The U.S. Institute of Peace acting president Dr. Darren Beattie told Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck on Tuesday about the melee that took place at his agency's headquarters during its takeover by the Department of Government Efficiency in March.
Beattie, who is also undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department, revealed both the lengths that deep-staters went to cover their tracks as well as what illicit trade the agency apparently had an interest in propping up in Afghanistan.
The USIP is a taxpayer-funded think tank established by Congress in 1984 that had a budget last year of $55 million. The Heritage Foundation noted in a 2024 report that the agency lacked transparency and mechanisms to ensure fiscal accountability; was full of partisans; and had greatly overstepped the bounds of its original mission.
Beattie told Beck that the USIP is an "important member of the NGO archipelago," whose quasi-governmental, quasi-private "chameleon character" helps America's foreign policy establishment "fulfill some of those more sensitive functions that had been exposed in the course of the Church [Committee] hearings" regarding misconduct by American intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
Pursuant to President Donald Trump's Feb. 19 executive order concerning the "reduction of the federal bureaucracy," the DOGE set to work earlier this year on eliminating bloat and inefficiencies at the USIP.
The Trump administration fired the voting members of the agency's board of directors along with the USIP's president, former Clinton official George Moose; terminated nearly all of the institute's staff and activities around the world; had elements of the DOGE take over the institute's headquarters; and transferred USIP's property to the General Services Administration.
Deep-staters apparently desperate to cling to power at the agency tried to fight this house-cleaning, not only filing legal challenges but getting physical.
After DOGE member Kenneth Jackson was temporarily made acting president of the agency, Trump's efficiency team attempted to enter the USIP's headquarters. However, Moose and agency staffers repeatedly barred their entry.
Finally, on March 17, the DOGE managed to enter with the help of law enforcement.
In response to Moose's claim that the "DOGE has broken into our building," the DOGE responded:
Mr. Moose denied lawful access to Kenneth Jackson, the Acting USIP President (as approved by the USIP Board). @DCPoliceDept arrived onsite and escorted Mr. Jackson into the building. The only unlawful individual was Mr. Moose, who refused to comply, and even tried to fire USIP’s private security team when said security team went to give access to Mr. Jackson.
Beattie told Beck that during the DOGE takeover of the agency, USIP staffers "barricaded themselves in the offices. They sabotaged the physical infrastructure of the building. There were reports of there being loaded guns within the offices."
"There was one hostage situation where they held a security guard under basically kind of a false-imprisonment type of situation," continued Beattie. "It was extremely intense. Far more so than the better-known story of USAID."
'I think even more bizarre than having this former Taliban guy on the payroll is the kind of schizophrenic posture in relation to Afghanistan exhibited by the US Institute of Peace.'
Beattie noted further that "in the course of all of that, they tried to delete terabyte of data — of accounting information that would indicate what kind of stuff they were up to, what kind of people they were paying."
After the DOGE secured the headquarters, former Trump adviser and DOGE head Elon Musk indicated that the DOGE recovered the terabyte of financial data that USIP staffers allegedly deleted to "cover their crimes."
RELATED: Democracy promotion is dead: Good riddance
The DOGE not only exposed significant waste and alleged fraud but questionable contracts, including a $132,000 contract with a former Taliban official, Mohammad Qasem Halimi, who served as the extremist regime's chief of protocol, then later as a "fixer type" in Afghanistan.
"What the heck is an organization like this doing having an individual who is a former Taliban member on their payroll?" Beattie said to Beck.
Beattie suggested ProPublica's recent attempt to paint Halimi as a victim of the DOGE was a "total joke," stressing that "he was probably one of these people who was playing all sides, made a lot of enemies."
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"I think even more bizarre than having this former Taliban guy on the payroll is the kind of schizophrenic posture in relation to Afghanistan exhibited by the U.S. Institute of Peace," continued Beattie.
The USIP's acting president suggested that his supposedly peace-focused agency was apparently interested in keeping Afghanistan's opium trade alive and well.
"One truly bizarre thing is that one of the U.S. Institute of Peace's main kind of policy agendas was basically lamenting the fact that the opium trade had dissipated under Taliban leadership," said Beattie. "They had multiple reports coming out, basically saying, 'This is horrible that the opium trade is diminished under the Taliban. We need to find some way to restore it.' How bizarre is that?!"
"The whole story of opium and Afghanistan and its connection to government entities is a very intricate and delicate and fascinating one. But it seems very clear that the U.S. Institute of Peace was involved in that story to some degree," added Beattie.
Beck noted that "this is the real deep-state stuff that I think bothers people so much. Look, we expect our CIA to do stuff — we don't necessarily want it to do it, but we expect it. But when it's in the State Department, when it's in every department ... pushing money to NGOs to overthrow governments, it's out of control."
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ProPublica — an investigative journalist outfit that has received donations from Laurene Powell Jobs and her leftist Emerson Collective, from George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society, and from Crankstart Foundation, Lincoln Project donor Michael Moritz's family foundation — ran a sob story on Friday about a so-called "Afghan scholar" whose receipt of American funds through the U.S. Institute of Peace was exposed earlier this year by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The liberal publication tried to paint former Taliban official Mohammad Qasem Halimi as a victim, the work he did as "routine" yet "ambiguous," DOGE's publicization of Halimi's financial link to the U.S. as irresponsible, and the DOGE worker who briefly controlled USIP as inept.
The game the establishment media is playing is 'an insult to our nation.'
ProPublica's concern-mongering has not found resonance at the Trump State Department, which is aware that Halimi was part of the regime that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11.
In a Monday statement to Rikki Ratliff-Fellman, executive producer for Glenn Beck, the department defended cutting off Halimi, reiterated that he was indeed a former Taliban member, and underscored that the game the establishment media is playing is "an insult to our nation."
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 19 aimed at reducing the scope of the federal bureaucracy.
Among the federal entities that the Trump administration subsequently worked to shutter or scale down was the USIP, a think tank with an apparent problem with political bias and a budget last year of $55 million.
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The Trump administration canned 10 voting members of the USIP board of directors along with the institute's president, former Clinton official George Moose; terminated nearly all of the institute's staff and activities around the world; had elements of the DOGE take over the institute's headquarters; and transferred USIP's property to the General Services Administration.
Fired members of the board sued on March 18 to prevent a housecleaning at the USIP, claiming the wind-down was a "lawless assault." Although an Obama judge declared in May that the changes at the federal entity were "null and void," the D.C. Court of Appeals stayed the lower court's ruling.
Following its takeover of USIP headquarters and just hours after notifying Halimi of his contract's termination, the DOGE shared some of its findings in March 31 on X, noting, "USIP contracts (now cancelled) include: — $132,000 to Mohammad Qasem Halimi, an ex-Taliban member who was Afghanistan's former Chief of Protocol."
According to Halimi's bio on the Doha Forum site, "he is the former Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs in Afghanistan" and "was assigned as a Deputy Justice Minister of Technical and Professional Affairs in 2017."
That bio omits any mention of Halimi's arrest and detention by American forces from 2002 to 2003 at Bagram Air Base or his time with the Taliban.
Deutsche Welle reported that Halimi went to work for the Taliban in 1998, working first in its foreign ministry, then becoming chief of protocol.
'This is real. We don't encounter that in most agencies.'
"I don't deny that I supported the Taliban," Halimi told DW. "I had a very good time in the Foreign Office. It was really the best time in my life. Back then, Afghanistan really needed the Taliban."
Halimi spoke glowingly about Mullah Mohammad Omar, the first leader of the Taliban who offered sanctuary to Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden both before and after the 9/11 attacks, stating, "I cannot say it any differently today than I said it back then: Afghanistan needed Mullah Omar back then."
RELATED: The Islamification of America is well under way
Speaking to DW in 2017, Halimi stated, "To this day I still have friendly relations with the Taliban" — an organization Secretary of State Marco Rubio is looking at for a possible foreign terrorist organization designation.
