OF THE
TIMES

The US foreign policy establishment used to include men who were capable of strategic thinking. No more. What passes for strategic thinking now is the endless reiteration of Israeli talking points uttered by retired generals who are owned by the weapons industry and the Israeli lobby. These men — who represent the views of an infinitesimal percentage of the overall population — are an essential part of the larger machine that prepares the public for intervention, escalation and war. Their current assignment is to convince the American people that Israel's impending attack on Iran serves America's national security interests which, of course, it doesn't. In fact, the country is being boondoggled into a bloody conflagration that will, in all probability, precipitate a sharp decline in US global power followed by a swift end to the so-called American Century.I don't think there is an implicit obligation for the United States to follow like a stupid mule whatever the Israelis do. If they decide to start a war, simply on the assumption that we'll automatically be drawn into it, I think it is the obligation of friendship to say, 'you're not going to be making a national decision for us.' I think that the United States has the right to have its own national security policy." Zbigniew Brzezinski


"A historic milestone in the collective efforts of signatory countries to foster genuine cooperation in the Nile Basin. I also call upon the non-signatory states to join the Nile family, so that together we may achieve our shared goals of development and regional integration."
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security... And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."Brace yourself: a tsunami approaches.
Historian Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
Comment: 'A dam' if you do, 'dammed' if you don't!