International Relations

“Condemnation before investigation is the height of ignorance” — widely attributed to Albert Einstein, but whoever the author was had it right. [William Paley — DV Ed]

Greta Thunberg, center, the Swedish teenage activist, arriving at the UN’s climate conference in Madrid, Dec. 6, 2019. A new poll asking US adults and teens about climate science found respondents more seriously concerned about global warming than in the past, but more than a third blamed the “sun getting hotter” on the problem. UN PHOTO

After conventional Arab armies failed to deter Israeli invasions, Lebanese and Palestinian volunteers have changed the strategic balance in the Middle East, writes As`ad AbuKhalil. 2006 Lebanese War Changed Power Calculus By As`ad AbuKhalil Special to Consortium News In South…Read more →

Beijing wants to avoid an all-out trade war with Washington. That is what will count at the G-20 summit later this week, writes Patrick Lawrence, not the U.S. vice president’s hostility in Asia earlier this month. Trying to Isolate China…Read more →

Donald Trump has a plan to solve America’s drug crisis: kill the drug dealers.
“We have pushers and drugs dealers, they are killing hundreds and hundreds of people,” Trump said at a recent White House summit on opioid abuse. “Some countries have a very, very tough penalty, the ultimate penalty, and by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do.”

With definitions of left and right in flux, even among those who understood the historic definitions, it has become necessary to offer one possible solution to the crisis. This exercise is not meant to produce a document that everyone will agree upon, but rather it is designed to encourage others to peacefully contribute to the wider debate.
These solutions could be easily applied to the domestic affairs and international relations of almost any secular republic which respects mainstream religious traditions and cultures.
I. A Commitment To Sovereignty

CNN continues its assault on former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn as part of its campaign to make the United States look weak in the eyes of the wider world.
In a self-proclaimed ‘CNN First’, the news channel that Donald Trump labelled ‘very fake news’ stated,

Following Napoleon’s murder in March 1804 of the Duc d’Enghien, Napoleon’s chief of police, Joseph Fouché, said of the murder “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute” –“It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.”  President Trump’s missile strike on Sharyat air base in Syria was like the Duc d’Enghien’s murder, not just a crime but a blunder.
Reasons given for why President Trump ordered the missile strike differ.

As Obama finally departs from the scene, this seems as good a moment as any to assess his Presidency.
In my opinion it has been a disastrous Presidency, which has hugely deepened divisions in America – a fact which more than any other explains the exaggerated reaction to his successor – and which has brought international relations to its most dangerous point of crisis since the end of the Second World War.

Many of Trump’s anti-war, anti-regime changes supporters who are erroneously called pro-Russia (some are, some are just indifferent) are understandably on edge about certain things said by various Trump cabinet members and even Trump himself. There are many sceptics on this issue whom I respect deeply. I happen to remain optimistic and here’s why.