Marko Marjanovic | The Libertarian Institute

Syrian Rebels and US Troops Have Been Clashing for Months, but Pentagon Has Been Keeping It Under Wraps

by Marko Marjanovic | Jan 26, 2018 | Featured Articles

Last August a Pentagon spokesman told CNN that US soldiers on the ground in Kurdish-held northern Syria were fired upon by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels multiple times in just the last week: US troops who had been performing a de facto “peacekeeping” role in northern Syria came under direct attack multiple times in the last week, a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting ISIS told reporters Thursday. US Army Col. Ryan Dillon told reporters at the Pentagon that the US forces came under attack by small arms fire and that the engagement had resulted in “no damage to equipment or casualties...

Pentagon Openly Threatens to Shoot Down Russian Jets Over Eastern Syria

by Marko Marjanovic | Dec 10, 2017 | Featured Articles

Two weeks ago I wondered if heightened Pentagon rhetoric about “unsafe Russian flying practices” in Syria was to prepare the media for a possible shoot down of a Russian plane by the US. Now the US has moved on to openly threatening to do so. Recall, on November 24th CNN ran an article whereby according to unnamed officials poor US pilots were being “subjected to unsafe Russian flying practices”. This followed a report a week earlier where an unidentified Pentagon officer spoke about “threatening” and “potentially threatening” Russian aircraft and their “increasingly alarming behavior”...

Navy Told Exhausted Crews to Sail With ID Beacons Off. No Wonder Accidents Followed

by Marko Marjanovic | Oct 5, 2017 | Featured Articles

US Navy warships have been involved in four major accidents in the Asia-Pacific this year, including three collisions with civilian vessels. First in January the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground while trying to anchor in Tokyo Bay. Then in May the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain was struck by a South Korean fishing boat off the coast of Korea. Next month the destroyer USS Fitzgerald was struck by a gigantic container ship in crowded waters off the coast of Japan. 7 US sailors were killed and the ship seriously damaged. Finally last month the destroyer USS John S....

The Soviets Intervened in Afghanistan Knowing It Was Stupid

by Marko Marjanovic | Sep 25, 2017 | Featured Articles

In March 1979 Afghanistan’s new Communist government begged the Soviet Union to come to its aid in crushing a rebellion in its Herat province. The Soviet politburo sat down in Moscow, and in a four-day debate, listed all the reasons why this was an extremely bad idea, and roundly rejected it. Then in December the very same politburo which in early 1979 explained so well why a direct military intervention in Afghanistan was such a stupid idea now approved it. In March the Soviet leadership felt an intervention in Afghanistan would mean they would become involved in fighting the Afghan people,...

The US-Russian Race for Euphrates Threatens to Become a US-Russian Clash

by Marko Marjanovic | Sep 21, 2017 | Featured Articles

Just two weeks into its second stage the race for the Euphrates in Syria is reaching a boiling point. The Russian military has just accused the US-backed SDF, or the US itself, of shelling Syrian army units with whom Russian special forces are known to be embedded: Massive fire from mortars and rocket artillery was opened twice on the Syrian troops from the areas on the eastern shore of Euphrates where the SDF fighters and servicemen of US special forces are based, [Russian defense ministry spokesman] Konashenkov said. US Marine artillerymen are known to support SDF forces, albeit so far...

US Winds Down Its Land Grab in Southern Syria, Launches Another One in the East

by Marko Marjanovic | Sep 19, 2017 | Featured Articles

The US has evacuated the smaller of its two bases in southern Syria. Together with Syrian rebels in its employ it has left the Zakaf outpost and actually dynamited it on the way out. It has also told two rebel outfits in the south, with whom it has previously cut links, to exit Syria and head for Jordan. Martyr Ahmad al-Abdo Brigades, and Usoud al-Sharqiya said they would comply especially as Saudi Arabia and Jordan told them the same thing. Martyr Ahmad al-Abdo was previously backed by the CIA but Trump ended CIA backing of Syrian rebels this July. Usoud al-Sharqiya was previously...

What We Aren’t Being Told About Myanmar?

by Marko Marjanovic | Sep 11, 2017 | Blog, Foreign Policy

The narrative we’re being served on Myanmar is a cartoon. On the one hand we have villains — who have conveniently already been subject to “liberal humanitarian” demonization for years now — who have allegedly decided to go on a campaign of gang rape, infanticide and arson just because it’s Tuesday. On the other side we have pathetic victims who can do nothing but suffer and flee the atrocities against them, albeit they also have a goody-goody armed group in their midst trying to fight back, but one that is allegedly too small and insignificant to affect events in any meaningful way....

There Is Little Reason to Believe North Korea Has an H-Bomb

by Marko Marjanovic | Sep 8, 2017 | Blog

Are Washington and Pyongyang enemies or symbiotes? For supposed enemies they sure agree on a lot of dubious information. For example they both agree North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb last Sunday though there's little to indicate that is true. Early estimates put the yield of that explosion at some 100 kilotons. Later that was revised to 140 and even 200 kilotons. That is a lot of explosive power — between six and twelve times as powerful as the Hiroshima A-bomb. But it makes for an exceedingly puny hydrogen bomb. Early thermonuclear devices detonated by the US and the USSR in the 1950s were...

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