Ron Paul: US Attack on Syria Is To Prop Up the Military-Industrial Complex

Interviewed Monday by Kennedy at Fox Business, Ron Paul challenged the contention that the United States government was acting in accord with good intentions in attacking Syria last week. Instead, Paul suggests a big motivation was generating profit for the military-industrial complex. Discussing the reason for the attack, the Ron Paul Institute Chairman and former presidential candidate concludes, “I think the only interest that has been involved here is to prop up the province of the military-industrial complex.”

Paul elaborates that the reason for the attack has “nothing to do” with concern about the Syria government’s purported use of chemical weapons to kill innocent people, given that the US has long been, and continues to be, in the practice of killing innocent people.

Paul also suggests in the interview that neoconservatives influence US actions in regard to Syria. Many people had hoped that President Donald Trump’s “America First” emphasis would cause a move away from military intervention against governments overseas. However, it appears that the influence of people supporting such intervention, including neoconservatives, continues strong in the Trump administration. While Paul says that “the neoconservatives politically are winning,” he proceeds to note that, at the same time, he believes that “the American people are still with us who believe that this war is absolutely unnecessary.”

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

55 thoughts on “Ron Paul: US Attack on Syria Is To Prop Up the Military-Industrial Complex”

  1. Myself, a veteran of past bullshit oversea entanglements, don’t give two shit what you think girlie.

    Bitch trying to cut him off at the end.

    We don’t belong in any of them countries unless they are a real threat to us, not the MIC.

  2. No Ron, it’s not to prop up the MIC. It’s to establish complete control and dominance over the entire ME. It’s to cut out Russia and China from having any influence in the region and it’s all to do with ME oil wealth.

    Or if you don’t accept that it’s all about oil then you and Daniel may want to entertain the idea that it’s about the ME’s huge fall cabbage crop the US needs to feed it’s starving masses!

    Much more important and vital to our cause is establishing that Assad was falsely blamed for the gas attack. If we can’t win that one then our antiwar cause is dead in the water.

    1. Syria does not have much in the way of oil reserves, and has never been a big producer. Meanwhile, the oil&gas shale/fracking surge in the US has turned the US into a net exporter of oil & gas. That makes it hard to follow the theory that US sponsorship for al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria is for the benefit of controlling oil. The MIC today is a huge profit industry. The total budget for the US Security State, all things included was over $1 trillion in 2016 and Trump already announced plans to raise it by a lot. Getting involves in wars is a helpful way to spend a lot of money and ask for more. The cruise missiles fired the other day cost more than $100 million by some estimates, and that was just a 1 day appetizer.

      1. I consider the MIC to be a secondary spinoff.
        100 million for cruise missiles?
        20,000,000 barrels a day US oil consumption @ a possible $100/barrel unless the US has the ability to control the market. You could even make that $200/barrel.
        That makes 2,000,000,000 a day to put it in it’s proper perspective at $100/barrel. Spread that over a year and we already have 3/4’s of a trillion $. Double that @$200/barrel.

        The denial you’re attempting to foist on me is that the ME wars are not for oil and that can’t possibly gybe with the MIC. The only alternative I can imagine to be your alternative is fighting terrorism. But if you have something else then it’s certainly going to make an interesting discussion.

        My opening shot is going to be the PNAC agenda we know is driving the US. In your mind, is terrorism the US motive?

        Ron Paul has fairly good intentions but he can’t come to the truth on telling it like it is on US aggresssion. I’ve continued to make that point on several of his videos/articles.

        How do you see this involving Russia and China? Can we perhaps reach any agreement on the Brics being a challenge to the West and primarily to the US?

        1. Look – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production – Syria is not a real player in oil production, and the US doesn’t need Syria oil because the US is an exporter, as is Canada and Mexico. Is there US going to steal some kind of treasure from Syria to make up for the cost of war for the American public? No, definitely not. So that kind of treasure hunting explanation or need to secure oil explanation simply doesn’t make sense in Syria. I’m happy to match and exceed your cynicism on most corrupt motive explanations…it’s just that particular one doesn’t make sense.

