Foreign Policy & War

The Libertarian Angle: The War State

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 10, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger discusses the hot topics of the day. This week: our War State government with special guest Mike Swanson. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

TGIF: The War of 1812 Was the Health of the State, Part 2

by Sheldon Richman March 6, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 As the War of 1812 with Great Britain approached during the Republican administration of James Madison, the War Hawks saw silver linings everywhere. (See part 1.) “Republicans even came to see the war as a necessary regenerative act — as a means of purging Americans of their pecuniary greed and ...

America Must Reject Netanyahu’s War Cry on Iran

by Sheldon Richman March 4, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington this week to prepare the American people for war against Iran. Backed by American neoconservatives, the Israel lobby, and assorted other war hawks, Netanyahu insists that Iran intends to build a nuclear weapon and thus is an “existential threat” to Israel. He has no confidence that President Obama will negotiate an agreement that once and for ...

The Libertarian Angle: Presidential Politics and Benjamin Netanyahu

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 2, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the upcoming visit by Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu . The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

The Cuban Embargo and the Perversion of American Values

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2015

It would be difficult to find a better example of how the adoption of America’s post–World War II national-security state perverted the morals, principles, and values of the American people than the 54-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba. Now that the issue of lifting the embargo has fully erupted into the political sphere, Americans have an opportunity to question not ...

TGIF: The War of 1812 Was the Health of the State, Part 1

by Sheldon Richman February 27, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 In 1918, having watched in horror as his Progressive friends gleefully jumped onto Woodrow Wilson’s war wagon, Randolph Bourne penned the immortal words: “War is the health of the state.” As he explained it, The republican State has almost no trappings to appeal to the common man’s emotions. What it has ...

Domestic Fear Is the Price of Empire

by Sheldon Richman February 25, 2015

If you find no other argument against American intervention abroad persuasive, how about this one? When the U.S. government invades and occupies other countries, or when it underwrites other governments' invasions or oppression, the people in the victimized societies become angry enough to want and even to exact revenge -- against Americans. Is the American empire worth that price? We should ask ...

Foreign Policy Failure Everywhere

by Sheldon Richman February 17, 2015

If one tried to design a foreign policy to embroil Americans in endless conflicts that would otherwise be quite remote, one could hardly do better than recent presidents of the United States. What could you do that these men have not done to keep Americans mired in distant turmoil? Signs of apparent failure abound while the ruling elite feigns ignorance of the connection between U.S. ...

Brian Williams Helped Pave the Way to War

by Sheldon Richman February 10, 2015

The scandal of the week is NBC anchor Brian Williams’s shabby bid for self-glorification by falsely claiming he was in a U.S. military helicopter forced to land in the Iraqi desert after being hit by ground fire in 2003. Of course so-called news people shouldn’t make up stuff to look good, but there’s something much worse: uncritically passing along ...

States, United States: America’s James Bond Complex

by Sheldon Richman February 4, 2015

Today, American politicians of both major parties — conservatives, “moderates,” and so-called liberals alike — insist that the United States is an “exceptional,” even “indispensable” nation. In practice, this means that for the United States alone the rules are different. Particularly in international affairs, it — the government and its personnel — can do whatever deemed necessary to carry ...

The Libertarian Angle: American Sniper Revisited

by Future of Freedom Foundation February 2, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: the debate continues over the smash hit movie American Sniper. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

The American Sniper Was No Hero

by Sheldon Richman January 28, 2015

Portuguese Despite what some people think, hero is not a synonym for competent government-hired killer. If Clint Eastwood’s record-breaking movie, American Sniper, launches a frank public conversation about war and heroism, the great director will have performed a badly needed service for the country and the world. This is neither ...