Halimi reportedly switched sides after his release by American forces.
The USIP contract for this friend of the Taliban was mentioned again in an April 1 post on X, which was shared by Elon Musk and ultimately went massively viral.
The caption on the corresponding post read: "With help from the FBI and Metro Police DOGE was able to access the agency and discovered massive fraud, waste and abuse-including payments to Taliban and Iraq."
The following month, a DOGE staffer told "Jesse Watters Primetime" in a May 1 group interview, "We found that [USIP] were spending money on things like private jets, and they even had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban. This is real. We don't encounter that in most agencies."
According to ProPublica, Taliban security forces allegedly beat and temporarily imprisoned members of Halimi's family just days after news of his USIP funding was brought to light.
Blaze News has reached out to Afghanistan's Ministries of Interior Affairs and Foreign Affairs for comment.
While the alleged violence was perpetrated by Halimi's former comrades, the liberal publication characterized the Trump administration's public recognition of Halimi's Taliban link and exposure of his supposedly benign USIP contract as an "attack" — an attack that former State Department and White House officials supposedly said was "not only absurd, but also dangerous."
ProPublica, which downplayed Halimi's Taliban past and highlighted his work with the former Karzai government, complained that after this "attack," Halimi is now without work and "wonders how he will support his wife and children and whether there’s any chance he can clear his name."
'An overwhelming majority of Americans would agree that the Federal Government should not be funding former members of the Taliban when our country is $36T in debt.'
"Why would one of the richest men in the world commit such an act of injustice?" Halimi said to ProPublica. "Sometimes I think that if Elon Musk himself were fully informed about this matter, he would likely be deeply ashamed."
Whereas the liberal publication proved eager to portray the former Taliban official as a sympathetic character, the publication alternatively characterized Nate Cavanaugh — the former DOGE staffer who worked ardently to expose the rot at USIP, briefly served as its president, and canceled Halimi's contact — as a privileged incompetent.
The publication noted, for example, that Cavanaugh: is a "28-year-old college dropout"; "had nothing in his background to suggest he would be chosen to wind down an international conflict-resolution agency"; started two companies that haven't "successfully" taken off; and "comes from a wealthy family."
Cavanaugh — whom Blaze News has reached out to for comment — apparently made no apologies for carrying out the task President Donald Trump mandated him to do.
"An overwhelming majority of Americans would agree that the Federal Government should not be funding former members of the Taliban when our country is $36T in debt," said Cavanaugh.
Cavanaugh's successor similarly appears not to be panged by ProPublica's sympathies for the Taliban alumnus.
Darren Beattie, undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department and acting president of USIP, said in a statement to Ratliff-Fellman, "Under President Trump's February 19 Executive Order, the United States Institute of Peace was directed to reduce operations to its statutory minimum — ending, among other things, a contract with former Taliban member Mohammad Qasem Halimi."
"The idea of funding former Taliban members on one hand, and publicly lamenting the Taliban’s success in reducing Afghanistan’s opium production on the other, highlights the schizophrenic and dangerous approach to 'conflict resolution' adopted by USIPs previous leadership," continued Beattie. "The fact that the establishment media defends using taxpayer dollars this way is an insult to our nation and the heroes who have fought to protect it."
Beattie added, "Above all, this underscores President Trump’s resolve to end the weaponization of government, cut off funding to adversaries, and shut down reckless so-called peace-building programs that end up undermining our national security."
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What passes for intellectual heft at the Atlantic is any criticism of President Donald Trump. In the Atlantic’s pages and its digital fare, you can read the now-discredited musings of David Frum, who helped bring us the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the inane foreign policy arguments of Max Boot; the interventionist prescriptions of Anne Applebaum; and now, the democracy promotion of political science professor Brian Klaas, who, in a recent article, blames President Trump for killing “American democracy promotion.”
If Klaas is correct, that is one more reason that Americans need to thank President Trump.
Klaas’ first priority is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights.
