Rumors continue to spread that the US is preparing to deploy its THAAD anti-missile system in Germany for the first time. What’s the threat? Iran, we are told. Particularly as the US pulling out of the deal has increased tensions. But is this really about defense of Europe, as the US military claims, or is it more about keeping the big US defense contractors fat and happy? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Originally appeared on The American Conservative.
The Trump administration is considering lending additional support to the atrocious Saudi-led war on Yemen:
The Trump administration is weighing an appeal from the United Arab Emirates for direct U.S. support to seize Yemen’s main port for humanitarian aid from Iranian-backed Houthi fighters, according to US officials, a move they worry could have catastrophic effects on the country.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked for a quick assessment of the UAE’s plea for assistance such as surveillance drone flights to help a Saudi-led coalition retake Hodeidah, which currently serves as a vital lifeline for the country’s 29 million residents, US officials said.
US support for the war on Yemen has been a disgrace for the last three years. Increasing that support to enable coalition forces to attack Hodeidah would be the worst thing our government could do in Yemen right now. Instead of entertaining requests for increased military assistance, our government needs to be withdrawing all support. Coalition governments need to believe that the US won’t tolerate an attack on Hodeidah, and just by considering this the administration is giving them reason to think that they can go ahead with the attack on their own.
Continue reading “The US Must Oppose a Saudi Coalition Attack on Hodeidah”
One of my most-memorable experiences of the Vietnam War(time) occurred while I was a member of the drill team of an ROTC unit on the campus of the university from which I hold a bachelor’s degree, received together with a commission in the armed forces of the United States. We 24 or so cadets were practicing, marching in ranks of four along a paved campus footpath, from which we were accustomed to seeing individual pedestrians step off to let us pass. One such pedestrian, a male perhaps a bit cheekier than the others, noting our ordered files, sought to let us pass around him without his having to step off the path, turning himself sideways so that we might slip around him without breaking formation.
Our commander, in a split-second decision, deployed us against this interloper by ordering us (we were all carrying deactivated rifles) to Port Arms. We normally marched, as such units always do, at Shoulder Arms, in which our rifles were canted over our right shoulders. At Port Arms, however, we could continue marching, but we held our rifles diagonally across our chests, the butts protruding slightly to our left, and the barrels slightly to our right. This prevented our (passive) "attacker" from "penetrating" our ranks.
It was thrilling (for me, at least, in a trailing rank not dealing directly with the "interloper"). Our notional attacker was somehow thrust off the pavement, without even being knocked down as I recall, and we passed unpenetrated, as it were, while our interloper shook himself free of surprise and indignation by the side of "our" pavement. I found the total success of our synchronized execution of a single command most gratifying.
Antiwar.com columnist David R. Henderson appeared this weekend on BBC World Service “Weekend” radio show. He spoke about why a trade war is a bad idea for consumers and workers on both sides of any trade war.
David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and an emeritus professor of economics in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Razan al-Najjar, 21, a paramedic helping injured protesters in the Gaza Strip, was murdered by what Benjamin Netanyahu insists the Palestinians recognize as the State of the Jewish People.
How, in these conditions, can individuals who are not religious believers but simply humanists, democrats and liberals, and endowed with a minimum of honesty, continue to define themselves as Jews?
~Shlomo Sand, How I Stopped Being a Jew
Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we deplore their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.
~ Israeli Gen. Moshe Dayan
Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu’a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.
~ Israeli Gen. Moshe Dayan
From the archive: Islamophobe & Bolton pal Fred Fleitz has been named chief of staff for the National Security Council. Fletiz was a danger a decade ago in the Bush administration and is even more so now, recalls Ray McGovern. McGovern says that with Bolton’s old “enforcer” Fred Fleitz as NSC Chief of Staff, the odds increase on war with Iran. Bolton and his cronies can now elbow out any honest intelligence on Iran and goad the President into a world-class catastrophe. This time the result would be much worse – geometrically worse.
On a recent TV appearance, I was asked about whistleblowing, but the experience brought back to mind a crystal-clear example of how, before the Iraq War, CIA careerists were assigned “two bosses” – CIA Director George Tenet and John Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, the arch-neocon who had been thrust on an obedient Secretary of State Colin Powell.
CIA “analyst” Frederick Fleitz took the instructions quite literally, bragging about being allowed to serve, simultaneously, “two bosses” — and becoming Bolton’s “enforcer.” Fleitz famously chided a senior intelligence analyst at State for not understanding that it was the prerogative of policymakers like Bolton – not intelligence analysts – to “interpret” intelligence data.
In an email from Fleitz in early 2002, at the time when one of his bosses, the pliable George Tenet, was “fixing” the intelligence to “justify” war on Iraq, Fleitz outlined the remarkable new intelligence ethos imposed by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their subordinates who were reshaping the U.S. Intelligence Community.
Continue reading “Bolton Flunky Fleitz Raises Stakes for Iran”
