VIDEO: Tucker Carlson: Is it "treasonous" to not want to go to war?

So far this week, we've been looking at the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine through the lens of the Message of Fatima -- the request of God through the Blesssed Virgin Mary that Russia be consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart, by which means the annihilation of nations (not just Ukraine) will be averted and a period of peace given to us.

We therefore hope and pray (a novena starts today!) that Pope Francis will perform the Act of Consescration, in union with all the bishops, in the manner that Our Lady requested. But the news that Francis will at last attempt the Consecration has been largely ignored by the lamestream media, not to mention politicians like Crazy Joe Biden, Crazy Nancy Pelosi and Blackie McBlackface, Prime Minister of Canuckistan. 

Like the majority of Americans and Canadians, these liberals who call themselves "Catholics" while advocating for abortion "rights" and other evils, either know nothing about Fatima or do not believe in the Fatima Message. 

So today let's look at the invasion of Ukraine from a purely secular point of view. Let's hear the arguments of people like Tucker Carlson, that starting a potentially nuclear World War III over the status of Ukraine would be foolish in the extreme, and a dissservice not just to the Ukrainian people but to all the nations of the West.

In his latest talk from the Remnant Underground, Michael Matt wondered aloud how much longer Fox News will be able to keep Tucker Carlson on the air, given that he (Carlson) refuses to jump on the let's-nuke-the-Russkis war wagon. 

Mr Carlson is being pilloried by such warhawks as Lindsey Graham and the inevitable Mitt Romney for daring to suggest that the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is totally black-and-white -- Ukraine good, Russia bad -- so if Putin wants war, let's have at it.

They call Mr Carlson, and others like Michael Matt and Dr Ron Paul, unpatriotic, even "treasonous", for urging the powers that be to take a step back and consider whether it's really a smart move to involve the USA (and the lesser NATO countries) in another pointless and unwinnable war. Listen carefully to Mr Carlson's comments, posted on March 14th, in which he gives his take on Ukrainian President Zelenskiy's latest suggestion for finding a way out.

 

Further reading: "Is Tulsi Gabbard a traitor?", by Daniel McAdams, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, 15/3/22. 

Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, and Michael Matt are not traitors or "Russian assets" as the harpies of The View would have it. Neither is Dr Ron Paul, who wrote in "It All Comes Back to NATO", (1/3/22) "When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense."

Dr Paul goes on to say that NATO should be disbanded because it's no longer necessary or relevant to the geopolitics of the 2020s. Russia's invasion of Ukraine proves him right. To go to war for Ukraine's right to join a military alliance which (as President Trump pointed out) is dysfunctional and irrelevant  is just plain wrong. President Zelenskiy's suggestion that his country could perhaps remain neutral is not crazy at all.

More further reading: "The Press Has Lied To Drag The United States Into War Before. Don’t Think They Won’t Again" by Elle Reynolds, The Federalist, 17/3/22.

The writer recycles the story about William Randolph Hearst. In 1897, months before the Maine exploded in Havana harbour, the newspaper tycoon had commissioned reporter Frederic Remington to go to Cuba, where Cuban revolutionaries were skirmishing with their Spanish colonizers. When Remington sent Hearst a wire to explain he was leaving Cuba because there was no war to cover, Hearst reportedly replied, "You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war!"

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson calls out Canada's Trudeau

Hey, it's Groundhog Day... again! Reports are that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, as did Shubenacadie Sam, so Pennsylvania and Nova Scotia are in for six more weeks of winter. But in the second-coldest national capital in the world [meaning Ottawa, Canada. Ed.], 1000s of people -- the truckers and others gathered in the Freedom Convoy -- are hoping for an early spring. 

What would that look like? An end to vaccine mandates. Opening up of bars, restaurants, gyms, and sports venues. Freedom for frostbacks to go where they want, when they want, without having to show their papers to the Mounties! Maybe even the resignation of Prime Minister Blackie McBlackface!! 

Walt wouldn't bet on that last one. The big question on the ice-encrusted lips of fed-up Canucks today is whether Mr Socks will see his shadow when... if... he emerges from his self-imposed isolation ("My kids and I have Covid!") at an "undisclosed location", rumoured to be a set in the Toronto headquarters of the CBC. 

Will M Trudeau be recognized when he appears? Tucker Carlson says, in this video, that he is a master of disguise. He could be out there right now, posing as a reasonable, freedom-loving Canadian, rather than the tin-pot dictator that he is. 

Thanks to Agent 6 for sending us the link. In spite of being triple-UNvaccinated, 6 is still UNinfected! Stay well, dear friend. 

Footnote: The first casualty of Canadians' wrath looks like being Cuckservative leader Erin O'Toole, who should be toast by noon local time, today.

Further reading: "We Are All Canadian Truckers Now!", by Dr Ron Paul, Ron Paul Liberty Report, 1/2/22.

Dr. Ron Paul: Twenty years on, we’ve learned nothing from 9/11

Ed. here. What follows is Dr Ron Paul's column from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prospertity, reposted with permission. Thank you, Dr Paul, for your clear and constant warning abouot the dangers of big government and the folly of meddling in foreign affairs which are none of our business.

