The Unz Review • An Alternative Media Selection$
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
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Millions of people around the world were at the edge of their seats over the weekend, waiting to hear whether Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff’s indirect talks with the Iranian foreign minister would ratchet down tensions or would break down and bring on a major Middle East war. If it seems bizarre that the outcome... Read More
Over the weekend President Trump ordered a massive military operation against the small country of Yemen. Was Yemen in the process of attacking the United States? No. Did the President in that case go to Congress and seek a declaration of war against the country? No. The fact is, Yemen hadn’t even threatened the United... Read More
Over the weekend, President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk made quite a stir with just two words posted on his social media platform, X. Responding to a post that, “It’s time to leave NATO and the UN,” Musk replied, “I agree.” The comment immediately made the rounds on social media and also... Read More
The wailing sound you heard last Thursday was the chorus of the Beltway warmongers shrieking in despair at President Trump’s suggestion that there was no reason for the United States to be spending one trillion dollars on “defense.” “…[O]ne of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President... Read More
My first reaction to news earlier this month that the Syrian government had been overthrown was, how much did we have to do with it; how involved was the CIA; and how much is it going to cost. As with Saddam and Gaddafi before him, we know that Assad was no libertarian hero. But unleashing... Read More
The interim between a US presidential election and the swearing in of a new Administration has for most of our history been a non-eventful period where the outgoing Administration winds down operations and the incoming Administration ramps up new personnel before the inauguration. The 20th Amendment to our Constitution was enacted in 1933 to reduce... Read More
One of the most encouraging and promising things President-elect Trump said in his post-election acceptance speech was, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars…” We all understand that campaign promises often have a short shelf life after the election is over, but the Trump campaign’s repeated talk of peace over... Read More
When you take on the role of the world’s policeman, don’t be surprised when countries who cannot fight their own wars call “911.” That is exactly what is happening to the United States on two fronts and it is bankrupting our country, depleting the military that should serve our own national interest, and threatening to... Read More
Over the weekend, the Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel to “coordinate” with the Israeli military and plan a military strike against Iran. Think about that for a moment: one of the highest-ranking officers in the US military is planning a war in a foreign country against another... Read More
Last week the world narrowly escaped likely nuclear destruction, as the Biden Administration considered Ukraine’s request to allow US missiles to strike deeply into Russian territory. Russian president Vladimir Putin warned, as the request was being considered, that because these missiles could not be launched without the active participation of the US military and NATO,... Read More
Just as the Harris/Walz campaign was looking for a boost from the content-free Democratic National Convention last week, real drama broke out that pulled the country’s attention back toward Republican candidate Donald Trump. Rumors had been swirling for days that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. might suspend his independent run for the White House and endorse... Read More
There were plenty of surprises in last week’s presidential debate. For one, Americans who rely on the mainstream media for their news learned that they had been lied to for the past three years about President Biden’s capability to do the job he was elected to do. The realization that the media has been lying... Read More
Why does it seem the Pentagon is far better at spending money than actually putting together a successful operation? The failed “Operation Prosperity Guardian” and the disastrous floating Gaza pier are but two recent examples of enormously expensive initiatives that, though they no-doubt enriched military contractors, were incapable of meeting their stated goals. To great... Read More
As Ukraine’s defeat in the war moves closer, the neocons are desperate to draw the US further into the fight. Over the weekend, former US State Department official Victoria Nuland told ABC News that the US must help facilitate Ukrainian missile attacks deep inside Russian territory. The Biden Administration has to this point avoided involvement... Read More
When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024. On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power... Read More
Last week the Israelis scored a bloody “hat trick” – slaughtering seven international food aid workers, demolishing the last operating hospital in Gaza, and – perhaps most dangerous – attacking an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus, Syria, in which several senior Iranian military figures were killed. There is a very good reason diplomatic facilities are... Read More
