Word: regionally
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...protect the flow of oil. The gulf states produce two-thirds of the world's supply, so their stability is vital to the global economy. As the U.S. sees it, the biggest threats to that stability are Iraq and Iran, two powerful countries with ambitions to someday dominate the region. The U.S. policy of keeping both Iraq and Iran in check is known as dual containment...
...pursue that policy in the aftermath of the Gulf War, the U.S. has dramatically increased its presence in the region--indeed, the gulf is the only major theater in the world where the American military is expanding. Before the war there were rarely more than 1,000 American troops in Saudi Arabia at any one time and even fewer in any neighboring country. Today there are about 20,000 U.S. troops in the area. About half are afloat in the gulf, while Air Force, Army and Marine personnel operate out of four bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (there...
...historians and archaeologists agree, however, that the Olmec produced the earliest sophisticated art in Mesoamerica and that their distinctive style provided a model for the Maya, Aztec and other later civilizations in the region. According to Joralemon, small-scale Olmec objects made prior to 900 B.C. tend to be ceramic, whereas later pieces were often fashioned of jade and serpentine, rare materials that required great skill to carve. The vast majority of Olmec artifacts are sculptures--figurines, decorated stone stelae, votive axes, altars and the like--some of which were polished to a mirror-like shine...
...dwarfs, hunchbacks and, most important, the "were-jaguar" (part human, part jaguar)--indicate a belief in the supernatural and in shamanism. Olmec-style human figures typically have squarish facial features with full lips, a flat nose, pronounced jowls and slanting eyes reminiscent (at least to early travelers in the region) of African or Chinese peoples. Archaeologists have found household objects as well, but they tend to be broken. As a result, laments Joralemon, "we know relatively little about the common Olmec...
...that poetic justice has foiled a malevolent act. Moore quickly cuts off such easy certainties. He shows the old man examining the possessions of his would-be murderer. They include a printed statement identifying the intended victim as "Pierre Brossard, former Chief of the Second Section of the Marseilles region of the Milice, condemned to death in absentia by French courts, in 1944 and again in 1946." The statement goes on to say that Brossard was charged with the massacre of 14 Jews on June 15, 1945. The document, which the old man realizes was to be pinned...