Nothing upset the Washington Beltway elites more than when in a 2007 presidential debate I pointed out the truth about the 9/11 attacks: they attacked us because we’ve been in the Middle East, sanctioning and bombing the civilian population, for decades. The 9/11 attackers were not motivated to commit suicide terrorism on the Twin Towers and Pentagon because they dislike our freedoms, as then-President Bush claimed. That was a self-serving lie.

They hated – and hate – us because we kill them for no reason. Day after day. Year after year. Right up until just a few days ago, when President Biden slaughtered Zemari Ahmadi and nine members of his family - including seven children - in Afghanistan. The Administration bragged about taking out a top ISIS target. But they lied. Ahmadi was just an aid worker, working for a California-based organization, bringing water to suffering Afghan village residents.

This horror has been repeated thousands of times, over and over, for decades. Does Washington believe these people are subhuman? That they somehow don’t care about their relatives being killed? That they don’t react as we would react if a foreign power slaughtered our families?

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously suggested in an interview that killing half a million Iraqi children with sanctions designed to remove Saddam Hussein from power was “worth it.” It was an admission that the lives of innocents mean nothing to the Washington elite, even as they paint their murderous interventions as some kind of “humanitarian liberation.” The slogan of the US foreign policy establishment really should be, “No Lives Matter.”

The Washington foreign policy elites – Republicans and Democrats – are deeply corrupt and act contrary to US national interests. They pretend that decades of indiscriminate bombing overseas are beneficial to the victims and keep us safer as well. That is how they are able, year after year, to convince Congress to hand over a trillion dollars – money taken directly and indirectly from average Americans. They use fear and lies for their own profit. And they call themselves patriots.

The Washington establishment lied to us because they did not want us to stop for a second and try to understand the motive for the 9/11 attacks. Police detectives are not apologists for killers when they try to look for a motive for the crime. But the Washington elite did not want us to think about why people might be motivated to suicide attack. That might endanger their 100-year gravy train.

What was the real message of 9/11 to Americans? Give up your freedoms for the false promise of security. It’s OK for the government to spy on all of us. It’s OK for the TSA to abuse us for the “privilege” of traveling in our own country. We must continue to bomb people overseas. Don’t worry it’s only temporary.

So, twenty years on what have we learned from 9/11? Absolutely nothing. And we all know what the philosopher George Santayana said about those incapable of learning from history. I desperately hope that somehow the United States will adopt a non-interventionist foreign policy, which would actually protect us from another attack. I truly wish Americans would demand that their leaders learn from history. The only way to make us safe is to end the reign of the Washington killing machine.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Ron Paul: End the shutdown; it’s time for resurrection!

The following article, by Dr Ron Paul, appeared today on the website of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

For many millions of Christians, Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Others may celebrate the arrival of spring and the promise of new life. Whatever one’s beliefs, after several weeks of mandatory “stay at home” orders and the complete shutdown of the US economy over the coronavirus, this self-destructive hysteria must end and we must reclaim the freedom and liberty that has provided us so much opportunity as Americans.

To do that we should first understand that much of the hysteria is being generated by a mainstream media that has long prioritized sensationalism over investigating and reporting the truth. Government bureaucrats are also exaggerating the threat of this virus and appear to be enjoying the power and control that fearful people are willingly handing over to them. One “coronavirus” bureaucrat even told us that we can no longer go to the grocery store! So we should just starve?

It is certainly possible to believe that this virus can be dangerous while at the same time pointing out that radical steps are being taken in our society – stay-at-home orders, introduction of de facto martial law, etc. – with very little knowledge of just how deadly is this disease.

On March 24th, the CDC issued an alert stating that doctors should classify “probable COVID-19” or “likely COVID-19” as Covid-19 deaths. Perhaps that explains the seeming drop-off of pneumonia deaths this year and the simultaneous spike in Covid-19 deaths as some researchers have reported.

The BBC reported last week that, “At present in the US, any death of a Covid-19 patient, no matter what the physician believes to be the direct cause, is counted for public reporting as a Covid-19 death.”

Does that sound like a scientifically sound way of determining how deadly Covid-19 really is?

What is most dangerous is that although this virus will eventually disappear, the assault on our civil liberties is not likely to be reversed. From this point on, whenever local officials, county officials, state governors, or federal bureaucrats decide there is sufficient reason to suspend the Constitution they will not hesitate to do so. Anyone who challenges the suspension of the Constitution “for our own good” will be labeled “unpatriotic” and perhaps even reported to the authorities. We have already seen hotlines springing up across the country for Americans to report other Americans who dare venture outside to enjoy the sun and build up their vitamin D protection against the coronavirus.

The government is justified in cancelling the Constitution, we are told, because we are in an emergency situation caused by the Covid-19 virus. But do people forget that the Constitution itself was written and adopted while we were in an “emergency situation”?

Did the framers of the Constitution fail to add an 11th Amendment to the Bill of Rights saying, “oh by the way, none of this counts if we get sick”? Of course not! Those who wrote our Constitution understood that these rights are not granted by the government, but rather by our Creator. Thus it was never a question as to when or under what conditions they could be suspended: the government had no authority to suspend them at all because it did not grant them in the first place.

Our country is far less at risk from the coronavirus than it is from the thousands of small and large authoritarians who have suddenly flexed their muscles across the country. President Trump would do well to end this ridiculous shutdown so that Americans can get on with their lives and get back to work.

