The Copenhagen climate summit is causing massive global coverage. Some in the US press are rightly claiming that the world is relying too much on Barack Obama, but writer Naomi Klein argues that Washington should not be viewed as the savior: The highlight of my first day at COP15 was a conversation with the extraordinary…
Showing all posts tagged United States
Palestinian prisoners are irrelevant in the Jewish state
Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit may soon be released in a prisoner swap with Hamas. The significance for the Israelis? The New York Times provides a revealing quote: Rabbi Weiman-Kelman of Jerusalem said that the controversy over Sergeant Shalit was precisely what made life so different in Israel from his native United States and to…
Bolivian democracy in action (and the West should notice)
Bolivia this week re-elected an inspirational man to lead the country for another five years. The Wall Street Journal isn’t pleased (rambling about dictatorships), but the Guardian editorial perfectly explains the reason why Noam Chomsky calls the country a leading example of real democracy: President Evo Morales won a stunning victory in Bolivia yesterday, taking…
Gaza Freedom March less than one month away
The 4 December press release: The Gaza Freedom March that will take place in Gaza on 31 December is an historic initiative to break the siege that has imprisoned the 1.5 million people who live there. Conceived in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and nonviolent resistance to injustice worldwide, the march will gather…
Analysis must not be a war casualty
My following article appears on ABC’s Unleashed: The Iraq war has virtually dropped off the media radar. The country remains far more dangerous than Afghanistan and yet Barack Obama’s “surge” against the Taliban and al-Qaeda is the biggest international story of the day. Even leading neo-conservative William Kristol writes in The Washington Post that Obama…
Obama accepts he rules an empire and atones
The Nobel Peace Prize speech that Barack Obama won’t give.
The “surge” myth in Iraq and Afghanistan are folly
Veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn, a reporter unafraid to challenge accepted wisdom over Western-led wars, dooms Barack Obama’s plans for Afghanistan: American and British exponents of a military escalation or ”˜the surge’ in Afghanistan opportunistically expound two wholly contradictory views of Taliban strength. At one moment they are a movement of immense power on the verge…
Iran needs freedom from all of us
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kills dead the hopes of the Iranian democracy movement: “Iran is silencing all sources of information. Using the power of the Internet and of Twitter against the Iranian regime is a tremendous thing that the United States can do.” The prime minister added that the “deep hatred among part of…
Does J Street realise they are backing an increasingly likely war against Iran?
So-called progressive Jewish lobby J Street has a slight identity crisis. Last week it was willing to criticise ongoing settlements in the West Bank. This week, the tough cop routine rolls out: J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby, today announced its support for Congressional passage of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009. “J…
Australia trades any good will towards Tamils for a cheap buck
Western Australia human rights group Project Safecom released a statement yesterday that captured the hypocrisy at the heart of Australia’s foreign policy. We care about human rights until we don’t. In other words, human rights is far less important than keeping rogue states on side for trade or diplomatic benefits. Maybe the government should just…