Author: Daniel McAdams

The recently-released Pentagon report on the US bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan last October was heavily redacted, but it still revealed a great deal about the ongoing disaster of the longest war in US history. US troops complain that they have no idea what they are supposed to be doing in Afghanistan under the current rules of engagement. The Afghan army upon which the US has spent billions is not only unenthusiastic about confronting the Taliban, they don’t even have proper military boots because of procurement corruption. President Obama is determined to continue the military occupation of Afghanistan even as the Taliban say the reason they keep fighting is because of the military occupation of their country. The big beneficiaries, as ever, are those getting rich inside the Beltway military-industrial complex. How many more billions will be wasted on this no-win war? None of the candidates seem to see any reason to change what we have been doing all along.

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

What is it that keeps the Washington Post’s hyperventilating neocon scribbler Jennifer Rubin up at night? The fact that Ron Paul’s lifelong efforts to promote a peaceful foreign policy continue to light fires in the imaginations of his fellow Americans. Any chance her fellow neocons’ near-total control of Washington’s foreign policy might be slipping sends Rubin scurrying to her keyboard to launch another spit-bomb.

Rubin has been apoplectic for months over the possibility that Donald Trump may wind up the Republican nominee for the presidency. She followed six of the stages of grief but skipped the final one, acceptance, and quickly returned to the first one, shock. Forget about the fact that when it comes to foreign policy, there isn’t all that much for non-interventionists to get excited about when it comes to Donald Trump. He just threatened to shoot Russian planes, he wants to confront China, he wants to dump more money into the military-industrial complex, he just told Bibi to build build build more settlements on occupied Palestinian territory in Gaza, and so on.

With Trump we of course can hope for the best, and any improvement would be welcome, but realistically the yellow warning flags are taking on a distinctively red hue with each passing foreign policy proclamation.

Continue reading “‘Secretary of State Ron Paul’ Gives Jennifer Rubin Panic Attacks”

In 1980 President Carter issued an order requiring males between 18 and 25 to register with Selective Service should a military draft become necessary. It was a response to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At the time women were not eligible for the draft because they were not eligible for combat roles. Much has changed in the intervening 36 years, and women are now eligible for military combat. In the name of “equality,” some have argued that it is only fair for women to be forced to register for the draft as well. Unfortunately those who hold such a position are missing the main point: equality in slavery is nothing to cheer. Being forced by the government to fight and possibly die for its foreign policy goals is an idea incompatible with a free society. We do not owe the government a part of our lives to repay the “freedom” they give us, as our freedom is not a gift granted by government. What should young people facing the obligation of registering for a draft they do not believe in? We cover this and much more in today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Just ten years after America was shocked at the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and just a year and a half after the Senate torture report, a recent poll suggests that three-fourths of the population would support torture of terrorism suspects. Have we so quickly forgotten the fallout from the CIA’s shameful practices, where innocents were tortured for information they did not possess? Have we forgotten that torture is a moral outrage, is itself a form of terrorism, and does not even work? Have we forgotten that the “ticking time bomb” scenario is a Hollywood fiction, not a reality? Or is the media manipulating the population into supporting Washington’s interventionist foreign policy with carefully-worded polls designed to show more support for torture than really exists. Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Over the weekend a militia supporting Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr breached the “Green Zone” protecting the Iraqi government and foreign embassies in Baghdad. They are protesting ongoing corruption among Iraq’s US-backed leaders. Lawmakers fled and a state of emergency was declared. Is this the beginning of the end for post-“liberation” Iraq? Join the Ron Paul Liberty Report in its 300th episode to look at Iraq’s slow-motion collapse:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

It should hardly be surprising to anyone paying attention that the federal government lied about every aspect of its “need” to break into the iPhone of the San Bernardino mass-shooter. There was another way to access it than compelling Apple to write code to defeat its own encryption. Breaking in to the phone was indeed intended to set a legal precedent despite what the FBI director promised. And the legislation coming out of Congress to “fix” the problem of encryption will result in the total destruction of any digital privacy for almost literally anyone across the globe. The San Bernardino shootings were another “new Pearl Harbor” event for the US police state to grab more of our liberties and incinerate what is left of the Constitution. Today’s Liberty Report is joined by Ron Paul Institute Senior Fellow Adam Dick to look at the latest developments in the case and what to expect from the upcoming legislation:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.