Americans should remember the tyrants who locked them down next time they go to the ballot box. Let’s demand an end to the shutdown so we can resurrect our economy, our lives, and our liberties!

Iraqi parliament wants US troops out of their country

Regular readers will know that, along with such right-thinking patriots as Dr Ron Paul, I am absolutely opposed to American involvement the Muslim civil wars in the Middle East.

It's not that I'm a pacifist or peacenik. I do believe in the doctrine of the "just war". It's just that I think it's foolish to waste 1000s of lives and billions of dollars on a war we can't win, in an affair which is none of our business.

So I was heartened to hear yesterday that the Iraqi parliament voted in favour of a resolution asking the government to expel US troops from their shithole country. Mostly Shiite factions voted in favour, while Kurdish and most Sunni members of parliament did not attend the session, presumably because they want the American presence in Iraq to continue.

The resolution says, "The government commits to revoke its request for assistance from the international coalition fighting 'Islamic State' due to the end of military operations in Iraq and the achievement of victory. The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason."

Like so many resolutions passed by so many politicians in so many talking shops around the world, this resolution is likely to come to nothing. It still needs to be approved by the Iraqi cabinet, which, under their system, is not responsible to parliament. However, interim Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi voiced support as he railed against US "violations of Iraqi sovereignty."

He was referring to the US air strike on Friday which killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, near Baghdad's airport. The force has been declared an Islamic terrorist organization, and the killing of its commander -- a man with the blood of 1000s on his hands -- was intended to prevent the execution of a major terrorist attack against Americans in the Middle East, while at the same time dealing a blow to the heart of Iran's Middle East policy.

About 5,200 US troops are deployed at Iraqi military bases -- built at considerable expense to American taxpayers -- to train and support local security forces, in hopes -- faint hopes -- of preventing a resurgence of ISIS. The troops are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government as part of an US-led international coalition against the Islamic extremist group.

The usual suspects (read: Democrats) filled the airwaves yesterday with complaints about the air strike, and dire warnings about immanentizing the eschaton. (You can look it up.) At the very least, they say, Still-President Trump's action has facilitated conditions for Iran to achieve one of its main regional objectives: removing the US military from its neighbour.

And I say: GREAT! What I see here is a brilliant plan to, at long last, get America out of Iraq and perhaps the entire sandpit, without spending at little cost in lives or money, and without losing face!
Previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, got the USA into the Middle East quagmire (giggity!), without any realistic chance of victory, or any exit plan. The Prez promised to clean up the mess left by Bush, but just spread it further, into Libya.

President Trump said he'd find a way, and was attacked for preparing to bail out, abandoning the "good" Muslims, yada yada yada. What better way to end this colossal exercise in futility than to have the people that invited America to go in to "help" them, order the US to leave. Walt says, DO IT! NOW! Leave the Sunnis and the Shiites and ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to fight it out. And may all the jihadis get what they so richly deserve. Selah!

The Aghanistan war: It was all for nothing

When I began this blog in July of 2009 [! How time flies when you're having fun! Ed.], the two countries closest to my heart (and other organs), the US of A and Canada, were heavily involved and invested in the Afghanistan "mission".

It looked like a war to me, but politicians of both blue and red stripes, on both sides of the World's Longest Undefended Border (TM), kept assuring us that it was a peacekeeping mission. Or maybe a peace-making mission. Or how about "nation-building"? I called BULLSHIT on that from Day One of WWW, as did many skeptics including Dr Ron Paul.

No-one paid attention. Many demonized Dr Paul and other anti-war thinkers and writers as "unpatriotic". The pro-war types told us that this was, after all, part of the war against terrorism. (Back then, some even dared to use the phrase "Islamic terrorism".) "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them there!" "Nation-building is the best way to defeat the Taliban!" More bullshit, piled higher and deeper.

Those who opposed the war argued that the Taliban weren't out to get us, so much as to get us out of their country. It was a Muslim civil war, we said, in which we had no business meddling... no dog in that fight. Let them duke it out.

This week, the Washington Post is serializing "At War With the Truth: a secret history of the Afghanistan war", a massive report, based on hitherto secret military documents, proving that... wait for it... the whole Afghan war was a blunder from the getgo -- a colossal waste of money and lives. Putting it another way, we who opposed the war were right, after all. Lifetime pct .979.

MSN carries Monday's part of the WaPo report under the headline "Wasteful spending and half-baked ideas: U.S. officials reveal how massive rebuilding projects in Afghanistan backfired". The newly revealed government documents raise profound questions about the execution and results of the war in Afghanistan and the massive nation-building effort that surrounded it. No wonder, then, that the American government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents -- 2000 pages of interview records -- under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.

Through the interviews we hear the voice of Gen. Lute and scores of others who detail the core failings of the war that persist to this day. They underscore how three presidents -- George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump -- and their military commanders have been unable to deliver on their promises to prevail in Afghanistan. Here's a sample.

In 2015, US Army Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as the White House's Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers, "We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan -- we didn't know what we were doing. What are we trying to do here? We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.... If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction...." He blamed the deaths of 2400 American military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

Since 2001, more than 775,000 US troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Besides the 2300 (that's the Dept of Defense number) who died in that shithole, 20,589 were wounded in action.

