Israel war
Death count soars toward 20,000
Dec 8 2023
The weeklong pause for hostage and prisoner exchange having ended, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) resumed their all out attack at the beginning of December. Israel's military spokesmen have stated…
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geostrategy
Mar 23 2022
Remember the Nineties? The Soviet Union had broken apart, ending the long Cold War. The first McDonald's opened in Moscow; Russians waited in long lines to sample America's famous fast food. American corporations poured in. Germany was reunified. Peace in…
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foreign policy
Trump should learn from the deal he tossed aside that replacing it will not be easy
Jul 28 2019
It was one of his campaign promises to get rid of “one of the worst negotiated deals of any kind that I have ever seen” not that his base had ever asked for it. Itching to end the deal that put Iran's nuclear development on hold, after acquiescing to its continuance in two mandated quarterly reviews, President Trump in October 2017 decertified the inspection reports, setting in motion the abrogation of an agreement that had taken almost two years to negotiate.
His national security team had strongly recommended that he keep the U.S. in the accord. In a statement that September, over 80 disarmament experts urged him to honor the U.S. pledge, calling the agreement a “net plus for international nuclear nonproliferation”. That the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which conducts non-proliferation nuclear inspections on site in Iran, had all along reported that Iran was in…
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foreign policy
A baffling reversal by the North Korean dictator
Mar 16 2018
Kim Jong-un stunned the world with a message to President Trump that said he is "committed to denuclearization", will "refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests", understands that the joint military exercises conducted by South Korea and the United States "must continue", and is eager to meet President Trump "as soon as possible".
The words are of South Korea’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, who flew to Washington immediately after meeting with Kim Jong-un to present Read More »
foreign affairs
President "decertifies" the six-nation anti-nuclear pact
Oct 19 2017
It was one of his campaign promises to get rid of "one of the worst negotiated deals of any kind that I have ever seen". Itching to end it, but having acquiesced twice in the past, the president has this time decertified the nuclear stand down agreement with Iran. When did Donald Trump's "base" ever ask for this promise, as well as the long list of hostile actions he will now have the U.S. take against the Islamic…
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foreign policy
Jan 9 2017
"A shameful anti-Israel ambush", erupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response to the U.S. abstention at the United Nations that
let resolution 2334 against West Bank settlements pass by a 14-0 vote . "Friends don’t take friends to the Security Council", he added.
Ambush it certainly was not, and his Israel has been no friend to America's efforts toward a two state solution. The Obama administration has been condemning for years every new announcement…
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trade
Apr 25 2016
In a presidential run like no other, one surprise is the theme adopted by both parties in the persons of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders that trade and
globalization have damaged the U.S. It's a radical departure from the pro-trade orthodoxy that has been recited by politicians and the major media stretching back decades, and it has triggered a long overdue debate.
Trump launched the subject when he announced that upon gaining the Oval Office he would immediately raise tariffs to China by 45%. Sanders took Michigan, inveighing against “disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America", blaming Detroit's decline on globalization, and mined the same vein in Wisconsin. The others tried…
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exodus
Helping a wayfarer make it to Stockholm
Sep 24 2015
By our correspondents in Germany, Kenneth and Natalya MacWilliams
Europe is being engulfed. Within Europe, Germany is experiencing the brunt of it. Within Germany, Munich is by far experiencing the brunt of it. Munich can for the moment be called ground zero.
There are many migrant and refugee centers in the greater Munich area. Migrants are first received at a central registration point where they remain for only one or two days while…
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foreign policy
Obama has won but so has Iran
Sep 15 2015
To follow the inverted logic of the furious debate over the Iran nuclear deal has been an adventure in Wonderland where Alice learns that down is up and up is down. Opponents argued that we
should hold out for a better deal. After holding fast against six nations for 18 months, surely Iran will be only too obliging to return to the table. Or, why don't we just toughen the sanctions? Never mind that…
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congress
Jul 27 2015
Beleaguered
Testifying before the House of Representatives in late July on the impending Iran deal, Secretary of State John Kerry was quizzed by Texas Republican Mike McCaul, who is chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. It went like so:
McCaul: This secret deal…
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foreign policy
Jul 23 2015
The moment the accord with Iran was announced, it was denounced. Even-handed circumspection was not the tenor of the day. What was most bewildering was to listen to those who find the deal disastrous but who are unperturbed by what would result if there is no deal.
