Antiwar.com Blog

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern coined the term MICIMATT to describe America’s sprawling national (in)security state. It’s an expanded version of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military-industrial-congressional complex, which Ike warned America about in 1961. (Ike originally included Congress in his warning, but in the speech he gave he left it out so as not to offend the DC elites.)

MICIMATT includes the military, industry (the weapons makers), Congress, the intelligence “community,” media, academia, and various think tanks funded by weapons makers and seeded with “thinkers” beholden to the donors. The acronym’s awkwardness is more than compensated by its acuity and scope. In fact, even MICIMATT isn’t quite sprawling enough. You’d also have to add Hollywood (all those movies and TV shows that glorify the military and war) and the sporting world to the mix. MICIMATTHS, perhaps? And I’m sure we could think of another letter or two to add, perhaps another “S” for the State Department, which has become a tiny branch of the Pentagon.

Continue reading “MICIMATT for President!”

On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

In a week that saw Israel launch a bizarre terror attack against Lebanon using weaponized pagers, it now looks as if Israel is going all out to start a war with its northern neighbor. Authorization was granted yesterday to open a northern front and there has been a large uptick in military activity. Will a major regional war break out just weeks before the US election?

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Former presidential candidate and “Russiagate” hoax author Hillary Clinton inadvertently called for her own arrest and imprisonment this week, when she demanded that anyone spreading “misinformation” and “propaganda” be sent to jail. Also in today’s program: A new report from Microsoft claims that “Russian troll farms” are interfering in our elections. Do you believe them after the last time turned out to be a lie?

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

An average of five children per day have been killed or wounded by Israeli occupation forces and settler-colonists in the West Bank of Palestine, according to a report published Tuesday by Save the Children, which sounded the alarm on what it called a “significant escalation of violence in the past six weeks.”

According to the charity, Israeli forces have killed 158 Palestinian children in the West Bank between October 7 and August 14. At least 1,400 other children have been injured. The majority of those killed – 115 children – were shot, while others have been killed by Israeli aerial bombing and drone strikes.

Child casualties have increased significantly since Israel launched a major offensive in the northern West Bank on August 28.

Continue reading “‘There Is No Safety for Us’: West Bank Kids Under Growing Assault by Israeli Forces”

On September 18th, the UN General Assembly is scheduled to debate and vote on a resolution calling on Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within six months. Given that the General Assembly, unlike the exclusive 15-member UN Security Council, allows all UN members to vote and there is no veto in the General Assembly, this is an opportunity for the world community to clearly express its opposition to Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine.

If Israel predictably fails to heed a General Assembly resolution calling on it to withdraw its occupation forces and settlers from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the United States then vetoes or threatens to veto a Security Council resolution to enforce the ICJ ruling, then the General Assembly could go a step further.

It could convene an Emergency Session to take up what is called a Uniting For Peace resolution, which could call for an arms embargo, an economic boycott or other UN sanctions against Israel – or even call for actions against the United States. Uniting for Peace resolutions have only been passed by the General Assembly five times since the procedure was first adopted in 1950.

Continue reading “Can the World Save Palestine from US-Israeli Genocide?”

At least 50 U.S. lawmakers or members of their households are financially invested in companies that make military weapons and equipment – even as these firms “receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally-crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation,” a report published Thursday revealed.

Sludge‘s David Moore analyzed 2023 financial disclosures and stock trades disclosed in other reports and found that “the total value of the federal lawmakers’ defense contractors stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million.”

Continue reading “‘Obvious Conflict of Interest’: Report Reveals 50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks”