Ever visit a major prison? The vast majority of Americans have not, despite our country having by far a higher incarceration rate per capita than China or Iran. Out of sight is out of mind….
Tag: Iraq
Don’t get me wrong, I love most sports. But I’m going to have my TV remote (with mute!) at the ready for the upcoming summer Olympics. You know the drill—soaring, beautiful feats of heart, talent…
The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend…
On July 24, 2012, the New York Times published an article named “Al Qaeda Taking Deadly New Role in Syria Conflict.” The article comments on an interview with an al-Qaeda operative in Iraq and on a video posted in YouTube by al-Qaeda. In the latter, masked men speak with two flags of al-Qaeda in their background; they claim to be fighting against the Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. This is relatively credible, and actually fits claims by Bashar al-Assad that the violence in the country is being driven by non-Syrians. The article cites also senior Iraqi officials claiming that the same al-Qaeda cells are active in Iraq and Syria. Yet, in a careless whisper, the New York Times also disclosed that these cells seem to be true foreigners to Islam and the Middle East. The error took place during the abovementioned interview. Abu Thuha, a 56-year-old al-Qaeda operative in the Hawija district near Kirkuk in Iraq, spoke to an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times and said: “Our big hope is to form a Syrian-Iraqi Islamic state for all Muslims, and then announce our war against Iran and Israel, and free Palestine.” In English it may sound logical, though extremist.
A British Army source revealed last night that former SAS soldiers are training Syrian rebels in Iraq in military tactics, weapons handling and communications systems. More than 300 have passed through a base just inside…
Huffington Post publishes, and then deletes, a post by a MeK spokesman. What does this tell us about Terrorism? (updated below) Yesterday morning, The Huffington Post published a post by Hossein Abedini, who was identified…
America’s favorite pastime isn’t baseball. It’s war, permanent imperial wars that won’t end in our lifetime Dick Cheney said earlier. America is addicted to war. One nation after another is ravaged and plundered. Unchallenged global…
There is one thing certain about U.S. Pentagon strategy: it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And using an old trick from Operation Desert Storm, establishing a humanitarian, NATO-protected no-fly salient in northern Iraq’s Kurdish area, appears to be the same strategy envisioned for northern Syria. There is much in common between the U.S.-led NATO planning for a northern Syria occupation zone and the no-fly zone established in 1992 for Iraq. Both NATO operations were and are intended to drive Arab Ba’ath Socialist regimes from power. In Iraq, the target was the Ba’ath Party headed by Saddam Hussein; in Syria, the target is, again, an Arab Ba’ath Party and the regime headed by Bashar Al Assad. In Iraq, a no-fly zone was established from the 36th parallel north to the Turkish border. If one were top draw that same boundary westward, it closely compares to the NATO-protected humanitarian zone being proposed for Syria. The NATO-protected northern Syria salient would encompass the cities of Aleppo and Idlib and the provinces of Idlib, Halab, Ar Raqqah, and Al Hasakah (the latter two where many Syrian Kurds live).
Humanitarian wars, especially under the guise of the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P),” are a modern form of imperialism. The standard pattern that the United States and its allies use to execute them is one where genocide and ethnic cleansing are vociferously alleged by a coalition of governments, media organizations, and non-governmental front organizations. The allegations – often lurid and unfounded – then provide moral and diplomatic cover for a variety of sanctions that undermine and isolate the target country in question, and thereby pave the way for military intervention. This is the post-Cold War modus operandi of the US and NATO. In facilitating this neo-imperialism, the United Nations has been complicit in the hijacking of its own posts and offices by Washington. Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been appointed a “special peace envoy” with a mediating role in Syria. Yet, how can Annan be evaluated as an “honest broker” considering his past instrumental role in developing the doctrine of R2P – the very pretext that has served to facilitate several US/NATO criminal wars of aggression? Furthermore, the evidence attests that the US and its allies – despite mouthing support for Annan’s supposed peace plan – are not interested in a mediated, peaceful solution in Syria.
There have been many discussions on what would happen the day after an attack is launched on Iran. The question is not what happens the next day, but what happens in the month, year, or…