Essays

The hustlers and parasites who make up Washington’s establishment

"Washington has always had a permanent establishment of politicians, lobbyists and journalists. But this class has exploded in size in recent decades, and has become more introspective and self-serving. The news media have produced a hydra of talking heads who are forever yelling at each other (debate) or pontificating about who is up and who is down (analysis). The lobbying industry has spent billions greasing the revolving door: in 2009 alone, special interests spent $3.47 billion lobbying the federal government. In 1974 3% of retiring policymakers became lobbyists. Now 50% of senators and 42% of congressmen do." Continue reading →

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Paul Craig Roberts: Too Many Years Of Lies, From Mossadeq to 9/11

"On August 19, 1953, the democratically elected government of Iran was overthrown by a coup instigated by the US government. Sixty years after the event declassified CIA documents detail how the secret CIA operation overthrew a democratic government and imposed Washington’s puppet on the people of Iran. If 60 years is the time that must pass before Washington’s crimes can be acknowledged, the US government will admit the truth about September 11, 2001 on September 11, 2061. In 2013, on this 12th anniversary of 9/11, we only have 48 years to go before Washington admits the truth. Alas, the members of the 9/11 truth movement will not still be alive to receive their vindication." Continue reading →

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Whom would you HIRE to intervene in Syria?

"We have no problem with the police intervening to end a criminal shootout. So why do we so passionately oppose having the U.S. federal state intervene in Syria and other places? There are multiple reasons. The Feds have a really bad track record (you can read a summary here); Tend to support bad guys and establish dictatorships; Constantly create new enemies; Force all Americans to support these interventions, even when they offend personal conscience. But does this mean that we have to sit idly by and watch bad things happen to good people overseas? We don't think so. Instead, imagine what would happen if we had a Separation of Intervention and State." Continue reading →

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An Inflection Point for US Global Hegemony?

"If there were ever reasons for other global actors to decide it is time to rid themselves of connections to the American state, it would seem now is as good a time as any. So again, what does this have to do with Syria? Syria offers an opportunity to get a peek at the answer to the question: will these non-Anglo power centers fall in line, or will they stand tall? Does the Anglo-American elite have the strings of the Chinese and Russian leaders (and the rest) or are the political leaders in these countries in a position to take a different path? In other words, this affair in Syria offers the possibility of a real inflection point in the big-game of global elite control." Continue reading →

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Three major fault lines in Syria! Will they explode?

"Fault line #1 is the millennial conflict between Shia and Sunni, dating back to the death of Muhammad in the year 632. Fault line #2 is the battle between Muslim fundamentalism and modernism, between those who seek a return to the Middle Ages and those who wish to move forward into the Third Millennium. Fault line #3 is the biggest of all, also cutting through Syria. I’m talking about the West vs. the East, especially the U.S. and Western Europe against Russia and China. In sum, today’s Syria is both the metaphor and the crossroads for multidimensional political and economic earthquakes that can reverberate across most of the region and much of the world." Continue reading →

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Spare us the hypocrisy over chemical weapons, America.

"Napalm is 'a mixture of naphthenic and aliphatic carboxylic acid'. I don’t know about you, but 'a mixture of naphthenic and aliphatic carboxylic acid' sounds awfully 'chemical' to me, and yet this weapon has been liberally used by the US army to incinerate soldiers (and luckless civilians) in many recent wars, including Gulf War 1. So maybe the 'global red line against chemical weapons' has a strange footnote which exempts chemical weapons that are devised in America? That makes sense, because the greatest anomaly, when it comes to Kerry’s global red line, is Agent Orange." Continue reading →

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Scheuer: Ten questions worth pondering on Obama, Syria, and Interventionism

"Question: Is it justifiable for America to go to war in Syria to get President Obama out of the box he created for himself by talking about a 'red line' in the Syrian civil war, a conflict in which no genuine U.S. national interests are at risk? Answer: No. Obama’s inexperience in foreign affairs and his seeming personal arrogance got him — and America — into this mess, and so little a man is he that he now refuses to accept responsibility for foolishly drawing the red line, instead blaming it on 'the world.' Let him swing. Question: Will America’s credibility as a great military power be denigrated if it does not attack Syria? Answer: No. We have already lost most of that credibility [..]" Continue reading →

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Is the U.S. Producing Democracies?

"There is a political science literature whose research indicates that economic development fosters democratic government, as opposed to dictatorships and autocracies. This is not to say that democracies are an end to be sought, because they in turn stifle economic development. But it is to say that the U.S. and NATO policy of tearing down dictatorships does not achieve the oft-advertised aim of producing democracies. This is especially true when the means is a devastating war that destroys physical, cultural, social and human capital. Recent evidence for this includes countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya." Continue reading →

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How To Lose a War Before Even Starting It

"Events in Syria are of marginal importance to us, and on the edge of our ability to influence. Since the civil war in Syria is a major focus of the world-wide, longstanding struggle between Islam’s Sunni and Shia factions, what will happen there will be determined by Syrians and their neighbors regardless of what the US government does or does not do. The Syrian civil war’s importance to us, however, may well be that it is reminding us of how we should deal with matters of war and peace, namely: concretely, logically, un-emotionally, jealously matching the ends we seek with the means we are willing to use. American statesmen have not done that consistently for a century." Continue reading →

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