Despite the lifting of international sanctions against Iran earlier this year, the United States government intends to continue denying Iranian companies access to the US financial system. This highlights how the US financial system is viewed not as a market-based system in which private companies are free to do what they want, but rather as a tool of the federal government used to carry out the government’s policy aims. For the banks, it’s a mixed bag. On the one hand, US banks have to comply with the federal government’s edicts, now matter how draconian. On the other hand, they continue to benefit from high barriers to entry that keep out competitors, as well as from subsidies such as deposit insurance and access to the Federal Reserve’s discount window and bailout facilities.
But this continued refusal to allow Iranian access to the US financial system also does just as much to hamper US trade abroad as it does to harm Iranian industry. Even dollar-denominated trades made in Europe could not be made through European subsidiaries of US banks, but would have to be made wholly through European banks. That is of course harmful to US banks, who stand to lose out on potential business with Iranian firms.
Yesterday’s “no” vote in a Dutch referendum on Ukrainian accession to the European Union has Brussels in a panic. None of the other EU member states allowed a popular vote on bringing in basket case Ukraine — their parliaments rubber-stamped the agreement. But because unanimity is required for any new members, the Dutch “no” — even if only technically advisory — means that the deal is scrapped. For now, at least. Brussels has a way of bringing back vote after vote until the people choose the “right” way. But for now, the result is a huge boost for the Brexit movement as well as for other Euroskeptic parties and politicians throughout Europe. Why did the Dutch vote no? Frustration and anger over Brussels’ immigration policy, over the EU blindly following the US “regime change” of Ukraine that has left the country worse off than before, and over Ukraine’s suspicious secrecy on the facts of the 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 over eastern Ukraine. What’s next? It could get interesting…
I have long believed that well-made films offer a rich source of moral insight, and Drone Strike, directed by Chris Richmond, is no exception to the rule. It’s a very short film, less than twenty minutes long, but like a carefully crafted short-story, it packs a mighty punch. The primary means of conveying its message is to switch back and forth between two families in two very different contexts: a white-skinned family living amidst all of the modern conveniences in the United Kingdom, and a brown-skinned family living with hardly any modern conveniences in Afghanistan.
The father and husband in the UK, Will Brydon, is a Royal Air Force (RAF) drone operator. He dons a uniform, grabs a quick breakfast with his family, kisses his wife goodbye, and drives his car off to work, dropping his son off at school along the way.
Brydon’s office is a trailer, not unlike those at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Like his analogues in the United States, he spends his day sitting before a screen, joystick in hand, ready to “engage” targets as orders are transmitted to him by a radio dispatcher. Brydon has no direct access to the intelligence being used by analysts and commanders to determine whom to kill, but he is able to see the targets before firing on them. When he and his comrade, the laser operator, are given clearance to eliminate a target, they go through a series of steps to lock on with a laser before taking the shot.
Congress loves war, but it just doesn’t like to have to vote for it. When you vote for a war you are on record having supported it. So what happens if instead of turning Libya into Switzerland into Libya, the bombing turned Libya into Bangladesh? Better to not have supported it on record. But there is a very dangerous downside to Congress habitually ignoring its Constitutional obligations. It leads to a general policy recklessness and inability to look at cause and effect. Dangerous for us at home and for those abroad. We try to tackle this issue in today’s Liberty Report:
Perhaps the most fundamental flaw in the flailing U.S. anti-ISIS strategy is the belief that any group willing to fight ISIS must support at least some US goals, and that any group not ISIS is better in the long run than ISIS.
Such a viewpoint ignores the near-infinite complexities of Middle East alliances and politics, ignores the well-known reality that any group that does, in part, support the US also needs to simultaneously prepare for when the US one day suddenly picks up and leaves, and allows very dangerous weapons to exfiltrate out of the semi-right hands into the really wrong hands.
The video below shows the Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuda (KSS), which is also known as the Battalion of the Sayyid’s Martyrs, cruising around in an American-made M1 Abrams tank (at around the 16-second mark of the video). The video surfaced on SOFREP, a very pro-U.S. military website that states it is run by Special Ops veterans.
The scandal around the fixing of intelligence around the Pentagon training program for Syrian rebels has been on slow burn for some time. The mainstream media has largely avoided it, but when Pentagon superiors quash reports of intelligence analysts because they don’t match the desired outcome of the policy there is a big problem. Having spent $500 million to train rebels last year and only produced five fighters, there should be more scrutiny of this program, not less. More today in the Liberty Report:
