Trump’s War on Turkey for Pastor Brunson by Jacob G. Hornberger August 13, 2018 Every year, thousands of American citizens are incarcerated in foreign countries. Yet, President Trump has decided to go to war to secure the release of only one of them. What gives with that? The citizen who is receiving the privileged treatment is Andrew Brunson, an American pastor incarcerated in Turkey. He is charged with participating in an attempted coup in 2016 against Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. President Trump is up in arms over Brunson’s arrest and incarceration. To pressure Erdogan to release Brunson, Trump has imposed severe economic sanctions on Turkey that have contributed to a severe financial decline in the country. The Turkish lira, which had already dropped around 45 percent this year against the dollar, hit a low on Sunday and then plunged another 7 percent on Monday. Erdogan called Trump’s sanctions a “stab in the back.” Meanwhile, the U.S. mainstream press is jumping on the release-Brunson bandwagon. An August 10 editorial in the New York Times provides ...
Silence on U.S. Meddling Abroad by Jacob G. Hornberger August 3, 2018 Among the most fascinating aspects of the brouhaha over supposed Russian meddling in America’s electoral system is the total silence in the U.S. mainstream press about U.S. meddling in the political affairs of other countries. Consider the mass outrage and indignation among the mainstream press that Russia would actually want to help a U.S. presidential candidate who favors normalizing relations with Russia over a candidate that was determined to do the opposite. Why not the same outrage against the U.S. national-security establishment for helping its favorite people come to office in foreign countries? By their silence regarding U.S. meddling in foreign countries, one could easily draw the conclusion that the U.S. mainstream press is saying the following: It’s wrong for Russia to meddle in the U.S. electoral system but it’s okay for the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the military, CIA, and NSA) to meddle in the electoral affairs of foreign countries. But if that’s their position — and it certainly seems like that ...
U.S. Anti-Communist Propaganda at SiriusXM by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2018 If you want to get a taste of what life was like in Cold War America, buy a subscription to SiriusXM, the privately owned satellite radio broadcasting service. Then tune in to Channel 153. You will think that you have entered into a Cold War time warp. That’s because SiriusXM Channel 153 serves as an anti-communist propaganda channel for the U.S. government. The only thing is that you’ll have to know Spanish. That’s because SiriusXM’s Channel 153 is run by Radio Marti, a radio station that is owned and operated by the U.S. government and whose mission is to broadcast U.S. anti-communist propaganda into Cuba, which has been run by a communist regime since 1959. Established during the Cold War and, specifically, during the Reagan administration, Radio Marti operates under the auspices of the U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), which is part of a U.S. agency called the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). According to the BBG’s website, the OCB’s ...
Three Other Presidents Targeted for Befriending Russia by Jacob G. Hornberger July 20, 2018 In my article “Was Reagan a Traitor Too?,” I detailed how three U.S. presidents since World War II have been vilified and condemned for befriending Russia, America’s World War II partner and ally: John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and now Donald Trump. However, they are not the only presidents who have been targeted by the U.S. national-security state for daring ...
North Korea Will Never Give Up Its Nuclear Weapons by Jacob G. Hornberger July 9, 2018 With North Korea accusing Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) Mike Pompeo of engaging in a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization,” it should be increasingly obvious to most everyone that North Korea is not going to destroy its nuclear bombs. This should not surprise anyone. The dumbest thing that North Korea could ever do is to destroy its ...
Nonintervention: America’s Founding Foreign Policy by Jacob G. Hornberger July 1, 2018 On the Fourth of July, 1821, John Quincy Adams delivered one of the most remarkable speeches in U.S. history. Having gone down in history with the title “In Search of Monsters of Destroy,” Adams’s speech summarized the founding foreign policy of the United States. Adams pointed out that there are lots of bad things that happen around the world. Brutal ...
The Deep Hurt by Stephen Kinzer July 1, 2018 More than a century has passed since American hearts were first seized by the grand debate about overseas expansion. During that period, much of what anti-imperialists predicted has come to pass. The United States has become an actively interventionist power. It has projected military or covert power into dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica. In many places, ...
Will Trump Agree to Unify Korea Under Kim? by Jacob G. Hornberger June 19, 2018 South Korean President Moon Jae In and the people of South Korea may come to rue the day when Moon decided to let President Trump negotiate a peace agreement with North Korea’s communist dictator Kim Jong Un, especially given the close relationship that now exists between Trump and Kim. That’s because in the topsy turvy world of ...
The Big Obstacle to Peace in Korea by Jacob G. Hornberger June 15, 2018 Suppose my neighbor acquired a bazooka and stored it in his home. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t threaten me with it. I ask him, “John, why have you acquired that bazooka?” He responds, “Just in case you decide to attack me and my family. If you do, we are going to defend ourselves by firing this bazooka at ...
North Korea Poses No Nuclear Threat to the U.S., and Trump Says So by Jacob G. Hornberger June 14, 2018 Just when you think that the Korean situation can’t get more interesting, it does. The New York Times is reporting that President Trump has now declared that North Korea is "no longer a nuclear threat" to the United States. He said that Americans can now “sleep well tonight.” That is one remarkable development, especially since North Korea has not ...
Could a U.S. Domestic Coup Ever Be Justified? by Jacob G. Hornberger June 7, 2018 Even though he undoubtedly doesn’t realize it, a man named Jose Cardenas, a former acting assistant administrator for Latin America at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the George W. Bush administration, has indirectly weighed in on the John Kennedy assassination. That’s because foreignpolicy.com has just published an article by him endorsing a military coup against Venezuelan ...
Pence’s Hypocritical Speech to the OAS by Jacob G. Hornberger June 6, 2018 In a speech this week to the Organization of American States, Vice President Mike Pence issued the standard, obligatory denunciation of the communist regime in Cuba, which the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA) have targeted for regime change ever since the Cuban revolution in 1959. Pence stated: In Cuba, the Castro name has begun ...
