Antiwar.com Blog

Unless you live under a rock (and probably even if you do), you’ve noticed the death of George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States, on November 30, at age 94.

You’ve probably also suffered through multiple personal remembrances of the man and his presidency – some positive, some negative, some mixed. Mine, which you may read below if you’re not already worn out on the topic, is of the latter variety.

I am grateful for Bush and for his presidency for two major and positive changes in my life for which he deserves at least partial credit (or, if you prefer, bears at least partial responsibility).

First, Bush made it inevitable that I would leave the armed forces rather than serving 20 years and retiring. He did so by kicking off a post-Cold-War round of cuts in military spending that continued into the Clinton era.

Continue reading “Why I am Grateful to George Herbert Walker Bush”

Picture the late George H. W. Bush being welcomed with open arms last night by three of the Gang of Six white-collar criminals he pardoned on Christmas Eve, 1992, just before he left office. Waiting for him were former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, plus swashbuckling, CIA covert action chieftains “Dewey” Clarridge and Clair George – all of them charged (and George convicted) of perjury.

What a celebration is in store when the other three of the gang eventually join them. They are Robert McFarlane, the CIA’s Alan Fiers, and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams – all of whom had already pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress before Bush Sr. let them off the hook.

It caused an outcry in some circles, as The New York Timesreported: “Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Aborting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor Assails ‘Cover-Up.’”

Cover-up indeed. George H. W. Bush was up to his neck in the crimes of Iran-Contra, and so was his protégé, Bobby Gates. Gates was so demonstrably involved that he had zero chance of being confirmed as CIA director the first time it was tried. In 1991, Bush had to move mountains to get him confirmed. Gates knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, and could be counted on to keep them six feet under. (I learned all this well after I spent four years, from 1981 to 1985, for the CIA briefing then-Vice President Bush with The President’s Daily Brief.)

Continue reading “The Bushes: Fathers and Sons (With Apologies to Turgenev)”

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

The Senate didn’t go for Pompeo and Mattis’ sales pitch for the war on Yemen on Wednesday. That’s because it was filled with dishonest nonsense like this:

Iran’s regime has no interest in easing Yemeni suffering; the mullahs don’t even care for ordinary Iranians. Saudi Arabia has invested billions to relieve suffering in #Yemen. Iran has invested zero.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) November 28, 2018

The truth is that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have used their donations as another weapon of war while doing everything in their power to worsen the humanitarian crisis that their policies created. Saudi “aid” efforts have been denounced by humanitarian organizations as a “war tactic,” and the Saudi government has used its donations to buy good publicity from aid agencies and silence criticism. The “investments” that the Saudi coalition governments have made are little more than poorly-concealed bribes to relieve international pressure, and these same governments have used their donations as leverage to blackmail the U.N. in the past.

Continue reading “Pompeo’s Perverse Yemen Rhetoric”

The European-Russian Forum, Brussels, 26 November 2018

Most of what we find in the Western mass media, and even in specialized daily digests and periodicals devoted to Russian affairs tends to fall into the extremes of Russia-bashing by the vast majority or pro-Russia cheerleading by tiny fringe groups who otherwise are unhappy with US global hegemony.

By way of example, I point to how Vladimir Putin’s roll-out of Russia’s latest and unrivaled strategic weapons systems in his 1 March 2018 speech to a session of the joint houses of the Russian Parliament were received in the West.

Many commentators insisted soon afterwards that the Mach 20 Avangard and other nuclear armed systems presented in Putin’s video clips were a bluff directed at his home audience for the sake of the forthcoming presidential election, not directed at Washington; that Russia is incapable of such breakthroughs on an industrial scale and poses no consequential military threat. Meanwhile, dissenters from Washington’s unipolar world concept expressed joy at the Russians’ claim to having restored nuclear parity with the United States, validating the Mutually Assured Destruction balance that kept the peace for much of the last half century. On this basis some began clamoring for Putin to adopt a tougher stance in confrontation with the West up to and including clash of arms.

The 12th European-Russia Forum which was just held in the European Parliament, Brussels brought sobering realism to bear on the questions of whether we are headed into war with Russia, whether it can be limited in destructiveness and regional in scope or will quickly escalate to the global level with nuclear exchanges, and appraising what kind of outcomes we may anticipate. Speeches and discussion steered right down the neutral middle on all of these questions, and were unusually illuminating.

Continue reading “Experts and Activists Offer a Sober Evaluation of the Risks of a Major War Between Russia and the West”

On November 28, sixty-three U.S. Senators voted in favor of holding a floor debate on a resolution calling for an end to direct US Armed Forces involvement in the Saudi-UAE coalition-led war on Yemen. Describing the vote as a rebuke to Saudi Arabia and the Trump Administration, AP reported on Senate dissatisfaction over the administration’s response to Saudi Arabia’s brutal killing of Jamal Khashoggi last month. Just before the Senate vote, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called current objections to US relations with Saudi Arabia "Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on."

The "caterwaul" on Capitol Hill reflects years of determined effort by grassroots groups to end US involvement in war on Yemen, fed by mounting international outrage at the last three years of war that have caused the deaths of an estimated 85,000 Yemeni children under age five.

When children waste away to literally nothing while fourteen million people endure conflict-driven famine, a hue and cry – yes, a caterwaul – most certainly should be raised, worldwide.

Continue reading “The Long, Brutal US War on Children in the Middle East”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has published a bizarre op-ed in the Wall Street Journal claiming that Saudi Arabia has been a guarantor of stability in the Middle East and a bulwark against “expansionist” Iran. Perhaps he forgot about Saudi support for jihadists in Syria and the Saudi destruction of Yemen? Is carrying water for the murderous Saudi kingdom in the Middle East really the best way to demonstrate “American values,” as Pompeo claims? We break down Pompeo’s neocon screed in today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.