... Envoy to the UN, Samantha Power. She has always held relatively adversarial positions toward Russia and recently made major headlines when she accused Russia of engaging in... ... that Assad is basically a horrible human being. For America, replacing tyrants in the Middle East has become something of a fun pet project (hello Hussein, hello Khaddafi... ... that they suffered from horrific internal dissension, but that there were far too many radical Islamists mixed in liberally with so-called “moderate Arabs”. Because...
... intelligence community and state department to make inroads against it) requires one to accept something most Americans cannot: that the American Dream for too many seems more myth than reality.
Reality in America, if you are not able to hook into upward mobility and access privileged success, is a fairly dull and even depressing situation: studies show a disturbing percentage of Americans are born, live, and die within an incredibly small 50-mile radius. They also show that the classic parental ...
... drone fleet. Keep in mind blowback comes in forms other than just anger over actual attacks. There is growing dissent across the Middle East at what is perceived to be a total lack of transparency and scrutiny by the American public over its government’s ... ... easily be sucked into regional conflicts where its interests figure prominently. It is inconceivable to think a ‘drone war’ between Iran and Saudi Arabia or Egypt would not end up being a major national security interest for the United States....
... in and of itself. At least, no SINCERE shock can be about that. Anyone sincerely shocked at that confirmation is either delusional or horrifically naïve when it comes to this period that is supposedly now over, the one we used to call the Global War on Terror. So the 'shock' must be to learn that the US did, you know, like, REAL torture. You know, like, the kind those barbarians and heathens from uncivilized places do. You know, those SCARY people in the desert who cut off people’s ...
... that civil unrest and insurrection has been happening in the north of that country since 2004, meaning there has basically been war in Yemen as long as there has been war in Iraq. Most of the world actually didn’t pay any attention to this conflict ... ... accusations are not completely baseless. Iran has a long history of generating support for whatever groups it can find across the Middle East, especially if those groups might share a particular hatred for Israel. Saudi Arabia has actually always supported ...
... on television you would think Iraq has already fallen completely into the hands of a radical Islamist terrorist group called ISIS. While it is true the military and strategic... ... accounted for more by the absence of diligence on the part of Western analysts covering the Middle East than by any miraculous strength of force on the part of ISIS. The ISIS movement... ... these ghosts innate to post-conflict society-building that last long after battles and wars have ended and leave indelible wounds that are easily poked and prodded by radicalist...
... relevance in the region and that the region remained at peace and not vulnerable to radical Islamists. How close its friendship was with a particular leader or whether... ... diplomatic/political influence and legitimate national security objectives than they do with Cold War nostalgia or knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Russia sees its rightful place as a diplomatic... ... operating power and as the only state truly able to balance the influence of America in the Middle East. Though difficult for observers in the West to believe, many outside of...
