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Focus: Afghanistan and the Taliban – Aug 24, 2017

‘Taliban cannot win on the battlefield, it’s time for them to join the peace process’: NATO and US-forces top commander Gen. Nicholson in Afghanistan – Afghanistan Times

VIDEO: Full statements and press conference of RS Commander Gen John Nicholson and US Envoy to Kabul Hugo Llorens – YouTube

TRANSCRIPT: Press conference statement by General John Nicholson on Afghanistan – Centcom

TRANSCRIPT: Remarks by U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens on the U.S. Afghanistan Policy – U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan

Tillerson says US may not win in Afghanistan but neither the Taliban, Trump will pressure the Taliban to negotiate peace and end war – New York Post

Tillerson pushes Pakistan to get Taliban to the negotiating table – Bloomberg

VIDEO: Sec’y of State Rex Tillerson takes questions after President Donald Trump’s Afghanistan announcement – YouTube

Secretary of State statement on the United States’ engagement in South Asia: ‘We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions’ – state.gov

Trump not making women’s rights a precondition of Afghan, Taliban talks: Tillerson – washingtonexaminer.com

Russia urges US to clarify its stance on contacts with Taliban without preconditions, Lavrov read more

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Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, The CIA and Me

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

When historian Alfred McCoy began his long journey to expose some of the darkest secrets of the U.S. national security establishment, America was embroiled in wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  Almost 50 years later, the United States is, in one way or another, involved in so many more conflicts from Afghanistan, read more

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The Peace Monument the United States Needs

Washington, D.C., needs a three-dimensional, sculptural Guernica dedicated to and with explanatory information about the victims of U.S. bombings in over 30 countries that the United States has bombed.

And it needs such a monument to the victims of wars now, to help move the country away from war. We can’t wait to create the monument after having achieved a society willing to make room for it among the war-glorification monstrosities gobbling up more and more space in the U.S. capital.

With land read more

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Trump’s Articles of Impeachment: A Greatest Hits Collection

By David Swanson, FireDonaldTrump.org

Several years back, I led a team of authors drafting articles of impeachment against then-President George W. Bush for then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich. We drafted over 60 and settled on the best 35. Had Congress moved forward, it would not have passed all 35 or convicted on them. But we felt it was important to establish the record and present the options. In fact, I would have preferred to go with more read more

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Focus: Russia and Syria – Aug 21, 2017

Russia boosts air campaign to help recapture key Syrian city Deir el-Zour – ABC News

During the past five days Russian planes made 316 sorties and carried out 819 strikes, ISIS terrorists pulling strongest units to Deir ez-Zor for last stand: Russian MoD – RT News

Central Syria almost liberated from terrorists, while Aleppo Province is already free from them: Russian General Staff – Sputnik International

Syria war: Russian jets ‘destroy IS convoy near Deir al-Zour’, Russia’s defence ministry said at least 200 jihadists died – BBC News

VIDEO (English subtitles and transcript): Syria briefing by Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy – Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

VIDEO: Russian air force destroys 200+ ISIS terrorists heading for Deir ez-Zor, Syria: Russia’s MoD – YouTube

Syrian Army secures strategic town Hamimah near Deir Ezzor from ISIS (VIDEO) – almasdarnews.com

Rebel spies exterminate ISIS gathering in Deir Ezzor, 8 jihadists killed – almasdarnews.com

ISIS’s Baghdadi is believed to have moved to eastern Deir Ezzor: source – almasdarnews.com

Syrian Army takes ISIS-held town Huwaysis near strategic gas field in central Syria – almasdarnews.com

Syrian read more

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Talk Nation Radio: Ed Kinane on Stopping Killer Drones

Ed Kinane is based in Syracuse, New York, and has been a big part of efforts to oppose drone piloting at Hancock Air Base for the past 10 years. His amazing array of work over the past decades has included teaching math and biology in a one-room Quaker school in rural Kenya, hitchiking Africa and North America, providing protective accompaniment to targeted activists in Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, and Sri Lanka, serving as chair of Peace Brigades International’s Sri Lanka read more

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Tomgram: Engelhardt, Welcome to the Post-American World

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Pardon Me!
High Crimes and Demeanors in the Age of Trump
By Tom Engelhardt

Let me try to get this straight: from the moment the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 until recently just about every politician and mainstream pundit in America assured us that we were the planet’s indispensable nation, the only truly exceptional one on this small orb of ours.

We were the sole superpower, read more

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Creative Anti-Nazism

The people of Durham , N.C., have the right idea. Not only have they taken down a Confederate war statue themselves, but they’ve lined up en masse to turn themselves in for that crime, overwhelming the so-called justice system.

The people of Wunsiedel, German, have the right idea. They’ve responded to Nazi marches by funding anti-Nazi groups for every Nazi marcher, and cheering on and thanking the marchers.

The people of Richardson, Texas, have the right idea. Members of a mosque intervened read more