Antiwar.com Blog

Letter to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter:

October 14, 2016 The Honorable Ashton B. Carter
Secretary of Defense
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Dear Secretary Carter:

I am responding to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting) Jedidiah Royal’s October 3, 2016, response to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)’s letter to you (dated August 5, 2016) regarding “ghost soldiers” in Afghanistan.

I am appalled that the U.S. taxpayer has, and continues to pay, for “ghost soldiers” in Afghanistan. Moreover, I am also concerned about the risks that inadequacy of data concerning personnel levels of the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF) may pose to American forces in Afghanistan.

Continue reading “Congressman Walter Jones on US Financing of ‘Ghost Soldiers’ in Afghanistan”

Protocols exist allowing the president to select American citizens, without a whit of due process, for drone killing.

Only overseas, he says, but you can almost see the fingers crossed behind his back. Wouldn’t an awful lot of well-meaning Americans have supported an aerial drone killing in San Bernardino, or at the Pulse club in Orlando? Didn’t many support using a robot to blow up a suspect in Dallas?

How soon before armed drones are over our heads?

Time Now.

Continue reading “How Soon Before Armed Drones Are Overhead in America? Time Now.”

What motivates terrorists to attack the US and US targets overseas? US foreign policy primarily characterized by US bombs fired by drone into countries primarily in the Middle East. This has been Ron Paul’s contention for years. Now we see that the FBI agrees. On today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report we discuss a recent article about a leaked FBI internal counter-terrorism study and its (not so) surprising conclusions. Will Washington listen to the work of its own agency and work to change its foreign policy?

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

The war in Afghanistan is ready to enter its 16th year (if it was a kid it’s be ready to start driving) and by most definitions is pretty much a bust.

Despite that, both mainstream candidates have made it clear in public statements they intend to continue pouring money – and lives – into that suppurating sore of American foreign policy. Despite that, there has been no mention of the war in two debates.

Anyway, while we worry a lot about who call who naughty names in the final presidential debate, can you check around where you live and let me know if your town could use a new hospital, all paid for by someone else’s tax dollars, you know, free to you? ‘Cause that’s the deal Afghanistan got from the USG, only even that turned into a clusterfutz when no one paid much attention to how the facility was thrown together.

Continue reading “US Spent $14.6 Million Taxpayer Dollars on Failed Hospital in Afghanistan”

There is an attempt underway for a government to take control of our election process and throw the election to Hillary Clinton. It is not the Russian government. Mark this day – it is when we came to understand that the American government decided to elect a president.

(Note: I understand in the minds of the mass media the most important issue in America today is Trump’s crude remarks, but there are indeed real things to be concerned about otherwise.)

Here’s how:

• Two days before the second presidential debate, the government of the United States officially accused Russia of a hacking campaign aimed at interfering in the U.S. election. In a joint statement, absent any specifics or technical details, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence stated “the recent [hacked email] disclosures… are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts… based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
  Continue reading “A Government Is Seizing Control of Our Election Process, and It Is Not the Russians”

If Carter and Reagan hadn’t funded the Mujahideen, there would have been no Taliban. And if there had been no oil in Kuwait, there would have been no 1991 US-Iraq Gulf War. If there had been no first US-Iraq war, American troops would not have been stationed in Saudi Arabia. If no American troops had been sent to Saudi Arabia, then Osama Bin Laden would have remained just another rich guy. If there had been no Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and if Bin Laden had been just another rich guy, there would have been no 9/11. If there had been no 9/11 sentiment to exploit and if Iraq had no oil, America would not have invaded Iraq in 2003 and there would be no ISIS. If there were no ISIS….well, you know the rest.

Unfinished Portrait is a project in perpetuity, tracking the footsteps of our post- 9/11, post-Iraq War world.

Continue reading “Unfinished Portrait: Tracking the Footsteps of a Post 9/11 World”