The number of Canadians who went to Afghanistan and didn't return was much smaller -- 158 soldiers and seven civilians died -- but proportionately greater than US casualties. 40,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces served in Afghanistan. 158 soldiers and seven civilians were killed. Walt ran a body count, in those first years of WWW, each time asking the question "Why did they die?"

Another 2000 Canucks were wounded in a "peace-keeping/nation-building mission" (read" war) which began under a Liberal government and was then enthusiastically embraced by a Conservative government. In 2006 and 2008, Conservative and Liberal Members of Parliament voted together to extend the "mission", at a projected cost of as much as C$18 billion. The Canadians finally realized the war was unwinnable, and bailed out (of military involvement, at least) in 2014. The Americans are still there.

The conclusions of the Post's report -- that the war lacked clear direction and purpose, that the American government misled the public about the war's progress, that the effort to establish a new government in Afghanistan was misguided and quickly corrupted, that billions of dollars in aid and development money were mishandled -- should trouble not just Americans, but citizens and taxpayers of every country meddling in the Muslim civil war. Can our politicians please just cut the BS, bring the trooops and "foreign aid" personnel home, and leave the Islamists to make of their countries what they will. Please!!!

VIDEO: Ron Paul comments on long-overdue US withdrawal from Syria

In case no-one noticed, our blog quietly passed its 10th anniversary back in July. [If I'd remembered I'd have baked a cake. Ed.] How time flies when you're having fun! One of the themes that I write about again and again [and again and again. Ed.] is the folly of America being entangled in foreign wars that it can't win, especially the oil wars in the Gulf and Middle East. See, for example, "Will America never learn? The persistence of bad foreign policy" (WWW 2/5/13).

It's not that I'm a pacifist, or anti-Israel, or an apologist for the Islamists. I'm just a realist, like Ron Paul, and think it's stupid to waste tens of thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars meddling in and tens of thousands trying to act as referees in Muslim civil wars. Here's what Dr Paul has to say about Still-President Trump's announcement that US forces will be withdrawn from Syria, starting yesterday!



IMHO the withdrawal is long overdue! We have (dare I say it?) no dog in those fights. The USA will be no better off no matter who wins, and no worse off no matter who loses. The usual suspects say the Bushes, Slick Willy, and the Prez sent American forces to the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan, and kept them there, not just to convert the feudal Arab states to modern Western democracy, but to keep the Saudis and multinational companies in control of the oil that lies beneat the blood-stained desert sands.

I call BS on that. With the development of fracking and shale oil, and the slowly lessening use of plastics and other oil-based products, America is virtually self-sufficient in oil. And if the liberals on both sides of the Canada-US border would smarten up and support the development of Canada's oil sands and the import of Canadian oil through pipelines which the leftists don't want to be built or expanded, oil self-sufficiency would be guaranteed. Who needs Arab oil?!

Mr Trump's announcement late Sunday has set the lefties' hair on fire. Expressions of shock and horror are being heard from all liberal quarters, notably Brussels, the capital of the European Union, and (of course) the commentariat of America, Britain and Canada.
* America is leaving its Kurdish allies in the lurch!
* America is surrendering! Another failure for Trump!
* America is caving to Assad!
* The Turkish invasion of Syria will be disastrous!
* More millions of refugees will be washing up on our shores!
and, inevitably
* We're inviting a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and ISIS!

Walt says, who cares?! Let the Islamists duke it out. And if a humanitarian disaster ensures, let the Europeans and Canucks take care of it, if they're so minded... and can afford it. Getting out of the Middle East is absolutely the right thing to do. As Dr Paul and Dan McAdams say near the end of the video, it's not going to happen overnight, but this week's decision by Still-President Trump is a step in the right direction.

Further reading: "Worried for Kurds in Syria, abandoned by US? Here’s an obvious solution but it will make Washington hawks MAD", by Nebojsa Malic, on the Ron Paul Institute website, 8/10/19.

UPDATED: Iraq at Sweet (?) Sixteen - Why are we still there?

UPDATED ADDED 25/3/19 - This comes under the heading of "Further reading", but I just became aware of it this afternoon. Click here to read a transcript of Dr Ron Paul's speech to Congress opposing the authorization of military force against Iraq. If only they'd have listened!

Today is the 16th anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and then... chaos. The Paranoid States of America and its "Coalition of the Willing" involved themselves in the endless Muslim civil war -- a four-cornered one featuring Sunni Muslims vs Shia Muslims vs ISIS vs Kurds -- and there we are, still... 16 years later, after the expenditure of trillions of dollars (literally) and the loss of 1000s of lives of American and other Westerns. 16 years...

Is there any sign of the conflict in Iraq ending? NO! POTUS and our top military people tell us ISIS is "just about" defeated, reduced to a few hundred jihadis encircled in a shithole somewhere in Syria. Once they surrender, we can declare victory... again... and go home. Errr, not the part about going home. There will be a drawdown of some of the US personnel, sometime, but there will be a US presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because there is still a power vacuum, with no united and effective national government in place. And because ISIS has not been vanquished, but is merely going to ground. They will resurface at opportune times, whether in Iraq or Syria... or the Netherlands... or the USA!

