“WITH VARYING DEGREES OF CONFIDENCE.“ White House sends message to Congress saying that Syria “may” (according to U.S. intelligence agencies) have used chemical weapons against its own population. This cautious wording seems both to move U.S. toward a view that a “red line” may have been crossed that would justify (overt) U.S. intervention in [...]
“INSUFFICIENTLY PRO-ISRAELI?” New U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had his appointment held up on such “insufficiency” charge but now, on a trip to Israel, he seems to be establishing his sufficiency bones. In presenting a large deal for U.S. arms shipments to Israel, he says that the deal is a “clear signal” to Iran [...]
BOMB AT BOSTON MARATHON KILLS 3 PEOPLE, INCLUDING 1 CHILD AND THERE IS AN OUTPOURING OF U.S. SYMPATHY FOR THE VICTIMS. A secret C.I.A. counter-terrorist raid in Afghanistan kills 17 people, including 12 children. Sympathy out-pouring?—not so much, at least in the U.S. Not so, however, in Afghanistan itself, where the PM Hamid Karzai [...]
HEY CHUCK, WELCOME TO AN AFGHAN DEBACLE. This is Bill Van Auken’s description of the first trip to Afghanistan of the newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. To say that the inauguration of Hagel’s relations to his Afghan partner in the “war on terrorism” was inauspicious would be putting it much [...]
STOCK MARKET RECORD HIGHS: THE RICH GET RICHER, EVERYONE ELSE GETS POORER… Last week saw the Dow Jones stock index shatter its all-time record highs, an occurrence trumpeted by the press and the Obama administration as a clear sign of a full turnaround from the depths of the Great Recession and proof of a [...]
President Obama continued with the task of fleshing out his second-term cabinet on Monday, selecting two men for important national security posts that indicate a decidedly hawkish shift in his administration. The president’s decision also ushers in a potentially two-sided political fight, with conservatives and progressives each taking issue with the men nominated for defense secretary [...]
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