Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Today’s “Must Read” Stories

Was our policy toward Cuba a disaster?

Christmas as an imagined holiday

Why gun control is so controversial

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Who Knows Eric Fair? by Murray Polner The recent revelation about unaccountable Americans using torture on prisoners have again raised the question of morality and legality.

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A history of torture The long nightmarish history of man’s inhumanity to man.

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Putin and the Art of Political Fantasy by Walter Laqueur For some considerable time the element of fantasy in Russian political discourse has been strong (and growing stronger), not only at the popular level but in official statements.

When J.F.K. Secretly Reached Out to Castro by Michael Beschloss There was a meeting just a few days before the president’s assassination to discuss overtures to Castro.

The Forgotten Futility of Torture - An Analysis by Lawrence Davidson It has long been known that torture does not work. One can go back to the Enlightenment.

The Senate Drone Report of 2019 by Tom Engelhardt Looking Back on Washington’s War on Terror

They Said ‘No’ to Torture: The Real Heroes of the Bush Years by Jon Wiener Hidden in the Senate torture report are stories of some heroes—people inside the CIA who from the beginning said torture was wrong, who tried to stop it, who refused to participate.

The other story of Hanukkah by Jonathan Zimmerman How the Jewish holiday became distinctly, wonderfully, American

Dec. 14, 1799: The excruciating final hours of President George Washington by Dr. Howard Markel It was a house call no physician would relish.

Does Texas Care About the Truth in the Textbooks It Approves? by Christopher Rose Texas is Adopting New History Textbooks: Maybe They Should Be Historically Accurate.

Why 1940s America wasn’t as religious as you think — the rise and fall of American religion by Tobin Grant It’s common for people to believe that religion was always more vibrant in the past.

Lift the sanctions on North Korea by Christine Ahn and Suzy Kim "Instead of relying on the failed Washington policy of 'strategic patience' it is time for a bold move that will truly bring North Korea into the community of nations, leaving no excuse to delay addressing human rights – sign a peace treaty to end the state of war."

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The U.S. And Cuba: A Brief History Of A Complicated Relationship It's been a stalemate that has outlasted 10 U.S. presidents, a failed invasion, a nuclear crisis and countless boatloads of Cuban asylum seekers. Meanwhile, the Castro brothers have kept running Cuba for more than a half-century.

Was our policy toward Cuba a disaster? What historians have concluded about our long stormy history with Castro's Cuba.

Did Jeb Bush Wait Too Long to Run for President? A Smart Politics analysis finds that the 14 years between Jeb Bush's last electoral victory in 2002 and the presidential election of 2016 is the longest such gap recorded by any victorious presidential candidate in more than 150 years.

The CIA Twisted The Legacy Of A Vietnam War Protest To Justify Torture The CIA insists it didn’t torture people. But in defense of its actions, it claimed the right to break the law.

New Inquiry Sought in 1961 Death of Dag Hammarskjold, U.N. Secretary General Sweden has asked the United Nations to reopen an investigation to establish whether an aerial attack brought down the secretary general’s plane over a mining town in Africa.

France Confronts an Ignoble Chapter In Paris, an exhibition at the National Archives looks at French people who were genuine supporters of the Nazis during World War II.

A History of Paris in 150 Photographs A new exhibit claims to present the social history of Paris as seen through the lens of Magnum photographers over the past century.

The X in Xmas literally means Christ. Here's the history behind it. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word Christos (Christ) begins with the letter "X," or chi.

Sudden global warming 55m years ago was much like today Researchers have discovered a period, some 55m years ago, when massive volcanic eruptions pumped so much carbon into the atmosphere that the planet warmed at what geologists would think of as breakneck speed.

Beads Found In Danish Grave Linked To King Tut's Death Mask After taking a new look at a pair of ancient cobalt beads, archaeologists now believe these Bronze Age artifacts may have been manufactured in the same workshop as the blue glass on King Tut’s death mask.

Congress Enacts Landmark Legislation to Preserve America's Endangered Battlefields Legislation expands successful federal Civil War battlefield grant program to include preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields.

Did Soviets interrogate American POW's during the Vietnam War? The fate of MIA's during the Cold War -- in Korea and Vietnam -- might be in the archives of Russia.