Machiavelli’s legacy

After half a millenium, Machiavellianism remains characteristic of our political practice

Machiavelli’s legacy

Global Corruption Survey 2007

2007 / gcb / surveysindices / policyresearch / home – Transparency International

The Amis-Eagleton controversy: The British literary elite and the "war on terror"

The Amis-Eagleton controversy: The British literary elite and the “war on terror”

Iran: Why does Bush invoke the threat of World War III? Part 1: Iran’s strategic position

Iran: Why does Bush invoke the threat of World War III? Part 1: Iran’s strategic position

Russia and Qatar

From 2004 to 2007, relations between Russia and Qatar went from extremely poor to remarkably cooperative. How did this happen? Considering that Russia and Qatar are both among the world’s three largest producers of natural gas (the third being Iran), what does this Russian-Qatari rapprochement portend?

Russia and Qatar

Roger Cohen: The limits of 21st-century revolutions

Roger Cohen: The limits of 21st-century revolutions – International Herald Tribune

Extrajudical Killings in the Philippines

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Extrajudical Killings in the Philippines

Think Tank Report: Over Half of Afghanistan under Taliban Control

Six years ago coalition forces headed into Afghanistan to eradicate the Taliban. Now an international think tank says more than half of the country is under the Taliban’s thumb. Meanwhile, an Oxfam report sharply criticized US-led development efforts in the region.

Think Tank Report: Over Half of Afghanistan under Taliban Control

Stalin’s Children

Ordinary Russians remember the gulag years.

Stalin’s Children

A new cosmopolitanism is in the air

The global power of capital has no need for military force. And it is nigh on boundless. Sociologist Ulrich Beck presents seven theses for a better world.

A new cosmopolitanism is in the air

War has historic links to global climate change

Climate change and conflict have gone hand-in-hand for the past 500 years, a study reveals – the findings reflect fears over the current changes

War has historic links to global climate change

The Nuclear Vault: The United States and Taiwan’s Nuclear Program, 1976-1980

The Nuclear Vault: The United States and Taiwan’s Nuclear Program, 1976-1980

The Most Dangerous War in The History of JournalismThree times more journalists have been killed in Iraq than in both world wars – many deliberately targeted by militias. Kim Sengupta reports on a forgotten death toll that is still rising

There were a number of “landmarks” in Iraq in the past few months: the Petraeus report into the US army’s “surge”; the withdrawal of British forces from their last base inside Basra city; the decision to bring security companies under the law following the incident involving guards from Blackwater. But one landmark which passed virtually unnoticed [...]

The Most Dangerous War in The History of JournalismThree times more journalists have been killed in Iraq than in both world wars – many deliberately targeted by militias. Kim Sengupta reports on a forgotten death toll that is still rising

China embraces Confucius again

Once in disgrace as a lackey of the feudal class, Confucius may rise again to replace Marx as the guiding spirit of the Communist Party. Read more…

China embraces Confucius again

Ten days that shook the world

On the ninetieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, journalist John Reed’s pulsating first-hand account still packs a punch.

Ten days that shook the world

The White Negro

Dissent Magazine

Blair ‘knew Iraq had no WMD’

Blair ‘knew Iraq had no WMD’ – Times Online

1968: The Year That Changed Everything

The 1968 election is four decades old, and yet we’re still rehashing that moment—that era—in the 2008 contest. Why do we come back to it? And why won’t it leave us alone?

1968: The Year That Changed Everything

The Iraqi Genocide

The Iraqi Genocide

Sun sets early on the American Century

TheStar.com | comment | Sun sets early on the American Century

Edge of Armaggedon

The Tablet

Open Letter to “Generation Screwed”

Peter Smith: Open Letter to “Generation Screwed” – Politics on The Huffington Post

On the Eve of Destruction

More

The Imperial Presidency

Mired in the disastrous Iraq quagmire, opposed by a majority of Americans, George W. Bush has reached new depths of reckless, belligerent bellowing. At a recent news conference, he volunteered that he told our allies that if they’re “interested in avoiding World War III,” Iran must be prevented from both developing a nuclear weapon or [...]

