My following article appeared in yesterday’s Guardian Comment is Free section: Spending time in Iran inevitably results in endless conversations about politics. Virtually everybody has an opinion about the US, Israel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nuclear issue, women’s rights or even underground hip-hop (one of the country’s most famous rappers was recently arrested in Tehran for…
Showing all posts in June 2019
Dahlan: Israeli stooge and Al Qaeda ally?
Just who is supporting islamofascism? Hamas has turned over to the Egyptian authorities substantial parts of the intelligence information that fell into its hands when it overran the headquarters of Fatah-controlled security headquarters in Gaza on Thursday, according to what sources told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masriyoun. This is the first reported use of the information…
What happens when the U.S. finances “pro-democracy” forces in foreign lands?
It destroys them, of course. From the beginning, Denehy’s influence at the Office of Iranian Affairs had stirred up resentment. Suzanne Maloney was on the policy-planning staff at the State Department for two years before she left last month to take up a post at the Brookings Institution. Her experience with the Iran portfolio demonstrates…
White man’s burden
An excellent essay from Lenin: This résumé, far from comprehensive, describes a current and pressing state of affairs. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the lives and conditions of millions of people not living in the United States are determined in part by a largely Anglo-Saxon ruling class, which has learned not to…
Americans still gullible
Surprise surprise. A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed “gaps” in America’s knowledge of history and current events. Little wonder why the government has been able to get away with their misinformation and propaganda. Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered ‘Yes’ to the question “Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was…
Uri Avnery and Gideon Levy speak up against the Neocon folly
From the Vineyard: It is a common mistake to think that the US Neocons are somehow concered with the welfare of Israel or the Israelis. In reality, of course, the Neocons are interested in their own power and they simply realize that by mantrically repeating “Israel! existential threat! anti-Semitism! self-hating Jews! Holocaust!” they can get…
Why the Ayrabs are winning
Larry Johnson shares some interesting thoughts about Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno’s comments about Al Qaeda members in Iraq being too cowardly to slug it out against overwhelming force. Let me see if I have this straight? We go after a supposed concentration of Al Qaeda. We encircle a city filled with civilians. We blow…
The VEEP’S office fallout
A few interesting developments have surfaced since the story broke about the Imperial Dick Cheney. Firstly, Bush chimed in and claimed that not only did he agree with Cheney’s assertion that the Vice President is exempt from oversight laws that he had signed, but that the same condition applies to him, also. Democratic caucus Chairman…
Jews love Nazis
Following last week’s publication in the New York Times and Washington Post of a senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, fundamentalist Zionist groups in the US are unhappy: Several Jewish organizations expressed outrage following the publication of opinion pieces authored by a Hamas figure in two of the US’s most prestigious newspapers on…
Wait a while…peace may break out
Yet another devastating reality of the Iraq war: It’s Monday night in a dingy club on the outskirts of the Syrian capital. Two dozen girls are moving half-heartedly on the dance floor, lit up by flashing disco lights. They are dessed in tight jeans, low-cut tops and knee-high boots, but the girls’ make-up can’t disguise…