January 4, 2019 – Astute News

January 4, 2019

Trump Bows to Domestic Pressure by Delaying His Withdrawal from Syria; A Storm Is Gathering in the Levant

In response to domestic pressure, Trump agreed to extend the deadline for withdrawal of thousands of US troops from the northeaster Syrian province of al-Hasaka from the initial 30 days previously announced until April this year. Journalistic warmongers and hawks in think-tanks and among the US establishment have been railing at Trump with implausible arguments for maintaining the presence of...

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January 4, 2019

China Lands a Probe on the Dark Side of the Moon

On the evening of January 2, a Chinese lander named for an ancient moon goddess touched down on the lunar far side, where no human or robot has ever ventured before. China’s Chang’e-4 mission launched toward the moonon December 7 and entered orbit around our cosmic companion on December 12. Now, the spacecraft has alighted onto the lunar surface. Leading up to the...

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January 4, 2019

2019 Forecast: South, East, and Southeast Asia

The broad swath of space stretching from South, East, and Southeast Asia is fast becoming the center of geostrategic strategy in the world, and it’s here where much has already happened last year and where a lot more will probably occur in the next. From Trump’s summit with Kim to the fledgling rapprochement between China and India, 2018 set into...

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January 4, 2019

Guns or Butter: Neocons Want More Weapons less Government Services

It is one of the great ironies that the United States, which is not actually threatened by any foreign power, maintains a ruinously expensive and globally destructive national security policy that is based on fear. It can be argued that Washington was at least briefly a force for stability and good governance in the aftermath of the Second World War...

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January 4, 2019

Worse than Obsolete: NATO Creates Enemies

NATO’s and the US military’s desecration of corpses, attacks on wedding parties, mosques, hospitals and market places — along with the bombing of allied troops, torture of prisoners, and their notoriously unaccountable drone warfare — are a few of the alliance’s more infamous outrages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. Twenty years’ worth of “unintended” or “collateral”...

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January 4, 2019

The Language of Neoliberal Education

This interview with Henry Giroux was conducted by Mitja Sardoč, of the Educational Research Institute, in the Faculty of the Social Sciences, at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Mitja Sardoč: For several decades now, neoliberalism has been at the forefront of discussions not only in the economy and finance but has infiltrated our vocabulary in a number of areas as diverse as...

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January 4, 2019

Intelligence If Any: Its Care and Feeding

Today, fun with genetics, specifically genetic determination of intelligence and behavior. In doing this we will seek to annoy as many people as possible. (This column prides itself on being an equal-opportunity irritant. ) First, reference to amusing contradictions in IQ theory as offered by IQists and such as the Human Biodiversity Movement (hbd). Let’s start with Colombia, since I...

Opinion Comment: 1

January 4, 2019

History of World War II: Did Mussolini’s Fate Prompt Hitler to Kill Himself?

With Allied armies pushing ever northwards through the “tough old gut” of Italy, and German forces pulling out, Benito Mussolini took a long look at the situation before departing Milan on 25 April 1945. It was, fittingly, Italy’s Liberation Day as the despot fled Milan in his red Alfa Romeo, with long-time mistress Clara Petacci in the passenger seat. A...

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Daily Archive: January 4, 2019

Trump Bows to Domestic Pressure by Delaying His Withdrawal from Syria; A Storm Is Gathering in the Levant

China Lands a Probe on the Dark Side of the Moon

2019 Forecast: South, East, and Southeast Asia

Guns or Butter: Neocons Want More Weapons less Government Services

Worse than Obsolete: NATO Creates Enemies

The Language of Neoliberal Education

Intelligence If Any: Its Care and Feeding

History of World War II: Did Mussolini’s Fate Prompt Hitler to Kill Himself?