The Imperial Presidency

How Close Were We To A Third World War?

How Close Were We To A Third World War (from Sunday Herald)

From the H-Bomb to the Human Bomb

Modern terrorism seeks to combine the annihilating power of Hiroshima with the nihilistic gospel of Auschwitz.

From the H-Bomb to the Human Bomb

Coping with Political Theology

Drawing on themes of his new book The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West Columbia University’s Mark Lilla attempts to explain why America, the most religious nation in the modern West, can neither understand nor cope with “the religious passions dominating contemporary world politics.” Lilla lays out how the “Great Separation” in Western political thought, which set aside “political theology” as the basis for conceiving of the legitimacy of the political order, together with the exceptional American experience of religious toleration, has made it difficult for Americans to grasp how uneasily Western ideals of democracy and toleration fit within frameworks of thought that still put God at the center of politics.

Coping with Political Theology

Nobel Hypocrisy

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Nobel Hypocrisy

The sun sets early on the American Century

The “American Century” only began 60 years ago. But it seems already to be over, with the disaster of Iraq forcing some of the United States’ ruling elites to realize that its hegemony has been severely weakened.

The sun sets early on the American Century

Teaching by Analogy

Common-place: Common School

New Cold War: Simultaneously, Russia and America Conduct Major War Games

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New Cold War: Simultaneously, Russia and America Conduct Major War Games

Gore’s Nobel Win Greeted With Cheers by Europeans

LONDON — News of Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize was received with delight Monday across Europe, where President Bush is deeply unpopular, climate change is generally accepted as undisputed fact and the former vice president is widely seen as a welcome anti-Bush.” He’s the evidence that America is still capable of intelligent discourse,” said Peter [...]

Gore’s Nobel Win Greeted With Cheers by Europeans

Guns Take Pride of Place in US Family Values

Shirley Katz is not afraid to fight for her rights. Last week the schoolteacher, 44, went to court in her home town of Medford, Oregon, to protest at her working conditions. Specifically she is outraged she cannot carry a handgun into class. ‘I know it is my right to carry that gun,’ she said. Katz was [...]

Guns Take Pride of Place in US Family Values

Gore Derangement Syndrome

What is it about Al Gore that drives right-wingers insane? The worst thing about him, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right.

Gore Derangement Syndrome

VIDEO: Bush Caught Lying About September 11th

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

VIDEO: Bush Caught Lying About September 11th

A Muslim Letter to Christians

In an unprecedented letter, Muslim leaders across the globe invite the world’s Christians to the table.

A Muslim Letter to Christians

Social theorist André Gorz dies, aged 84

Social theorist André Gorz dies, aged 84

Even the British are leaving Iraq

With the ‘coalition of the willing’ breathing its last, the U.S. should take note of how to form a realistic exit strategy.

The “coalition of the willing” is over. One by one, its members have ceded the bloodstained ground to the battling Iraqis and the unyielding U.S. president. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s decision Monday to halve the vestigial British military force in Basra was inevitable; backing the U.S. in Iraq has become a political albatross for governments all over the world.

Even the British are leaving Iraq

Che Guevara family protests Islamist exploitation of legacy

A very important story by Kimia Sanati from InterPress Service, Oct. 3:

Islamist, Socialist Revolutions Don’t Mix
An attempt to rope in the son and daughter of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara to forge a parallel between Iran’s Islamist revolution and the socialist revolution in Latin America through a four-day conference has ended in fiasco.

read more

Che Guevara family protests Islamist exploitation of legacy

Slavery Is Alive and Well in the US

Suzi Steffen, AlterNet.org, says, “What do you call it when those who cross the Mexican-US border get charged thousands of dollars for a ride to a job where their employer makes them pay rent for unspeakably bad living conditions and board for the food they can only buy at the company store and where that employer patrols with dogs, trucks and thugs so the workers can’t leave?”

