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According to a report cited by veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn, the nine month siege of Mosul may have cost as many as 40,000 civilian lives. Many thousands were killed when bombs buried them in rubble. Is this a victory?
By Liberty Report Staff
We all know why The Fed is against being audited. The last thing that the secretive counterfeiters want is for the American public to know what goes on in the shadows.
President Trump initially showed support for auditing the Fed, but he backed off, as he as done with many other important things. Congressman Bill Posey seems to understand this quite well that the money manipulators are hiding important information from public view. Watch the heroic Congressman grill Fed Chair Janet Yellen and catch her totally off guard when asked about being audited:
By Liberty Report Staff
Ron Paul joins Alex Jones to discuss globalism, the failure of government intervention in healthcare, and the heavy influence that neocons still have on the federal government:
According to a new survey, more than three-quarters of Americans are worried about getting dragged into a major war overseas. This is a ten percent increase since February. What's behind the increased fear? We have a few ideas...
By Chris Rossini
Bad economic ideas always seem to sell well. For example, when President Trump says that he's going to protect "Made In America" products, it's virtually guaranteed to be received well by the American public. You'd have to be anti-American to be against it, right? But what if you took this idea (that has impoverished countless numbers of people throughout the ages) to the next step? What if the Governor of Florida declared that Floridians only buy their goods from within the state? To do otherwise would make that person an anti-Floridian. Why stop there? What if the Mayor of Miami declared that residents should only buy goods from within the city of Miami? To do otherwise would make that person a traitor to their city. Let's keep going....
Anyone who lives on Highway A1A in Miami must only buy from others who live on A1A. That sounds like the road to prosperity (pun intended) does it not?
What if the Jones family could only trade and exchange with other members of the Jones family? Sound like a plan? Can you see how ridiculous the idea of protectionism is? But hey, who needs logic when there are votes to be counted? President Trump wants Americans to buy American, and he also wants foreigners to buy American. Trump's not going get rid of all the regulations and red tape that choke entrepreneurship in America. He's not going to peel away the biggest government on the face of the earth. No way. The swamp stays. After all, politically-connected American businesses like the government regulations. They help to write them! It keeps new competition away. There's nothing like a good government regulation to keep your business safe and secure. You need deep pockets to play that game. So, if Trump isn't going to go in the direction of freedom in America, what is he going to do? Tariffs. Whack the American consumer. American consumers will have to pay the tariff to buy foreign goods. More of our money into the hands of the American government. Sound good to you? Why wait for the tariffs to pass? Just voluntarily send the government another check before the tariffs become law. What are you anti-American or something?
In his speech yesterday to the National District Attorneys Association, US Attorney General Jeff Session promised much more civil asset forfeiture, a bigger drug war, and longer mandatory prison terms. He is turning the authoritarianism up to "11."
By Jason Ditz
The latest in a series of moves by South Korea’s new government to try to seek diplomacy with their neighbors to the north, the defense ministry today announced a formal offer for direct talks between the two Koreas’ militaries, to be held on Friday in the truce village of Panmunjon, in the demilitarized zone. Deputy Defense Minister Seo Joo-seok said the talks would be aimed at ending “hostile acts” between the two sides, and to try to secure a mutual guarantee not to make any provocations along the demarcation line ahead of next week’s 64th anniversary of the Korean War truce. Such talks have been a priority for President Moon Jae-in since his election earlier this summer, though President Trump has been critical of the notion of diplomacy in general and has been seen trying to get South Korea to commit to supporting the US stance. North Korea, for its part, has yet to respond to the offer for talks. The short period of time between today’s proposal and the talks themselves may well be designed to get a quick commitment, as well as to get the talks in process before the US can do anything to derail them.