Even Republican stalwarts like current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are starting to notice that something is shifting in the party. While McConnell announced recently that he would step down as Republican leader in the US Senate, in an interview last week he was adamant that he would continue to serve out his term in... Read More
In a recent CNN interview, the normally very confident US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland sounded a little desperate. She was trying to make the case for Congress to pass another $61 billion dollars for the neocons’ proxy war project in Ukraine and she was throwing out the old slogans that the neocons use... Read More
There has been much written and said about Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. As of this writing the video on Twitter alone has been viewed nearly 200 million times, making it likely the most-viewed news event in history. Many millions of viewers who may not have had access to the... Read More
The breaking news that Ansar Allah (Houthi) fighters have fired on the USS Carney in the Red Sea today (Friday, 26 Jan.) underscores the shocking failure of the Biden Administration, which initiated airstrikes on the Houthis this month with no plan for “victory” beyond hoping that the mere presence of US warships would intimidate them... Read More
Neocon heads like the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister’s are exploding with the news today that the Biden Administration may be considering withdrawing from its illegal occupations in both Syria and Iraq. First on Syria. As Lister opines today in Foreign Policy: …four sources within the Defense and State departments said the White House is... Read More
Late last week President Biden started a new US war on the tiny country of Yemen. US warships and fighter jets launched more than a hundred missiles at the country in a massive escalation that the Administration bizarrely claimed would “de-escalate” tensions in the Red Sea. Taking the US to war without a Congressional declaration... Read More
In the closing days of 2023, the Biden Administration once again announced a large military aid package for Ukraine, this time a “mere” quarter of a billion dollars. Without a new authorization of funds from Congress, it is said to be the last bit of money left over from the more than $100 billion already... Read More
Just before leaving town for Christmas break, the US House gave Americans a last-minute holiday gift: a nearly trillion dollar military spending bill filled with lots of goodies for the special interests and the military-industrial complex. Unfortunately, the rest of America got nothing but coal in its stockings. With Constitutionalists like Rep. Thomas Massie on... Read More
Over the weekend Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained to the American people what’s really wrong with US foreign policy. Some might find his conclusions surprising. The US standing in the world is damaged not because we spent 20 years fighting an Afghan government that had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11. The problem... Read More
Faced with growing American frustration over more than $100 billion spent on a failed proxy war in Ukraine, President Biden’s handlers have hit on a gimmick to convince us that this foreign aid is actually an investment in our own economy! In his recent television address, Biden explained that as we transfer more weapons to... Read More
President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States would be funding – and possibly fighting - three wars in three different parts of the world at the same time. It is an ambitious foreign policy for a president who doesn’t even seem to be able to express a coherent thought without the help... Read More
cia-careers
(This presentation was prepared for the Sept. 1st. Ron Paul Institute's Ron Paul Scholars Seminar) I am accustomed to opening the New York Times and The Washington Post to find laundry list articles relating to what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly been up to. That many of the evidence free allegations are implausible... Read More
The July military coup in the west African country of Niger has once again brought attention to the fact that the US government runs a global military empire that serves Washington’s special interests, and not the national interest. Before the coup made news headlines, most Americans - including many serving in Congress - had no... Read More
As a rule, US war reporting since Vietnam has been mostly mainstream media cheerleading the mission rather than digging beyond government war propaganda. After all, it was images of American boys coming home in body bags shown on the six o’clock news across America that finally galvanized mainstream opposition to that war. The Pentagon learned... Read More
Most people agree that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Some would even argue that we are closer now than we were in those fateful days, when Soviet missiles in Cuba almost triggered a nuclear war between the US and the USSR. In those days... Read More
NATO’s post-Cold War history is that of an organization far past its “sell-by” date. Desperate for a mission after the end of the Warsaw Pact, NATO in the late 1990s decided that it would become the muscle behind the militarization of “human rights” under the Clinton Administration. Gone was the “threat of global communism” which... Read More
