Saturday, December 19, 2009

Why Obama Is Failing

By Robert Parry
December 19, 2009

A year ago, as Barack Obama was assembling his administration, he was at a crossroads with two paths going off in very different directions: one would have led to a populist challenge to the Washington/New York political-economic establishments; the other called for collaboration and cajoling.

Read on.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Merry Christmas from America's Banks

By Michael Winship
December 19, 2009

Never mind Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope. It's the audacity of the banks that takes your breath away.

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Sorting Through the Jesus Myths

By the Rev. Howard Bess
December 18, 2009

Jesus from Nazareth was still a young man when he was killed in Jerusalem. The best estimate is that he was in his early 30s.

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Elliott Abrams and 'Neocon-ing' Obama

By Robert Parry
December 18, 2009

For the eight years of the Bush-II administration, a key behind-the-scenes architect of U.S. strategy in the Middle East was Elliott Abrams, a neoconservative whose devotion to Israel is hard to overstate – and who is now engaged in what looks like a PR campaign to bend Barack Obama’s Mideast policies in the direction favored by Israel’s hard-line Likud government.

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Time to End the Neocon Con Game

By Bruce P. Cameron
December 17, 2009

As Washington’s long debate on the Afghan war unfolded, one group had an unhealthy advantage though – based on its record – it should have had no influence at all. These are the neoconservatives, and they have captured The Washington Post’s editorial pages along with other outlets of elite opinion.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009

'Invictus': Mandela's Message of Hope

By Lisa Pease
December 16, 2009

The film “Invictus” dramatizes the real-world events of 1995, when newly installed South African President Nelson Mandela urged his country to come together behind its rugby team, the Springboks, when South Africa hosted the once-every-four-years Rugby World Cup.

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The Risky Supply Line to Afghanistan

By Melvin A. Goodman
December 16, 2009

Logistics will be the key to introducing 30,000 soldiers and Marines into Afghanistan in the next six to seven months and to confronting the Taliban over the next 18 months. This reflects an old saying in the military - amateurs study strategy and professionals study logistics.

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Opportunity Lost: Obama in Oslo

By Daniel C. Maguire
December 16, 2009

Whether Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is not the point. He didn’t. The fact is he got it, and was gifted with the chance of a lifetime to make a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the glare of Nobel could have attained instant biblical standing.

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How Banks Fleece the Unemployed

By Barbara Koeppel
December 16, 2009

Just when you thought the big banks had maxed out their chutzpah account, think again.

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Getting Realistic about Afghanistan

By Ivan Eland
December 15, 2009

One of the reasons why most counterinsurgency campaigns fail is that they’re run by foreign occupiers who don’t know the culture of the invaded country.

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Is Joe Lieberman Protecting Israel?

By Robert Parry
December 15, 2009

Sen. Joe Lieberman’s latest threat to scuttle health-care reform – vowing to join a Republican filibuster to block an over-55 buy-in to Medicare, a proposal that he has long championed – is raising questions about his motives. But no one is mentioning the unmentionable, the cause that has come to define Lieberman’s career: Israel.

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Monday, December 14, 2009

Vanunu and Israel's Undeclared Nukes

By Eileen Fleming
December 14, 2009

Mordechai Vanunu was released from Ashkelon prison to open air captivity in east Jerusalem on April 21, 2004, after 18 years, mostly all in solitary confinement.

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Prosecuting Bush's Poodle

By David Swanson
December 14, 2009

Compare Tony Blair's latest confession to mass murder with Bush's.

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Can Obama Face the 'Unspeakable'?

By Lisa Pease
December 14, 2009

If there’s one book I wish President Obama would read over the holidays, it would be JFK and the Unspeakable.

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Obama's Dirty War

By Douglas Valentine
December 13, 2009

In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, President Barack Obama declared “we’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from spreading throughout that country.” The phrasing signals that his war escalation will follow the dictates of what the CIA calls political and psychological warfare, the cornerstones of counterinsurgency.

Read on.