MH17: Cold War Replay?

The most bizarre conspiracy theory surrounding the recent downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine comes from a leading pro-Russian separatist, Igor Girkin. Relying on secondhand information, Girkin asserted that many of the passengers from the crash had already...

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A Clash of Civilizations

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the United States – and its junior partners in Europe – found itself bereft of an enemy. One scholar, Francis Fukuyama, concluded by 1992 that this represented the "end of history" and the beginning of an age in which...

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Is Putin Worse Than Stalin?

In 1933, the Holodomor was playing out in Ukraine. After the "kulaks," the independent farmers, had been liquidated in the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, a genocidal famine was imposed on Ukraine through seizure of her food production. Estimates of the...

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To My Readers

I was originally planning on taking my summer break next week, starting Monday, but medical issues – nothing serious, but pretty distracting – have intervened and so I'm starting it today. I definitely need a rest: hey, I'm not getting any younger! But never...

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Undue Process in Washington

Originally posted at TomDispatch. What a world we’re in. Thanks to smartphones, iPads, and the like, everyone is now a photographer, but it turns out that, in the public landscape, there’s ever less to photograph. So here are a few tips for living more...

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