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In recent weeks, President Barack Obama has been contemplating the future of United States military operations in Afghanistan. He has also been touting the effects of his policies at home, reporting that this year′s Recovery Act not only saved jobs but also was "the largest investment in infrastructure since [president Dwight] Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s". At the same time, another much less publicized US-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway. This one in Afghanistan.
Nick Turse
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In thinking about international affairs, it is useful to keep in mind several principles of considerable generality and import. The first is the maxim of Thucydides: the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must. It has an important corollary: every powerful state relies on specialists in apologetics, whose task is to show that what the strong do is noble and just, and if the weak suffer it is their fault. In the contemporary West, these specialists are called "intellectuals," and with only marginal exceptions, they fulfill their assigned task with skill and self-righteousness, however outlandish the claims, a practice that traces back to the origins of recorded history.
Noam Chomsky
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On the 70th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, signed on August 23, 1939 (also my birthday!), historians, ideologues and everyone in between inevitably fall into a game of recriminations, revisionism and relativism. The anti-Soviet side maintains that the Pact gave Germany a free hand in the west and contributed to the onset of war, as represented by OSCE’s recent recognition of Nazi-Soviet equivalence in their culpability for the Second World War. On the other hand, most Russian historians stress that the Pact was a) justifiable on the basis of the Western betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938, and b) gave the USSR valuable time to build up its military-industrial potential for the coming war with Germany.
sublimeoblivion.com
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Memo to the United States Central Intelligence Agency: You may not be prepared for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway. Your rooms may be a little small, your ability to demand better accommodation may have gone out the window, and the amenities may not be to your taste, but get used to it. It′s going to be your reality from now on.
Michael T Klare
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Last week the Dow added 1.3%, the S&P 1.5%, the Russell 2000, 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100, 0.7%. Cyclicals rose 2.6%; transports 3.8%; consumers 1.7%; utilities 1.3%, as banks fell 0.3% and broker/dealers fell 0.6%. High tech fell 0.2% semis 1.1%; bitoechs 1.9% and Internets rose 0.2%. Gold bullion rose $3.00 and the HUI was unchanged, but up 47.5% on the year. The USDX, the dollar index fell 1.1% to 75.62.
Bob Chapman
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Since 1947, India has not fully pledged itself to any camp or global pole during the Cold War and as a result was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (N.A.M.). Since the post-Cold War era that position has eroded. New Delhi has been gradually moving away from its traditional position, relationships, and policies in the international arena for over a decade.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
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As tensions mount between the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on one side and Moscow and its allies on another, the history of the Second World War is being re-framed to demonize Russia, the legal successor state and largest former constituent republic (pars pro toto) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). In 2009, the U.S.S.R. and the Nazi government of Germany started being portrayed as the two forces that ignited the Second World War.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
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On September 11 a Balkans news source cited the chairman of the South East Europe Center at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC, John Sitilides, as claiming that "Although the United States is not focused on the Balkans as it was in the 1990s, the challenges in this region are still reviewed at a very high level in Washington." [1]
Rick Rozoff
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With the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index up 47% from the lows it reached in March, many investors are feeling intense relief
Keith Fitz-Gerald
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In the face of mounting pressure from hawks in Washington and the continued threat of military action from Israel, the Barack Obama Administration has been taking a harder line in its latest pronouncements about Iran
el Luban,
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Things get curiouser and curiouser in the Iranian wonderland. Imagine what happened last week during Friday prayers in Tehran, personally conducted by former president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, aka "The Shark", Iran′s wealthiest man, who made his fortune partly because of Irangate - the 1980s′ secret weapons contracts with Israel and the US.
Pepe Escobar. Asia Times Online
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With a view to restoring financial stability, World leaders have called upon the Group of 20 countries (G-20) to instigate a new global currency based on the IMF′s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).
Michel Chossudovsky
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The Central Asian question is no more the same as it was in the 1990s. No one speculates anymore that it was inevitable that the region would descend into anarchy. However, the problems endemic to a critical period of state formation linger. The transition economies were just about switching gear when the global economic crisis struck. Growth slackened. Foreign investment dwindled. Commodity prices crashed.
M K Bhadrakumar
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After the tragic events of July 5 in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, it would be useful to look more closely into the actual role of the US Government’s ”independent“ NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). All indications are that the US Government, once more acting through its “private” Non-Governmental Organization, the NED, is massively intervening into the internal politics of China.
F. William Engdahl
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I am travelling in Europe for three weeks to discuss the global financial crisis with government officials, politicians and labor leaders. What is most remarkable is how differently the financial problem is perceived over here. It’s like being in another economic universe, not just another continent.
Michael Hudson
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