Slavery Is Alive and Well in the US

Japan Focus: Diplomacy and Security, The Atomic Bomb, Atomic War - Nuclear Weapons, Criminal States, and the US-India Deal

Nuclear Weapons, Criminal States, and the US-India Deal—Noam Chomsky—Nuclear-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear states has lived up to it.The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush administration, which even has stated that it isn’t subject to Article 6.On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that guts the central part of the NPT, though there remains substantial opposition in both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this new agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that…

Japan Focus: Diplomacy and Security, The Atomic Bomb, Atomic War – Nuclear Weapons, Criminal States, and the US-India Deal

VIDEO: America, America

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

VIDEO: America, America

Desperate House members

Desperate House members – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

On Torture and American Values

Is this a nation that tortures human beings and then concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid accountability before American voters?

On Torture and American Values

Bush defends torture

Bush defends torture

Democracy and philosophy

Moral insight “is a matter of imagining a better future, and observing the results of attempts to bring that future into existence”. Richard Rorty, who died on June 8, was one of the most public of public intellectuals. In the recent ten-year anniversary edition of “Kritika & Kontext”, he outlined the anti-foundationalist premise of his philosophy. [Belarusian version added]

Democracy and philosophy

How Not to Win Friends and Influence People

The United States sells death, destruction, and terror as a fundamental instrument of its foreign policy. It sees arms sales as a way of making and keeping strategic friends and tying countries more directly to U.S. military planning and operations. At its simplest, as Lt. Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation [...]

How Not to Win Friends and Influence People

You Can’t Win with Civil Wars

Since the beginning of the Iraq war, President Bush has made it very clear that we will stay in that country for as long as it takes to get the job done, and that the United States will prevail in the end. This mantra allows the president to avoid admitting failure, but it ignores everything [...]

You Can’t Win with Civil Wars

US Is Top Arms Seller to Developing World

WASHINGTON - The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers. The global arms market is highly competitive, with manufacturing nations seeking both to [...]

US Is Top Arms Seller to Developing World

Bush’s Global ‘Dirty War’

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Bush’s Global ‘Dirty War’

US Is Top Arms Seller to Developing World

Paul Shanker, of The New York Times, reports “the United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study to be released Monday. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers. The global arms market is highly competitive, with manufacturing nations seeking both to increase profits and to expand political influence through weapons sales to developing nations, which reached nearly $28.8 billion in 2006.”

US Is Top Arms Seller to Developing World

Is America the Roman Empire?

Read the full story now.

Is America the Roman Empire?

Brzezinski: U.S. in danger of ’stampeding’ to war with Iran

Brzezinski: U.S. in danger of ‘stampeding’ to war with Iran – CNN.com

B-52 Nukes Headed for Iran: Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater

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B-52 Nukes Headed for Iran: Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater

Condi Rice whistles ‘Dixie’ with Qaeda analogy

Condi Rice whistles ‘Dixie’ with Qaeda analogy

Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq

Reporting for The Washington Post, Shailagh Murray says, “Showing rare bipartisan consensus over war policy, the Senate overwhelmingly endorsed a political settlement for Iraq that would divide the country into three semi-autonomous regions.”

Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq

J. Sri Raman | The Companies They Keep in Burma

Writing for Truthout, J. Sri Raman says, “The world has been informed in no uncertain terms of the concern of the First Family of the USA over the cause of democracy and freedom in Burma. The commitment of Washington to the corporate cause, however, has proven greater.”

J. Sri Raman | The Companies They Keep in Burma

Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq

Reporting for The Washington Post, Shailagh Murray says, “Showing rare bipartisan consensus over war policy, the Senate overwhelmingly endorsed a political settlement for Iraq that would divide the country into three semi-autonomous regions.”

Senate Endorses Plan to Divide Iraq

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says – washingtonpost.com

Prelude to a Police State in Iraq

Tom Hayden | Corruption and human rights abuses could soon make Baghdad the capital of a Shiite police state employing the classic methods of dirty war.

Prelude to a Police State in Iraq

Order 17

Tom Engelhardt | takes a closer look at the US rule that gives military contractors like Blackwater a free pass to murder, terrorize and pillage their way through Iraq.

