Foreign Relations

William Blum writes:

But how many of our wonderful leaders are upset that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi spent eight years in prison despite the fact that there was, and is, no evidence that he had anything to do with the bombing of flight 103?

The Scottish court that convicted him knew he was innocent. To understand that just read their 2001 "Opinion of the Court," or read my analysis of it. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Pam Am 103 Verdict: Justice or Politics?” and the followup, "Ignoring the Truth about Lockerbie."]

By Dave Lindorff

President Obama deserves credit for breaking the half-century-long
taboo in American politics of dealing with Cuba, and meeting with Raul
Castro, Cuba’s current leader. He also deserves credit for dealing in a
friendly manner with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela.

But what is this crap about “talking with” our enemies or with countries that have been “hostile” towards us?

It is certainly be true that America doesn’t like Communism, and
doesn’t like having properties owned by its citizens taken over, which
happened in the wake of the Cuban revolution, but nationalization is a
right that many sovereign nations have exercised in their national
interest, and besides that, what has Cuba ever done that would show it
to be an enemy of the US?

By Dave Lindorff

It may not be obvious today, and certainly it’s not how the corporate media reported it, but future historians are likely to look back at March 13, 2009 as the day that American imperialism began it’s inexorable decline. That’s the day that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his country was “worried” about its holdings of over $1 trillion in US treasury securities, and warned that he wanted the US to assure China that it would maintain its good credit and “honor its promises” and “maintain the safety of China’s assets.”

By Dave Lindorff

I was listening to Robert Reich, once the left end of the spectrum
in the Clinton cabinet, talking with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer a few days ago,
and Reich, who has in the past sometimes made sense, was talking about
how Americans’ incomes had fallen over the last eight years of the
Bush/Cheney administration and that it was necessary to get their
incomes back on an upward trend, so that they could “start shopping
again.”

Now I understand Reich was trying to make the case that the bailout
so far has been focused on the banks and the insurance industry, and
that none of this will help unless ordinary people start getting some
relief, but still, there’s something completely twisted and out of
whack when the best we can come up with is that we need to get
Americans back into the malls.

By Dave Lindorff

A CBS/Associated Press story
yesterday reported that the man who runs the Pentagon’s anti-missile
program, Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, had warned incoming
President-elect Barack Obama that any reversal of Bush/Cheney
administration plans to install anti-ballistic missile missiles in
Poland would “severely hurt” American interests.

It was a classic “stupid” story of the type that we now expect to
get from our corporate media—basically a regurgitation of the statement
of one self-interested official, backed up by a few supporting quotes
from other government officials, and the usual “anonymous” official
sources, and lacking any context or opposing viewpoints.

By Dave Lindorff

It’s going to be interesting to see how much longer the vicious
decades-long US embargo of Cuba lasts, whichever person wins the White
House this November.

The main reason the US has stubbornly refused to trade with Cuba,
and has used sanctions to bully other nations into refusing to trade
with Cuba, while enthusiastically trading with and investing in China,
Vietnam and other communist regimes, is that Cuba has had little to
offer the US, either in terms of products or markets.

That’s all about to change dramatically, with word that the
Communist island just 90 miles to the south of Florida may possess oil
reserves equal to or greater than all the oil reserves left in the
United States.

The Bush administration is heading us towards more disaster with its 'toxic debt' bailout and destabilization of Pakistan and Iran. We can't afford to go down this road again. In this short video, Heather Wokusch provides background, context and ideas for taking action.

Links for sources cited in this video:

Bailout:

Crisis talks over $700B 'toxic debt' rescue plan