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What a McCain Victory Could Mean: No Money for Health Care and the End of Our Volunteer Army

Robert Parry, Consortium News. August 28, 2008.
The price tag for John McCain's war lust would mean virtually every other national priority would be short-changed or neglected.

Bolivia: Can the Majority of People Vote for Change and Actually Get It?

Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. August 27, 2008.
A wealthy minority in Bolivia seems determined to thwart the changes demanded by a majority of the population.

Bush Is Pouring Gas on Afghanistan's Bonfire

Chris Hedges, Truthdig. August 27, 2008.
Mounting NATO bombing raids and widespread detentions of Afghans are rapidly turning the country into the mirror image of Iraq.

The Three Dumbest Neocon Predictions Since the Disaster in Iraq

John Dolan, AlterNet. August 25, 2008.
Nothing seems to keep the Neocons from losing respectability. Here are three contenders for the dumbest Neocon predictions post-Iraq.

Joe Biden Is a Key Fighter in Dissolving Bush's 'Terror' Myths

Andy Worthington, AlterNet. August 24, 2008.
Biden doesn't have clean hands when it comes to Iraq, but he's been a leader in re-establishing the rule-of-law in Bush's terror war.

Biden, Iraq and Obama's Betrayal

Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus. August 24, 2008.
The choice of Biden calls into question whether Obama's offering a "change we can believe in."

Land Grabs and Lawsuits

Jesse Rosenfeld, Montreal Mirror. August 22, 2008.
Two Quebec-based firms are being sued in Canada by the occupied West Bank Palestinian village of Bi'lin.

Russia and Georgia: All About Oil

Michael T. Klare, Foreign Policy in Focus. August 21, 2008.
This struggle started when the former Soviet republics began seeking Western customers for their oil and natural gas.

Impasse: Are We Nearing the End of the Corporate Globalization Era?

Deborah James, AlterNet. August 21, 2008.
The failure to expand the WTO shows that the ideology of "free trade" has lost its luster.

Blocking a Gazan's Path to an Education

Fidaa Abed, The San Diego Union-Tribune. August 19, 2008.
Hundreds of Palestinian students with dreams of improving their lives are stagnating intellectually in Gaza.

Six Questions About the Anthrax Attacks That the Public Should Demand

Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. August 19, 2008.
The media's already losing interest on the anthrax story, but there are plenty of simple questions that really deserve answers.

Russia's Return Bites the Neocons' Grand Energy Scheme in the Ass

James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com. August 19, 2008.
You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA when they thought they could control Russia's close neighbor.

Killing of Aid Workers in Afghanistan Exposes the Dangers of Escalation

Ann Jones, AlterNet. August 18, 2008.
The murder of four humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan should temper talk about sending more troops there.

America Watches the War in Georgia with Dumb Goggles

Mark Ames, The Nation. August 16, 2008.
The war between Russia and Georgia has been framed as a tale of David versus Goliath. But it's far more complex than this, morally and historically.

How Taxpayer Money Is Wrapped Up in Georgian War

Sharona Coutts, ProPublica. August 14, 2008.
A pipeline that runs through Georgia is the second largest in the world, and American tax dollars helped fund big oil projects in the region.

The Long War: How Many Iraqs and Afghanistans Lie Ahead?

Andrew Bacevich, Tomdispatch.com. August 14, 2008.
The Pentagonization of the United States shows no sign of slowing down.

Was the War in Georgia a Neocon Election Ploy?

Robert Scheer, Truthdig. August 13, 2008.
Yes, it sounds diabolical, but that may be the most accurate way to assess the designs of the McCain campaign in matters of war and peace.

Georgia Tries out the Bush War Doctrine, Loses Badly

Gary Brecher, eXiled Online. August 12, 2008.
The president of tiny Georgia must have caught a case of his pal Bush's war lust to attack a Russian ally and think he'd win.

U.S: Air Force Think Tank Advises Against Iran Attack

Jim Lobe, IPS News. August 11, 2008.
A major study produced for the U.S. Air Force by a top defense think tank concludes attacking Iran would be a disaster for the U.S.

Russia Begins Bombing Georgian Capital

Kim Sengupta, Sean Walker, Independent UK. August 11, 2008.
Georgia's appeal for a ceasefire seemed to have fallen on deaf ears on Sunday as Russian jets bombed Tbilisi for the first time.

McCain's "League of Democracies" Proposal, Rejected by Allies, Gains Traction with Hawks on Left and Right

Ali Gharib, IPS News. August 7, 2008.
McCain's "League of Democracies," a new international organization of democratic governments, already exists.

U.S. Foreign Aid: More Guns Than Butter

Ken Bacon, Mark Malan, Refugees International. August 5, 2008.
The Pentagon has much more to do with U.S. policies toward Africa than it did a decade ago. And that's not a good thing.

How to Survive the Triple Whammy of Energy, Food and Climate Crises

John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus. August 5, 2008.
To survive we need to recognize that these threats are not separate problems, and they must be addressed as one major crisis.

The Price of Oil, Tripled? An Attack on Iran Could Make It Happen

Chris Hedges, Truthdig. August 5, 2008.
A war with Iran would ruin our economy and finally kill off our weakened, anemic democracy.

Don't Mourn the Collapse of WTO Talks

Robert Weissman, Middle East Online. August 4, 2008.
Don't shed any tears for the death of the WTO talks -- the whole thing should have been called the Doha Anti-Development Round.

U.S. Tries but Fails to Scuttle Cluster Bomb Treaty

Daniel Allen, Foreign Policy in Focus. August 4, 2008.
The U.S. government's claims, examined and annotated.

Bush's Fierce Global War of Denial

Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. August 2, 2008.
The motto of the Bush administration might have been: Pay any price. Or, rather, make everyone else pay the price for us to remain in denial.

Afghanistan: The Other Illegal War

Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. August 1, 2008.
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was every bit as illegal as the invasion of Iraq. Why, then, do so many Americans see it as justifiable?

Total Recall in Bolivia: Divided Nation Faces Historic Vote

Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet. July 30, 2008.
Bolivia's president, vice president and eight of nine departmental governors are the subject of an upcoming recall vote.

America Is Already Committing Acts of War Against Iran

Scott Ritter, Truthdig. July 30, 2008.
Our taxpayer dollars are funding activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded and Iranian property destroyed -- acts of war.

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Auditing Conventional Wisdom

In partnership with the MIT Center for International Studies, AlterNet is pleased to present these Audits of the Conventional Wisdom.

This ongoing series of essays tours the horizon of conventional wisdoms that animate U.S. foreign policy and puts them to the test of data and history.

By subjecting particularly well-accepted ideas to close scrutiny, the series aims to re-engage policy and opinion leaders on topics that are too easily passing such scrutiny.

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