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      What the Dismantling of the Berlin Wall Means 30 Years Later

      What the Dismantling of the Berlin Wall Means 30 Years Later

      And the return of war-as-the-answer.

      James Carroll
      Oct 28, 2019

      Some anniversaries are less about the past than the future. So it should be with November 9, 1989. In case you've long forgotten, that was the day when East and West Germans began nonviolently dismantling the Berlin Wall, an entirely unpredicted, almost unimaginable ending to the long-entrenched Cold War. Think of it as the triumph of idealistic hope over everything that then passed for hard-nosed "realism." After all, Western intelligence services, academic Kremlinologists, and the American national security establishment had always blithely assumed that the Cold War would essentially go on forever--unless the absolute malevolence of Soviet Communism led to the ultimate mayhem of nuclear Armageddon. For almost half a century, only readily dismissed peaceniks insisted that, in the nuclear age, war and endless preparations for more of it were not the answer. When the Berlin Wall came down, such idealists were proven right, even if their triumph was still ignored.

      Yet war-as-the-answer reasserted itself with remarkable rapidity. Within weeks of the Wall being breached by hope--in an era that saw savage conflicts in Central America, the Philippines, and South Africa transformed by a global wave of nonviolent resolution--the United States launched Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama by a combat force of more than 27,000 troops. The stated purpose of that act of war was the arrest of Panama's tinhorn dictator Manuel Noriega, who had initially come to power as a CIA asset. That invasion's only real importance was as a demonstration that, even with global peace being hailed, the world's last remaining superpower remained as committed as ever to the hegemony of violent force.

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      Opinion
      Manufacturing War With Russia

      Manufacturing War With Russia

      We are in a new and more perilous point in a 50-year nuclear arms race

      Chris Hedges
      Jun 03, 2019

      Despite the Robert Mueller report's conclusion that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia during the 2016 presidential race, the new Cold War with Moscow shows little sign of abating. It is used to justify the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders, a move that has made billions in profits for U.S. arms manufacturers. It is used to demonize domestic critics and alternative media outlets as agents of a foreign power. It is used to paper over the Democratic Party's betrayal of the working class and the party's subservience to corporate power. It is used to discredit detente between the world's two largest nuclear powers. It is used to justify both the curtailment of civil liberties in the United States and U.S. interventions overseas--including in countries such as Syria and Venezuela. This new Cold War predates the Trump presidential campaign. It was manufactured over a decade ago by a war industry and intelligence community that understood that, by fueling a conflict with Russia, they could consolidate their power and increase their profits. (Seventy percent of intelligence is carried out by private corporations such as Booz Allen Hamilton, which has been called the world's most profitable spy operation.)

      "Why do we like communist leaders in Russia better than we like Russia's anti-communist leader? It's a riddle."

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      Opinion
      The "Forever Wars" Enshrined

      The "Forever Wars" Enshrined

      What Illinois bikers know that Washington doesn't

      Andrew Bacevich
      May 23, 2019

      Earlier this month, I spent a day visiting Marseilles to videotape a documentary about recent American military history, specifically the ongoing wars that most of us prefer not to think about.

      Lest there be any confusion, let me be more specific. I am not referring to Marseilles (mar-SAY), France, that nation's largest port and second largest city with a population approaching 900,000. No, my destination was Marseilles (mar-SAYLZ), Illinois, a small prairie town with a population hovering around 5,000.

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      Opinion
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