Essays

Hold US Policymakers to Their Abysmal Record on Foreign Meddling

"The media never holds anybody to either their predictions or their results–officeholders, politicians, and of course their own pundits. And it’s a good thing for people like Bill Kristol, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham. No matter what the overseas 'crisis' or where it is, they are gung ho about sending either U.S. forces or U.S. arms into the fray. Recently, these war hawks have been pounding the drums for U.S. greater intervention in Syria. Their argument isn’t that the Syrian rebellion will fall apart if the United States doesn’t provide arms, it’s that when the insurgents finally take over Syria, the U.S. will won’t have much 'influence.'" Continue reading →

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Who Funds the War Party?

"I use the 'War Party' phraseology as shorthand for a number of different groups and individuals, all of whom are linked by an ideological and/or financial interest in promoting a foreign policy of perpetual war. This includes those groups pushing for budget-busting 'defense' outlays, as well as those whose commitment to militarism is more ideological. Then there are the foreign lobbyists who have an interest in maintaining and expanding the American Empire: and while there are a number of foreign interests involved in this vector, the one that stands out on account of the sheer quantity of its resources is the Israel lobby, which combines a rich source of funding with ideologically-based activism." Continue reading →

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Should We Celebrate the American Revolution?

"Conservatives who cherish the Fourth of July while cheering today’s wars have a high tolerance for cognitive dissonance. The American Revolution was, at best, a revolt against empire. The taxes at issue were being used to finance Britain’s national security state. The colonial rebels didn’t 'support the troops' – they resented them. And they resented Britain’s status as the hypocritical world power, which closely resembled the modern United States – an empire claiming the mantle of liberty while smashing its colonial subjects. Today’s conservatives would have likely been partisans of King George. Independence would mean Washington, DC, releasing control of its colonies worldwide." Continue reading →

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No, thanks: Stop saying “support the troops”

"To support the troops is to accept a particular idea of the American role in the world. It also forces us to pretend that it is a country legitimately interested in equality for all its citizens. In reality, the troops are not actually recipients of any meaningful support. That honor is reserved for the government and its elite constituencies. 'Support our troops' entails a tacit injunction that we also support whatever politicians in any given moment deem the national interest. If we understand that 'the national interest' is but a metonym for the aspirations of the ruling class, then supporting the troops becomes a counterintuitive, even harmful, gesture." Continue reading →

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Qatar: Rich and Dangerous

"Why would Qatar want to become involved in Syria where they have little invested? A map reveals that the kingdom is a geographic prisoner in a small enclave on the Persian Gulf coast. It relies upon the export of LNG, because it is restricted by Saudi Arabia from building pipelines to distant markets. A saturated North American gas market and a far more competitive Asian market leaves only Europe. The discovery in 2009 of a new gas field near Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Syria opened new possibilities to bypass the Saudi Barrier and to secure a new source of income. Pipelines are in place already in Turkey to receive the gas. Only Al-Assad is in the way." Continue reading →

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Why Libertarianism Will Crush Conservatism

"They have over the last century lost their battles against Wilsonian progressivism, the New Deal, the Great Society, racial integration, abortion, drug abuse, and secularization. The fact that they have lost so reliably, despite their persistent numerical superiority, is a testament to the holes in their philosophy. Along the way, they've adopted virtually every bureaucratic idea pioneered by progressives, increasing government spending while wasting energy and billions of dollars fighting losing cultural battles. The diminishing appeal of conservatism for younger, more cosmopolitan millennials as well as exploding immigrant populations translates to serious demographic problems for Republicans." Continue reading →

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Why Libertarianism Will Crush Conservatism

"They have over the last century lost their battles against Wilsonian progressivism, the New Deal, the Great Society, racial integration, abortion, drug abuse, and secularization. The fact that they have lost so reliably, despite their persistent numerical superiority, is a testament to the holes in their philosophy. Along the way, they've adopted virtually every bureaucratic idea pioneered by progressives, increasing government spending while wasting energy and billions of dollars fighting losing cultural battles. The diminishing appeal of conservatism for younger, more cosmopolitan millennials as well as exploding immigrant populations translates to serious demographic problems for Republicans." Continue reading →

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The JFK Assassination Marked the End of the American Republic

"It’s the most important crime in the second half of the 20th century, it is still unsolved and it marked in a way the end of the American Republic. Since then the financial-military-industrial complex rules and no president after JFK had the balls to challenge that. There is, in the words of Gore Vidal, 'a one-party-system with two right-wings'; there are corporate media brainwashing the population 24/7 and propagating wars for global imperial dominance; there are covert operations all over the world to ensure this dominance – and this will go on and on as long the truth about the covert operation, the coup d’ état, against JFKs presidency is kept hidden." Continue reading →

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Michael Scheuer: Obama & Brennan – A new American-killing “Murder Inc”?

"If asked why I would want to go slow before dismissing the idea that the federal government murdered Mr. Hastings, I would answer that the power of the examples set by Barack Obama, in his two terms, and by John Brennan, in his work for Clinton and Obama, give me pause. From my perspective, both men consistently have demonstrated themselves to be completely comfortable with creating situations, or permitting situations to exist in which Americans — civilian and military — are killed, in essence, by their own government’s decisions, actions, or inactons. And what would these situations be, one might ask? Well, let me start with the following ten items." Continue reading →

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What If the U.S. Didn’t Have a Military Establishment?

"The Constitution doesn’t say that the U.S. MUST have an army, navy, air force, national guard, a CIA, and NSA, or a surveillance and intelligence apparatus. What would happen if the U.S. didn’t have these forces? Almost nothing would be lost by Americans, including protection because these forces do not protect us. The U.S. would no longer project power overseas. The war on terror would dissipate. The U.S. engagements in foreign wars over turf, resources, foreign protectorates, corporations, pretexts, insults, freedom of travel, open sea lanes and travelers would decline. We’d find other ways to settle problems. The U.S. foreign policies would change." Continue reading →

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