The general expectation was indeed that the United States President Barack Obama’s annual address at the United Nations General Assembly session on Tuesday would contain some major pronouncements of new American policy direction on the Syrian conflict and over the situation around Iran.  No doubt, the Middle East dominated his speech and all but edged out other global issues such as climate change or the US’ rebalancing strategy in Asia or global disarmament. This in itself is stunning:...

In his speech yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama devoted little time to the recent slaughter of some 62 shoppers at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya.Said Obama, in toto: But even a glance at today’s headlines indicates that dangers remain. In Kenya, we’ve seen terrorists target innocent civilians in a crowded shopping mall. And our hearts go out to the families of those who’ve been affected. Yes, what happened in Kenya is a terrorist act. But for Obama to tell...

Although the threat of U.S. strikes against Syria has for the time being abated due to intervention from Russian President Vladimir Putin and an agreement from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to declare its stockpiles of chemical weapons to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague to be eventually turned over and destroyed, the ultimate goal of U.S. policy remains regime change.The U.S. has long been supporting the armed rebels seeking to overthrow the...

The war criminal Barack Obama has declared his “outrage” over the 62 deaths associated with the takeover of a Nairobi, Kenya, shopping mall by al-Shabaab fighters. But the attack on the shopping mall was Obama’s fault. Al Shabaab spokesmen said that the attack on the Nairobi mall was a retaliatory response to the Kenyan troops sent to fight against them in Somalia. The Kenyan troops, of course, were sent to Somalia as a result of pressure from Washington. Just as the outbreak of violence in...

As New York prepares for the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly next week, the volume of Western media speculation about the prospects for a U.S.-Iranian diplomatic breakthrough is mounting to impressive levels.  Predictably, much of this speculation amounts to little more than wondering how many concessions the Islamic Republic’s new president, Hassan Rohani, is willing and will be able to make, especially on the nuclear issue.As usual, we prefer looking at facts and...

(Transcript) JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. And welcome to this edition of The Wilkerson Report. Now joining us is Larry Wilkerson. He was the former chief of staff to Colin Powell and is an adjunct professor at William & Mary College. Thanks for being with us, Larry.COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Good to be here.DESVARIEUX: So, Larry, what we'd like to discuss this week is the Iranian government's attempts to thaw...

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is participating in the Liberty Political Action Conference this weekend. Founder and CEO Ron Paul visits our booth. So many wonderful people interested in our work!More photos here.

For many years, I regarded “think tanks” as a godsend. As a news reporter chasing deadlines, I’d regularly call their “experts” for quotes. Usually, they could give me a few succinct lines that appeared to lend a story some intellectual heft. Then I started asking: who do these “experts” really represent? Can outfits financed by major corporations be independent? Security and Defence Agenda (SDA) describes itself as a “neutral platform” for discussing military matters.  Analysts with the...

Stop in and see us this weekend at LPAC! The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity will have a booth at the conference and host a reception on Saturday at 5:30 PM. Executive Director Daniel McAdams will participate in the panel discussion "Working for Dr. Ron Paul" on Friday, September 20. RPI contributors Chris Rossini and Adam Dick will also be on hand at the RPI booth so stop in and meet us.Have a look at our promotional matierials for the conference. LPAC postcardBack page of...

In 2006 the U.S. was at war in Iraq. Some of the enemy forces it very much struggled to fight against were coming in through Syria. The same year Israel lost a war against Hizbullah. Its armored forces were ambushed whenever they tried to push deeper into Lebanon while Hizbullah managed to continuously fire rockets against Israeli army position and cities. Hizbullah receives supply for its missile force from Syria and from Iran through Syria. Its long-term plans to attack Iran and to thereby...

Here’s a recipe for disaster: Take a young man (or woman), raise him on a diet of violence, hype him up on the power of the gun in his holster and the superiority of his uniform, render him woefully ignorant of how to handle a situation without resorting to violence, train him well in military tactics but allow him to be illiterate about the Constitution, and never stress to him that he is to be a peacemaker and a peacekeeper, respectful of and subservient to the taxpayers, who are in fact his...

Will the history books record these past couple of weeks as the point when the tide finally turned against our interventionist foreign policy?We began September with the Obama Administration on the verge of launching Tomahawk missiles at Syria. The missiles were needed, the administration claimed, to punish the Syrian government for using poison gas on its own people. There were reports that in addition to missiles, the administration was planning airstrikes and possibly even more military...