          1. The “America is fighting these wars for the oil’ statement would be more convincing if America ever actually took the oil and sold it or gave it to its citizens. This has not happened and will not happen. Now, I do think a big factor in some of these wars is preserving the “petro dollar” payment system which helps ensures the U.S. dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. This is probably the most vital of America’s governmental goals. Closely tied to this is the effort to kill popular sentiment for gold (and silver), which are really the only competitors to fiat currencies. Saudi Arabia has much leverage over America in continuing this system. That is, I do not discount that Saudi Arabia has threatened to stop requiring payment in dollars if the U.S. does not do its bidding in the region. Why is this repressive, oppressive royal family such a strong American ally? I think much of this goes back to keeping the magic and oh-so-necessary overnment printing press in operation.

          2. All I can say to that Bill is that you simply don’t understand how the oil market works. And I’m not going to try to educate you beyond what I’ve already said.

            Saudi has no influence over the US. Exactly the opposite is true.

          3. If Saudi Arabia has no influence on the U.S., why do our policies in the Mideast seem to allign so much with Saudi Arabian goals, i.e., seeking to destabalize or even change the regimes of Syria and Iran,

          4. Lots of evidence there to prove that the US has influence over Saudi but zero to prove the opposite. Pathetic really, on one point for an example: “Are we not helping that nation in its war/military actions against Yemen?”

            Yes, and the US is doing a lot more for Saudi, such as protecting and propping up it’s evil monarchy. And you think that’s Saudi influence over the US? Saudi is a US ally and a US proxy state that aids in the US coming destruction and establishing control over Iran.

            You’ve got a lot of catching up to do. You’re likely still left behind thinking that the US truly is worried about Iran procuring nuclear weapons and sending a nuclear tipped missile to River City, USA!

          5. And, as you point out, there is a glut of oil in the world today. There is too much supply, which is why the price is so low. I think a big reason for this is that demand for gas and oil products is much lower than anyone would have thought. This is a clear signal that the true state of the economy is not nearly as strong as the Establishment wants us to think.

          6. US and Canadian production went up a lot at the same time that energy efficiency improved. People gravitated towards more efficient vehicles, 95% efficient gas furnaces replaced 60% efficient oil furnaces, new technologies light bulbs, computer CPUS, computer and tv screens use only fractions of the energy used by the products they replaced. Some of those things happened in other parts of the world. The fraction of energy produced by renewables is also steadily climbing – over 11% now. All these changes were greater than the increase in output energy demand.

          7. Alberta tarsands oil production has at least tripled since 99 when the US money started to pour into Alberta. I was there in the beginning and I watched it happen on site at times and at times in the news. US demand reached about 20 million barrels a day and may have declined slightly? True figures are now hard to find.

            I’ll submit that the daily consumption is close to the top figure but you can do the homework to prove that wrong. Mainly that alternative energy has not been significant in keeping up with increasing demands.

          8. Tar sands oil, in general, is more expensive to extract, and produces more pollution to refine. So tar sands output tends to drop first when oil prices decline. Tar sands is an example of the concept that “oil reserves” is more correctly thought of as a function graph: “reserves available at different average costs of extraction & production”.

          9. More expensive to extract than in situ oil but is it more expensive than fracked oil? At the moment tar sands production is well below the price of $52/barrel.

            If you’re an American, you’re the first one who has demonstrated that knows what he’s talking about on tarsands extraction/production.

          10. I’ve posted a comment somewhere that’s being held up by the filter because of a link in it. It will likely eventually appear but in the meantime it states that US oil consumption was 19.64 million barrels a day in 2016. It’s likely that it’s never been higher as my 20 was rounded off. You can validate that if you like.

          11. Demand in the US may still be rising slightly or may have already peaked. But a decace or two decades ago, the forecasts were for continually rising demand and sharpy falling production. Instead production rose sharply and demand leveled off. Electric, hybrid, and natgas vehicles will continue to take market share – one already sees a lot of natgas buses and waste disposal trucks in service. Tesla has a $50 billion market cap because people think that market is going to grow a lot. The point is that past military excursions by the US were motivated by plans to secure future oil anticipating a shortage – nowadays, that is not true.

          12. Water. You can’t drink oil nor irrigate. The Not irredeemably toxic water is in shorter supply daily.

          13. Different debate at the moment brother but it could be a huge consideration as time goes on. I don’t know but if I took the pessimistic view on fracking, that would strengthen my argument enormously.

            There is a very big concerted effort going on that is trying to downplay US wars in the ME as not for oil.

