The Arab world realises that Barack Obama is George W. Bush with a better speech-writer: A new poll of Arab public opinion finds a significant drop in Arab world views of President Obama from a year ago. The 2010 Arab Public Opinion poll will be released Thursday at the Brookings Institution by Shibley Telhami, of…
Showing all posts tagged United States
The how and why a rabbi backs BDS
The recent decision by Olympia co-operative in the US to boycott Israeli goods was an American first. Progressive Rabbi Lyn Gottlieb backs the decision: Boycott is a time honored method which was the catalyst that ended legal segregation in the United States. Boycott is the primary tool of those engaged in nonviolent resistance to systematic…
Releasing terrorists shows America’s moving forward
Washington finally comes to its senses: As part of its routine series of preparedness drills aimed at testing national security, the Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it had set free the five most deadly foreign terrorists in U.S. custody. “Protecting the American people is our highest priority, so it is crucial that we…
What the West has left Iraq
Anthony Shadid writes a powerful piece in the New York Times on the deadly legacy of America in Iraq, in 2003, today and into the future. The occupation isn’t about to end: The morning after President Obama spoke of bringing the war in Iraq to “a responsible end,” insurgents planted their black flag on Tuesday…
Let the post Wikileaks leaking begin
This piece didn’t get the attention it deserves. Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg (a clear inspiration to Wikileaks and Julian Assange) told the Washington Post last weekend what documents or information should be leaked and freely available. A truly free society would depend on it: 1. The official U.S. “order of battle” estimates of the…
Maintain the rage over Sri Lanka’s dictatorship
The Elders release a statement outlining the still profound issues inside Sri Lanka: The Sri Lankan government’s clampdown on domestic critics and its disdain for human rights deserves a far tougher response according to The Elders. While welcoming the end of the decades-long civil war, the Elders say that meaningful progress on reconciliation in Sri…
Killing Julian Assange is a legitimate response to his leaks?
The level of depravity surrounding the Wikileaks saga continues, causing arguably sane people to call for extreme, if not criminal, action: Did my [Washington Post] colleague, Marc Thiessen, just call for a drone strike in Iceland? Thiessen is obviously incensed by WikiLeaks‘s dissemination of tens of thousands of pages of government documents relating to the…
The lack of intelligence of American intelligence
Fulton Armstrong is a former US intelligence officer who sent the following letter to the New York Review of Books and explains how the US intelligence community is close to broken (so remember this when a forthcoming report appears on Iran): I was a member of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), as national intelligence officer…
“Fortress Israel” is a nice place to be
Increasingly, the Zionist world frames itself as the victim in the Middle East – “nobody understands us” and “if only the West would offer unconditional backing for our enlightened occupation” – and this Jerusalem Post interview with Britain’s departing ambassador to the country reveals a newspaper editor who just wants to be loved. He needs…
Obama still hearts poor little Tel Aviv
There is no clash between Israel and America. Business as usual continues: US House appropriators have pushed funding for Israeli missile defense programs to its highest level ever, with $422.7 million now slated for 2011. Last week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense added $95.7m. to the original White House funding request for the long-range…