Subjects Archives: War

Everyone is talking now of the “currency war” that seems to be breaking out among the world’s leading economies, each working for a depreciation of its currency vis-à-vis the others.  The effect of a currency depreciation is to enlarge the exports of the country undertaking such a depreciation and to reduce its imports, since its […]

October 28, 2010 Today, Marc Lynch — a professor at George Washington University who blogs at Foreign Policy — published a timely piece entitled “Keep the Iran War Talk Quiet.”  As Marc notes, “there’s some hope that Iran will return to nuclear talks with the P-5+1 in Geneva on Nov.15, even if they probably will […]

That’s terrific! So I exclaimed when I read down to the last line about the revelations of the famous journalist Seymour Hersh, printed in Democracy Now! and collected as one of the 25 most censored news items in the United States. The material is entitled “The War Crimes of Stanley McChrystal, U.S. General” and it […]

CHAPTERS 28 and 29 Obama came down from the residence and saw Biden.  Biden advised him:  “What you’re about to do is a presidential order; it is no longer an issue of continuing a discussion. This is not what you think. This is an order. Without them, we’re locked into in Vietnam”. Obama answered: “I’m […]

CHAPTERS 20 and 21 Assessments about the options regarding the war in Afghanistan continued. Three priorities in terms of civilian efforts are identified: agriculture, education and reduction of poppies. If these aims were to be met, support for the Taliban could be undermined. The big question was still: “what can you do in a year?” […]

CHAPTER 15 Admiral Mullen appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing heading towards a second two-year term, two days after the first session dedicated to the strategy. In his statement, the admiral refers to the strategy suggested by McChrystal and he adds that this “probably means more forces”.

In yesterday´s Reflection there appears a key paragraph taken from Woodward´s book: “One important secret that has never been reported in the media, or anywhere else, was the existence of a covert army of 3,000 men in Afghanistan, whose objective was to kill or capture Taliban and sometimes venture into the tribal areas to pacify them and get support.” That army, created and handled by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), trained and organized as a “special force” has been made up on tribal, social, anti-religious and anti-patriotic bases; its mission is the follow-up and physical elimination of Taliban fighters and other Afghans, described as extreme Moslems.A Saudi recruited and funded by the CIA to fight against the Soviets when their troops were occupying Afghanistan has nothing in common with Al Qaeda and Bin Laden.When Vice President Biden traveled to Kabul at the start of 2009,David Mckiernan, chief of American troops in Afghanistan told him in answer to a question about Al Qaeda that he hadn´t seen one single Arab in two years there. Despite the relatively brief and ephemeral importance that the principal international press gave to “Obama´s Wars”, without a doubt these did not shirk from recording this revealing piece of news.

I am amazed at the widespread ignorance about issues so vital for the existence of mankind, at a time that it has great media, unimaginable a hundred years ago, some as recent as the Internet. Just three weeks ago the news was announced of the imminent distribution of a spectacular book by Bob Woodward, The […]

  Guido Mantega, the Brazilian Finance Minister, said recently that Brazil is in the middle of a currency war.  His preoccupation with exchange rate appreciation is not directed to global imbalances, in general, or China, in particular.  A more depreciated currency provides protection for domestic production and makes domestic goods and services cheaper for foreigners. […]

  On Oct. 2, tens of thousands of people from across the United States — members of civil rights organizations, labor unions, community groups and religious institutions — will rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to demand “Jobs, Justice and Education!”  (See www.onenationworkingtogether.org.) As part of this effort, the peace movement is mobilizing […]

27 September 2010 Iranian and Iraqi youth were the stars at a 24 September ceremony to celebrate peace between their countries.  On this date thirty years ago began the eight-year Iran‐Iraq war that killed and injured hundreds of thousands of both sides.  With a whole generation of orphans wishing to prevent future conflicts, the focus […]

Nationalization and Workers’ Control: Achievements and Limitations The economic, social and political situation in Venezuela has changed a lot since the failure of the constitutional reform in December 2007, which acted as a warning to the Chávez government.1  This failure had the effect however of reviving the debate on the need to have a socialist […]

MORE than 20,000 nuclear weapons are in the hands of eight countries: the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, Israel, India and Pakistan, some with profound economic, political and religious differences. The new START treaty, signed in Prague this April by the largest nuclear powers, is nothing more than an illusion in relation […]

  Daniel Branch.  Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.  xx + 250 pp.  $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-11382-3; $24.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-13090-5. The two related themes in Kenya’s history that have drawn the most debate and interpretations are land and the Mau Mau war.  Daniel Branch’s study […]

  In your view, does the combat troop withdrawal mean that the mission has been completed successfully? Viewed from all conceivable angles the war must be considered a strategic failure and a humanitarian disaster.  True, the US government, together with its allies primarily the United Kingdom, managed to oust Saddam Hussein who was, by all […]

  Phillip J. Cooper.  The War against Regulation: From Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush.  Studies in Government and Public Policy Series.  Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.  288 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7006-1681-7. Phillip J. Cooper is an accomplished scholar of the executive branch of the U.S. government and its interaction with the courts. […]

The real heroes of what’s left of the labor movement are not people with full-time union jobs, union-furnished cars and credit cards, and union benefits that dues-paying members don’t get anymore.  It’s the men and women who take time out from their regular jobs, under the baleful eye of their boss, to be shop stewards. […]

June 21: AFP: Brazil refused to go on mediating on the Iranian nuclear subject after the US and other powers rejected the agreement for exchange signed in May by Iran and Turkey, as declared this Monday by Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim to The Financial Times.

We are living in an exceptional moment of human history. Starting from a period in which it was divided into Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary History. Not the history we were studying in school 75 years ago but the history brilliantly described by Karl Marx as Pre-history. That would be the result of the incredible […]

If I were to be asked who best knows about Israeli thinking, I would answer that without question it is Jeffrey Goldberg. He is an indefatigable journalist, capable of having dozens of meetings to ascertain how some Israeli leader or intellectual may think. He is not neutral, of course; he is pro-Israel, without question. When […]