The Guardian’s Seumas Milne on the seemingly inevitable war against Syria: All the signs are they’re going to do it again. The attack on Syria now being planned by the US and its allies will be the ninth direct western military intervention in an Arab or Muslim country in 15 years. Depending how you cut…
Showing all posts tagged Egypt
Conspiracy theory central; how the Muslim Brotherhood controls Obama
Great US indy journo Max Blumenthal loves taking on media myths, right-wing racism and bullshit. He’s his latest (via Mondoweiss): On August 22, 2013, several hundred Egyptians and Egyptian-Americans hit the streets of Washington DC to show their support for General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi and the regime that overthrew the elected President Mohamed Morsi in…
Only a matter of time before Palestinians rise up
Gideon Levy in Haaretz in commanding style: One day the Palestinian people will rise up against their occupiers. I hope this day comes soon. It’s true that this scenario seems unrealistic right now. The Palestinians are still bleeding from the second intifada, which only brought disaster upon them (and the Israelis). They are divided and…
Why Prism is important; we’re watching the watchers
My following article appears in today’s Guardian Australia: Politicians and journalists ignore public opinion at their peril. Less than two weeks after the explosive revelations by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden on the creation of a privatised,… American surveillance apparatus, a TIME poll finds a majority of… Americans support the leak, and… Snowden receives a…
Julian Assange on the threat posed by US-govt backed web evangelists
What a stunning piece. Julian Assange writes the following review in the New York Times on the kind of mundane yet dangerous “debates” sucked up by many in the mainstream media when it comes to the supposedly liberating nature of the internet. When the corporation becomes far more powerful than the state (and they work…
The Cold War is back and arms dealers are laughing
Global powers rarely learn from history. Instead, they look to find ways to influence others with a range of sticks and carrots. Hello, weapons manufacturers, stop smiling. Michael Klare in TomDispatch: Did Washington just give Israel the green light for a future attack on Iran via an arms deal?… Did Russia just signal its further…
The last thing Syria needs, or the Middle East, is more Western “engagement”
Stunning Simon Jenkins piece in The Guardian that explains why Western imperialists, of the liberal and conservative kind, just need to butt out of the Middle East: There could no more dreadful idea than to pour more armaments into the sectarian war now consuming Syria.… Yet that is precisely what Britain’s coalition government wants to do.…
Murdoch and Netanyahu make love so please don’t interrupt
Care to imagine what an editorial meeting is like at Rupert Murdoch’s… Australian? No, me neither – “look, over there, a Muslim country the West hasn’t bombed, let’s fix that immediately!” – but there’s a weird obsession over supporting the Israeli government. There’s a direct line from the Israeli PR department to the writers at the…
Why Israel lost the war and doesn’t recognise it’s now more isolated than ever
Adam Shatz in the London Review of Books: The ceasefire agreed by Israel and Hamas in Cairo after eight days of fighting is merely a pause in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It promises to ease movement at all border crossings with the Gaza Strip, but will not lift the blockade. It requires Israel to end its…
The Wire interview on Israel and Gaza
I was interviewed a few days by the Australian national current affairs program, The Wire: Israel’s latest strike on Gaza and assassination of Hamas military leader Amas Jabaari should be seen as traditional aggressive pre-election behaviour says commentator Antony Loewenstein. He says Egypt’s new regime and its connection to the Muslim Brotherhood is also making…