I said "American-led" in the first sentence to emphasize that the US is not alone! In 2003, America's gallant ally, Canada, decided to take a pass on Iraq. Apparently the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien asked itself what the point of the mission was, and decided discretion was the better part of valour. A couple of years later, to repair relations with their disgruntled neighbours, the Canucks joined in the invasion of Afghanistan. After 160 troops lost their lives, the Canadians pulled out, leaving the US holding the Afghan bag.

But that was OK (they said) because they'd changed their mind and would send a token force to Iraq instead, to help with training and, like, you know... anything that didn't involve more body bags being repatriated. No more motorcades along the "Highway of Heroes", please! And more than a decade later, the Canucks are still there, working with the American forces to bring peace, order and good government to the shithole that is Iraq. Isn't that wonderful?

How appropriate, then, that Canuck Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan (a Sikh person) and Diplomat of the Year (2018 -- look it up) Chrystia Freeland (the one not wearing a turban) picked yesterday to announce that Canadian armed forces, almost 200 strong (!), will stay in Iraq for another two years... like it or not. That should come as a great relief to the US military. What would the "Coalition of the Willing" be without Canadians?! What do Canadian voters think of this exercise in peacekeeping and nation-building, and other initiatives of Just In Trudeau's Gliberal government? We'll see in October.

Further reading: The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, by George Packer. Farrar Strauss & Giroux, New York, 2005. Mr Packer's thesis is that President Bush II and his advisers (Hello! Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) had no idea what they were getting into when they pressed ahead with the invasion of Iraq even though Saddam posed no threat to the USA or even his Gulf neighbours, and no plan whatever for stabilizing and rebuilding the shithole once the invasion was over. And remember, he wrote this book in 2005. Things only got worse after that. Where and when will it all end?!

VIDEO: Why Ron Paul voted against Martin Luther King Day

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday in the USA, although not widely celebrated everywhere, including in my corner of the woods. The law proclaiming the holiday was passed by Congress in 1983. Dr Ron Paul was a member of the House of Representatives then. In this 21-minute video he explains why.

VIDEO: Ron Paul looks at the year that was and the year to come

It's been some time since we've reposted a video featuring Dr Ron Paul. Thanks to President Trump's surprise announcement of an imminent pull-out from the Middle East, there seems to be... at last... the prospect of disengagement from the Muslim civil war. See "Getting out of the Muslim civil wars - about time!", WWW 21/12/18.

In this review, Dr Paul and Daniel McAdams discuss what the Ron Paul Institute has accomplished in 2018 and what they have planned 2019. Spoiler alert! There's a new book coming out -- The Individual versus the Collective -- and they tell you how to get an advance copy, FREE! And you'll learn how you can help spread the message of peace and prosperity. Running time: 10:27.



Naysayers (including some Republicans!) are calling on the President to reverse his decision to remove all US troops from Syria and several thousand from Afghanistan. The neocons, lametream media, and even some progressives suddenly find themselves defending the endless and pointless Gulf wars. A strong voice for the principles of disengagement and non-intervention in foreign affairs is needed now more than ever. Ron Paul is that voice, and Walt urges you, dear reader, to give him your support.

Getting out of the Muslim civil wars - about time!

I don't understand the reaction of American civilians, Republican and Democrat alike, to Still-President Trump's announcement this week that he intends to bring US troops home from Syria and Afghanistan. Daniel McAdams, writing on Ron Paul's website, says that "Washington heads are exploding", and so it would seem, but why? Is the Paranoid States of America a nation of warmongers? Do Americans really believe that the best defence against Islamic terrorism is to hammer the jihadis in their own sandpit? Does no-one see any merit in getting out of the Muslim civil war that is really none of our business? As Mr Trump says, "Are we going to stay there forever?"

Mr McAdams writes: The warmongering Left has joined forces with the neocons to demand that President Trump reverse course in his recent decision to pull US troops from Syria. Neocons claim that ISIS will increase with the US absence, but it was the very US intervention in the region - that they supported - that led to the rise of extremist and terrorist groups.

Indeed. It was interventionism -- the insane desire to be the world's policeman and bring the so-called "pax Americana" to a war-weary world -- that got the USA into the Gulf Wars. Shortly after 9/11, US troops stormed into Afghanistan, which had littlel if anything to do with the attack. Since then, America has lost more than 2400 soldiers and spent nearly a trillion dollars in its longest war ever. And with what result? The Islamists control about half of that shithole, the rest being controlled (in theory) by a feckless government that can't keep its notional army from killing the Westerners who are there to "help" them. Does that make any sense?

I can understand the displeasure of the American military with the President's decision. Secretary of Defense James Mattis departed in a huff [a minute-and-a-huff? Ed.]. He is emblematic of the super-macho militaristic types that have held the highest ranks in the American armed forces ever since World War II. They are the philosophical heirs of Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, William Westmoreland, and [That's enough generals. Ed.] who delight in sending American kids overseas to kill... and be killed... because there's no fighting to be done at home, but if there's no fighting, there won't be any need for the billions in defence spending, and many brass hats will be out of their jobs.

And what is the result? "Pax Americana" is a myth! Ever since its troops landed in Korea as part of the Disunited Nations' "police action", America has been at war -- declared or otherwise -- with someone, somewhere, every single hour of every single day. What has that cost the nation, in treasure, in lives, and the foregone benefits of peace? With President Trump, I ask: Is this going to continue forever?

