PRESS ROOM

Support for a new ICBM is tied closely to the money to be made developing, building, deploying and maintaining it. Yet the American public would eliminate the weapon altogether, a recent poll shows.

"Antiwar.com is pumping out originals on subjects scantly covered, and hardly understood, by even the policymakers themselves. As scary as that factoid is, Antiwar.com’s public contribution is therefore equally as crucial."

"Early signs suggested that the Biden administration could be off to a promising start...Unfortunately, that early pace of public progress has not continued. And, on some issues, there are real reasons for concern. We again encourage the president’s team to take our initial recommendations to heart. As more officials are brought into the administration, many of whom are awaiting confirmation, much work is still needed to define a more responsible U.S. arms trade policy."

Sjursen's latest takes a peek behind Chad’s curtain & President Deby’s death shroud to expose the criminal-complicity & systemic-indecency behind Franco-America's most dangerous game on the African playground.

"The Biden administration has approved the sale of state-of-the-art fighter jets, armed drones and smart bombs to the United Arab Emirates. The $23 billion deal was brokered during the Trump administration. William Hartung of the Center for International Policy tells The World’s Marco Werman that, while the sale may make strategic sense, it ignores the UAE’s poor human rights record."

Americans can no longer pretend that the size of the Pentagon budget is a measure of national security, or that spending more on the military will keep us safer. Instead, we must recognize the Pentagon budget for what it is: a monument to white supremacy. And like Confederate statues, it needs to be removed from its pedestal.

Our Elias Yousif was quoted in this article about US security assistance to Egypt's dictator. “Whether or not this transfer is routine replenishment, as officials are claiming, the message of political support it communicates is unmistakable and goes against the spirit of the Biden Administration’s pledge to break with America’s past embrace of dictators."

"Once again, the United States has topped one of the world's most infamous rankings lists - military spenders. In 2020, the United States' spending on the military and nuclear weapons made up 39% of the global total, according to an annual report released today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (America spends more on weapons than the next 12 countries combined). This is the third year in a row that the United States' spending has increased.

As 38 organizations that work in the United States, we are continually disappointed by the members of Congress and presidents that choose to purchase weapons and wage warfare at the expense of our communities and our children's futures."

"Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy and author of a 2020 report on Qatar’s lobbying operations, said the recent spate of engagements was 'something of an offensive hiring spree' for the country. 'If I’m Qatar right now, I see an opportunity in that you have a Biden administration that’s not cozied up to your adversaries, specifically Saudi Arabia,' he said. The crisis 'served as something of a lesson' for Qatar, which recognized it didn’t 'have immediate, indirect access to the policy makers they need to influence at that time,' said Freeman."

"William D. Hartung, Director, Arms and Security Program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy told IPS: 'At a time when a global pandemic, climate change, and racial and economic injustice pose the greatest risks to human lives and livelihoods, the increase in global military expenditures in 2020 marks a dismal failure by policymakers across the world to address the most urgent challenges we face.'

He argued that even a fraction of the nearly $2 trillion spent on the military last year could have gone a long way towards sustainable investments in public health, environmental protection, and combating inequality.

'World leaders can and must do better,' said Hartung"

It’s important to note that the Biden administration’s pronouncement on the UAE sales does not necessarily represent a final decision. Before going forward the administration has promised to set requirements on how the weapons are secured and used, including pledges to observe basic standards of human rights and the laws of war. Given past conduct, it is unlikely that the UAE would faithfully observe such conditions. The better course – for human rights and U.S. security – is to block the deal and demand that the UAE fully withdraw from the conflicts in Yemen and Libya and end its crackdown on internal critics and dissidents abroad.

“It would be naive to believe that Taiwan’s funding of think tanks is not pushing them to take pro-Taiwan or anti-China positions,” Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, told MintPress, adding: After all, why would Taiwan keep funding think tanks that are critical of Taiwan? There’s a Darwinian element to foreign funding of think tanks that pushes foreign government funding to think tanks that write what that foreign government wants them to write. Taiwan is no exception to this rule.”