PRESS ROOM

We need a new national conversation about what will truly make America and the world a safer place, not a mindless surge of new spending on the Pentagon.

Without stronger safeguards on America's foreign military training enterprise, it seems inevitable that the United States will continue to hone the skills of those who go on to become foreign assassins, coup leaders and human rights abusers.

“When an armed group gets their hands on American-made weaponry, it's sort of a status symbol. It's a psychological win."

"Of course, social media creates opportunities for disinformation and misinformation, but I think this is where the social media companies' regulatory bodies should come in. ... The technology clearly does exist to monitor these types of things."

This month marks the 76th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that resulted in the immediate deaths of well over 100,000 people and underscored the devastating consequences of building, deploying, and using nuclear weapons. Those attacks should have served as a wake-up call on the need to control and eliminate these potential world-ending weapons, but determined efforts by scientists, political leaders, policy advocates, and grassroots advocates around the world have yet to abolish them.

"Last week, one more name was added to the list of Donald Trump advisers indicted after serving the former president of the United States. Thomas Barrack has been charged with facilitating illegal influence by the United Arab Emirates on the US. How much influence did the UAE have and what is the US doing about it?" Our Ben Freeman explains in this podcast with AlJazeera.

"When an armed group gets their hands on American-made weaponry, it's sort of a status symbol. It's a psychological win."

The editorial boards and oped writers of our mainstream media in discussing the war, continue to cite “enduring American faith in the values of freedom and democracy” as the underlying purpose of our effort. The New York Times, in fact, cited the “purity of U.S. values” such as civil rights, religious tolerance, and women’s empowerment as a justification for our occupation of Afghanistan.

Realistically, there is no easy solution to a centuries-old system of unjust and exclusive values built into America’s very foundation. However, individual and systemic changes can create cracks in that racist foundation to create a better, safer future for our country and ultimately our world.

No other dictatorship in the world gives more money to U.S. think tanks than the UAE. While there might be myriad reasons for think tanks’ silence surrounding the UAE’s repeated campaigns to illegally influence U.S. politics and elections, many of the think tanks staying mum are also the same think tanks that have received considerable financial support directly from the UAE.

Our Ben Freeman, Director of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, was interviewed by Ian Masters on Background Briefing to discuss a Saudi court case that would expose state secrets. Listen to the podcast/radio show here:

As deliberation continues over the current National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), beyond debating the size of the budget, Congress also has an opportunity to build on the 2017 reforms by making security assistance more transparent and accountable through better public reporting, including detailed yearly reporting of U.S. security assistance and cooperation.