Month: April 2016

Washington war contracts have enriched northern Virginia at a level equal to the total budgets of countries like Belgium and Sweden. That post-9/11 security- and military-industrial complex financial bonanza is why north Virginia counties are the wealthiest in the nation. Who is behind the explosions of McMansions being built in the former sleepy outer counties of northern Virginia? The deep state operatives, who populate K Street, the think tanks, the security contractors, the permanent campaign operatives, etc. It is the one percent trafficking in fear to pad their nests at the expense of the rest of the country. How much longer can this scam go on? Ron Paul’s Liberty Report is joined today by American Conservative Magazine‘s Kelley Vlahos to discuss the deep – and deeply rich – state that really runs things:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Like about 90% of the news today, this would be terrific satire, if it wasn’t true.

America is dropping so many bombs on ISIS that the country is in danger of running out.

“We’re expending munitions faster than we can replenish them,” said Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has asked Congress to include funding for 45,000 “smart bombs” in the Defense Department’s 2017 budget. But it could take a while to rebuild the stockpile.

“The U.S. maintains a pretty steady inventory of bombs and missiles,” says one aerospace and defense policy analyst. “But 2.5 years of fighting ISIS and continued bombing in Afghanistan have exceeded weapons-use projections.”

Continue reading “The US Is Dropping Bombs Faster Than It Can Make Them”

According to the Washington Post, President Obama had promised the US public no fewer than eight times that he would not put US troops on the ground in Syria and would not mount ground operations in Syria. Then the pretext of a rescue operation of the Yazidi minority was cooked up in 2014 and the president began military operations in Syria. He expanded them under the also false narrative that a “Khorasan Group” had emerged that was a direct threat to the United States. Then he used ISIS as a pretext to further expand US military operations in Syria. Today President Obama announced that he was quintupling the number of US troops on the ground in Syria to help create a Sunni-Kurd alliance against ISIS (and presumably against Assad). Meanwhile, US has decided to ramp up its naval presence in the Black Sea by using proxies Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria to get around Montreux Convention restrictions. Also, more US troops to Iraq and to eastern Europe. Through all these escalations everywhere, Congress remains completely silent. What is the endgame? The Liberty Report provides some perspective:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

A defense contractor hired mercenaries from Africa for $16 a day to guard American bases in Iraq, with one of the company’s former directors saying no checks were made on whether those hired were former child soldiers.

The director of Aegis Defense Services between 2005 and 2015, said contractors recruited from countries such as Sierra Leone to reduce costs for the U.S. occupation in Iraq. He said none of the estimated 2,500 boys recruited from Sierra Leone were checked to see if they were former child soldiers who had been forced to fight in the country’s civil war.

They were considered merely cheaper options to fulfill contracts to defend US bases in Iraq, enabling Aegis to realize higher profits.

Continue reading “Contractor Hired Former African Child Soldiers To Guard US Forces in Iraq”

At Mises.org, Jeff Deist interviews Daniel McAdams, head of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Daniel is a foreign policy expert, having worked for many years on Capitol Hill and as an election monitor in eastern Europe. Daniel and Jeff discuss the role Dr. Paul played in creating the noninterventionist populism visible in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns, and how the public now sees the Iraq war as a mistake. Daniel also discusses the depth and reach of the "war party" lobby, marked by well-funded think tanks, a revolving door of hawkish congressional staffers, and brazen manipulation of the federal budget by defense contractors. How do neoconservative interests get their hooks into members of Congress? How do people like Bill Kristol (who never seems to be right about anything), maintain their grip on the US foreign policy establishment? And, how do ordinary people reclaim the narrative from those who would recklessly expand US intervention in Syria and Iran?

Reprinted from Mises.org.

It was US intervention in the Middle East, say the Saudis, that led us to create first al-Qaeda and then ISIS. The US attack on Iraq tipped the balance in the region in favor of Iran and counter-measures needed to be taken. This is nothing new. The CIA helped create and back the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to counter the 1979 Soviet invasion. And the CIA knew about (at the least) Saudi plans to counter Iran’s rise in the region and the uncertainty produced by US-instigated “Arab Spring” beginning in 2011. The lesson? Interventionism has consequences, some intended and some unintended. Usually counter to the stated objectives. Trying to order the world, the central planners have only created chaos.

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.