In the summer of 2017, the President announced that he was adding about 1000 more troops to those already in Afghanistan to bolster the "training and advising" mission, which we are supposed to believe doesn't involve any fighting, just teaching the Islamists how to fight. But, Mr Trump said, doing so went against his instinct. Since then, security conditions in Afghanistan have not improved, according to the latest government watchdog report.

And then there's Syria. US forces were sent to that shithole to Syria to work with local Syrian and Kurdish "partners" on the ground to help defeat ISIS. Now, the President says, that mission has been largely accomplished, and in terms of the amount of territory controlled, that would appear to be the case.

Of course the jihadis haven't been exterminated. They've simply gone to ground, or gone elsewhere. 1000s of them have migrated to Europe and, yes, America, disguised as "refugees" and asylum-seekers. So the fight against them should continue, wherever they may be found... but not in the sandpit. Leave the mopping up to the Turks, the Kurds and other Muslims. "Keep at it, Mohammeds, and lots of luck to you. We're done with you!" That's what I would like to hear all of the lawmakers in Washington say. I can't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

Your Islamic bombings today - Afraghanistan again

Let it never be said that ISIS discriminates in its choice of places to bomb or carry out knife or van attacks on, well, anybody. As previous posts on WWW this weekend show, it was post-Christian Europe (Paris) yesterday, and the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia earlier today. Now comes a report from the Islamic heartland, Kabul, the capital of Armpitistan, of yet another suicide bombing in that shithole country.

Officials in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar say that Islamic militants attacked a provincial government building there today, sending at least nine followers of the Prophet to Paradise. A spokesthingy for the governor of Nangarhar province said a suicide car bomb exploded outside a building which belongs to the provincial finance directorate.

The attackers then stormed the building, trading fire with security officials. He said security forces killed one of the attackers and surrounded the building, adding that the gun battle was still underway. At the local hospital, another spokesthingy told the meeja nine people were killed and more than 35 wounded.

As usual, no-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. As usual, Western media report that both the Taliban and a local affiliate ISIS have carried out numerous attacks in the region. The Muslim civil war continues. So, alas, does Western involvement.

Further reading:
"'Allahu akbar!' in Afghanistan - ISIS kills scores as Americans stand by", WWW 22/4/18.
"'Allahu akbar!' - Taliban and ISIS strike Armpitistan again", WWW 6/5/18.
"Ron Paul on Afghanistan: 'failed policy, purposeless war'", WWW 11/7/16.

VIDEO: Hi ho! Hi ho! It's off to war we go...

Ed. here. We try to avoid reposting items from other blogs without at least adding an introduction or other pertinent comment by Walt. However, Walt is under the weather -- suffering from the Grey Goose flu [a particularly severe form of avian flu] perhaps -- and the text introducing this video featuring Dr. Ron Paul is sufficiently disturbing that nothing more need be said. Here's what they say.

The new, bi-partisan authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) introduced by Senators Kaine and Corker is billed as evidence that Congress is finally taking its Constitutional war-making authority seriously. This could not be further from the truth. Congress is about to grant the president "forever war" power and return to its slumber. Bad for America.




Further reading: Liberty Defined, by Dr. Ron Paul, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. A comprehensive guide to Dr. Paul's position on 50 of the most important issues of our times, from Abortion to Zionism.

Dr. Paul writes that to believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions. It is the seed of America.

VIDEO: Meanwhile, in the Middle East, something big is on the horizon

Are we witnessing the beginning of a bigger Middle East war? ISIS seems to be just about finished, at least in the sense of occupying a defined territory. The Syrian government of Basher Assad has overrun the last ISIS stronghold and seems likely to turn its attention to putting the Kurds back in their place. The Kurds are also being attacked by the so-called Iraqi National Army. Those conflicts will continue, while the western powers dither about whose side they should be on. See "Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who", WWW 16/10/17 and "Why the Canadian Army is 'suspending' ops in Iraq", WWW 2810/17.

Here's the scary part. The fighting in Syria and Iraq is just a proxy war, a smaller part of the larger Muslim civil war between the Shi'ites (read: Iran) and the Sunnis (read: Saudi Arabia). Recent events suggest that an escalation of that conflict is imminent. This month has seen a huge purge among Saudi royals, accusations of Lebanese aggression, and threats by Hezbollah. Recent semi-secret trips by (((Jared Kushner))), President Trump's son-in-law and advisor to visit with the Saudi crown prince raise questions about the position of the USA. Israeli policy seems to be lining up with Saudi regional policy against Iran and Hezbollah. The Yemen war is at a standstill. Tensions are rising throughout the sandpit.

Is this the start of something big? In the November 7th edition of the Ron Paul Liberty Report (running time 16:50) Dr. Paul and co-host Daniel McAdams analyze the signs and portents, and conclude that we are getting ever closer to a major conflict. Notice that I didn't use the word "Armageddon", but only because they didn't use it!



Walt suggests that you bookmark the Ron Paul Liberty Report. There's a new broadcast every day at noon, Eastern Time.

VIDEO: Ron Paul talks about states rights, the Confederacy and the vision of Robert E. Lee

All the fuss in Charlottesville VA (see Walt's first post today) started when the local government caved in to pressure from the SJWs, antifas, BLMers and other lefties and race-mixers, and decided to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from its place of honour in a city park that once bore the name of the Confederate general, but was renamed "Emancipation Park". The statue was to have been removed a few days ago, but patriotic citizens got a court order putting this blatant attempt to rewrite history on hold for six months.