Future historians may say that the most significant event of 2023 had nothing to do with Donald Trump, other 2024 presidential candidates, or even the war in Ukraine. Instead, the event with the most long-term significance may be one that received little attention in the mainstream media — Saudi Arabia’s movement toward accepting currencies other... Read More
While we were being distracted by the ongoing Russia/Ukraine war – and Washington’s increasing involvement in the war – tremendous developments in the Middle East have all but ended decades of US meddling in the region. Peace is breaking out in the Middle East and Washington is not at all happy about it! Take, for... Read More
Last week saw a sharp increase in attacks on US troops occupying northeastern Syria, with a drone strike against a US base blamed on “pro-Iran” forces and a US counter-strike said to have killed at least 19 people. After the US retaliation, another strike by “pro-Iran” forces hit a number of US sites in Syria.... Read More
On February 19th, the National Mall in Washington, DC saw its largest antiwar rally in 20 years. The speakers list included four former US presidential candidates and a broad and diverse collection of antiwar activists from beyond the left and right. The aptly-named “Rage Against War Machine” rally drew thousands of attendees, however many pro-war... Read More
Twenty years ago this spring the US government was finally successful in lying us into war with Iraq. Administration after administration had sanctioned and bombed and even invaded the country, but finally 20 years ago next month the Bush Administration unleashed “shock and awe” to flatten a country that did not and could not threaten... Read More
Last week the world stood on the very edge of a nuclear war, as Ukraine’s US-funded president, Vladimir Zelensky, urged NATO military action over a missile that landed on Polish soil. "This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed," said Zelensky immediately after the missile... Read More
Last week the New York Times ran a shocking article claiming that the US intelligence community believes the Ukrainian government to be responsible for the August attack that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian philosopher. Surely the established narrative that Ukraine is a model western democracy standing strong for our shared values... Read More
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “surprise” trip to Taiwan last week should be “Exhibit A” as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military... Read More
Last week, President Biden signed a massive $40 billion military aid bill for Ukraine. Who cares that inflation is killing the American economy and mothers can't even get baby formula. For Washington, spending on war and empire always seems to trump America’s interests. To put this giveaway to Ukraine in perspective: just since late February,... Read More
Even by Washington standards, the Biden Administration’s recent request for $33 billion for military aid to Ukraine was shocking. Surely a coalition of antiwar progressives and budget-hawk Republicans would oppose the dangerous and expensive involvement of the US in the Russia/Ukraine conflict? No! Not only did Congress not object: they added nearly seven billion MORE... Read More
“War is a racket, wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few,... Read More
Previewing President Biden’s trip to Europe last week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that, “the president is traveling to Europe to make sure we stay united.” That sure didn’t go as planned. This may have been the most disastrous – and dangerous – Presidential overseas trip ever. The US and its NATO allies... Read More
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine moves past its third week, there are slight hopes that negotiations between the two sides may soon produce a ceasefire. But with the shrill warmongering talk in Washington, it almost seems like the US government would hate to see that happen. Congress and the US Administration seem determined to... Read More
President Biden’s “maskless” State of the Union signifies the near-end of the COVID tyranny we have lived under for the past two years. Fortunately for Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve, the Ukraine-Russia conflict is replacing COVID as a ready-made excuse for their failures and a justification for expanding their power. Even before politicians... Read More
When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense. Explaining my “no” vote on a... Read More
zelenskyrp
As of this writing, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is hunkered down in his bunker somewhere in Kiev, as the sound of the encroaching war gets closer and closer. A grim scene, to be sure. All the US and EU kisses and roses leading up to this end have turned to dust and barbed wire, as... Read More
Over the weekend we heard that the US is evacuating its embassy in Kiev for fear of a Russian invasion. We also heard that Russia is evacuating its embassy in Kiev for fear of a US-backed provocation in eastern Ukraine that may lead to a Russian military response. We are in “uncharted territory” the media... Read More
Russia-bashing is a bi-partisan activity in Washington. Both parties think it makes them look “tough” and “pro-America.” But while Republican and Democrat politicians continue to one-up each other on “risk-free” threats to Russia, they are increasingly risking a devastating nuclear war. It’s all fun and games until the missiles start flying. And in this case... Read More