The defects emphasized by the detractors are real and worrisome, and conservatives in Congress vow to block the deal when it comes up for vote in…
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foreign policy
Jul 1 2015
"Break a leg" said to an actor entering on a stage is the peculiar wish for good luck in theater world. It's not meant literally, of course, which suggests that when one really does break a leg, it's a show in trouble. By that reading, the sight of Secretary of State John Kerry, hobbling about on crutches after his bicycle accident, should have told us that three months of negotiating since the verbal "framework" agreement of April 3rd between Iran…
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trade
Jun 9 2015
House Halts Trade Bill: May 25: House Democrats went counter to norms by voting against assistance to those who would lose jobs from trade bill imports, a tactic to guarantee that Democrats would vote against the trade bill itself for lacking this this provision. For the President, who allied with Republicans against unions in a reversal of form anything to get his trade bill passed it halts fast-tracking the trade bill in its tracks.
It is the biggest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by Bill Clinton over twenty years ago. That one linked the U.S. with Canada and Mexico. This time it is twelve nations bordering the Pacific,…
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foreign policy
And only a couple of months to patch them
Apr 18 2015
One view of the talks
Steve Breen, UT San Diego
The ink was hardly dry on the term sheet rushed out by the U.S. before it began to smear. Called a "framework, it was immediately disavowed by Iran's negotiators who felt they'd been framed. That the list was immediately released to the media was…
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foreign affairs
Mar 18 2015
With an end-March deadline looming in the talks with Iran, the 47 Republican senators who signed the letter to Iranian leaders may have accomplished their mission of undermining President Obama's months-long goal of reaching an agreement to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment program. The result could be that Iran will now…
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foreign policy
Are extensions of the extensions leading anywhere?
Feb 24 2015
Congress's resolve to influence any accord with Iran is born of deep skepticism over the negotiations so far. They have watched
the Obama administration and its five partners acquiesce to a succession of extensions in which Iran has yielded little.
With a final agreement nowhere in sight, negotiators had in November 2013 settled for a six-month "interim agreement" so that talks could continue. It gave Iran immediate rollbacks of some sanctions already…
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Russia
Mar 5 2022
What misfortune, after a tumultuous decade in which Russia sought to right itself after the breakup of the Soviet Union and become a fledgling democracy, that Boris Yeltsin on resigning the presidency chose as his successor ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin,…
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pandemic
Apr 13 2021
A 15-member international contingent from the World Health Organization (WHO) journeyed to Wuhan, China, early this year to seek out the source of the original Covid-19 outbreak that has led to the deaths of close to three million people worldwide.…
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foreign policy
Feb 16 2020
For decades America's presidents
have pursued the grail of a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians, an achievement that would add luster…
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cyberwar
Russian leader wipes the slate clean for a reset with Trump
Dec 26 2016
It was an adroit public relations ploy by Vladimir Putin, his decision to do nothing in retaliation against President Obama's expulsion of 35 diplomats and a list of other penalties and to even invite American diplomats' kids to the Kremlin to celebrate the New Year and Russian Orthodox Christmas. Angry Obama, peace
loving Putin, if you choose to be fooled. The move was also to dim the memory Russia's serious act of aggression against the United States, its cyber hacks into the American electoral process, attacks aimed only at Democrats, putting a bear claw on the scale to weight it in Trump's favor.
But we'd rather not forgot Russia's actions. They are just the beginning, now that Putin has discovered how easily it was to tamper with American democracy. Let's review how this happened.
whodunit
All 18 government intelligence groups ultimately concluded that it was the Russians who breached the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign computer systems and gave WikiLeaks thousands of emails to release.
But the damage could have been averted were it not for a stunning tale of ineptitude between the FBI and the DNC told…
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foreign policy
Aug 4 2016
Donald Trump's encouraging Russia to find the 30,000
e-mails that were erased from Hillary Clinton's server (per her attorneys) has raised legitimate concern that "there's something going on", a phrase you might remember Trump leveling at President Obama after Orlando.
Forensic technology has convinced U.S. intelligence that the Wikileaks release of Democratic National Committee e-mails and documents originated with the Russian government. That they expose a corrupt tilt toward Clinton over Sanders by the committee and were released just before the Democratic convention seems beyond coincidence. Is Vladimir Putin, his favorable comments taking advantage of Trump's susceptibility to flattery, trying to influence the election? And has Trump …
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war
Sorting out the finger-pointing
Jan 12 2016
"If we had 10,000 troops left in Iraq there would be no ISIL, and I
hate what Obama did. He gave away everything we fought for. I hate what he did". That was Lindsey Graham in the most recent Republican debate before he bowed out of the race. "I blame Obama for ISIL, not Bush. I miss George W. Bush. I wish he were president right now", he added. He seemed close to tears.
