Introduction: Structural Deep Events and the Strategy of Tension in Italy From an American standpoint, it is easy to see clearly how Italian history was systematically destabilized in the second half of the 20th century,…
Tag: New York Times
Media Reports on the Tragic Assassination of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens New York Times September 12, 2012 J. Christopher Stevens arrived in Benghazi, Libya, in April 2011 aboard a Greek cargo ship carrying a…
Why Americans Must End America’s Self-Generating Wars The most urgent political challenge to the world today is how to prevent the so-called “pax Americana” from progressively degenerating, like the 19th-century so-called “pax Britannica” before it,…
RYAN A PAWN IN NEO-CON RETURN The neo-conservatives have consolidated their plan for control of US foreign policy with the vice-presidential nomination of Paul Ryan. Ryan is being briefed by Dan Senor, described mildly in…
As the Olympics wind down in London, there can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that this Olympics is about politics. How else can one explain the string of smears against Chinese athletes and their…
The news media’s readiness to accept official pronouncements and failure to more vigorously analyze and question government authorities in the wake of “domestic terrorist” incidents contributes to the American public’s already acute case of collective…
A devastating strike would create an upsurge of patriotism in America and fully neutralize Mitt Romney’s contention that Obama is a foreign-policy wimp. It could allow Obama to sweep to victory in November. Will he…
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.
Recent events trace a threatening trajectory, sufficiently so that it may be worthwhile to look ahead a few generations to the millennium anniversary of one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights: the issuance of Magna Carta, the charter of English liberties imposed on King John in 1215. What we do right now, or fail to do, will determine what kind of world will greet that anniversary. It is not an attractive prospect – not least because the Great Charter is being shredded before our eyes. The first scholarly edition of the Magna Carta was published in 1759 by the English jurist William Blackstone, whose work was a source for U.S. constitutional law. It was entitled “The Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest,” following earlier practice. Both charters are highly significant today.
EXPORTING “AMERICAN VALUES”: Washington’s “Human Rights” Fraud “I do think we are on the right side of history, aligning ourselves with people’s aspirations for freedom, democracy, universal human rights,” US Secretary of State Hillary…