Foreign Policy & War

Two Brothers in Search of Monsters to Destroy

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2014

In celebration of the Fourth of July, 1821, John Quincy Adams delivered a speech before Congress that is famously titled, “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.” Adams used the occasion to describe the foreign policy of the United States: Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her ...

Common Sense versus Obama’s Next War

by James Bovard January 1, 2014

The Obama administration tottered on the edge of launching a cruise missile attack on Syria this past August and September. Obama hesitated and decided to seek congressional approval before blowing up many targets on the Syrian landscape. After Americans made it loud and clear that they did not want another war, congressional opposition helped curb his bellicosity. But he ...

Congress Must Not Cede Its War Power to Israel

by Sheldon Richman December 26, 2013

The American people should know that pending right now in Congress is a bipartisan bill that would virtually commit the United States to go to war against Iran if Israel attacks the Islamic Republic. “The bill outsources any decision about resort to military action to the government of Israel,” Columbia University Iran expert Gary Sick wrote ...

The Libertarian Angle: Minimum Wage and China

by Future of Freedom Foundation December 2, 2013

Jacob Hornberger and Sheldon Richman tackle the minimum wage and relations with China. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly.

The Origins of America’s Warfare State

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2013

Given that most Americans living today were born and raised under a massive military establishment, the CIA, and the NSA, a large number of Americans very likely believe that the United States has always had this type of government. Not so, as Michael Swanson shows in a new book, The War State. Swanson points out that America’s warfare state didn’t ...

The Killing Years

by Matthew Harwood December 1, 2013

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti (Penguin Press 2013), 400 pages. Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield by Jeremy Scahill (Nation Books 2013), 680 pages. The young man reached across the table and pushed the timer’s red button. Looking up ...

Egypt’s Lessons for Americans, Part 2

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2013

Part 1 | Part 2 The ambivalent reaction of the U.S. government to the Egyptian coup should not have surprised anyone. While U.S. law requires a termination of U.S. foreign aid to Egypt in the event of a coup, the Obama administration ignored the law by simply refusing to declare that the coup was actually a coup. Keep ...

Sheldon Richman on Voice of the Cape (audio)

by Sheldon Richman October 8, 2013

On September 25, 2013, Sheldon Richman was a guest on Voice of the Cape Radio from Cape Town, South Africa to discuss the Kenyan massacre and Somalia. Audio of the interview is provided below in two parts. Listen to Part 1, then listen to Part 2.

The War State

by Michael Swanson October 4, 2013

Of course the most famous warning about the power of the military came from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who commanded the Allied forces in Europe during World War II and went on to serve as president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. On his last day in office, he gave a televised farewell address to the nation in ...

Syria Remains a Target of the U.S. Empire

by Tim Kelly October 1, 2013

A Russian diplomatic initiative has forestalled U.S. military strikes against Syria. The U.S.-Russian-Syrian agreement would have Bashar al-Assad’s regime turn over its chemical-weapons to the UN Security Council so that they can be destroyed under international control. The deal was proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an apparently off-the-cuff remark suggesting that ...

Egypt’s Lessons for Americans, Part 1

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 2013

Part 1 | Part 2 The military coup in Egypt last summer holds some valuable lessons for Americans, especially with respect to such things as freedom, democracy, and the U.S. national-security state, which has been an important part of American life since the end of World War II. The coup provides an especially important lesson with respect ...

The Kenyan Massacre’s Roots in America’s Somalia Policy

by Sheldon Richman September 24, 2013

Last weekend’s hostage-taking — and the murder of at least 61 people — at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, has its roots in the U.S. government’s intervention in Somalia, which began in the 1990s. Although there is no justification for killing innocents, it is fair to point out that al-Shabaab, the Islamist group that committed the attack ...