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Ron Paul: Abolish the CIA!

Haspel is Not the Problem. The CIA is the Problem.

By 

Ron Paul Institute

May 24, 2018

As a general rule, when Dick Cheney favors a foreign policy position it’s best to be on the opposite side if you value liberty over war and authoritarianism. The former vice president’s enthusiastic endorsement of not only Gina Haspel as CIA director but of the torture program she oversaw should tell us all we need to know about Haspel.

Saying that Haspel would make a great CIA director, Cheney dismissed concerns over the CIA’s torture program. Asked in a television interview last week about the program, Cheney said, “if it were my call, I’d do it again.”

Sadly, the majority of the US Senate agreed with Cheney that putting a torturer in charge of the CIA was a good idea. Only two Republicans – Senators Paul and Flake – voted against Haspel. And just to confirm that there really is only one political party in Washington, it was the “yes” vote of crossover Democrats that provided the margin of victory. Americans should really be ashamed of those sent to Washington to represent us.

Just this month, the New York Times featured an article written by a woman who was kidnapped and send to the secret CIA facility in Thailand that Haspel was said to have overseen. The woman was pregnant at the time and she recounted in the article how her CIA torturers would repeatedly punch her in the stomach. She was not convicted or even accused of a crime. She was innocent. But she was tortured on Haspel’s watch.

Is this really what we are as a country? Do we really want to elevate such people to the highest levels of government where they can do more damage to the United States at home and overseas?

As the news comes out that Obama holdovers in the FBI and CIA infiltrated the Trump campaign to try and elect Hillary Clinton, President Trump’s seeming lack of understanding of how the deep state operates is truly bewildering. The US increasingly looks like a banana republic, where the permanent state and not the people get to decide who’s in charge.

But instead of condemning the CIA’s role in an attempted coup against his own administration, Trump condemned former CIA director John Brennan for “undermining confidence” in the CIA. Well, the CIA didn’t need John Brennan to undermine our confidence in the CIA. The Agency itself long ago undermined the confidence of any patriotic American. Not only has the CIA been involved in torture, it has manipulated at least 100 elections overseas since its founding after WWII.

As President Trump watched Gina Haspel being sworn in as CIA director, he praised her: “You live the CIA. You breathe the CIA. And now you will lead the CIA,” he said. Yes, Mr. President, we understand that. But that’s the problem!

The problem is not Haspel, it’s not John Brennan, it’s not our lack of confidence. The problem is the CIA itself. If the president really cared about our peace, prosperity, and security, he would take steps to end this national disgrace. It’s time to abolish the CIA!

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Double Standards in the Media? You’re Joking!

Selective Horror: By Moshe Feiglin

May-23-2018

Hats off to Israel’s public broadcast corporation, which has not let us forget for one moment that a police officer kicked an Arab, leftist protester in his leg over the weekend. Police brutality, particularly when it is directed at detainees – is a very serious matter and it is good that it is being spotlighted. But after an opening monologue on the event and 20 minutes into the newscast on Israel Broadcasting Corporation, they were still on the same topic. In an attempt to hear the news, I switched over to Israel Army Radio, but they were also talking exclusively about the same item.

Hats off to the media for their valiant struggle for human rights in Israel? Not so fast. Last week, the sixth Arab house in the village of Duma was burned. When the second home was burned and three of its residents killed, the media was up in arms. Somebody had written “revenge” in Hebrew on one of the walls of the home and nothing more was necessary. The media were absolutely convinced that the perpetrators were “the hilltop youth”.

“Why hasn’t anybody been arrested yet?” the media mantra reached a crescendo, and Defense Minister Bogi Ya’alon hurried to supply the goods. Tens of hilltop youth were arrested and severely tortured, with the backing of the relevant legal counsels and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. This was not about a kick in the leg, which did or did not take place, but rather,  actual severe torture perpetrated against minors over many long weeks – all supported by the media (and shamefully, also with the support and encouragement of ministers Bennett and Shaked, who joined in the frenzy and even stoked the fire).

What came out of all of the arrests? Out of the tens of boys tortured, there were two indictments, which rely mainly on confessions under torture. The two are still in prison in harsh conditions and their trial has not yet begun. In the meantime, a preliminary trial is underway to determine if it is legal to accept confessions attained under torture.

