What was Madeline Albright like? Joe Lauria remembers.

 

At Consortium News today we have:

The Madeleine Albright I Knew

The Consortium News editor-in-chief covered Madeleine Albright, who died on March 23, on a daily basis between 1993 and 1997 when she was the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Here are some of his recollections.

It's not a pretty picture.

We're Back

 It has been almost a year since out last post and much has changed. 

The suggestion of Mr. Lieven's post was not listened to and the war is on.

Clearly, the US media is unreliable, so we have added three links

The Grayzone

Consortium New

Gilbert Doctorow

They are better information than NPRFOXMSNBCCNNCBSABCNBCNYTWAPO.

We hope to do better posting articles, in case anyone cares.

The Neutralist.

Call him crazy, and you would be wrong. Kim Jong Un was saner than Obama. Is he saner than trump?

Kim Jong Un gets it.  He knows that if he gave up his nukes he would be soon meeting with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.  So during the Trump-Abe love fest, he sets off one of his one of his supposedly more advanced firecrackers and puts the two Mar-a-Lago dinner companions in a tizzy. They had to come up with a joint statement by the lights of their cell phones.

The Japanese head of government said, "naughty, naughty" and our man said "we love Japan."  Okay, that's not what they said, but the actual verbiage is not much different in substance.  It never really is.

We really have not solved the North Korea problem and what we are doing is not the answer.

Consortium News has a better idea.  Maybe we should try negotiating with the lad instead of more sanctions.  They haven't worked too many places.

Or maybe, we should just say au revoir?

Doug Bandow, Senior Cato Institute Fellow, has a blog column at Forbes and the title is, "As Korean Peninsula Gets Weirder And Less Stable U.S. Should Head For The Exits."

According to Mr. Bandow,

"But the threat is largely self-induced.  That is, Washington could easily deflate the fantastic nightmare of a North Korean nuclear attack on America by leaving the Korean Peninsula."

Bandow further states

Which leaves the debate over U.S. policy in full swing in Washington. Doing nothing is not a good option. The North would just continue to develop missiles and nukes. It already may have enough material for about 20 weapons. Some estimates have Pyongyang possessing 50 or even 100 weapons within a few years. Sticking around Northeast Asia while passively watching events would be foolish at best, dangerous at worst.

So, saying au revoir is the best option.  That is, of course, the Neutralist's default option.

You are saying what about our ally to the south.

We have done well by South Korea.  They are a smart and talented nation and have gotten to flood us with their phones and cars, but maybe they should face the future by themselves.

Kim Jong Un is a lot less crazy than the country that does not know when to leave.

Annie Machon at Consortium News is more right than she knows, there is no reason for NATO

The historical record of NATO post Soviet Union is one of aggression.  Maybe in Putin's heart there is a desire to roll the tanks to Normandy and embark an army on a fleet, but that cannot happen and we have been the troublemakers as Former Brit intel officer, Annie Machon makes clear in an article at Consortium News, Dreaming Up a Reason for NATO's Relevance.

The woman writes with clarity about the continued expansion of the alliance eastward in spite of our undertaking at the time of the demise of the "Evil Empire,"

I refer you back to an article I wrote two years ago after the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Referencing the work of former senior CIA officer and fellow Sam Adams Associate, Ray McGovern, it made clear that a deal was made between the Soviet Union of the time and the U.S. – and that, in return for the withdrawal of 260,000 Soviet troops from East Germany and the reunification of Germany, NATO would not move one inch further east than the German border.

This is the beginning of all our troubles with Russia.

Please read the article.  The Neutralist does object to her using the word "isolationist."  After all, who wants to be North Korea, thats isolationism.