadists, allegedly from the so-called Islamic State group, attacked the national sports stadium, where President Francois Hollande was attending a soccer match with Germany’s foreign minister. They also attacked outdoor cafes, a pizzeria and a rock club. As of this writing, 127 civilians were killed and dozens wounded. All of the attackers are believed to have died. For the second time this...

You don’t want to read this, and I take no pleasure in writing it, and no one really wants to hear it right now. But I believe it needs to be said. I join the world in grieving for the dead in Paris. I have grieved for the dead from 9/11 forward — the Australians who died in terror attacks on Bali in 2005, Londoners who died in terror attacks in 2005, the French citizens who died in the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January of this year, the Russians whose plane went down over the Sinai a week or...

Last week, Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) released a report revealing the Department of Defense paid professional sports teams to host “patriotic events.” Anyone who has ever attended a sporting event knows these well. Military personnel are featured on the jumbotron, huge flags are spread across the field, returning veterans are named “hometown heroes,” or asked to participate in half-time contests, ceremonial first pitches, and other activities intended to honor the US...

Before becoming Ukraine’s Finance Minister last December, Natalie Jaresko collected $1.77 million in bonuses from a US-taxpayer-financed investment fund where her annual compensation was supposed to be limited to $150,000, according to financial documents filed with the US Internal Revenue Service this year. The near 12-fold discrepancy between the compensation ceiling and Jaresko’s bonuses, paid in 2013, was justified in the IRS filing from the Jaresko-led Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF)...

I wonder what goes through the mind of an Iraq War veteran when someone says, “Thank you for your service.” I wonder if he ever asks himself, “What exactly am I being thanked for?” Consider what the Bush administration did to US soldiers on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Bush and his people, many of whom had avoided the draft during the Vietnam War, knew that many soldiers had serious misgivings about invading Iraq. After all, neither the Iraqi people nor the Iraqi government had ever...

“Wait, what the f*** is that?” Julien Solomita finally managed to spit that out after two minutes of dumbfounded silence, as he recorded an unidentified flying object from a rooftop parking lot in Van Nuys, California on Saturday night. He had been gathering footage for his video blog when he noticed a strange light in the sky. The light flared several times before developing a tail that expanded into a purple cone. The object then radiated nebulous purple rings and burst into a bright white...