All the while, the houses in Duma continue to go up in smoke. All of them belong to the same extended family, all of them on the same street. So who keeps burning the houses in Duma? Perhaps it is a simple clan war, common in Arab society, and had nothing to do with the hilltop youth?

Yes, it is good to bring police brutality out in the open. It is good that the media is talking about the police officer who kicked the Arab protester. But has anyone heard the media opening with a monologue about tens of youths who were tortured for naught and never indicted? Don’t the continued arsons in Duma demand the release – at least to house arrest – of the two detained youths?

So allow me to doubt the honesty of the public broadcasting struggle on behalf of human rights in Israel. It is actually all about politics. Just politics.

From Zehut, here.

Ron Paul: The US Government Terrorizes the Middle East

Trump’s Plan for Iran: Put Terrorists in Charge

By 

Ron Paul Institute

May 15, 2018

Back in the 2008 presidential race, I explained to then-candidate Rudy Giuliani the concept of “blowback.” Years of US meddling and military occupation of parts of the Middle East motivated a group of terrorists to carry out attacks against the United States on 9/11. They didn’t do it because we are so rich and so free, as the neocons would have us believe. They came over here because we had been killing Muslims “over there” for decades.

How do we know this? Well, they told us. Osama bin Laden made it clear why al-Qaeda sought to attack the US. They didn’t like the US taking sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict and they didn’t like US troops on their holy land.

Why believe a terrorist, some responded. As I explained to Giuliani ten years ago, the concept of “blowback” is well-known in the US intelligence community and particularly by the CIA.

Unfortunately, it is clear that Giuliani never really understood what I was trying to tell him. Like the rest of the neocons, he either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it. In a recent speech to the MeK – a violent Islamist-Marxist cult that spent two decades on the US terror watch list – Giuliani promised that the Trump Administration had made “regime change” a priority for Iran. He even told the members of that organization – an organization that has killed dozens of Americans – that Trump would put them in charge of Iran!

Giuliani shares with numerous other neocons like John Bolton a strong relationship with this group. In fact, both Giuliani and Bolton have been on the payroll of the MeK and have received tens of thousands of dollars to speak to their followers. This is another example of how foreign lobbies and special interest groups maintain an iron grip on our foreign policy.

Does anyone really think Iran will be better off if Trump puts a bunch of “former” terrorists in charge of the country? How did that work in Libya?

It’s easy to dismiss the bombastic Giuliani as he speaks to his financial benefactors in the MeK. Unfortunately, however, Giuliani’s claims were confirmed late last week, when the Washington Free Beacon published a three-page policy paper being circulated among National Security Council officials containing plans to spark regime change in Iran.

The paper suggests that the US focus on Iran’s many ethnic minority groups to spark unrest and an eventual overthrow of the government. This is virtually the same road map that the US has followed in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and so on. The results have been unmitigated disaster after disaster.

Unleashing terrorists on Iran to overthrow its government is not only illegal and immoral: it’s also incredibly stupid. We know from 9/11 that blowback is real, even if Giuliani and the neocons refuse to understand it. Iran does not threaten the United States. Unlike Washington’s Arab allies in the region, Iran actually holds reasonably democratic elections and has a Western-oriented, educated, and very young population.

Why not open up to Iran with massive amounts of trade and other contacts? Does anyone (except for the neocons) really believe it is better to unleash terrorists on a population than to engage them in trade and travel? We need to worry about blowback from President Trump’s fully-neoconized Middle East policy! That’s the real threat!

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Tesla Is Fake News

“Boring… Next”

By 

When financial analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Sanford C. Bernstein asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk about the money-losing electric car company’s capital requirements going forward (Tesla has burned through – cue Dr. Evil – one billion dollars in three of the last four quarters) Musk replied: “Boring, bonehead questions are not cool. Next?”

For sheer effrontery, this tops even The Chimp’s I am the Decider!

Neither man gives a damn about the damage – human or financial – imposed on others. Nor that others are made to pay for it all. They don’t even give lip service to pretending anything they do bothers them in the least. All that matters is a Great Dream – whether it’s “regime change” in some resource-rich country which hasn’t attacked us (a war crime, once upon a time) or this equally demented business of manufacturing electric cars that almost no one would freely buy absent the subsidies and mandates.

