Dissent Mag

By Bruce Falconer and Daniel Schulman
Additional reporting by Casey Miner

March 20, 2008

NEWS: Need a private-label armored vehicle? A detachment of Chilean infantrymen? A special forces “engagement team”? Erik Prince’s expanding global private army is at your service—and the war in Iraq was just the beginning.

When blackwater founder Erik Prince took his seat before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last October, in the midst of a firestorm over the killing of 17 civilians in Baghdad by his contractors the previous month, the 38-year-old was at the helm of a fast-growing global business—and had the confidence to match.

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March 21, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN

If Ben Bernanke manages to save the financial system from collapse, he will — rightly — be praised for his heroic efforts.

But what we should be asking is: How did we get here?

Why does the financial system need salvation?

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Posted in the database on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 @ 16:28:27 MST (75 views)
by Webster Tarpley Rense

Quote

Eurasia is the world’s axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world’s three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America’s global primacy and historical legacy.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

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Published on Sunday, March 30, 2008 by The Guardian/UK

by John Gray

History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for the world’s resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is not only oil that is at stake.

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Friday March 28, 2008 05:57 EDT
by Glenn Greenwald

Bush and McCain’s shared foreign policy approach

On Wednesday, John McCain delivered what was billed as a “major foreign policy” speech and today, David Brooks gushed that it was “as personal, nuanced and ambitious a speech as any made by a presidential candidate this year.” In particular, Brooks said that the speech demonstrates just how different McCain’s foreign policy approach is from that of Bush/Cheney: “Anybody who thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention.”The reality is exactly the opposite.
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