The Charlottesville "incident" began on Friday night with a march on the University of Virginia campus by white nationalists waving Confederate flags, wearing helmets and carrying shields, and chanting "You will not replace us!" This morning demonstrators from both sides confronted each other in McIntire Park, just outside of town. The BLMers waved their own flags, which strongly resemble the flag of Libya -- red, black and green horizontal stripes. One thing led to another. Result: 1 dead, 34 injured and counting.

This seems like a good time, then, to give some thought to the causes and issues which provoked and were fought over during the Glorious War of the Secession -- things like states rights, habeas corpus, slavery, income tax, the draft, and the power of the federal government. Who better to put these issues into perspective than Ron Paul. In this seldom-seen video he talks about all of those things, and the prophetic vision of Robert E. Lee. Running time 17:39.

See you in September?

Summer is speeding by and Walt is planning his post-Labour Day travel schedule. I'm circling the calendar for a don't-miss event to be held in the nation's capital on September 9th, although I'm not sure the old Plymouth will make it all the way to Richmond. [Walt! Try to keep up. It's not Richmond any more. Ed.] Oh. I see. Well... Let's just look at the poster.

Yes, dear reader, Ron Paul is still preaching his message of conservatism and common sense. Amidst all the hoo-rah of the Trump presidency, there's still lots of interest in Mr Paul's foreign policy of non-intervention in the affairs of others, a strong defence of America and an end to the trillion-dollar military empire overseas. Readership at the Ron Paul Institute website is up and viewership of the Ron Paul Liberty Report continues to increase.

We live in a society of splendid isolation. Instead of going to church, joining service clubs, or gathering at the local watering hole to discuss the events of the day, people sit in front of their computers or thumbing their "devices" [??? Ed.], kidding themselves that they are connecting with others via the Internet. Walt has never done Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other anti-social media. I call them that because it seems most of the people posting on FB etc are so busy posting that they have no time to socialize with anyone in person. See Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). But I digress...

Yes... It's all very well to keep informed by reading Internet blogs and articles and watching videos, but we also need to meet in person -- face-to-face -- with other like-minded people. We need to hear from those who are out there in the front lines. Any true movement -- religious, political or otherwise -- is built on human contact and connections.

If you agree with all (or at least some) of the sentiments expressed by Ron Paul, or Yours Very Truly, you'll find hundreds of like-minded people at the Dulles Airport Marriott, just outside of Washington DC, this coming September 9th, as the Ron Paul Institute holds its second major foreign policy conference. At the rostrum will be Mr Paul, of course, plus Lew Rockwell, Daniel McAdams and other erudite and interesting speakers TBA.

The conference proper runs from 0930 to 1500, and a "whistleblowers' roundtable" will follow. What could that be? Be there to find out! Tickets are just $75, and are expected to sell out well in advance. The Marriott folks are offering a special rate to conference attenders. Click here for tickets and/or more information. You never know who you may see there!

VIDEO: Ron Paul talks about how Trump is doing so far

I have tried and tried to write some thoughts on the Trump presidency, as it has eventuated or evolved so far. The problem is that the situation, the policies, the executive orders, the stated directions in which we're going, change day by day, perhaps even hour by hour. I write a couple of paragraphs, then I hear an announcement that we're now back to Original Policy 2A and all bets are off.

Apparently I'm not the only one who is mystified by the differences between what President Trump said he'd do, what he is doing and what he intends to do. Ron Paul, a pretty astute observer, is having the same problem, as he tells Alex Jones in this 21-minute video. Agent 17 and other perplexed persons are invited to watch and take note.

VIDEO: Was President Trump right to attack Syria?

Let me answer the headline question for you. NO! What President Trump should have done was stick with his position, enunciated long before the election, that the US should stay out of foreign entanglements, of which the Muslim civil war is the chief example. Yet the President Trump sent 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria in retaliation for what he claimed was a chemical attack on civilians by Syrian President Assad. He sought no Congressional authorization and presented no evidence to either Congress or the American people to justify his actions.

Some of President Trump's most dedicated admirers, including Yours Very Truly, were stunned by the news. The missile strike was pretty much what his defeated rival, Hellery Clinton, would have done, had she had her trembling finger on the button. On Thursday she told a women's forum she would "take out" Assad's airfields, and that's what the missile strike launched that same day was supposed to do.

Kevin MacDonald, the editor of The Occidental Observer, called the US attack on Syria "a betrayal". In a phone interview the morning after the missiles were launched, he told the CBC, "I'm concerned now this whole administration is going the way of the neocons. The whole nine yards." Mr MacDonald thought President Trump was supposed to be an "America First" leader focused on a non-interventionist foreign policy. Now, he said, "I'm very disappointed; very agitated."

Richard Spencer, who coined the term "alt-right", expressed his displeasure in a video titled "The Trump Betrayal". Alex Jones, host of InfoWars, said on his show Mr Trump was "disintegrating in my eyes." And former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos wrote on Facebook, "There comes a day in every child's life when his Daddy bitterly disappoints him."