One would have thought that the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq would have humbled our nation’s democracy promoters — but they haven’t. One would have thought that the failed foreign policy of Jimmy Carter would have humbled those who wish to make “human rights” the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy — but it didn’t. One would have thought that the chaos facilitated by the so-called “Arab Spring” would engender prudence and introspection among the democracy promoters — but it is not so.
Professor Klaas wants the world to become democratic and for U.S. foreign policy to lead the effort in bringing the globe to the promised land.
The Trump administration, Klaas writes, has “turn[ed] against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion.”
Perhaps Klaas has never read George Washington’s Farewell Address, in which he counseled his countrymen to conduct foreign policy based solely on the nation’s interests. Or perhaps he missed John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address, in which he cautioned against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and reminded his listeners that America is the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own.
Perhaps Klaas believes that Wilsonianism is a “long-standing” American tradition, but in reality, it is mostly limited to starry-eyed liberal internationalists and neoconservatives.
Klaas mentions the “democracy boom” under President Bill Clinton, which was nothing more than a temporary consequence of America’s victory in the Cold War. Yet Klaas thinks it was the beginning of “shifting international norms” where freedom and democracy triumphed in “the ideological battle against rival models of governance” and “had become an inexorable force.”
Here, Klaas is likely referring to Francis Fukuyama’s discredited theory of the “end of history.” We have since discovered, however, that history didn’t die and that democracy is fragile, especially in places and among civilizations that have little democratic experience.
Fukuyama was wrong, but Samuel Huntington was right when he wrote about the coming “clash of civilizations.” One wonders if Klaas has read Huntington or Toynbee — or Spengler for that matter. Or, even more recently, Robert Kaplan’s “The Tragic Mind.”
Klaas criticizes Trump for praising dictators, but President Woodrow Wilson praised Lenin and President Franklin Roosevelt praised Stalin. Klaas says that Trump is indifferent to democracy and human rights. No, Trump simply refuses to make them the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, which is a “long-standing” tradition that stretches back long before Wilson to our founding fathers.
However, neither Wilson nor FDR wanted America to right every wrong in the world, as Klaas does. Klaas wants his “human rights” and democracy agenda “backed by weapons.” He laments that authoritarian regimes no longer need to fear the “condemnation” and the “bombs” of the American president.
Klaas’ leftism is revealed when he condemns the United States for helping to replace Mossaddegh with the pro-American shah of Iran, overthrowing the Marxist regime of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, helping to overthrow Allende in Chile, and cozying up to other authoritarian regimes.
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The professor also might want to read Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards” to learn that sometimes doing these things is in America’s national interests. Klaas’ leftism jumps off the page when he refers to the illegal aliens removed by the Trump administration — many with criminal records — as “foreign pilgrims.”
Some of those “foreign pilgrims” raped and killed Americans. But Klaas’ first priority is not America or its citizens; it is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights. He is anti-Trump precisely because Trump’s foreign policy is America First. Let’s hope Klaas’ style of democracy promotion is dead.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
Is Donald Trump a warmonger? It’s a simple question, and yet an increasingly popular accusation from corners of the political class and commentariat that once saw him as the clearest alternative to globalist foreign adventurism. But such an accusation also defies the record. Whatever else one might say about Trump, he has been — consistently and vocally — against needless foreign entanglements.
To suggest that he has suddenly pivoted toward militarism is to misunderstand either the man himself or the moment we are in. Trump is not easily swayed from his core convictions. Trade protectionism and anti-interventionism have always been part of his political DNA. On tariffs, he is unbending. And when it comes to war, he has long argued that America must stop serving as the world’s policeman.
Is Iran another Iraq, or is it more like Poland in 1980?
So when people today accuse Trump of abandoning his anti-interventionist principles, we must ask: What evidence do we have that he has changed? And if he has, does that mean he was misleading us all along — or is something else happening?
If you’ve lost your trust in him, fine. Fair enough. But then the question becomes: Who do you trust? Who else has stood on stage, risked his life, and remained — at least in conviction — largely unchanged?
