Should the US Nuke Iran and Syria?

In a recent article, "Will the U.S. Defend Itself?", economist Walter Williams seems to make a case for nuclear war on Syria and Iran. His case cries out for a response. Here's mine. I preface by noting that Williams and I both earned our Ph.D.s in economics at UCLA...

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Right Hook

You know the War Party is in trouble when a prominent Republican like Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) starts criticizing their policies of endless war and repression on the home front, as in this Fox News interview. Notice how the Fox News war-bot, Chris Wallace,...

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How Washington Goaded Israel Into War

There is increasing evidence that Israel instigated a disastrous war on Lebanon largely at the behest of the United States. The Bush administration was set on crippling Hezbollah, the radical Shiite political movement that maintains a sizable block of seats in the...

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Nuking Safeguarded Facilities

According to the Jerusalem Post a "high-ranking [Israeli] defense official" told them that "there is growing consensus within the [Israeli] defense establishment that the United States will not attack Iran, and that Israel might be forced to act independently to stop...

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Clueless and Catastrophic

To get a better idea of what ails the world, let's use our imagination to transport ourselves into outer space. From there, we can look down on Earth not as an American or as a European, but as a disinterested alien. We see a collection of sovereign nations –...

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Hoekstra’s Hoax: Hyping Up the Iran ‘Threat’

Talk about chutzpah! I was suffering a bit from outrage fatigue yesterday but was shaken out of it as soon as I downloaded an unusually slick paper, "Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States," released this week by House...

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Republican Report Hypes Iran ‘Threat’

In what some critics describe as a replay of the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives has released a report suggesting Iran may acquire nuclear weapons much more quickly than...

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US-Backed Coca Spraying Mostly Hurts Legal Farmers

If the U.S.-backed aerial spraying of chemicals does not stop immediately, Colombia will pay a heavy price for environmental destruction and lost livelihoods in its indigenous communities, warns a new study by a U.S.-based environmental research group. The 23-page...

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Readings in the Age of Empire

C. Fred Bergsten, et al., China: The Balance Sheet (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 206 pp. Jed Babbin and Edward Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United States (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2006), 226 pp. Ted Galen Carpenter, America's Coming War...

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