In Our Circles Archives - Page 24 of 62

War and DIplomacy – Part II: A Way Out of Afghanistan

by Daryl Copeland | Sep 17, 2010

Afghanistan is a crossroads of civilizations and an almost bewilderingly complicated place.

Over the past few centuries, however, it has more often than not been treated as a pawn in the “great game”. The country has also developed a reputation as the “graveyard of empires”, not least because outsiders’ forces have never succeeded in pacifying the place. Internal stability, such as it has ever existed, has been predicated typically upon de-centralized, and frequently shifting political arrangements between a weak centre and roiling periphery.

U.S. Still Top Arms Supplier to South as Record Sale to Saudis Pends

by Jim Lobe | Sep 17, 2010

Despite an unusual dip in global weapons sales in 2009, the United States retained its spot as the world’s top arms supplier of developing countries, according to an authoritative new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The American Way of War Quiz: This Was The War Month That Was (Believe It or Not)

by Tom Engelhardt, Nick Turse | Sep 17, 2010

Yes, it would be funny if it weren’t so grim. After all, when it comes to squandering money and resources in strange and distant places (or even here at home), you can count on the practitioners of American-style war to be wildly over the top.

Dodging World Bank Schizophrenia: The Looting of Africa Continues?

by Patrick Bond | Sep 10, 2010

The continent’s own elites, together with the West and now China, are still making Africans progressively poorer, thanks to the extraction of raw materials. Reinvestment is negligible and the prices, royalties and taxes paid are inadequate to compensate the wasting-away of Africa’s natural wealth. Anti-extraction campaigns by (un)civil society are the only hope for a reversal of these neocolonial relations.

Pollution Knows No Borders

by Marco Antonio Martinez Garcia | Sep 10, 2010

The three member countries of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America, a body created as part of NAFTA’s environmental side agreement, are facing high rates of emissions of mercury, arsenic, and chromium, according to Orlando Cabrera, the manager of the Air Quality Program and of the Pollutant Release and Transfer Registry (PRTR) of North America.

The US-Japan ‘Alliance’, Okinawa, and Three Looming Elections

by Gavan McCormack | Sep 10, 2010

World attention through the early months of 2010 focused on the tiny hamlet of Henoko in Northern Okinawa as Prime Minister Hatoyama struggled to find a way to meet his (and the Democratic Party of Japan’s) electoral commitment to see that no substitute for the existing Futenma Marine Air Station be constructed in Okinawa. Confronted by adamantine pressures from the US government, and surrounded by uncooperative (some would say even traitorous) bureaucrats who insisted there was no other way but to submit to the US-Japan agreement to construct a new base negotiated by the former LDP government.

Obama Fighting on all Fronts

by Jim Lobe | Sep 3, 2010

Tuesday evening’s prime-time television address marking the withdrawal of all US “combat” troops from Iraq, as well as the following day’s formal launch here of direct talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, will be hailed by the administration as key advances in restoring some stability to the world’s most volatile region.

Obama’s Failing Middle East Policy

by Avni Dogru | Sep 3, 2010

Only fifteen months after his historic Cairo speech, there are alarming signs that President Obama’s new engagement policy with the Middle East may soon find its place in history’s dustbin. The Obama administration’s withdrawal announcement of US “combat” troops from Iraq by the end of August is nothing more than a PR campaign to rename the occupation.

The Unmaking of a Company Man: An Education Began in the Shadow of the Brandenburg Gate

by Andrew Bacevich | Sep 3, 2010

Worldly ambition inhibits true learning. Ask me. I know. A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable: He knows what he wants and where he’s headed; when it comes to looking back or entertaining heretical thoughts, he has neither the time nor the inclination. All that counts is that he is going somewhere. Only as ambition wanes does education become a possibility.

Strangers in Strange Lands

by M. Junaid Levesque-Alam | Aug 23, 2010

Kavitha Rajagopalan’s book, Muslims of Metropolis, chronicles the struggles of three Muslim immigrants and their families as they vie to establish themselves in this unwelcoming environment. An immigration scholar, Rajagopalan offers accounts that are at once broad and detailed, clinical and intimate, providing scholarly insight and sociological context with a deft touch.