Month: September 2015

Lucy Steigerwald On Ron Paul Liberty Report: Talking Cheney and Neocons

Two Fridays ago, I had the pleasure of being on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, along with Dr. Paul and Daniel McAdams, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Executive Director. We chatted about my Antiwar piece “Who Is Listening to Dick Cheney?”, about the lack of consequences for warmongering (or any government outrage, in fact!), and had time to sneak in a brief drug war chat at the end.

They Want to Talk About Israel. OK, Let’s Talk About Israel.

In The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam quotes US president Lyndon Baines Johnson on his desired qualities in an assistant: “I want loyalty! I want him to kiss my a– in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smells like roses.”

Nearly every “major party” presidential candidate this year and in past election cycles seems to have taken that advice to heart, but in an odd way. They come off less as applicants for the presidency of the United States than for the position of personal aide to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The second Republican presidential primary debate looked a lot like Macy’s window at high noon:

Jeb Bush: “[T]he first thing that we need to do is to establish our commitment to Israel …”

Carly Fiorina: “On day one in the Oval Office, I will make two phone calls, the first to my good friend to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him we will stand with the state of Israel.”

Continue reading “They Want to Talk About Israel. OK, Let’s Talk About Israel.”

My Tweets on GOP Prez Debate

Lordie I never expected that “debate” to last more than 3 hours. I almost ran out of beer. I didn’t start tweeting until the second hour but here’s my two cents –    On Twitter @jimbovard   & www.jimbovard.com

https://twitter.com/JimBovard/status/644338997800644608

Ron Paul: In Syria, More Lies Brings More Chaos

Why is the US government bringing back old, discredited claims like “Assad gassed his own people”? And why are its representatives like US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power trying to propagandize the American people with cooked up tales of Russian military action in Syria? Ron Paul’s Liberty Report takes a look at the possible shifting sands of US policy in Syria:

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Which Side Are We On?

“On the one side, powerful military bureaucracies, influential and richly financed weapons industries, their lobbies, their captive legislators, those for whom paranoia or past wars are a way of life. On the other side, only reason, the will to survive, the inarticulate poor“ – John Kenneth Galbraith, forward to the 1978 edition of Ruth Sivard’s World Military and Social Expenditures, quoted in the NYT obituary for Ruth Sivard

KABUL – Here at the Afghan Peace Volunteers’ Borderfree Center, between morning and afternoon Street Kids School sessions, I asked several of the volunteer teachers how they felt about organizing the school and teaching weekly language, math and nonviolence classes.

“Now we have 100 students,” Zekerullah said. “I feel happy because I see how they change after spending time here.” When he first met some of the children, all of whom work on the streets as child laborers, ideas of washing up, dressing for school, bringing completed homework to classes, and being part of a community that cares deeply about them might have seemed remote or even unimaginable. Many who live in refugee camps get caught up in wild behavior, and hard work on the streets further toughens them.

The children seem exuberantly happy during the Friday classes. They care for and respect each other. And their eyes light up when they see their teachers, all of whom are students in secondary schools or Universities in Kabul.

Continue reading “Which Side Are We On?”

US Intel Vets Decry CIA’s Use of Torture

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Veteran Intelligence Professionals Challenge CIA’s “Rebuttal” on Torture

Former CIA leaders responsible for allowing torture to become part of the 21st Century legacy of the CIA are trying to rehabilitate their tarnished reputations with the release of a new book, Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Study of Its Detention and Interrogation Program. They are pushing the lie that the only allegations against them are from a partisan report issued by Democrats from the Senate Intelligence Committee.

We recall the answer of General John Kimmons, the former Deputy Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was asked if good intelligence could be obtained from abusive practices. He replied: “I am absolutely convinced the answer to your first question is no. No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that.”

But the allegation that the CIA leaders were negligent and guilty was not the work of an isolated group of partisan Democrat Senators. The Senate Intelligence report on torture enjoyed bipartisan support. Senator John McCain, for example, whose own encounter with torture in North Vietnamese prisons scarred him physically and emotionally, embraced and endorsed the work of Senator Feinstein. It was only a small group of intransigent Republicans, led by Saxby Chambliss, who obstructed the work of the Senate Intel Committee.

Continue reading “US Intel Vets Decry CIA’s Use of Torture”

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