Colin Powell: U.S. was set for war with Iraq before his U.N. speech | Yahoo News

The George W. Bush Administration was set on going to war with Iraq even before Colin Powell made his infamous 2003 weapons of mass destruction pitch to the United Nations, writes the former Secretary of State in his new book, “It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership.”

It might be Powell’s biggest revelation in the book, which details the experiences and lessons learned during his career as a soldier, a four-star general and Secretary of State.

Powell writes in one chapter in which he discussed his address to the U.N. that war was “was approaching,” [continue reading in new window...]

Fed clears China’s first US bank takeover – Yahoo News Canada

The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China’s biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company.

Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve approved an application from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to buy a majority stake in the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia.

The transaction will make ICBC the first Chinese state-controlled bank to acquire retail bank branches in the United States.

ICBC has been the most aggressive of China’s “big four” banks in expanding overseas.

According to the Fed the bank has total assets of [continue reading in new window...]

 

Poll: Support for Afghan war at new low – AP News

WASHINGTON (AP) – Support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a new low, with only 27 percent of Americans saying they back the effort and about half of those who oppose the war saying the continued presence of American troops in Afghanistan is doing more harm than good, according to an AP-GfK poll.

In results released Wednesday, 66 percent opposed the war, with 40 percent saying they were “strongly” opposed. A year ago, 37 percent favored the war, and in the spring of 2010, support was at 46 percent. Eight percent strongly supported the war in the new poll.

The poll found that far fewer people than last year think the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops increased the threat of terrorism against Americans. Overall, 27 percent say [continue reading in new window...]

 

CIA thwarts new al-Qaida underwear bomb plot – Yahoo News

WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Associated Press has learned.

The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger’s underwear, but this time al-Qaida [continue reading in new window...]

The Erosion of China’s Soft Power – RealClearWorld

Buoyed by its massive foreign-exchange reserve, China has spent billions of dollars to boost its soft power. Direct Chinese television broadcasts and Confucius Institutes around the world are aimed at winning the world’s respect. But a series of political scandals showing a total lack of regard for China’s rule of law have punctured claims about the Chinese system’s superiority. Chinese netizens’ claims that dissident Chen Guangcheng, who had escaped house arrest, was in “the 100 percent safe place” in China – the US embassy – sum up China’s challenge. In fact, the Chen incident represents a loss of face, reflecting a lack of trust by Chinese citizens in their own government.

As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words, and actions in China of late have been deafening. A quick survey of world newspaper opinion pages shows the damage to China’s soft power.

In February, Chongqing Vice Mayor Wang Lijun spent a mysterious 30 hours in the US Consulate in [continue reading in new window...]

 

China says Dissident Chen can apply to study abroad. But Clinton Expresses Caution – NYTimes.com

BEIJING — China has agreed to accept an application by the dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng to travel to the United States as a student, the State Department said on Friday, pointing to a quick resolution of an eight-day diplomatic crisis over human-rights issues that has deeply embarrassed the White House and threatened to further sour relations with Beijing.

But in remarks to journalists at the conclusion of a two-day negotiating session with the Chinese, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cautioned that “there is more work to do, so we will [continue reading in new window...]

 

U.S. & China: Regularly disappointing each other – The Washington Post

The past two months in China have revealed something profound about the outsized expectations that China and the United States have for each other and the often-feeble returns on what many call the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

Many Chinese place the United States on a pedestal that looms even higher from the capital of a nation facing a deep crisis in belief. The Chinese vest the United States with a moral authority that Americans are flattered by but are often loath to accept. For its part, the United States, in need of a hand around the globe, wants China to start acting like a superpower. But the Chinese — for tactical reasons or otherwise — reject the responsibilities [continue reading in new window...]

Bin Laden worried about legacy and sought to kill Obama – NY Daily News

May 04–WASHINGTON — In his final months padding around the dark third-floor room in his cinder-block Pakistan hide-out, the world’s most notorious terrorist mastermind spent a lot of time in his own head.

He fretted about his public image and the legacy of his organization. He wondered whether he had misnamed it Al Qaeda. He fired off orders, handed out promotions, denied requests for help from the battlefield and sought to direct publicity for the looming 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And as well, he schemed to kill the man who would, in the end, give the order to shoot him dead: Barack Obama.

That’s the portrait of Osama Bin Laden painted by the slim collection of notes and letters made public Thursday by the Combating Terrorism Center, a think tank at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The 17 documents represent a [continue reading in new window...]

What Export-Oriented America Means – The American Interest Magazine

What Export-Oriented America Means

In his State of the Union address two years ago, President Obama promised to double American exports over the next five years. At the time critics called this an unrealistic political promise, one that voters would forget by the 2012 election. But America is currently on track to meet that goal. As of early 2012, exports measure in at about $180 billion each month, whereas two years ago it was $140 billion per month. The growth rate of exports is about 16 percent per year, a trend that at least conceivably could get us to Obama’s target.

Since the recession officially ended, exports have accounted for about half of the nation’s economic growth. They are 14 percent of GDP and rising, reflecting a decades-long trend.1 To some extent, the vagaries of American economic growth inhere in the nature of the increasingly globalized international economy. American manufacturing employment has been badly hurt by the mobility of capital seeking lower production costs abroad, but the growing wealth of foreign populations in rising economies is creating new demand for imports, including imports U.S. workers can [continue reading in new window...]