          14. Water pollution and earthquakes are both issues with fracking. But it is still happening. The US is not going to take over control of oil in Syria. Perhaps US partners in Saudi Arabia and Iraq are going to make money pumping oil through Syria to Turkey/Europe…

          15. Water is now more contentious than oil and getting worse. Although there’s some great research, might be market ready, i was just on a tech site yesterday, apparently a filtering system that can desalinate sea water. As more renewable plants come online, the demand for oil or methane will go down.

            Syria is more contentious as location than natural resources. That and they’re a lot more independent than Israel, for instance. Russia has a shot either as corporate or nationalized, to pick up Venezuela’s oil company. Citgo. Which has its headquarters in Houston. There’s a lot of big oil crybaby action going on about that. They set up the corporate side to actually be owned offshore, take all the oil gas coal or what ever, as U.S. taxpayer funded subsidies.

            That makes it no fair for a foreign company to own an american company. But perfectly fair the other way around. Sauce for the goose in the case of Halliburton holding vast resources in other countries, conquered countries, that’s NOT sauce for the gander. Only the U.S. corporations have that right, because We Have The Most Powerful Military Ever Seen. This is why American travelers in many countries introduce themselves as Canadian.

            There’s a lot of arrogance involved.

          16. “The point is that past military excursions by the US were motivated by plans to secure future oil anticipating a shortage – nowadays, that is not true.”

            I disagree and I’ve given you my reasons why. I won’t bother to repeat it all.

            Renewables have had an impact but I would suggest that the impact is less than you are suggesting. US oil consumption will rise in ’17 over what it was in ’16.

            I can’t make an accurate estimate and I’m not going to research it for you. If you want to convey some confidence in your position then you do it.

            I’ll leave you with an estimate of 2 or 3 million barrels a day as my shot at it for you to disprove.

          17. I ran across some statistics that show Canada’s production overhead is lower than that in the US.

            The question would be, what is being compared, but in any case it was surprising because predominantly the comparison would seem to be Canada’s tarsands against US in situ oil, with fracking being of less impact.

            The stats say to me that fracking is bigger than I thought in order to make that comparison true?

          18. There is a lot more tar sands oil in Canada than the US. It costs more to pull out of the ground and refine – the oil is mixed with sand. Fracking is a drilling technique. The cost to drill is more upfront, but conventional oil/natgas comes out of the well. Pretty much any article on tar sands will state that it is available at higher price points due to the cost of getting the sand out.

          19. And demand is steadily going down as more wind, tide and solar energy harvesting is picking up world wide. The oil industry as a whole is sponsoring a series of expensive television ads promoting their product as the source of all wealth and so forth. They’re taking credit even for solar and wind and tide harvesting. Stuck on themselves, they are.

            The Arabian and Persian collective satrapy is the fruit of the Ottomans being on the losing side (hint: there was no winning side) in World War One and solidified by World War 2. The British had a lot more influence in how they got set up, but as everybody keeps saying, Capital has no physical or political boundaries. The British like to do business on a Royal to Royal basis. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the deposed Shah of Persia, the Deposed King Faisal of Iraq, Syria etc… And the ones who deposed their Royal Masters are SURPRISE the ones getting the living dogshoot bombed out of their countries and faced with the Regime Change routine. Just like Russia, there’s still the White Russian notion that the Romanov Empire will be put back in place.

            Knowing the right wing propensity for fawning over royalty while claiming to be Republican, how much of my rectal orifice should I bet that the so-called Conservatives who are trying to get the Old World Order back on track to what they had in 1914?

            Their propaganda disguised as entertainment is pushing hard for it. Royalist crap like the Anastasia movies, the latest one I can remember is the Disney Cartoon. How much would you bet that Trump is any different and that he doesn’t actually worship the Tsars? The Russian Orthodox Church still gives every member of the Romanov family sainthood just for being born in that super-corrupt family. That means that say, Peter the Great or Katharine the Great were saints murdering Other Saints to gain power.

            Trust me when I say that organized religion has no place in these conflicts? I hope not, people who believe without question are annoying and dangerous.

            The top-paid Evangelist Church is Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, who anointed Trump and said and still say that non-compliance with the Trump Agenda is apostacy and and all apostates will burn in Hell for ever.

