This week (probably) sees the Palestinian Authority (PA) go to the UN and ask for something resembling statehood. It’s all so vague and so deeply troubling that too many in the Western world have blindly supported it (such as today’s UK Observer). Others, such as Gideon Levy in Haaretz, can’t understand why Barack Obama isn’t…
Showing all posts tagged Barack Obama
Orwellian name of the week: Middle East Transitions office
Let me get this straight. Washington spends the last decades backing any dictator who could be bought or bribed. Its image in the Muslim world couldn’t be lower. And now it wants to “help” the move towards democracy (via The Cable)? The State Department has opened a brand-new office to manage U.S. policy toward countries…
9/11 legacy is an Israeli/American catastrophe
My following essay is published today on ABC online: The 9/11 attacks had barely happened and the smouldering wreckage in New York and Washington was still shocking America and the world. Israel already saw an opportunity. Then former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to express his feelings about the terrorist action in the immediate…
Wikileaks reveals US helping maintain siege against Gaza
Well after Barack Obama came into power, this cable from August 2008 proves that Washington had every intention of helping its close friends; the dictatorship of Egypt and occupying Israel: Since the Egyptian-brokered “tahdiya” (“calming”) between Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza took effect June 19, rocket attacks from Gaza have decreased, and Israeli public…
Contracting in Afghanistan is turning that country into a deformed beast
My following investigation appears today in Crikey: In the 10 years since 9/11, millions of people have been killed but countless firms have benefited from the explosion in Western defence spending. Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president at Rand Corporation, recently told National Defence that “the war on terrorism cost $3.8 trillion in…
Here’s why America will continue to be so hated and the CIA can be thanked
Killing countless people around the world doesn’t exactly bring love (or respect or even fear anymore), so a fascinating but disturbing piece in the Washington Post that inadvertently documents the decline of an empire: Behind a nondescript door at CIA headquarters, the agency has assembled a new counterterrorism unit whose job is to find al-Qaeda…
Jeremy Scahill urges caution on Libya and warns of blow-back
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Obama is a proud war president; US troops to remain in Afghanistan for years
Occupation Inc: Although the Obama administration has made much of the fact that U.S. forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, it clearly has no intention of leaving that war-ravaged country to its own devices. In fact, plans are afoot to keep as many as 25,000 American troops in Afghanistan for…
Fisk on Assad’s real worry (and it isn’t poor little Obama)
Indeed: Obama roars. World trembles. If only. Obama says Assad must “step aside”. Do we really think Damascus trembles? Or is going to? Indeed, the titan of the White House only dared to go this far after condemnation of Bashar al-Assad by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the EU and Uncle…