Raise your hand, ask a reasonable question – and it’s dismissed as “boring” and “boneheaded.”

Sacconaghi was also lectured by Musk to not “make a federal case” out of Tesla failing to achieve the ludicrous 25 percent gross profit margin on sales of the Model 3 it claimed it would make. A reasonable question, given most legitimate car manufacturers – those whose cars sell on their economic merits, without needing taxpayer-financed propping-up via subsidies and mandates – earn about 4 percent or so.

“That’s something that we’ll solve like within three months to six months later,” Musk said.

The sun will come out, tomorrow…

The guy is a crony capitalist Rasputin. He bewitches and seduces. Whatever the ersatz Iron Man says is taken as holy writ, not to be questioned.

Another analyst, Joe Spak of RBC Capital Markets, had the audacity to ask Elon a question relating to the true cost of the Model 3 – production of which is also nothing close to what Elon promised, but never mind that.

“Boring. Next,” came the reply.

With good reason. Move way from that one as quickly as possible.

Musk likes to tout the “estimated” $35,000 base price of the Model 3 – about half the price (but not the actual cost) of the Model S. The touting is critical. Musk knows – even if he won’t admit – that the electric car is a non-starter as a mass-market car unless the price (if not the cost – more on that in a moment) comes down to a number that the mass market can deal with.

Given that most people – most families – have an annual income of $60,000 or less, a car that costs $40,000 or more is not going to work economically, regardless of its “carbon footprint” or how quickly it can accelerate to 60 MPH. Even if it didn’t take 9-10 times as long to recharge vs. refuel (and even then, only a partial  – 80 percent – charge due to load imposed by the “fast” charger) and wasn’t range-gimped vs. a regular car.

Read the Whole Article

From Lewrockwell.com, here.

Is It Globalism or Isolationism?

Exposing the True Isolationists

By 

July 24, 2007

 

Last week, I wrote about the ideology of globalism and how it underlies certain government policies. Managed trade agreements, international military adventurism, and amnesty for illegal immigrants all emanate from this ideology.

Yet globalism has a consequence that is, if we are to believe the rhetoric of its greatest proponents, entirely unintended. Globalists often label those of us who resist their schemes as “isolationist.” Yet it is, somewhat remarkably, the globalists themselves who promote policies that isolate our nation from the rest of the world.

In terms of modern politics, isolationism is not so much an approach to American foreign policy as it is the result of the policies enacted by proponents of globalism. From offensive statements about “Old Europe” (as differentiated from “New Europe”), necessitated by the desire to justify a military presence in Iraq, to conflicts at the WTO, the flowery rhetoric of the neo-conservatives often takes vicious turns when unrealistic policies meet with reality.

In their hopes to remake the world in their image, the globalist elite who run much of America’s policy-making apparatus simply further isolate our country from the rest of the world. By claiming a moral superiority that is so evidently absent when the effects of their policies are witnessed, neo-conservatives have made America seem hypocritical to many abroad.

America is now held in low esteem in many nations, not because we follow our own interests, but because the elites make claims that are not reflected in reality. They have, for example, undertaken economic sanctions in an entirely new way in recent years. When they wanted to take aim at Iraq and Iran, they imposed sanctions against those countries, but also against countries doing business with those countries. This meant we were in no position to negotiate with our adversaries, and we also could not rely on support from our allies.

Yet this globalism often bumps into itself, because of our second-party sanctions against Iran, our international commitments to the space station, for example, were put into jeopardy. Also, consider the fiasco that happened as a result of sanctions on Iraq. Thousands of Iraqi children starved to death, causing (according to the 9/11 commission report) great resentment against America, yet some managed trade was allowed to continue, managed of course by the globalists in the UN oil for food program. This program resulted in yet another UN scandal.

Despite the protestations of the neo-conservatives, this UN program is not the only example of personal enrichment that comes to the mind of those who doubt America’s authenticity due to these policies. Does anybody remember Richard Perle’s resignation from the defense policy board?

To reset the debate in a way that reflects reality, it is important for us to reject the idea that the choice is between globalism and isolation. Instead, we must stand firm for national sovereignty, constitutional republicanism, and international cooperation. We should realize that America’s current isolation is simply a consequence of globalism gone awry.

From Lewrockwell.com, here.