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Browse: Home » Obama » Page 11
There is no terrorist threat: The feds want you to think there is, compliant media goes along

There is no terrorist threat: The feds want you to think there is, compliant media goes along

August 9, 2013 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

“Chatter” from “affiliates” causes a “crisis,” while media reports nonsense generated to justify NSA surveillance Summertime, and the chicanery is easy. The Obama administration’s latest rendering of our invisible but eternal “terrorist threat,” I mean. After a week of ghost…

Why the U.S. Is Crashing in the Middle East

Why the U.S. Is Crashing in the Middle East

August 5, 2013 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

Is it too soon to suggest that the Obama administration’s Middle East policy is collapsing? An unusual spurt of news from across the region points to failed US policies: (1) The U.S. has been outpaced in the region since the Arab…

America’s imperial decline: Must Dick Cheney always be president?

America’s imperial decline: Must Dick Cheney always be president?

July 3, 2013 · by Patrick L. Smith · in Articles, Salon

Barack Obama talks like a constitutional lawyer, but acts like Dick Cheney. Snowden shows it’s the same old America Edward Snowden has been on the lam for nearly three weeks now. The 30-year-old computer whiz has gone from Hawaii to…

Obama Gives Syrian Rebels Sling Shots to Slay the Dragon

Obama Gives Syrian Rebels Sling Shots to Slay the Dragon

June 17, 2013 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

Even as the White House asserts that Syrian President Bashar al–Assad has used chemical weapons against rebel insurgents, there are skeptics. The Russians, who support Assad, instantly questioned Washington’s evidence. So, now, do more objective experts who wonder why there…

Will the US Buy Obama's Plan to end the War Machine?

Will the US Buy Obama’s Plan to end the War Machine?

May 28, 2013 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

It’s easy enough to say that President Barack Obama has just announced his intention to end the “war on terror.” This thought is welcome, but it is simply not enough.Obama’s speech at the National Defense University last week has implications…

Obama’s Red Line in Syria Was Drawn in Pencil

Obama’s Red Line in Syria Was Drawn in Pencil

May 13, 2013 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

Suddenly, the Syria crisis has grown more complicated for the US—and notably for the Obama administration. After many months of staying scrupulously clear of a conflict that has now claimed 80,000 Syrian lives, it looks as though the White House…

How a Resurgent Japan Puts Washington on the Spot

How a Resurgent Japan Puts Washington on the Spot

February 25, 2013 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

“Japan is back.” That was the message Shinzo Abe, the new Japanese prime minister, delivered to President Barack Obama at the White House a few days ago. Obama, in turn, made nice, praising the US–Japan alliance as “the central foundation…

3 Foreign Hotspots that Will Test Obama’s Mettle

3 Foreign Hotspots that Will Test Obama’s Mettle

November 12, 2012 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

The “four more years” now stretching out in front of our forty-fourth president will be dense with challenges overseas, and meeting them will be essential if America is to regain a competitiveness already slipping. It would be hard to list…

Election 2012: Do Candidates Have a Foreign Policy?

Election 2012: Do Candidates Have a Foreign Policy?

August 21, 2012 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

This has to be the most inward-gazing presidential election in nearly half a century. True, voters are focused on domestic problems: the health care system, joblessness, the fiscal deficit, the state of the economy and what to do about it….

Why Obama's Iran Strategy is All Wrong

Why Obama’s Iran Strategy is All Wrong

April 2, 2012 · by Patrick Smith · in Articles, The Fiscal Times

The good news: We now have a new set of talks on Iran’s nuclear program scheduled for mid April in Istanbul. The bad news:  Washington and its allies have not prepared the ground for these talks. We are a negotiating…

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Writer, commentator, longtime newspaper and magazine correspondent abroad. Writes often on Europe and Asia. Published five books.

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