Despite its massive annual federal budget deficits and national debt, the American superpower continues to meddle in faraway countries that pose little direct threat to U.S. national security. Examples of those nanny-like interventions have recently occurred in Syria and South Sudan. The U.S. Pentagon and State Department, having learned the wrong lessons from post-American-invasion Iraq, …
Continue reading “Quagmires Are Often Just a Few Steps Away”
Remember the forgotten U.S. war in Iraq? In the Vietnam War, after the start of the “Vietnamization” program, which trained South Vietnamese forces to replace leaving U.S. forces, the world lost interest; people thought “problem solved.” That is, they thought that until the discovery of President Nixon’s escalation of the war in nearby Cambodia while …
Continue reading “Sudan’s Lessons for Iraq”
Two days before celebrating the independence of South Sudan in Juba, senior U.S. officials warned Thursday that unresolved issues between the new country and Khartoum, as well as ongoing conflicts along or near their common border, threaten the stability of both states. In particular, the failure by Khartoum and Juba to resolve the status of …
Continue reading “South Sudan’s Independence Clouded by Unresolved Issues”
“When they came to my village, they asked my older brother whether he was ready to join the militia. “He was just 17 and he said no; they shot him in the head. “Then they asked me if I was ready to sign, so what could I do—I didn’t want to die.” This is the …
Continue reading “Obama’s Child Soldiers”
The American media continues to tout the reduced violence in Iraq without foreseeing the long-term potential for a resumption of severe ethno-sectarian violence and the absence of mechanisms – à la Sudan – to defuse it. The lull in Iraqi mayhem was mainly achieved by the U.S. bribery of Iraqi Sunni tribes (the “Awakening”) to …
Continue reading “Don’t Expect Iraq to End Like Sudan”
Amid growing certainty that the much-anticipated weeklong referendum on independence for south Sudan will indeed begin Sunday as scheduled, U.S. officials and independent experts are warning that the situation in both the north and the south is likely to remain very fragile for some time to come. Ensuring that the referendum’s outcome — almost certain …
Continue reading “Sudan Referendum May Be Only the Beginning”
U.S. and other Western officials expressed growing concern Friday over the fate of the peace accord signed five years ago this week by Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). "[T]ime is limited, the stakes are high, and there is much work yet to be done to secure a lasting peace and prevent the …
Continue reading “US Voices Growing Concern Over Sudan Accord”
Ivan Eland says split the spoils before the war
