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America Dropped 26,171 Bombs in 2016.  What a Bloody End to Obama's Reign

According to new figures, the US dropped nearly three bombs every hour,
24 hours a day
Most Americans would probably be astounded to realize that the president who has been painted by Washington pundits as a reluctant warrior has actually been a hawk. The Iran nuclear deal, a herculean achievement, and the opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba unfortunately stand alone as President Obama’s successful uses of diplomacy over hostility.
While candidate Obama came to office pledging to end George W Bush’s wars, he leaves office having been at war longer than any president in US history. He is also the only president to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.
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Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria
They don’t hate ‘our freedoms.’ They hate that we’ve betrayed our ideals in their own countries — for oil.
[ vollständiger Artikel ] [ in Deutsch ]

‘Exporting Revolution’:
Zbigniew Brzezinski On Trial At The UN General Assembly
Though never mentioned by name, the shadow of the 87-year-old loomed large over the U.N. General Assembly, with the U.S. and its allies defending or glossing over his quiet strategy of destabilization and the rest of the world’s leaders decrying it as a “policy of terror.”
[ vollständiger Artikel ] [ Übersetzung ins Deutsche ]

Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failing
It might have been the most influential single sentence of that era: “In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” And it originated in an 8,000 word telegram -- yes, in those days, unbelievably enough, there was no email, no Internet, no Snapchat, no Facebook -- sent back to Washington in February 1946 by George F. Kennan, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Moscow, at a moment when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was just gaining traction.
The next year, a reworked version of Kennan’s “Long Telegram” with that sentence would be published as “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in the prestigious magazine Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym “Mr. X” (though it was common knowledge in Washington who had written it). From that moment on, “containment” of what, until the Sino-Soviet split, was called the Soviet bloc, would be Washington’s signature foreign and military policy of the era. The idea was to ring the Soviet Union and China with bases and then militarily, economically, and diplomatically hem in a gaggle of communist states from Hungary and Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe to North Korea on the Pacific and from Siberia south to the Central Asian SSRs of the Soviet Union. In other words, much of the Eurasian land mass.
[ vollständiger Artikel ]

US 'Democracy Promotion' Destroys Democracy Overseas
It was almost ten years ago when, before the House International Relations Committee, I objected to the US Government funding NGOs to meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine. At the time the “Orange Revolution” had forced a regime change in Ukraine with the help of millions of dollars from Washington.
[ vollständiger Artikel ]

Fall of Empire, End to Wars: Johan Galtung Predictions
Some analysts say the US -- bogged down in wars and pressed by emerging powers -- will have to rethink its role in world affairs. Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, a peace and conflict expert, goes further by predicting the fall of the “US Empire”. “Iraq is not at all turning out the way they hoped, certainly not Afghanistan either. The same will happen in Yemen and Somalia and a number of other countries where they now have undercover operations,” he told RT. Moreover, the sociologist believes what is going to happen in those areas -- for instance, in Afghanistan -- will not even be decided in Washington.
[ Video-Aufzeichnung ]

Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
[ vollständiger Artikel von Robert Scheer ]

National Endowment for Democracy:
Paying to Make Enemies of America 
The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing more than a costly program that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. What the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in the United States. The NED injects "soft money" into the domestic elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other. Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections "promoting democracy." How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic development?
[ vollständiger Artikel ]