Order 17

How Much are We Spending on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Don’t Ask the …

Determining how much federal funding has been directed to the wars should be a fairly simple proposition. Thanks to the Pentagon, it’s anybody’s guess.

How Much are We Spending on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Don’t Ask the …

Is Blackwater A Black Hole?

By Stan Moody
As private security force, Blackwater, breaks into the news with the recent killing of 11 Iraqi civilians and accusations of illegal arms smuggling, a little-anticipated feature of the War on Terror surfaces. Refer to this feature as collateral damage if you will, but the bottom line is that engagement in war produces effects that ripple down through the innocents for generations

Is Blackwater A Black Hole?

Russia’s aggressive moves spark fears of a new Cold War

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 09/17/2007 | Russia’s aggressive moves spark fears of a new Cold War

‘You got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50′

Iraq faces new forms of tyranny rooted in its Ba’athist past, a leading historian tells Ian Black.

‘You got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50’

Lost at Sea

Lost at Sea – New York Times

Kissinger: US fears Iran’s control of oil, not nuke

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Kissinger: US fears Iran’s control of oil, not nuke

VIDEO: Mercenaries in Iraq Shooting Civilians

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

VIDEO: Mercenaries in Iraq Shooting Civilians

A Criminal War of Lies: Why the US is really in Iraq

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

A Criminal War of Lies: Why the US is really in Iraq

General Accounting

Last December, the Army released a document entitled “Counterinsurgency,” an updated field manual designed to guide United States forces to victory in guerrilla wars. “Legitimacy Is the Main Objective” is one heading above its thematic advice. To defeat a resistance force in irregular war, the manual observes, it is essential . . .

General Accounting

The populist moment

Unlike the extremist parties of the 1930s, the new populist movements do not aim to abolish democracy: quite the opposite, writes Ivan Krastev. What we are witnessing is a conflict between elites suspicious of democracy and increasingly illiberal publics.

The populist moment

Counter-revolution against a counter-revolution

Populist movements in eastern central Europe cater to the middle class fear of becoming déclassé as a result of the neoliberal destruction of the welfare state, writes G.M. Tamás.

Counter-revolution against a counter-revolution

ORB Survey And 1.2 Million Iraq Deaths Ignored By Australian And Anglo-American Media

By Dr Gideon Polya
Decent people are obliged to (a) inform others about horrendous human rights abuses (such as the Iraqi Holocaust, the Iraqi Genocide) and (b) to act ethically in all their dealings with individuals, corporations and countries complicit in such atrocities (e.g. through individual and collective, inter-national and intra-national Sanctions and Boycotts)

ORB Survey And 1.2 Million Iraq Deaths Ignored By Australian And Anglo-American Media

When George Bush Smiles People Die

By Robert Weitzel
In a recent Associated Press photograph, President Bush flashes his what-me-worry? smile at the camera while shaking the hand of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha. Abu Risha is not smiling, by the way. He is deadly earnest . . . or worried . . . or scared. Abu Risha, a Sunni Arab tribal leader and one of the Bush/Cheney administrations highest profile allies, was killed by a roadside car bomb planted 150 feet from his home ten days after Bush smiled for the camera and shook his hand

When George Bush Smiles People Die

America Is No More

By Paul Craig Roberts
Naive Americans who think they live in a free society should watch the video filmed by students at a John Kerry speech September 17, Constitution Day, at the University of Florida in Gainesville

America Is No More

Vladimir Putin’s global warning

Vladimir Putin’s global warning – Times Online

Bush the Jihadist: How the world was plunged into an apocalyptic war

Bush the Jihadist: How the world was plunged into an apocalyptic war | the Daily Mail

More Than One Million Iraqi Deaths Since US Invasion

By Patrick Martin
The British polling agency ORB reported Thursday that the death toll in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion has passed the one million mark.According to ORB, US-occupied Iraq, with an estimated 1.2 million violent deaths, has a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), with another one million wounded and millions more driven from their homes into internal or external exile

