PRESS ROOM

"This week in interesting data-visual projects, the Center for International Policy just published a detailed look at The Afghan Defense Sector Amidst a U.S. Drawdown.

Long story short: “[B]efore the end of the year, U.S. troop levels are set to hit their lowest figures since the U.S. invasion. For years, the U.S. has sought to offset planned U.S. troop reductions with a larger and more capable Afghan security sector, investing over $83B of security assistance in the country. But results have been mixed the best, raising concerns about Kabul's ability to fend for itself once U.S. troops are gone.”"

A look at Washington’s willful misreading of, and misleading narrative about, Lebanon – and its decades-worth of dangerous policy implications.

As our country undertakes a sustained national conversation about police brutality against Black Americans, we must also explore the way in which the U.S. perceives and responds to challenges emanating from communities of color abroad. This discussion, hosted by Foreign Policy for America, Colombe Foundation, and Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS), will convene a panel of distinguished leaders to discuss the patterns and consequences of systemic racism in American foreign policy.

The ongoing US wars are as far from the news as ever, which is why I brought combat veteran and antiwar journalist Danny Sjursen onto the show. We discussed his road from a working-class Staten Island family of right-wing cops and firefighters to West Point and then leading scout platoons with Armored Cavalry regiments in neighborhoods across Baghdad and in the especially volatile Kandahar Valley in Afghanistan.

"""It's certainly one of the biggest fights that I'm aware of, at least in recent memory,"" Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the nonprofit Center for International Policy, told Middle East Eye.

""I can't think of a bigger tiff that was more lucrative to [lobbyists] than this battle."""

“China and Russia are doing a lot right now to exert undue influence in America, and it’s important we do everything we can to counter that,” Ben Freeman, Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, tells Responsible Statecraft. “But, the research we’ve done at FITI has shown they don’t do much in terms of think tank funding. A lot of the biggest players here are U.S. allies.”

With the publication of “Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies at Home and Abroad,” John O. Brennan, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has joined an exclusive list of CIA directors and deputy directors who have misled the U.S. Congress and the American people. John Brennan’s metaphoric hood on the CIA’s war crimes is one of the worst examples of the agency’s continued cover-up of torture and abuse.

On this show Pentagon arms expert William Hartung explains how the president’s son in law put the squeeze on certain companies in place of the Constitutionally required assent of congress on war policy. Hartung points out that our weapons go everywhere, and where once the Saudis boasted women could now drive, those women are today in jail.

Trump is “on steroids in terms of promoting arms sales for his own political benefit,” said William Hartung, a scholar at the Center for International Policy who has tracked the defense industry for decades. “It’s a targeted strategy to get benefits from workers in key states.” He justifies his policy by citing job growth, but data from Hartung, a prominent analyst, shows he exaggerates the impact. And Trump has made clear that a major motivation for his defense strategy is the possible electoral benefit it could have.

For our last segment, Retired Major Danny Sjursen joins us to argue that the election season timing of the latest Mideast peace deals is hardly coincidental and that the road show is less about scoring regional "peace" than partisan points.

Danny Sjursen appears on The World According to Jesse Ventura to discuss his recent book "Patriotic Dissent," the roles and responsibilities of veterans in a time of forever war, and the link between endless overseas interventionism and civil liberties curtailment / cultural militarization at home.

At a White House ceremony today, the Israelis and Emiratis will officially normalize diplomatic relations. Bahrain, the latest "prospect" to sign on to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s diplomatic road-show, is sending some officials to the party. When both deals are sealed, Abu Dhabi and Manama will be the third and fourth Arab countries to officially recognize Israel. Only don’t be too impressed.