monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Iran’s most prominent military leader has recently met Iraqi militias in Baghdad and told them to “prepare for proxy war”, the Guardian has learned.

Two senior intelligence sources said that Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran’s powerful Quds force, summoned the militias under Tehran’s influence three weeks ago, amid a heightened state of tension in the region. The move to mobilise Iran’s regional allies is understood to have triggered fears in the US that Washington’s interests in the Middle East are facing a pressing threat. The UK raised its threat levels for British troops in Iraq on Thursday.

While Suleimani has met regularly with leaders of Iraq’s myriad Shia groups over the past five years, the nature and tone of this gathering was different. “It wasn’t quite a call to arms, but it wasn’t far off,” one source said.

The meeting has led to a frenzy of diplomatic activity between US, British and Iraqi officials who are trying to banish the spectre of clashes between Tehran and Washington and who now fear that Iraq could become an arena for conflict.

Ambassador Richard Grenell has again earned the ire of the German public. This time for perpetuating a misleading story about Merkel calling the United States a "rival."
[...]
His misstep on Friday began with a Newsweek magazine summary of an interview with Merkel , a summary that incorrectly implies that the chancellor "lumped in" the US "as a global rival that, along with China and Russia, "Europe must unite against."

However, in the interview that Newsweek is quoting, which is from the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, it is the interviewer and not Merkel who places Washington alongside Moscow and Beijing, asking how Europe is approaching the "global challenges from China and Russia, as well as the USA."

Merkel responds by saying that these global challenges "are forcing us, time and time again, to find common positions." She went on to say that the EU does not always manage to do this as well as she would like, arguing that the bloc's "political power" still does not match its economic clout. She never mentions the implication of the three countries being equivalent, an idea that even the questioner's original German avoids.
[...]
Among others, the chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, spotted the mistake, responding to Grenell by asking: "Merkel said what exactly, and when, and in which language?"

[...]

Was machen die globalen Anfechtungen aus China, Russland und auch den USA mit Europa?

Sie fordern uns immer wieder ab, gemeinsame Positionen zu suchen. Das ist wegen der unterschiedlichen Interessen oft mühsam. Aber es gelingt, denken wir an unsere Politik im Ukraine-Konflikt. Auch unsere Afrikapolitik folgt inzwischen einer gemeinsamen Strategie, die vor ein paar Jahren noch undenkbar gewesen wäre. So kommen wir Schritt für Schritt voran. Noch aber entspricht unsere politische Kraft nicht unseren ökonomischen Fähigkeiten.

All the monstrous authoritarian regimes in latin america had to do to get us support was SAY the freedom fighters were communist. That was not true. Which meant that the cold warriors in dc fell for lies again and again and fucked over latin americans again and again

As reagan and north did. Which led in no small part to the ramshackle economies they're fleeing today.

Olllie north remains a villain.

The one heroic thing he ever did is expose the corruption and exploitation in the core group of leaders of the NRA

Largely because the uber right has done so many stupid things richly deserving of satire

The only thing that changed under Ortega was the rhetoric.

drove these struggling governments into the other (Soviet) camp