Washington’s decision to impose sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company for doing business with Iran have triggered fury in the Latin American Left. Tomas Borge, the last living founder of Nicaragua’s Sandanista National Liberation Front, writes for Aporrea that the sanctions are just an old trick of the ‘Yankee Empire’, and that Venezuela has just as much a right to relations...

Today is the 67th anniversary of D-Day. 160,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy to fight Nazi Germany on June 6, 1944. Steven Spielberg captured this heroic and scary moment very well in Saving Private Ryan. Today most US experts — with the notable exception of Tom Ricks — do not worry about a war with Germany or a return of militarism and Nazi ideology in Berlin. Instead they are...

On this day in 1944 a group of brave men came ashore in France. Forty years later President Reagan delivered the following remarks, which are worth rereading every year. If you prefer you can watch the video as well We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free...

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s rebuke of Presisdent Obama before a joint session of the U.S. Congress has not only weakened Obama’s hand at home, but has badly damaged his influence among Arabs. For Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran, Kharroubi Habib writes that this leaves Palestinians one choice: to press the U.N. when the General Assembly opens in September to recognize a Palestinian...

I may not agree on a philosophical, emotional, political or economic basis, but as a practical matter, we simply have to eliminate all discretionary domestic spending, and drastically reduce Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. This may lead our nation quickly to a corporate feudalism. But if there are no plausible alternatives to the declining status quo, we might as well embrace dystopia and make the worst...

The parades, flags and mass prayers are meant to honor men and women who died nobly for their country, but they also commemorate the barbaric enterprise of those who sent them to kill and be killed for reasons that are not fully understood and shared by fellow Americans. Since World War II, our young people have been giving up their lives in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East and smaller wars elsewhere with no...

Can the U.S. Congress be called more hostile toward Palestinians and Arabs than even the Israeli Knesset? According to columnist Hafiz al Barghouty of Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to a joint session of the U.S. Congress should be a lesson to Palestinians and Arabs not to trust the United States. For Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah of the Palestinian Territories, Hafiz al Barghouty...

John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Last Memorial Day our nation was in the midst of a bitter debate over the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT); over whether women should serve aboard our nuclear submarines and in combat; over immigration, in particularly whether to provide a path to citizenship to certain undocumented immigrants who have come to our country as children and who go on to serve honorably in our...

All or most of them were women and children. The lethal strikes took place in Helmand province. Local Afghan authorities are apparently saying that 12 of the deaths are children, two are women, and six others were injured. Hamid Karzai, in condemning the killings, gave a different breakdown: 10 children, two women, and two men.

China’s desire to buy up farmland makes Brazil uneasy: China has become Brazil’s biggest trading partner, buying ever increasing volumes of soybeans and iron ore, while investing billions in Brazil’s energy sector. The demand has helped fuel an economic boom here that has lifted more than 20 million Brazilians from extreme poverty and brought economic stability to a country accustomed to periodic crises. Yet...

by Walter Brasch Unless you were in a coma the past few years, you probably know who Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton are. You heard about them on radio, saw them on television. You read about them in newspapers and magazines, on Facebook, Twitter, and every social medium known to mankind. Because of extensive media coverage, you also know who dozens of singers and professional athletes are. Here...

Some spent the night outside, in sleeping bags or just under the Texas stars. Many more showed up just after dawn. Close to opening time there were more than 200 people waiting and more were arriving. It might have been my imagination, but as we stepped through the crowd I thought I heard some piano music coming from inside the building. Also, I caught a whiff of food cooking. Were these people waiting for...

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. Bob Dylan was 70 years old this week, and the editorial board of Germany’s Die Welt published this open letter in tribute to the American music icon. Die Welt’s message?: keep showing the world how to change with the time – because “the times – they are a changin’” The open letter from the Die Welt editorial board says in part: Dear...

Last fall we traveled throughout France, enjoying the beauty of her countryside, her idyllic villages and pastoral hamlets, her historic castles and abbeys, and the glitz of places like Cannes, Nice and St. Tropez. I could tell you all about it, but I am sure you’ve heard it all before. Instead, on this Memorial Day weekend, permit me to write a few words about a sight that brought home to me the ultimate...

It seems that when it comes to the Middle East, President Obama can’t win. With blistering criticism from Israelis over his assertion that peace talks with the Palestinians be based on the 1967 borders, this article from Samidoon of the Palestinian Territories rips into Obama as insincere about wanting justice for Arabs, and criticizes America for long favoring Arab despots and Israel. For Samidoon,...

As we approach Memorial Day 2011, we will be remembering and honoring all our fallen warriors, with those who have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars fresh on our minds. But we will be equally remembering our fallen military from every other war and, also, veterans from the “old wars” who are still with us. Especially those from World War II who are passing away at a rate of 1,000 every day! “Operation...

And the volcanic lava flow that erupted in response to Pres. Obama’s outrageous assertion that Israel does not have the right to permanently annex the Palestinian land that it has illegally occupied since seizing it in the 1967 Six-Day War, continues, via the Wall Street Journal (emphasis is mine): Mr. Obama got some applause Sunday by calling for a “non-militarized” Palestinian state. But...

It seems that many in Pakistan are convinced that with relations with the U.S. souring, closer ties with China are the answer to Pakistan’s troubles. According to this editorial from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, whereas the United States tends to use Pakistan when its in Washington’s interests and then treat it like ‘garbage,’ China has always been an ‘all-weather friend.’ The...

While President Barack Obama gingerly navigates the minefields of Israeli security and the Arab spring, a potentially devastating crisis for American foreign policy and security is shaping up in Pakistan. Even as I write this, a terrorist attack is reported underway in Pakistan against a major air force base and nearby naval base outside the southern city of Karachi. About 15-18 well-armed terrorists affiliated...

Historian Elin Whitney-Smith is publishing a book online, chapter by chapter, titled Winning Information Revolutions: From the Ice Age to the Internet. In it she looks at previous periods of disruption to understand what we are going through today. She says there have been six information revolutions in human history, each representing a major change in the organizational paradigm — a change in how we organize...

Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea by the crew of the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, on deployment in the North Arabian Sea, drew a lot of attention and plenty of press. The burial evoked criticism, controversy and raised many questions as to the motives of the U.S. government, ranging from whether it was appropriate and legal to whether such violated religious and social traditions and customs. While...

Has the United Nations outlived its usefulness? For Bolivia’s Bol Press, Professor Alvaro Cuadra of Chile’s Universidad ARCIS writes that just as the League of Nations collapsed when World War II broke out – making it’s failure obvious, the U.N., born out of WWII, has similarly proven itself incapable of many of its central tenets, including ‘saving future generations from the...

After the audacious mission that took down the mastermind of 9/11, speculation has been rampant as to whether the perverse legacy of this man — his “dead hand” — will continue to control or influence future jihadist terrorist actions. No one knows for sure. Our intelligence agencies are still methodically analyzing the so-called trove of documents and data — “a bonanza of...

As I wrote here, following the dastardly September 11 attacks, the U.S. State Department offered a $25 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Osama Bin Laden. At the State Department’s “Rewards for Justice” web site, “Seeking Information Against International Terrorism,” one can still see “Usama bin Ladin’s” mug shot; one can still see the “Up to $25 Million...