Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A very, very short account that doesn't include economic and cultural aspects. Note that more recent studies put the numbers of Iraqis killed by the sanctions to an estimate between 200 and 300 thousand. Chomsky then was still relying on studies done by journals like The Lancet, for example, which put the number in "the hundreds of thousands".

Reminiscent of the Carter and Reagan era "By implicitly authorizing the Honduras security deals, the US “deputized” Israel to gallop into the region and whip up a posse of right-wing proxy reinforcements in Central America that the US could count on when needed." Israeli arms industry 'great leap' in Central America

"The reality is that every  president since Lyndon Johnson has forgotten about  America's poor, and especially, poor Americans of colour . Most politicians rarely use the words  "poor" and "poverty"   in their speeches, unless they intend to criticise the poor for their lot in life.  Yet the black affluent class continues to emphasise racial progress and social mobility as if it's 1978, with Jimmy Carter as president and sitcom  Diff'rent Strokes (starring black actors Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges) an NBC primetime hit." Why I don't understand the black affluent class

Carter told Brzezinski and secretary of state  Cyrus Vance  as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran.  One initiative Carter authorized to achieve this goal was a collaboration between the CIA and Pakistan's  Inter-Services Intelligence  (ISI); through the ISI, the CIA began providing some $500,000 worth of non-lethal assistance to the mujahideen on July 3, 1979—several months prior to the Soviet invasion. The modest scope of this early collaboration was likely influenced by the understanding, later recounted by CIA official  Robert Gates , "that a substantial U.S. covert aid program" might have "raise[d] the stakes" thereby causing "the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended. That same Carter now considers the U.S. an oligarchy