          20. In fact, US oil consumption is forecast to rise again in 2017. That’s not to say that renewables haven’t had an effect and for all I know, US consumption could be topping 25 million barrels a day without them. Although my uneducated guess would be that the impact is smaller than 5 million reduction in fossil fuels.

            I don’t think the interest is there in finding out for sure and I don’t have the time to research it.

          21. Sounds reasonable. But it doesn’t address US oil consumption as I asked you to do. And if you do the work, would you also look at hydro megawatt hour consumption over the same period?

          22. And I don’t care what the “official” unemployment stats say, a whole lot fewer people are in the workforce these days. People who used to drive to and from work – and then drive while at work – are now chilling at the house.

          23. No, the price of oil is not contributible to supply and demand. That’s the fundamental truth you are missing and that skews your understanding on the whole ME affair. And it’s also safe to say that many Americans don’t want to know any other explanation because of the guilt factor.

            The price of oil is manipulated and the entitay that has the power to manipulate is the US, with Saudi being a willing participant.

            Think back to when the US began to drive Iraq to war by manipulating the price down to $14/barrel and then giving Iraq the greenlight to invade Kuwait to alleviate the situaiton that was destroying Iraq’a economy.

            There’s more to it than just that but I’ll leave it at that for now.

          24. “Syria is not a real playeer in oil production”

            Of couse I know that and that comment tells me that you still don’t understand what I said. Or maybe you just weren’t able to shift gears on your thinking because your response is now built in to the American intellect. That would be, out of necessity because accepting that it’s ME oil wars would be like selling the farm. The reason why I talk about the ME’s cabbage crop this fall is because it’s so transparently obvious why the US is involved in the ME, just as it was when the British were there.

            Control over the world’s oil resources is a lot different from what you are attempting to make it out to be. But I’m not going to repeat it all again for an audience that doesn’t want to be receptive of hearing it.

            What I will say is that the US and it’s coalition got away with the first war against Iraq, using the excuse of protecting Kuwait. We should never have allowed that to happen because when the second war against Iraq happened, it became too obvious that it was for the same identical reason.

            Your MIC doesn’t work for me because the US involvement in the ME has only one main purpose and the MIC can’t be the purpose of the first war on Iraq. In fact, it’s not denied with any heart that Saddam natioinalizing his oil resources are the justification.

            Consider my cynicism in the sense that the US plans to cut both Russia and China out of the ME and establish complete US control. Syria and Iran are definitely still on the agenda.

          25. “In fact, it’s not denied with any heart that Saddam natioinalizing his oil resources are the justification.”

            It’s true, I don’t remember anyone ever denying that.

            Of course, I also don’t ever remember anyone making the bizarre claim that the first Gulf War was in any way related to Iraq’s nationalization of oil 19 years before the war and seven years before Saddam came to power.

          26. You weren’t paying attention to antiwar rhetoric at the time so you probably missed it.

            You were in the military remember, pretending that you knew that the Iraqi buildup of thousands of tanks and it’s army had indeed amassed on the Saudi border in preparation for war in Saudi.

            Which of course we know now was a lie to justify US war on Iraq. Among other deceits.

            I don’t think you can come to terms with the reason why that war was led by the US. If I had taken part, I wouldn’t be able to either.

          27. Geo-politics changes over time. When the US got involved with the coup of Iran in 1953 oil was the main reason. The relationship with Saudi Arabian and the first Gulf War were historically driven by oil. But the geo-politics in 2017 are a lot different because the oil/supply demand situation is a lot different.

          28. Geo-politics have changed as to oil supply and that’s no secret. I’m a Canadian and I saw it happening in the tarsands of Alberta. I wonder if you understand to what degree that happened, as it pertains to US consumption? You could always find out for us? Fracking also had some impact on the amount the US needs to purchase/domestic oil.

            Be careful when you research that stat because there is a tendency to skew the numbers by various different interests.

  3. Ron Paul does a good job here of going off script and getting his points in. Lisa Kennedy lets him, and does not challenge him on any facts/assertions, but feels compelled to add her opinion that Assad is a really bad guy (not like any of our generals…), and also her view that the US might be “getting in over our head” taking on the mighty ISIS (who we sponsor along with Saudi Arabia and call off), al Qaeda (who we also sponsor, and who were in the region where the chemicals were released by somebody – unless it’s all fake, which a few have speculated about…), and the war weakened Assad govt. all at the same time. Really? Obviously the US could win the battles easily, but then what happens to the country afterwards. Is it like Iraq where the US announces who the new govt. is and then the fighting reconvenes in a more chaotic fashion?