Blaming President Obama for the rise of ISIL has been adopted as doctrine for those on the right, with truth being the casualty. It's a seriously ugly lie emblematic of how craven our politics have become. Rather than mature evaluation that…
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foreign policy
The U.S. has no plan to preserve the open ocean
Oct 27 2015
On the first day of September, China staged a military parade of staggering size with 12,000 goose-stepping troops, missile
Chinese sailors on the bridge
carriers, and jet over-flights as the centerpiece of a new 3-day national holiday commemorating the end of World War II. Simultaneously, President Xi Jinping announced a 300,000 reduction in the size of the army. It was, Xi said, a gesture to show that other countries have nothing to fear from a China "loyally committed to the sacred duty of safeguarding world peace”.
But it was the army that got trimmed. Just as with Obama's "pivot" to the Pacific, so is the Pacific China's pivot. “The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned”,…
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foreign policy
Sep 27 2015
China's defense budget has for years grown by double-digit percentages as it transforms itself from a land power although still left with the world's largest army at 2 million into a blue water naval power. The West ever distracted
by the Middle East, Central Asia and now, Ukraine has been left to watch, to the degree that it has been watching at all. Here's what that transformation has achieved so far:
making waves
China is expected to have a navy of 342 ships by 2020. The U.S. fleet numbers 243 surface and submarine warships. Spread thin…
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foreign policy
It begins as China claims international waters as its own
Sep 12 2015
China has hit a rough patch. We've been importing about 8% less than last year, so they've devalued the yuan to make their goods cheaper and our goods more expensive. That way we Americans will boost our imports again, and China will buy less of our products. After all, they need our money to build their air force and navy so they can advance their plan to shut us out of the
South China Sea and then the western Pacific. We're only too glad to help.
With our military bases dotting the region and our ships…
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foreign policy
Years of incidents show heightened belligerence
Aug 26 2015
The run-in with the Chinese navy described in our companion article was hardly the first encounter the U.S . and neighboring nations have had with China. These confrontations have the potential to easily devolve into military conflict.
Last August a Chinese pilot flew his jet fighter within 20-30 feet of a U.S. Navy patrol plane over international waters 100 miles off China's Hainan Island and flipped over to show the armament under its wings. "Very, very close. Very dangerous,"…
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foreign relations
A rash of fines for alleged monopolistic practices
Nov 6 2014
The enormous Chinese market is irresistible to American multinational corporations. To gain admittance U.S. companies acceded to whatever demands the Chinese imposed, most in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO)
rules, and willingly handed over their technology to the Chinese with little regard as to what the consequences may be for their own future.
When China was admitted to the WTO in 2001, it was no secret that their huge export imbalance was not enough to satisfy their vaulting ambitions. The further plan was and is to replace foreign companies and imports with local production.…
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trade
Heard of TPP? Your news programs have kept it a secret
Feb 6 2014
You weren't supposed to know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Behind closed doors the United States and eleven Pacific rim nations have been negotiating a trade pact designed to hand multinational corporations powers greater than their own governments’. It is referred to as "NAFTA on steroids" by those opposed, expected to hand still more jobs to other countries. Yet President Obama has lobbied the Senate for "fast track" treatment to ram it through an up-or-down show of hands with…
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foreign policy
American hypocrisy on flagrant display
Dec 5 2012
America preaches to the world that its peoples should be free of oppression and have the right of self-determination, yet in the vote at the United Nations this past week, our country has sided with Israel that the Palestinians should not even have “nonmember observer status” at the international body. Standing out in stark relief, our vote, disagreeing with 138 countries that voted “yes”, gives the lie to what this…
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foreign policy
Part 3 of a series on how China robs us blind
Nov 6 2012
One of the first things Mitt Romney said he would do on Day One in the Oval Office had he won the election was to “declare China a currency manipulator, allowing me to put tariffs on products where they are stealing American jobs unfairly.”
Actually, while still undervalued and still a problem, the yuan has been allowed to rise against the dollar some 30% since 2005. And the President has imposed tariffs and filed protests with…
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Den of Thieves
Part 1 of a series.
Feb 27 2012
For decades now, first with Japan and to a much greater extent with China, we have allowed globalization and notions of free trade to permit cheating countries to hollow out American industry and contribute to an American future that looks increasingly bleak. It will only worsen on our present course. With China it began with clothing and household goods,…
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