Volume 1, No.2, July 29, 2013 by Ron Paul Last week’s House debate on the Defense Appropriations bill for 2014 produced a bit more drama than usual. After hearing that House leadership would do away with the traditional “open rule” allowing for debate on any funding limitation amendment, it was surprising to see that Rep. Justin Amash’s (R-MI) amendment was allowed on the Floor. In the wake of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extent of US government spying on American citizens, Amash’s amendment sought to remove funding in the bill for some of the NSA programs. | | |  by Daniel McAdams Bradley Manning finds his escape routes from a life sentence for his whistle-blowing quickly shut down by judges who are closely tied to the prosecutors, and as whistle-blower Edward Snowden faces life on the run from the largest intelligence network in history along with its army of drones, US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul found time to Tweet his extreme dissatisfaction with a criminal trial in Moscow. “We are deeply disappointed in the conviction of Navalny and the apparent political motivations in this trial,” he announced to his Twitter followers. The irony escaped him, to be sure. |  NEOCON WATCH It is probably not completely fair to label establishmentarian "serious thinker" Anthony Cordesman a neocon, though his entire career has been more or less spent in their service, including as John McCain's national security aide. But here at Neocon Watch we have to judge the man (or woman) by the words they utter. And Cordesman unleashed a whopper this morning in the Washington Post. PEACE AND PROSPERITY BLOG Former director of the CIA and NSA, General Michael Hayden, oversaw the early construction of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping database of the telephone conversations of American citizens. He demonstrated his ignorance by arguing in a 2006 interview that the 4th Amendment of the Constitution did not mention "probable cause." While Director of Central Intelligence he fought for a new rules of engagement for US drone operators that allowed them to shoot at vehicles based solely on the behavior of the drivers rather than any suspected association with terrorism. It is not known how many innocent people were murdered based on Hayden's directions. | |  CONGRESS ALERT The Huffington Post reports today that NSA director General Keith Alexander called an emergency Top Secret/ SCI-level meeting on Capitol Hill to urge Members to vote against Rep. Justin Amash's (R-MI) amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill which would end blanket collection authority under the Patriot Act and stop the NSA and other agencies "from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect records, including telephone call records, that pertain to persons who are not subject to an investigation under Section 215." by W. Patrick Lang Zalmay Khalilzad is a neocon operative. I remember the time just after the first Gulf War when he was my guest for lunch at the Army and Navy Club in Washington. He was then some sort of minor sub-cabinet political appointee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He had authored a draft strategy statement for the Department of Defense that was a preview of the neocon vision of imperial expansion and sphere of influence policy that became dominant in the Bush 43 Administration. |  by Eric Margolis World War II has never really ended for Japan. Sixty-eight years after the battleship US “Missouri” sailed into Tokyo Bay to receive the surrender of the Japanese Empire, Japan still behaves like a meek, defeated nation rather than one of the world’s great powers – and great peoples.
RPI in the News: The Moscow Times The institute named after Ron Paul, the Republican candidate in the 2012 presidential race, issued a statement by its executive director Daniel McAdams stressing the absurdity of the call to boycott the Sochi Olympics. "The original U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics [in Moscow] was meant to embarrass the Soviet Union for its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S., of course, went on to arm and train the Afghan mujahedeen to drive the Soviets out. After this, the mujahedeen set up an Islamic state, gave refuge to bin Laden and al-Qaida, were implicitly an accessory to the 9/11 attacks, were then invaded by the U.S. [in 2001], fought a 12 year war, and finally are poised to take over again as the U.S. desperately seeks to sue for peace while exiting as quickly as possible," McAdams writes. | | | |