I’m not arguing for blind trust. In fact, I strongly advise against it. Reagan had it right when he quoted a Russian proverb during nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union: “Trust, but verify.” Trust must be earned daily — and verified constantly. But trust, or the absence of it, is central to what we’re facing.
The West is being pulled in two directions: one toward chaos, the other toward renewal. Trust is essential to renewal. Chaos thrives when people lose confidence — in leaders, in systems, in one another.
We are in a moment when clarity is difficult but necessary. And clarity requires asking harder questions than whether someone is “for or against war.”
Too many Americans today fall into four broad categories when it comes to foreign conflict.
First are the trolls — those who aren’t arguing in good faith, but revel in provocation, division, and distrust. Their goal isn’t clarity. It’s chaos.
Second are those who, understandably, want to avoid war but won’t acknowledge the dangers posed by radical Islamist ideology. Out of fear or fatigue, they have chosen willful blindness. This has been a costly mistake in the past.
Third are those who, like me, do not want war but understand that certain ideologies — particularly those of Iran’s theocratic rulers — cannot be ignored or wished away. We study history. We remember 1979. We understand what the “Twelvers” believe.
Twelversare a sect of Shia Islam whose clerics believe the return of the 12th Imam, their messianic figure, can only be ushered in by global conflict and bloodshed. Iran is the only nation in the world to make Twelver Shia its official state religion. The 12th Imam is not a metaphor. It’s doctrine, and it matters.
Finally, there are the hawks. They cheer for conflict. They seek to project American power, often reflexively. And they carry the swagger of certainty, even as history offers them little vindication.
The last few decades have offered sobering lessons. Regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria — none produced flourishing democracies or stable allies. While America is capable of toppling regimes, we’re not so good at manufacturing civil societies. Real liberty requires real leadership on the ground. It requires heroes — people willing to suffer and die not for power, but for principle.
That’s what was missing in Kabul, Baghdad, and Tripoli. We never saw a Washington or a Jefferson emerge. Brave individuals assisted us, but no figures rose to power with whom nations could coalesce.
That is why I ask whether Iran is simply the next chapter in a tired and tragic book — or something altogether different.
Is Iran another Iraq? Or is it more like Poland in 1980? It’s not an easy question, but it’s one we must ask.
During the Cold War, we saw what it looked like when people yearned for freedom. In Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, dissidents risked everything for a chance to escape tyranny. There was a moral clarity. You could hear it in their music, see it in their marches, feel it in the energy that eventually tore down the Berlin Wall.
Is that spirit alive in Iran?
RELATED: Mark Levin sounds alarm: Stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions before it’s too late
We know that millions of Iranians have protested. We know many have disappeared for it. The Persian people are among the best educated in the region. They are culturally rich, historically sophisticated, and far more inclined toward Western ideals than the mullahs who rule them.
But we know Iran’s mullahs are not rational actors.
So again, we must ask: If the people of Iran are capable of throwing off their theocratic oppressors, should the United States support them? If so, how — and what would it cost us?
I am not calling for war. I do not support U.S. military intervention in Iran. But I do support asking better questions. Is it in our national interest to act? Is there a moral imperative we cannot ignore? And do we trust the institutions advising us?
I no longer trust the intelligence agencies. I no longer trust the think tanks that sold us the Iraq War. I certainly don’t trust the foreign policy establishment in Washington that has consistently failed upward.
But I do trust the American people to engage these questions honestly — if they’re willing to think.
I believe we may be entering the first chapter of a final, spiritual conflict — what Scripture calls the last battle. It may take decades to unfold, but the ideological lines are being drawn.
And whether you are for Trump or against him, whether you see Iran as a threat or a distraction, whether you want peace or fear it’s no longer possible — ask the tougher questions.
Because what comes next won’t be determined by slogans. It will be determined by what we truly believe.
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“We will not let what happened in Europe happen in America,” President Trump declared Wednesday, unveiling a new travel ban targeting 12 nations — mostly Islamic-majority countries from the Middle East and Africa.
