The RPI Challenge

They are doing it again. “They” are the war-party politicians, Democrats and Republicans. “It” is scaring you into supporting another war in the Middle East. When will the American people learn? If in a republic the people are the ultimate check on government power, a gullible, easily frightened public is a disaster waiting to happen. Where is the derisive skepticism Americans are reputed to feel toward politicians? A high-ranking official and, say, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour need only say...

You know the joke? You describe something obviously heading for disaster -- a friend crossing Death Valley with next to no gas in his car -- and then add, “What could possibly go wrong?” Such is the Middle East today. The U.S. is again at war there, bombing freely across Iraq and Syria, advising here, droning there, coalition-building in the region to loop in a little more firepower from a collection of recalcitrant allies, and searching desperately for some non-American boots to put on the...

The militarization of local police in the United States is not being fueled just by the federal government providing military equipment, including machine guns, grenade launchers, and armored vehicles, to local police departments. The police are also funding the rise of SWAT with billions of dollars obtained through asset seizures that amount to highway robbery under the guise of law enforcement. In an October 11 Washington Post article, Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Steven Rich offer some revealing...

In April 2003, when U.S. officials were still celebrating their invasion and occupation of Iraq as a fantastic success, I wrote an article entitled, “Where Did Iraq Get Its Weapons of Mass Destruction?” Actually though, it wasn’t actually an article but rather a list of articles, with links to the listed articles. One purpose of compiling that list of articles was to show why President Bush, the Pentagon, and the CIA were so certain that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when...

“It’s been over five months since the night a SWAT team broke into the house in which we were staying…We were staying with relatives and my whole family was sleeping in one room. My husband and I, our three daughters and our baby (nicknamed “Baby Bou Bou”) in his crib. Dressed like soldiers, they broke down the door. The SWAT officers tossed a flashbang grenade into the room. It landed in Baby Bou Bou’s crib, blowing a hole in his face and chest that took months to heal and covering his entire...

Writing on the subject of “foreign troops” a few months ago, the well known Guardian columnist and editor Seumas Milne observed, “It’s almost never discussed in the political mainstream. But thousands of foreign troops have now been stationed in Britain for more than 70 years. There’s been nothing like it since the Norman invasion. With the 15-month Dutch occupation of London in 1688-89 a distant competitor, there has been no precedent since 1066 for the presence of American forces in a string...

The Nobel Peace Prize is required by Alfred Nobel's will, which created it, to go to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." The Nobel Committee insists on awarding the prize to either a leading maker of war or a person who has done some good work in an area other than peace. The 2014 prize has been awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala...

According to Forbes magazine, at least 5,000 Americans contacted healthcare providers fearful they had contracted Ebola after the media reported that someone with Ebola had entered the United States. All 5,000 cases turned out to be false alarms. In fact, despite all the hype about Ebola generated by the media and government officials, as of this writing there has only been one preliminarily identified case of someone contracting Ebola within the United States. Ebola is a dangerous disease,...

We have reached a point in our nation’s descent into psychotic tribalist fear where people of stature and apparent sobriety unabashedly use the expression “final solution” when discussing the existence of Muslims. For ISIS “and those similarly motivated,” insists retired Marine Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt in an essay published by Family Security Matters, “a rational world should recognize but one `final solution’ exists — their extinction.” For Zumwalt. “those similarly motivated” is an...

Forty years ago this month, Ron Paul was in the final weeks of his first campaign for the United States House of Representatives. Paul, a Texas obstetrician who had never before run for political office, was the Republican nominee challenging Rep. Robert R. Casey, the eight-term Democrat incumbent. Casey won that race. But, a year and a half later Paul won the House seat in a special election after the seat had become vacant due to Casey’s appointment to the Federal Maritime Commission.Paul...

In transmitting President Richard Nixon’s orders for a “massive” bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, “Anything that flies on everything that moves”. As Barack Obama ignites his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make one almost nostalgic for Kissinger’s murderous honesty. As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery – including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and...

Afghanistan has witnessed two major events in the most recent weeks. One is the assumption of office by Ashraf Ghani as the next president of the country, succeeding Hamid Karzai. The second has been the signing of the two “back-to-back” security pacts between Afghanistan on the one hand and the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] on the other. Both developments are of historical importance in their own ways. Ghani’s presidency signifies a rare peaceful transition...

Last week the US government prohibited poet and journalist Amjad Nasser from speaking at an event to inaugurate the Gallatin Global Writers series at New York University. How did the government do this? By having a policeman at the event inform Nasser that he would be arrested if he took his turn to speak at the event? No, that would be a clear prior restraint on speech in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution — a government action courts routinely rule is...