    Ron didn’t have all his citiations memorized but his points are clearly more coherent than Kennedy (Assad is bad, but too mighty) or McMaster (the US just needs to go there, by itself, risking war with Russia, to fight/kill everybody in Syria, at once, “for the people”).

    The US provoked the civil war in Syria and has been sponsoring both al Qaeda and ISIS. It could end the war by ending US & Saudi support for those groups. Leaving Assad in power. Getting rid of Assad was the goal from the beginning, and this has been captured in released docs/recordings from US diplomats and CIA.

    Let’s summarize why that;s a bad idea:
    1) US plan leads to the most overall deaths
    2) US plan is the most expensive for the US public
    3) US plan is not a real plan. It has no coherent argument that it would make Syria anything other than another perpetual war like Iraq.

    1. ” Obviously the US could win the battles easily, but then what happens to the country afterwards.”

      No, that’s not taking into account Russia’s presense in Syria. You can’t make that prediction based strictly on US military might because it leaves out the most important factor that is holding up US progress on Syria, and then on Iran.

      Russia and China won’t allow it and you know why the US is paying attention to that. Hence, the stalemate while the propaganda war takes place.

      Unfortunately for US plans, a propaganda war with no conclusion, other than success with the minds of the American people and that’s not all that important. Convincing Russia and China is!

      1. The US version of “winning wars” nowadays is destroying everything with metal that moves. If Russia were going to support Assad, that would only take a little longer. It would be destructive and stupid and violent and costly, but the achieving the destruction wouldn’t be in doubt. Occupying areas without taking on casualties in a different issue. It’s like saying “Did the US win the Iraq War?” Was “the mission” ever “accomplished”? They can argue it either way depending on the version “mission” that they make up. Clearly nothing good came from it for the US public or the bulk of Iraqis.

  4. Syria has the Golan Heights. Israel’s chomping to get purported oil in the region. The US marches, with the absolute support and direct influence of Zionist factions of Israel,(their government). Kushner, Trump’s son in law is a neocon and wields profound influence on Trump. The profit motive is a secondary consideration,(Ratheon’s stock rose 2+% the next day) of an attack that cost $110+ million on the missiles alone. Israel can’t wait to get at Syria’s supposed resources. The US is the muscle/bully that Israel uses to get their way. Peoples lives are considered superfluous;(and expense also).

    1. Indeed. And the Modern State of Israel have been fighting what has been fought since the first time Jerusalem (the single most misnamed city in the world) was mentioned in the Bible (probably other scriptures along the way, like Hittite, Phoenician “Philistine” and Egyptian texts) and the story in Genesis is about a war on the plains of Har Meggido, Armageddon. It’s a bottle neck between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas.It’s where you have to pass if you drive or ride or walk from Egypt to Grecia (Syria, Lebanon, Turkey) or Mesopotamia or vice versa.

      Israel doesn’t have much in the way of raw materials, like oil. It’s all about location. Like the fictionalized Airstrip One being England because they had striking distance of just everywhere in Europe.

      Strategic positioning. Hawaii, The Philippines and Singapore are in similar positions. Japan, yes. The Aleutians. Khyber Pass.
      It doesn’t make much difference beyond having enough water to support military posts, if they don’t have oil or gold or whatever they’re very near a road that takes you from one place needing gold or whatever to the place which has it and back again. In our modern time Aerial and Maritime routes can be just as easily as actual roads, used as roads. Want to shut down a modern city? Jam some stationary large vehicles in the intersection of First and Main and at every highway off ramp. That’s were israel and Syria are in relation to the resource laden countries. The intersection of First and Main.

  5. Kennedy would lose her job at Fox were she agree with Ron Paul. Assad must be a terrible person, because Fox brass insist that he is

  6. First, I voted for Trump… mostly because he was not Hitlery, but also in part because of his non-intervention platform. I’m not surprised that he has waffled on this issue because Trump is glaringly fickle and his political positions have no firm foundation (i.e., the Constitution). He simply tried to tell the majority what he thought they wanted to hear. He was quick to change course on any issue if he thought tea leaves were misread.