It’s a strong first step toward fulfilling the original 2015 promise of a full moratorium on immigration from regions plagued by jihadist ideology. But let’s not pretend Europe’s crisis stemmed from poor vetting of criminal records. The real problem was mass migration from cultures openly hostile to Western values — especially toward Jews and, by extension, Christians.
The United States ranks near the bottom of the list for anti-Semitism. That’s something worth protecting — not surrendering to appease lobbyists or foreign governments.
And the new list leaves troubling gaps.
Trump’s call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” was the defining issue that launched his political movement. Nine years later, the rationale is even stronger — and now, the president has the power to make it happen.
Consider the context: Egyptian national Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the alleged Boulder attacker who shouted he wanted to “end all Zionists,” entered the United States in 2022 with a wife and five children — admitted from Kuwait.
The only question that matters: How many more share Soliman’s views?
The numbers are staggering. By my calculation, the U.S. admitted 1,453,940 immigrants from roughly 43 majority-Muslim countries between 2014 and 2023. That figure doesn’t include over 100,000 student visas, nor the thousands who’ve overstayed tourist visas and vanished into the interior.
Soliman is not an outlier. He’s a warning. And warnings demand a response.
Trump’s January executive order called for a 60-day review by the secretary of state, the attorney general, the Homeland Security secretary, and the director of national intelligence to identify countries with inadequate screening procedures. Four and a half months later — following the Boulder attack — the administration announced bans on nationals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
But Trump didn’t mention anti-American or anti-Jewish sentiment — only logistical concerns like poor criminal record-keeping, high visa overstay rates, and limited government cooperation.
That misses the point entirely.
Jew-hatred — and by extension, hatred of the West — isn't just a byproduct of chaos in failed states like Somalia or Taliban-run Afghanistan. It runs deep across the Middle East, even in countries with functioning governments. In fact, some of the most repressive regimes, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are openly hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood, yet still export radicalized individuals.
And those individuals know precisely where to go: America, where radical Islam finds more tolerance than in many Islamic countries.
Good diplomatic relations don’t mean good immigration policy. Pew’s 2010 global attitudes survey showed over 95% of people in many Middle Eastern countries held unfavorable views of Jews — including those in Egypt and Jordan, U.S. allies.
The Anti-Defamation League’s global index confirms it: The highest levels of support for anti-Semitic stereotypes come from the Middle East. According to the ADL, 93% of Palestinians and upwards of 70% to 80% of residents from other Islamic nations agree with tropes about Jews controlling the world’s wars, banks, and governments.
Meanwhile, the United States ranks near the bottom of the list for anti-Semitism. That’s something worth protecting — not surrendering to appease lobbyists or foreign governments.
So why continue importing hundreds of thousands of people from places where hatred of Jews is considered normal? Why welcome migration from countries like Iraq, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia — where assimilation into American civic values is practically impossible?
The answer may lie in the influence nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia still exert over U.S. foreign policy. But political cowardice is no excuse for policy paralysis.
Twelve countries on the ban list is a good start. But most don’t reflect the true source of radical Islamic immigration into the United States.
RELATED: Mass deportation or bust: Trump’s one shot to get it right
Banning immigration from these regions isn’t about infringing civil liberties. It’s about preventing a civilizational crisis. Unlike Europe, which responded to rising Islamic extremism by criminalizing dissent and speech, America can take the wiser path: protect national security without sacrificing the First Amendment.
We don’t need hate-speech laws. We need sane immigration policy.
Unfortunately, bureaucrats in the administration watered down Trump’s original vision. They framed the bans in terms of “data-sharing” and technocratic concerns. They sought narrow criteria and limited political blowback.
But the law is clear. Trump v. Hawaii affirmed the president’s broad constitutional authority to exclude foreign nationals.
That authority exists for a reason.
President Trump rose to power by sounding the alarm about what unchecked migration could do to the West. That warning was prophetic. And now, he has the mandate — and the obligation — to act on it.
Twelve countries won’t cut it. The question now isn’t whether Trump will act — it’s whether he’ll act in time.
