Who is more right on Syria - Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama? Prof. Jeffrey Sachs has the answer ...

on that question and several others relevant to our present time. Besides the first answer (which everybody knows even if they pretend not to) most of the others are stupid.and some are downright stupid.  Professors are people who think they know everything because they have those capital letters after their name.  Below is a sampling of the Qs and As.

Who is more right on Syria  – Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama?
Surprisingly, Putin. Yes, Russia is no doubt backing a tyrant in Bashar al-Assad, but Putin is correct that it is not the job of the United States or the West to overthrow the Syrian government. We have had enough US-led regime change in the Middle East. It repeatedly leads to disaster. It is time for Middle East region to sort out its own problems without Western meddling.

With Brazil following on from Turkey, following on from the tumult in the Middle East, is protest here to stay?
Protest today is pervasive: Brazil, Turkey, Athens, Rome, Paris and even Stockholm. And let’s not forget the Occupy Movement in the US, which was put down by a police crackdown. Tensions are high in many countries, from rich to poor. Governance is in crisis as a result of economic crises, inequalities and the challenges of globalisation.......

What chance of peace in a post-Nato Afghanistan?
The Afghanistan war has been a disaster. The US and UK should get out. Instead, the UN should sponsor a serious development programme, pooling efforts of the US, Europe, the Gulf Co-operation Council, China and Japan. With proper investments, Afghanistan’s mining sector could help to fund long-term development.....

Your latest book is about John F Kennedy’s quest for world peace. If he had been president on 9/11, would the world now be a very different place?

If JFK’s approach to peace in 1963 had been applied after 9/11, the world would be safer, more prosperous and on a far healthier trajectory. We have real problems to solve: poverty, environmental threats, hunger and social exclusion. Instead, we are wasting lives, time and money on disastrous military approaches that will solve nothing. As JFK put it best, “So let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”........