This article was originally published at Antiwar.com
By Jacob G. Hornberger
Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, we have been hit with a multiplicity of bromides, myths, falsehoods, and deceptions by U.S. officials and the mainstream media. “Saddam was coming to get us with his WMDs.” “Mushroom clouds were going to start appearing over U.S. cities.” “The troops in Iraq are defending our freedoms.” The troops are bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.” “Occupation Iraqi Freedom is going to produce a paradise of freedom and prosperity.” And then every once in a while a small dose of reality about Iraq creeps into the mainstream media, which is what happened in the July 15, 2017, issue of the New York Times. The Times’ article pointed out what we here at FFF have been saying about Iraq for the past 15 years: that the winner of the U.S-Iraq War in 2003 was … Iran! Yes, Iran, the country that the U.S. government ranks among the top of its official-enemies list. The title of the article says it all: “Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. “Handed the Country Over.” Of course, that title implies that if the U.S. government had not exited Iraq in 2011, Iran would not be “dominating in Iraq.” That’s ridiculous. Iran has been dominating in Iraq ever since the U.S. ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. The Times essentially acknowledges that central point: When the United States invaded Iraq 14 years ago to topple Saddam Hussein, it saw Iraq as a potential cornerstone of a democratic and Western-facing Middle East, and vast amounts of blood and treasure — about 4,500 American lives lost, more than $1 trillion spent — were poured into the cause.
This is what most Americans have avoided confronting ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ever since then, Americans from all walks of life have blindly thanked the troops for their “service” in Iraq, without giving any thought to exactly what such “service” consisted of.
The automatic assumption has been that the “service” consisted of defending our rights and freedoms here at home. But there is one big problem with that assumption: It’s been manifestly false from the get-go. Iraq never attacked the United States or threatened the freedom of the American people. Such being the case, what exactly is the “service” for which Americans have been thanking the troops in Iraq for the past 15 years? The service consists of installing an official Islamic Shiite regime in Iraq, one that is loyal to and aligned with Iran, as the Times article observes. That’s the reality that Americans have simply not wanted to confront for the past 15 years. Many still do not want to confront it. The Times article helps them to do so. The troops in Iraq were never fighting to defend our rights and freedoms. They were fighting for a regime change, one that ousted Saddam Hussein’s Islamic regime, which was Sunni, and replace it with another Islamic regime, which was Shiite. Take a wild guess at what type of regime Iran is. You guessed it! A Shiite regime, one that has been closely aligned with its counterpart in Iraq ever since the U.S. government installed it into power in 2003. To put some context to the matter, let’s go back to the Iraq-Iran War during the 1980s. That was when the Saddam Hussein Sunni regime was killing Iranians, who were predominantly Shiites. U.S. officials were aligned with Saddam during that war. They were helping him to kill Iranians. As an aside, notice the following phrase in the Times article as to one of the ways that Saddam’s forces were killing Iranians: “with chemical weapons.” But notice something else important: The Times failed to mention where Saddam got those chemical weapons. He got those WMDs from his partner and ally, the U.S. government. (See here and here.) The dark irony is that the Bush administration later used those same WMDs — the WMDs that the U.S. government had furnished Saddam in the 1980s so that he could kill Iranians with them — as the way to scare the American people into supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq, telling Americans, falsely, that Saddam was about to use those U.S.-furnished WMDs on the United States. In actuality, he had destroyed those U.S.-furnished WMDs many years before, as he consistently maintained. Why were U.S. officials partnering with Saddam to kill Iranians? Because the Iranian people had had the audacity to oust the Shah of Iran in a revolution in 1979, whose tyrannical regime the CIA had fortified with its regime-change operation in Iran in 1953. To punish Iranians for ousting a U.S.-supported dictator, U.S. officials decided to help Saddam kill Iranians. That’s why they furnished him with those chemical weapons. Now fast forward to 1990. The U.S. government turned on its partner Saddam with the Persian Gulf War. At the end of that war, U.S. officials encouraged Shiite factions within Iraq to initiate a violent revolution against Saddam. Thinking that the U.S. government would come to their aid, the Shiites did in fact initiate a revolution, which Saddam put down violently by killing thousands of Shiites. During Saddam’s massacre, U.S. troops stood by and let it happen. Feeling betrayed and double-crossed, the Shiites never forgot what the U.S. government had done to them. Now fast forward to 2003. U.S. troops invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime and replace it with a Shiite regime, which consisted of many of the Shiites who had revolted