Because if we want to avoid Europe’s fate, we don’t just need a new policy. We need the old Trump — unapologetic, unflinching, and unafraid to speak hard truths.
Let’s hope he finishes what he started.
At 82 years old, strategic and military adviser Edward Luttwak has watched the CIA continuously fail at what the American people pay them to do. That is, use intelligence to protect the American people.
And he knows why they continue to fail.
“From my point of view, the horrible problem of the Central Intelligence Agency is its failure to collect intelligence about foreign countries,” Luttwak tells BlazeTV hosts Jill Savage and Matthew Peterson on “Blaze News | The Mandate.”
“I want to keep it very simple and simply say that everybody involved in the 2003 Iraq War — not the 1990 Kuwait War, the Iraq War — everybody involved now admits that the plan to go to Iraq and set up a democracy in Iraq of all places,” he says, “had to know nothing at all about Iraq.”
“Which meant that the Central Intelligence Agency did not supply — the National Command Authority, namely the White House — did not supply Congress, did not supply all of us with basic information about Iraq. Namely, that there is no worse place in the world, with a possible exception of Antarctica, where you could set up a functioning democracy,” he continues.
“We have gone through two long, enormously difficult wars, expensive wars, because there was no basic intelligence feedback,” he says. “They did actually less research than an average American who likes snorkeling or scuba diving does before choosing a destination where to go scuba diving.”
“So how did we get here?” Peterson asks.
“We got there,” Luttwak says, “simply because they were obsessed with security.”
“What they do is — first of all, they have a whole technical section of people who work out very ingenious ways of collecting information electronically, technically, by some means or scientific means,” he tells Savage and Peterson.
“The agency themselves has in the past shown great ingenuity technologically, but the most important thing for us is human intelligence, because we don’t need the war plans of foreign countries. What we need is situational awareness,” he adds.
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Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.
Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.
This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.
While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.
Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:
The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.
This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.
For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.
Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.
So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.
This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.
We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.
This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.
They are the best of us.
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A Washington state man held captive in Venezuela for months will soon be reunited with his family after Trump officials intervened in his case.
Joseph St. Clair — a veteran of the U.S. Air Force suffering from what his mother, Patti St. Clair, described as "severe PTSD" — went missing in November during the final weeks of the Biden administration after traveling to Colombia for treatment. Three months later, St. Clair's father, Scott St. Clair, received a call from the Colombian consulate claiming that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro's regime had taken Joseph hostage.
The federal government officially declared St. Clair wrongfully detained.
'We are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.'
"Can you imagine his fear? Can you imagine the isolation that he must be feeling battling his unseen scars in a foreign prison, unsure if help is even coming?" Patti St. Clair said at a "Bring Our Families Home" event in Washington, D.C., in April.
At some point after President Donald Trump retook office, Trump, presidential envoy for hostage affairs Sebastian Gorka, Adam Boehler, and U.S. special envoy Richard Grenell began negotiating with Venezuelan authorities to secure St. Clair's release.
RELATED: Trump gets Venezuela to repatriate violent illegal aliens
The talks must ultimately have been successful, because St. Clair was released to Grenell on Tuesday, his family said in a statement.
"This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it — but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude," his parents said in a statement.
Other details regarding his detainment and release remain unclear.
St. Clair served four tours in Afghanistan. He is originally from Hansville, Washington, along the shores of Puget Sound.
St. Clair was one of at least seven Americans detained in Venezuela since Maduro declared victory in a highly controversial election last July. Even the Biden administration questioned the results of the vote, with then-Sec. of State Antony Blinken expressing "serious concerns."
Six others were released back in February after Grenell met with Maduro.
Now that St. Clair has been released, at least 37 American hostages from countries including Afghanistan, Israel, Russia, and Kuwait have been released since Trump's inauguration in January.
"We remain in prayer and solidarity with the families of those who are still being held," the statement from the St. Clairs said. "We will never stop loving and supporting them as they continue their fight to be reunited with their loved ones."
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If President Trump truly believes in 'no more stupid wars,' now is the time to prove it.
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