Robert Fisk paints a troubling picture of a nation that needs fundamental reform: According to historian Farouk Mardam-Bey, for example, Syria is “a tribal regime, which by being a kind of mafia clan and by exercising the cult of personality, can be compared to the Libyan regime”, which can never reform itself because reform will…
Disaster capitalism never sleeps
Because who is stopping it? The Shock Doctrine is alive and well, ideologues pushing through privatisation policies with little or no resistance from the Left or mainstream media. Daily Kos knows it: The events in the midwest these past few months have caused me, along with, I’d hope, any thinking progressive who had not already,…
What US foreign policy does to terrorism (hint; raises the chances)
No kidding: US military support for foreign governments encourages terrorist groups to attack Americans, demonstrates a new study from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Essex. Terrorist attacks on Americans are more likely to come from countries where the US provides military aid, stations troops and sells arms finds…
Chomsky’s clarity on Bin Laden death
The man still has it: It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards…
Sri Lanka cannot escape scrutiny over war crimes
An important editorial in the Financial Times: Last year, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, commissioned a report into human rights violations in the closing months of the decades-long Sri Lankan civil war that ended in 2009. The report points to credible evidence of mass shelling of civilians and summary executions. It also concludes that…
Bin Laden’s legacy still haunts Obama administration’s addiction to war
Middle East Report: When the rhetoric is stripped away, the reasons return to the fateful decision to treat the September 11 attacks as an act of war, rather than a monstrous crime. That choice, though it will probably forever be portrayed as an unavoidable bow to the righteous fury of American citizens, emanated at least…
Palestine isn’t suddenly independent because France may say so in UN
A leading Palestinian voice in Gaza is Haider Eid. I met him in the Strip in 2009. He is well known for piercing supposedly accepted truths about the conflict. His latest article does not disappoint, puncturing those who are celebrating the possibility of a September UN vote to endorse Palestine: The induced euphoria that characterizes…
Ehud Barak; BDS is coming…but we’ll still occupy Palestinians
Very interesting new comments: “…Barak believes that a UN declaration of Palestinian statehood without a prior Israeli political initiative will paint Israel into a corner previously occupied by South Africa during the apartheid era. His admonition is pungent and scathing: ‘There are elements in the world, quite powerful, in various countries, including friendly ones, in…
Serco and Australian government see no evil, hear no evil
The ever-increasing growth of Serco in Australia is occurring while the company faces intense scrutiny over its record managing refugees in immigration. This story on ABC TV Lateline highlights the problems. I’m having a growing number of former and current Serco staff approaching me and wanting to speak about what they’re seeing in Australia’s dysfunctional…
BDS vital because alerts world to Zionist occupation politics
Here’s how a major American Jewish publication, Forward, discusses the Middle East, by looking into the real effects on US campuses of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). The result? Not many tangible successes but something else has clearly been created; raising the rights of Palestinians under Zionist occupation. And that’s priceless: An Israeli diplomat issued…