Speech to the Libertarian Party National Committee, Alexandria, Virginia, July 30, 2022 Your Huge Victory First of all, I really want to congratulate you all again on your great victory in Reno. I know how hard yall worked. I want to apologize to Michael Heise and Angela McArdle, and all the Texas LP MC guys for my relentless worrying in the run-up to the convention. Maybe on the margin it was helpful. Despite all the great stuff I’ve already heard here this morning, I admit I’m a bit in awe...

I wrote another book, Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. Advance Praise for Enough Already “If you only read one book this year on America’s unending ‘War on Terror,’ it should be this persuasive and devastatingly damning account of how the United States created the original al Qaeda terrorism threat by its own actions and then increased that threat by orders of magnitude by its wanton killings in one country after another in the name of ‘counter-terrorism.’ Once I started...

The problem isn’t ‘radical Islam’ Reprinted from Antiwar.com. Florida Senator Rick Scott is lost in the dark. After Friday’s deadly Afghan war-style “green on blue” attack by a Saudi air force officer at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida, the senator issued a statement calling the shooting an act of terrorism, and stating that this was the case, “whether this individual was motivated by radical Islam or was simply mentally unstable.” First of all, “terrorism,” means the use of...

Reprinted from Antiwar.com. It's pretty obvious. Americans should support the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump, but not for Ukrainegate. In fact, they should oppose his impeachment on Ukrainegate grounds completely. Trump’s real offense is waging an un-authorized, unconstitutional, illegal, treasonous and for-real genocidal war against the human beings of Yemen. His war crimes in Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Iraq have at least taken place in conflicts supposedly...

Reposted from Antiwar.com. Sadly, the antiwar and anti-national security state inclinations of American liberals and progressives have weakened since the days of President George W. Bush. Partisan incentives during Barack Obama’s presidency combined with the FBI-CIA-Democratic Party-media plot to falsely accuse President Trump of high treason with the Russians, or at least terribly insufficient patriotism, for the last 3 years have done much to confuse liberals about where they should stand....

Reprinted from Antiwar.com. Don't waste it! Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. Representative from Hawaii, is running for president. She’s one of the only Democrats in the race who says anything meaningful or interesting about foreign policy. Unlike the rest of them, she’s decided to make it the center of her campaign. Gabbard was for Iraq War II before she was against it, serving two tours overseas during the war, one at Balad air base north of Baghdad and another in Kuwait. But she has done the very best...

Reprinted from Antiwar.com. We could use their help. What if George Soros and Charles Koch teamed up to do a thing? Sounds pretty scary so far. What if the project was to build a new antiwar think tank in Washington with the financial backing to make a serious mark? Does that sound even scarier? It shouldn’t. The reasons why are Trita Parsi, Andrew Bacevich and Eli Clifton. Recently the great anti-interventionist author Stephen Kinser announced in the Boston Globe that Soros and Koch have...

Reprinted from Antiwar.com. America is still fighting the last war. I admit to having a bit of the same problem. I’m now working on a new book to follow-up my previous one about the war in Afghanistan. The tentative title is Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. [You are cordially invited to participate in a fundraiser for the project here.] The biggest problem with writing this book now is that the times have changed. The terror wars may all still be raging, from Afghanistan to...

Reprinted from Antiwar.com. The question, “Now what?” seems appropriate today. First of all, R.I.P. Justin Raimondo. As Tom Woods said, Justin was the soul of this site. Despite popular misunderstanding, he was not the editor or webmaster (that’s me, Jason Ditz and Eric Garris, all of whom remain on the job for you here), but was very much the editorial director as well as head columnist of Antiwar.com. By the example of Justin’s Behind the Headlines pieces the standard was set for what we...

By Robert Gaines and Scott Horton Originally published at The National Interest. There is little doubt that Osama bin Laden would have loved to see the United States attack and overthrow another of Al Qaeda's enemies, this time the Shia mullahs of Iran. Undeterred by decades of carnage and the disastrous outcomes of prior conflicts, ideologues within the Trump administration are clamoring for military action against Iran. The exact basis for this escalation varies. Common among the allegations...

By Robert Gaines and Scott Horton Originally published at The National Interest. The success of the multinational mission in Kabul depends on the creation of an independent national security force—one that may be impossible to build. After nearly two decades of bloodshed, meaningful progress is finally being made towards a conclusion of the war in Afghanistan. Negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar have achieved an uncommon consistency. On the domestic front, a bipartisan resolution matching...

By Robert Gaines and Scott Horton Originally published at Breitbart.com. Osama bin Laden is long dead, but his plans live on through American foreign policy. In 2001, al Qaeda consisted of only 400 ideologues in the far corners of the world. After the recent regime change wars in Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria, typical estimates place their membership at around 20,000. To top it all off, the American economy is out $5.6 trillion dollars for the whole failed project. This is not the legacy of a...

By Robert Gaines and Scott Horton Originally published at The American Conservative. There is no longer any relevant mission for the United States in Afghanistan. Western efforts to determine the future of that country have proven futile. Though officials with eyes on their legacies caution that an end to the occupation would unravel gains won on behalf of Afghan civilians, calls for deference to humanitarian concerns should ring hollow in the ears of Americans by now. Afghans are...

By Robert Gaines and Scott Horton Originally published at Breitbart.com. President Trump’s decision to withdraw 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, possibly leading to a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from that country in the near term, is correct. The Taliban insurgency there has already replaced the National Unity Government in much of the country, while the government itself has proven to be incapable of standing on its own after 17 years of American and international efforts to enable it to...

The myth of the Afghan safe haven just won't die. This article was originally published in the January/February edition of The American Conservative magazine. In 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan and quickly smashed the Taliban government. It also killed hundreds of members of the al Qaeda group that had launched the attacks, although leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri escaped to Pakistan, along with about 200 followers. Ever since, we have been...