“President Trump’s new Nuclear Posture Review is expected to call for new ‘low-yield’ nuclear weapons and an expansion of the scenarios in which the US may use a nuclear ‘first strike.’ Is this a good idea? We discuss in today’s Liberty Report…”
“Trump and his unabashedly Iranophobic generals have allowed the United States to become a patsy for Saudi Arabia, actively abetting or tacitly endorsing MBS’s ambitions. Yet whatever the administration’s purported intent, throwing in with the Crown Prince will only exacerbate the disorder that previous U.S. administrations have done so much to create.”
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/president-trumps-friends-in-saudi-arabia/
“If ‘#Resistance’ means anything, at a minimum it should entail a refusal to trust a dangerous authoritarian to wield vast power with little checks or oversight.”
“Dr. Martin Luther King’s stance against the Vietnam War led him to be shunned by much of the liberal establishment that applauded his work on civil rights in the US. Was challenging the US warfare state the third rail that cost MLK his life?”
“The House spending bill released Wednesday would allow President Donald Trump, or people under him, to secretly shift money to fund intelligence programs, a break with 70 years of governing tradition.”
“In just one extraordinary year, Trump has destabilized the delicate duality that has long been the foundation for U.S. foreign policy: favoring war over diplomacy, the Pentagon over the State Department, and narrow national interest over international leadership. But in a globalizing world interconnected by trade, the Internet, and the rapid proliferation of nuclear-armed missiles, walls won’t work. There can be no Fortress America.”
Read more: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176373/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_tweeting_while_rome_burns/
“The [Iran] episode exposes a malady of American foreign policy. It lacks consistency, coherence and moral clarity, treats friends and adversaries by separate standards, and is reflexively interventionist. Thus has America lost much of the near-universal admiration and respect she enjoyed at the close of the Cold War. This hubristic generation has kicked it all away.”
Read more: http://buchanan.org/blog/americas-mission-now-128460
“South Korea’s interest is to a) avoid war with the North, and b) restart peace negotiations with Pyongyang and move toward fulfilling the promise of reunification. Both countries have ministries devoted to reunification and there is much political capital to be gained if progress can be made along this path. The fact is that Washington is the third man out on this date.”
Read more: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/01/08/korean-crisis-completely-phony/
“86.4 percent of those surveyed feel the American military should be used only as a last resort, while 57 percent feel that US military aid to foreign countries is counterproductive. The latter sentiment ‘increases significantly’ when involving countries like Saudi Arabia, with 63.9 percent saying military aid—including money and weapons—should not be provided to such countries. The poll shows strong, indeed overwhelming, support, for Congress to reassert itself in the oversight of US military interventions, with 70.8 percent of those polled saying Congress should pass legislation that would restrain military action overseas.”
“The Trump Administration decided Monday to deport nearly 200,000 El Salvadoran refugees who fled gang violence and natural disasters. El Salvadorans received TPS in in 2001 after a series of earthquakes left tens of thousands homeless. The program was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.”