What happens next, as the President opens wider the US military involvement in the Middle East? Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) joins Ron Paul's Liberty Report to discuss "US Bombs Syria - National Security Or Aggression?"



Further reading: "Let’s Allow The Syrian People To Decide For Themselves", by Ron Paul, posted 3/4/17, before the missile strike.

More reading, even better (added 11/4/17): Click here to read "Shocked But Not Awed: An Open Letter to President Trump", by Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara, in Fetzen Fliegen (a Remant newspaper blog), 10/4/17.

Walt's plan for the war in the Middle East

During the US election campaign, Hellery Clinton responded to challenges on what she was going to do to win the war against the Islamic terrorists -- the ones she wouldn't call by name -- by saying that she had a plan, which included the capture of Mosul, which would fall in a matter of days. Donald Trump said that even if the anti-ISIS "coalition" succeeded in liberating Mosul, they'd find the IS leaders long gone, precisely because La Clinton had given them plenty of notice, plus details of President 0's plans to "degrade" the soldiers of the Prophet.

As I pointed out a few days ago, in "Meanwhile, in the Middle East...", predictions of the capture of Mosul turned out to be premature. Latest reports are that the Kurds, advancing from the area they control in northern Iraq, are stalled at the gates of the city. The alleged Iraqi National Army, coming up from the south, has been unable to prevent ISIS fighters from breaking out to the west and south, heading for Syria. Enough of the terrorists remain in Mosul to make its fall uncertain at best.

Meanwhile, the eyes and ears of the world have turned toward Syria, where ISIS has retaken the ancient city of Palmyra, which it lost some nine months ago. Turns out this great victory for the "coalition" was, errr, of a temporary nature. As in Afghanistan and Iraq, "we" learned that occupying and securing a given area is rather more difficult than taking it in the first place. I can almost hear the cries of "They're baaaack!"

If you believe the propaganda dished out every day by the lamestream media, the retaking of Palmyra by ISIS isn't that big a deal. What is a big deal is the fall of Aleppo -- once Syria's biggest city -- not to ISIS but to [SHOCK! HORROR!] the forces of the evil, devilish, inhuman Bashir al-Assad! With more than a little help in the form of airstrikes by the Russians, Syrian government forces have entered and taken control of 99% of the eastern part of Aleppo, which had been held by rebel militias for years. MORE SHOCK! MORE HORROR!

The chattering classes and spokesthingies for liberal democracy are engaging in an orgy of handwringing, pissing and moaning that almost defies description. Here's a sample, written by someone called Terry Glavin [Who he? Ed.] in today's Emotional Post. "J’accuse! May Allah look down in his mercy upon Aleppo — no help is coming from us. This is what we have become. This is the depravity to which we have all sunk. Aleppo has fallen and so has humanity. We are disgraced."

Walt doesn't see it quite that way. There have been some civilian casualties in the battle for Aleppo, to be sure, including women and children. Hundreds, not thousands, have been killed, but those numbers pale in comparison to the numbers executed -- not killed in fighting, but executed -- by ISIS. So why is it the "end of civilization" when Syrian government forces do the killing, but not when atrocities are committed by the Sunni Muslim rebels and the Islamic extremists of ISIS? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.

As of this morning, the Assad government controls most of western Syria, which is the only part of the country worth having. The Kurds have most of their homeland in northern Iraq. ISIS holds their capital, Raqqa, as well as Mosul (still) and Palmyra (again). The alleged Iraqi government has a tenuous hold on Baghdad, but not much else. Their ill-trained and timorous army is (sometimes) fighting it out with ISIS for eastern Syria and south-central Iraq. I'll go out on a limb here and predict that there will be no significant change of any kind in the year to come. Lifetime pct .985.

What, then, should the USA, soon to be under new management, do about the Middle East? I've given it a lot of thought [All this week? Ed.] and can come up with no better plan than to bug out and let the Muslims duke it out amongst themselves. That, in essence, is what Ron Paul has been saying for years. The Syrian armed forces, with the help of the Russians, will keep pushing eastward, while the Kurds, helped by the Iranians, will keep pushing down from the north. Let them destroy the Sunnis (ISIS plus assorted rebel militias) if they can, and good luck to them. We’ve got no skin in that game.

Further reading: "Some Perspectives on the War on Terror: Anyway you look at it, it's a failure", by Philip Giraldi, in The Unz Review, 20/12/16.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East...

A random selection of headlines from this weekend's news...

- 25 dead after bomb explodes during Mass at Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo

- Turkey stadium bombing death toll rises to 38, including 30 police officers

- 9 months after being driven out, IS militants recapture Palmyra

- Iraqi offensive against ISIS stronghold in Mosul stalls; Defense Secretary Carter arrives to assess situation

- Syrian army, Russian warplanes pound rebel-held Aleppo but advances halt

- Death toll hits 45 in Yemen suicide bombing

- Kerry calls for "grace" as Syrians set to take Aleppo

- US Sends 200 More Troops To Syria Days After Obama Lifts Ban On Arms Supplies To Rebels

Meanwhile, the Prez (soon to be ex-Prez) thinks the most important thing he should do before leaving office (at last!) is to prove that the Russians are responsible for the election of Donald Trump. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Further reading: "Trump’s Promised 'New Foreign Policy' Must Abandon Regime Change for Iran", by Ron Paul, 4/12/16.