So, two years into the Obama administration and America is again rightly viewed as hopelessly compromised in the Middle East and a backer of Israeli apartheid, repression across the region, occupations etc etc: Approval of U.S. leadership is now similar or lower than what it was in 2008 in several of the Middle East and…
Showing all posts tagged Barack Obama
How to receive a White House pat on the head
Here’s a lesson for progressive and Leftist writers and bloggers. If you want White House approval (God knows why you would, if independence is valued) then don’t be too critical, praise the wonders of Barack Obama and bask in the glow: The vice president told Democrats to “stop whining.” The president told them to “buck…
ABC Radio Overnights on Middle East realities
As the sham Middle East “peace process” continues, I was invited last week for a long interview and listener questions on ABC Overnights. We covered settlements, the BDS movement, the one-state solution, Barack Obama’s blind spots and the Holocaust:
There’s nothing to talk about with these compromised players
Leading BDS proponent Omar Barghouti dismisses the futile “peace talks” currently embraced by the Palestinian Authority, Israel and the US:
Obama recognises demography in Mid-East but refuses to heed lessons
This is thoroughly depressing. Here’s Barack Obama speaking to the UN on the Israel/Palestine conflict, lacking imagination and foresight and repeating all the mistakes of the last two decades. Washington is utterly incapable and unwilling to imagine a region free from Zionist oppression and occupation. And demography is only going in the Palestinian’s favour: U.S.…
Petraeus believes in forever conflict
Just in case it wasn’t clear, America’s “war on terror” in Afghanistan may last, well, for decades. Here’s Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, quoted in Bob Woodward’s new book: You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit…
America, keep your dirty hands away from fighting web repression
Sami ben Gharbia, the advocacy director for Global Voices, asks that Washington cease its largely counter-productive campaign to assist dissidents around the world. Image problem, anybody? Many people outside of the U.S, not only in the Arab world, have a strong feeling that the Internet Freedom mantra emitting from Washington DC is just a cover…
Jon Stewart on using fooking humour to make his point
Wonderful New York profile of Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, a program that becomes even more essential as America’s two-party system crumbles before our very eyes (but don’t tell them; they don’t need to realise): After September 11, Stewart began to employ his newfound anger, becoming a voice of comic sanity in the whirlwind…
Who lives permanently at Gitmo?
American crimes at Guantanamo Bay continue day in day out and yet the corporate press largely ignores it. Independent journalist Andy Worthington is a notable exception. So which prisoners are left at the prison camp? Worthington has collated an invaluable list, explaining how they got there and very often it was through the paying of…
Where is the necessary progressive movement?
Naomi Klein: We have to build that independent left. It has to be so strong and so radical and so militant and so powerful that it becomes irresistible.