    The absence of a firm foundation will be, by the example of the issue addressed in this article, the cause of Trump’s house to falter. It allowed his administration to be layered with war-mongering neocons who will continue to push the same interventionist foreign policy that has murdered millions abroad, bankrupted us, and ultimately created and fueled terrorism.

    His lack of a solid foundation applies to much of the rest of his platform which will collectively lead to more bad outcomes. After four years of this and of the MSM’s pro-oligarchic propaganda, the majority will be begging for another Clinton-Bush-Obama and America’s death spiral will continue.

    We lost our last chance when we didn’t put Ron Paul in the White House. I truly believe he was our last hope.

    1. Outstanding comments. You nailed it. Trump has no “firm foundation” for any of his political ideas or actions. Contrast him with Ron Paul. Everything he says and promotes is grounded in the Constitution and his deep study of Austrian economics. This is why his positions are so consistent and he never needs to take a poll to see what he supports or opposes.

    2. Stop making excuses for your mistake on voting for Trump. There’s no excuse for pure stupidity.

      Far too many of you mutts made the mistake and the payback we all get could be a nuclear war started by your psychopath..

      1. Oh get your undies unbunched… I would not change my vote because Hitlery is a globalist criminal. Trump will make some mistakes but at least he has stated intent to put a well-placed knee in the groin of the deep state. Sure, he’s no Ron Paul, but he’s not Hitlery either.

        “Pure stupidity”? Ya mean like supporting war mongering oligarch Hitlery?

        1. I stayed in the Farce until my honorable discharge came around. I thought and still do that some of the officers appointed above me were prime fragging bait.

          But there’s this: (yeah, I wrote it and published it on Not My Tribe)
          Copelands Trump the Antichrist

          Mayhaps that’s misleading. Kenneth and Gloria Copeland don’t say that Trump is antichrist. In fact they said any Christians who don’t support Trump are antichrist. Amazingly, the Satanists have their own
          divisions, maybe not as stark as the Southern Baptists vs. The Catholic Mainstream vs. Opus Dei vs. LDS, but the ones I encountered on 6 June 1986 laid it out the same as the Copelands, only from a different
          perspective. It was on a Friday, there was a full Moon and Reagan was acting the ass, as usual, and I went to a party to see if I could score some acid. Which I did not accomplish. The party goers were actually
          having a religious event. By the way, June 6th of 86 was interpreted as 6-6-6. They had been doing a bunch of acid for a couple of weeks. Not
          anything new. To bring in a spoiler alert, Trump is said BY HIS SUPPORTERS to recreate the political IMAGE of Reagan. That’s Important and I’ll tell you why. Like Reagan, he boasts of having control of “the Mightiest military in history”, he believes himself to be therefore
          Annointed by God to rule the entire world (Just ask the Copelands, they performed the ceremony) and thinks of himself as invincible.

          Or as it was posited in the Revelation to St John the Divine at Patmos (by the way, Assad maintains the shrine built by the Catholic Church on Patmos, Syria is a part of the Grecian Empire and the Muslims
          maintain a bunch of such shrines, including the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. So much for Muslims being rabidly anti Christian.) but I digress, from John… “who is like unto the Beast, and who can contend against him?” and the Beast had an image of himself, after being wounded in the head (Reagan) brought down fire from heaven (Reagan, White Sands Missile Range New Mexico, laser test in which a laser beam was bounced off a mirror on a satellite, back to White Sands and destroyed a missile on the ground) and created an Image of The Beast, which spoke like unto
          the beast and the whole world marveled.

          At the party, the theme was laid out to me in exactly that order. The Satanic Bible differs from the Christian Apocalypse in one major point, they believe the Beast wins at Armageddon. The avowed satanists were
          celebrating that (they thought) Reagan would reveal himself as the Beast that evening. Plus it was a Friday, a full moon and you can guess the rest.

          Christians like the Copelands who stand in agreement that Islam sects are in solidarity despite the obvious evidence, or Jewish people with their thousand and one variants (seriously, try to put Kabbala in the
          same category as Reform or Orthodox, or put Sufi, Sunni, Ba’hai and Shia all in one category) and let’s not forget the fragmented Christian faiths. Well?

