Americans and Russians won the war against Nazism together and should have found a way to commemorate that together despite the current Moscow-Washington polarization
Early this month, Pando Daily’s Mark Ames (4/2/15) noticed a curious trend: Western media, somewhat strangely, keep breaking the same story of Russia’s paid Internet trolls over and over again as if it’s something new:
Below are the key parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program that were decided in Lausanne, Switzerland. These elements form the foundation upon which the final text of the JCPOA will be written between now and June 30, and reflect the significant progress that has been made in discussions between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran.
As the nuclear talks with Iran enter the final stretch, and as the media coverage reaches the point of hysteria, it is useful to step back a bit and offer a few observations about how to approach the kinds of revelations and arguments that we might expect in the coming days or weeks.
By adding a poison pill to legislation implementing the latest Minsk agreement, the Ukrainian government has effectively guaranteed a resumption of the civil war
This trade agreement, like previous international trade agreements, like NAFTA, is not a partisan issue. On just about every other piece of legislation that the Obama Administration has introduced to Congress, the Republican majority has stood fast against it. However, in this instance, Congress appears to be strangely united in its efforts to pass a secret bill that they have not even been allowed to read.
I subscribe to the mailing list of The Arms Control Association and received this today. t answers or or gives their opinion on several pertinent questions regarding the proposed agreement on nuclear development by Iran. I cannot find a direct link so I am posting it here in full.
A Critical Week in Lausanne
Nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) are entering the final days before the end-of-March target date for reaching a framework agreement.
There is not any single subject contemplated at this blog. It is intended to be on-going as a place where I will mostly put links and short observations or questions. Any subject may come up including movies and music, as well as my own poetry and short fiction. It is mainly intended as a place for short comments which I see as having relevance to ongoing events but am too lazy to expand upon unless they gain some traction. I may refer here to ongoing conversations at Dag when what they bring to mind is too far off topic or might be otherwise disruptive.
The mysterious death of an Argentine prosecutor has whipped up new suspicions around the case of who bombed the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in 1994 and whether there was an official cover-up, but the evidence on both counts remains dubious or discredited, says Gareth Porter.
In recent decades, the U.S. propaganda system has grown more and more sophisticated in the art of “perception management,” now enlisting not only government PR specialists but careerist journalists and aspiring bloggers to push deceptions on the public, a crisis in democracy that Nicolas J S Davies explores.
The short quote which most nearly describes my opinion of the “Je suis Charlie.” knee-jerk fad-fest is a tweet I saw somewhere which I paraphrase as, "I am [insert the name of the murdered Muslim cop]. it is a statement in agreement with a saying attributed originally to Voltaire but which has been repeated ad nauseam through the years. "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." I depart from the sentiment somewhat because I, personally, would not voluntarily die in defense of any abstract belief if I could possibly avoid it. And, I would not march with the leaders who amassed in Paris to give lip service supposedly, but I believe for most of them hypocritically, defending that concept. That said, I sincerely appreciate the freedom of speech I have to the extent that it exists.
In a rational political system, the American neocons would be the most discredited group in modern U.S. history. If not in the dock for complicity in war crimes – from Central America in the 1980s to Iraq last decade – they would surely not be well-regarded scholars at prominent think tanks and welcomed as op-ed columnists at major publications.
Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.”He was the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote “Letter from Tokyo” for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.
The Republican victory in the 2014 midterms is less than 24 hours old. But already, the hawkish wing of the GOP is planning an ambitious battle plan to revamp American foreign policy: everything from arming Ukraine’s military to reviewing the ISIS war to investigating the U.S. intelligence community’s role in warming relations with Iran.