against Saddam’s regime in 1990 and who felt that the U.S. government had betrayed and double-crossed them. Ever since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraq’s Shiite regime has used U.S. troops as pawns to maintain its hold on power, especially as ISIS, which included many people from Saddam’s old Sunni regime, tried to regain power in a civil war. But the entire time that Americans were thanking the troops for their “service” in Iraq, the Iraq regime has been loyally aligned with its Shiite counterpart in Iran, not the United States. Whenever the president of Iran flies into Baghdad, he can feel safe staying in Iraq several days. Whenever a U.S. president flies into Iraq — which is hardly ever — he can only stay an hour or so and then must flee the country because it’s just not safe for him to stay much longer than that, much less overnight. For that matter, I’m willing to bet that more than 99.999 percent of Americans have not chosen Iraq to be their summer vacation destination despite Operation Iraqi Freedom and “mission accomplished” in Iraq. I’m also willing to bet that no members of Congress have ever chosen Iraq for one of their infamous vacation fact-finding junkets. Rather sad and pathetic, I’d say, considering 4,500 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and more than $1 trillion in U.S. taxpayer money were spent on the invasion and occupation. I wonder how many Americans realize that U.S. troops are now back in Iraq, helping to fortify the Iran-aligned Islamic regime they installed and protected for 8 years? How can anyone in his right mind still be an interventionist, especially after the U.S. interventions in Iraq … and Libya … and Syria … and Iran … and Iraq … and Afghanistan … and Guatemala … and Chile … and dozens of other countries?
This article was originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation.
The UN has identified four countries where major famines are underway: Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. What do these four countries have in common? Years of US foreign interventionism.
Press Play to hear Ron Paul deliver his Weekly Update:
By Ron Paul
On Friday the House overwhelmingly approved a massive increase in military spending, passing a $696 billion National Defense Authorization bill for 2018. President Trump’s request already included a huge fifty or so billion dollar spending increase, but the Republican-led House found even that to be far too small. They added another $30 billion to the bill for good measure. Even President Trump, in his official statement, expressed some concern over spending in the House-passed bill. According to the already weak limitations on military spending increases in the 2011 “sequestration” law, the base military budget for 2018 would be $72 billion more than allowed. Don’t worry, they’ll find a way to get around that! The big explosion in military spending comes as the US is planning to dramatically increase its military actions overseas. The president is expected to send thousands more troops back to Afghanistan, the longest war in US history. After nearly 16 years, the Taliban controls more territory than at anytime since the initial US invasion and ISIS is seeping into the cracks created by constant US military action in the country.
The Pentagon and Defense Secretary James Mattis are already telling us that even when ISIS is finally defeated in Iraq, the US military doesn’t dare end its occupation of the country again. Look for a very expensive array of permanent US military bases throughout the country. So much for our 2003 invasion creating a stable democracy, as the neocons promised.
In Syria, the United States has currently established at least eight military bases even though it has no permission to do so from the Syrian government nor does it have a UN resolution authorizing the US military presence there. Pentagon officials have made it clear they will continue to occupy Syrian territory even after ISIS is defeated, to “stabilize” the region. And let’s not forget that Washington is planning to send the US military back to Libya, another US intervention we were promised would be stabilizing but that turned out to be a disaster. Also, the drone wars continue in Somalia and elsewhere, as does the US participation in Saudi Arabia’s horrific two year war on impoverished Yemen. President Trump often makes encouraging statements suggesting that he shares some of our non-interventionist views. For example while Congress was shoveling billions into an already bloated military budget last week, President Trump said that he did not want to spent trillions more dollars in the Middle East where we get “nothing” for our efforts. He’d rather fix roads here in the US, he said. The only reason we are there, he said, was to “get rid of terrorists,” after which we can focus on our problems at home. Unfortunately President Trump seems to be incapable of understanding that it is US intervention and occupation of foreign countries that creates instability and feeds terrorism. Continuing to do the same thing for more than 17 years – more US bombs to “stabilize” the Middle East – and expecting different results is hardly a sensible foreign policy. It is insanity. Until he realizes that our military empire is the source of rather than the solution to our problems, we will continue to wildly spend on our military empire until the dollar collapses and we are brought to our knees. Then what? |
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