More Than One Million Iraqi Deaths Since US Invasion

It Didn’t Start with Iraq

When George Bush began trying to justify the occupation of Iraq by invoking the “lessons” of Vietnam, I had the urge to send him a copy of the new documentary War Made Easy featuring Norman Solomon. That’s hardly surprising — no doubt we’ve all had the occasional desire to try to educate our president. (more…)

It Didn’t Start with Iraq

Here’s the Smell of the Blood Still

When Martin Luther King Jr. publicly referred to “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government,” he had no way of knowing that his description would ring so true 40 years later. As the autumn of 2007 begins, the reality of Uncle Sam as an unhinged mega-killer haunts a large minority of Americans. Many who can remember the horrific era of the Vietnam War are nearly incredulous that we could now be living in a time of similarly deranged official policy. (more…)

Here’s the Smell of the Blood Still

The Banality of Evil Revisited

Hannah Arndt was exactly right in 1963 when she had an epiphany while writing about Adolph Eichmann, realizing in a profound moment of clarity that the great evils in the world are not the work of a few sociopaths, but are committed by ordinary people who accept what they are told by their government and [...]

The Banality of Evil Revisited

Greenspan Admits Iraq was About Oil, As Deaths Put at 1.2 Million

The man once regarded as the world’s most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was ‘largely’ about oil. Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets. In his long-awaited memoir [...]

Greenspan Admits Iraq was About Oil, As Deaths Put at 1.2 Million

Root Causes and Rot

Root Causes and Rot… :: Dissent Summer 2007 Issue

The Political and the Divine

Mark Lilla argues that the separation of church and state was not, as some would have it, a foregone conclusion.

The Political and the Divine

September 11: The Epitome Of American Arrogance

By Lucinda Marshall
In what can only be called the epitome of American arrogance, concern for the plight of the Iraqi people, particularly the 4 million of whom are now refugees is absent from the rhetoric, the clear implication being that that our suffering, which is the result of our own failed policies, is far more important than the suffering we have inflicted upon others. Missing from the national dialog is any sense of pressing horror at the lack of electricity and potable water in Iraq, or the trauma and malnutrition, especially among children

September 11: The Epitome Of American Arrogance

The End Of The World?

By William M. H. Kotke
We are all looking at the end of the world as we know it. Our attention is focused on the holes in the ozone layer, planet warming, peak oil, the spread of DU weapons, the collapse of the house of credit cards, and the prospect of the planetary financial elite quickly establishing fascist control of the planet. Below this threshold of conscious awareness our biological survival systems are rapidly eroding

The End Of The World?

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 20-22

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 20-22

Historian Interview: ‘The US Will Lose War Regardless What it Does’

In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, American military historian Gabriel Kolko argues that the situation in Iraq is worse than ever and that the artificial nation, created after World War I, is breaking up. The “surge,” he says, is also failing.

Historian Interview: ‘The US Will Lose War Regardless What it Does’

Fight Al Qaeda

Peter Bergen for Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

Promote Liberal Democracy

David Makovsky for Democracy: A Journal of Ideas

British Army deploys new weapon based on mass-killing technology

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

British Army deploys new weapon based on mass-killing technology

War and the "New World Order"

Unipolar World: Pax Americana? Towards the “New International Order” through the “Global War on Terror”

War and the “New World Order”

Ten Reasons Why Russia Can’t Trust Uncle Sam

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Ten Reasons Why Russia Can’t Trust Uncle Sam

Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War

While preparing for Studies in Military Thought, my upcoming graduate readings course, I was pleased to discover that Alan Beyerchen’s article, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War,” is available online. Originally published in International Security 17:3 (Winter, 1992), pp. 59-90, it’s one of the most original and stimulating essays on Clausewitz to appear [...]

Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of War

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 17-19

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 17-19

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 14-16

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 14-16

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 11-13

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 11-13

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 8-10

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 8-10

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 4-7

Marxism, History & Socialist Consciousness Parts 4-7

Why was a nuclear-armed bomber allowed to fly over the US?

Why was a nuclear-armed bomber allowed to fly over the US?