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Back to the old Cold War game

With the upcoming lifting of the arms embargo for Assad regime opponents in Syria we are back to the old game: Cold War - the USA and the former Soviet Union both offering advanced weapon systems to the belligerent parties (visual montage).

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Ugly and murderous times when local populations were squeezed to death between heavily armed forces in what became more than "just civil wars": Korea, Vietnam, Angola and Afghanistan to name a few, the Cold War lasted from the fifties to the eighties of the last century. We are also reminded of the aftermath, the missile crises of Cuba and Egypt  - with Syria being equipped with missile capacity by the Russians, from the Khrushchev to the Putin era. This, as a deterrent against Israel being equipped by the Americans.

openDemocracy Author

Tjebbe van Tijen

Tjebbe van Tijen was curator of the department for the documentation of “modern social movements” at the University of Amsterdam and in the International Institute of Social History.

He works as a multi-media artist under the name Imaginary Museum, making interactive installations to dramatise history. He now works for the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong developing a visual narrative education system'.

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