          I left the party and went up the mountain (this was incidentally in El Paso Texas about 40 miles from where the missile destroying laser was tested.) and stayed there until dawn. The world hasn’t been destroyed
          in the intervening 3 decades.

          Donald Trump and his disciples demand that everybody in the world is obligated to obey him and his New Old Empire.

          Donald and his disciples:
          Y’all can line up and take turns helping yourselves to a Texas-sized all-you-can-eat buffet of Kiss my liberal ass
          (I’ve got that on a Tee Shirt on Cafe Press)

        2. I’m a Canadian and I didn’t get to choose. That said, I really dislike Hillary. But now we are at the point where Trump represents a very serious threat of world war starting with Russia.

          I have to assume that Hillary wouldn’t have taken it to that situation.

          During the campaign speeches Trump found the right position from an antiwar POV and that forced Hillary into the opposite and wrong position. If that was the end of considering it, Trump would have been the better choice.

          But in truth, Trump was a phony and I immediately saw that. He didn’t represent anything that he was speaking and that is now coming home to most thinking people. Even Raimondo is there now, even though he may go back. Americans like you didn’t see it. It’s just no more complicated than that.

  7. Ron Paul deserves secret service protection in my opinion. His contrarian and almost always prescient views are that important. Many of the terms and much of the thinking that is thankfully commonplace today derived from his life-long work.

    I would say he popularized the use of the terms “neocons” (diagnosing this group’s aims and tactics) as well as the description of America as an “empire” (an empire that wants to grow larger). He of course popularized the term “interventionism” to describe America’s foreign policy. He was the first or best-known figure to talk often about the dangers of “blowback.” I could go on.

    I’ve written before that he will probably go down in history as the most influential losing presidential candidate of our lifetimes. (Maybe in history depending on how things play out). I still believe this.

    Through patience and a strategy of educating people, the ideas he believes in are spreading/have become far more accepted. Hopefully, these ideas will spread farther and faster. Millions of lives – and the quality of life for millions of the world’s people – could depend on this..

  8. Our military policy these days is a president can order a military attack on anyone or any country he wants for any reason of his choosing at any time. Our Founders must be rolling over in their graves.

  9. Believe me when I say….$60 mil in missiles is NOTHING to the MIC……it was not to prop up the MIC.

    1. Keeps them in business. There are a lot of ways they pay themselves. Even buttons on uniforms. They tried to get that changed to velcro but, for a change, somebody in the Pentagon had a major flash of Reality. If you pull apart a velcro seal, it makes a loud ripping sound which could make you R.I.P. if you did it in the field and were otherwise being quiet.

      Here’s the funny part, the soldiers and Airmen and such, you get one set of uniforms every year or so, that’s free. You get a uniform allotment added into your really low pay to buy buttons and such, sliding scale if you have a really messy job, the rest is on you. Break enough equipment including uniform buttons and they give you an Article 15 commander’s non-judicial punishment.

      It just sounds humorous.

      My brother for the past 3 years has been paying $11k more in income taxes than General Electric which gets most of it’s profits on War Contracts. My brother loads and unloads meat at cold storage warehouses. Throws around 80 pound boxes of cut up dead animals. Can’t be done by machine. Maybe if we didn’t have a conscience we too would be joining the Conspiracy of Generals, General Electric, General Foods, General Motors… there are a bunch of them.

      But, yeah, just like every airman is an integral part of the Killing Machine so are individual missiles. Even the chaplains are legally combatants, and doctors and nurses. Chaplains are given the job of getting soldiers to accept and minimalize the fact they’re part of the Killing Machine. Tell them that God gave them the okey-dokey permission to set aside the Thou Shalt Not Kill stuff. Psychologists the same way.

  10. Complete domination is never achieved, and those who base their happiness or anger or for that matter the very substance of their being on being the ruler of all, are always going to be disappointed. Ecclesiastes was the largest text attributed to Solomon, and he spoke of that in particular. “the cattle on a thousand hills are mine”… and a whole lot about the vanity of getting riches, wealth, even vast knowledge. “Naked came I into the world, and naked will I depart, I brought nothing in my hand and will surely take nothing away”

    He said in at least six paragraphs to “don’t worry, be happy”.
    Did you notice that most pictures of Trump show him grimacing, shouting, scowling? All his riches and power haven’t made him happy.

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