The Iraqi resistance may merely want the Americans and other westerners out of Iraq, but bin Laden’s goal is more ample: to rid the entire Middle East of “crusader” influence. Though bin Laden is an unapologetic religious fundamentalist, it is his nationalist “foreign policy” that gains him as many supporters among the Arab masses as his strong beliefs in the infallibillity of the Koran.
BY PEPE ESCOBAR
The ultimate nightmare for White House/Pentagon designs on Middle East energy resources is not Iran after all: it’s a unified Iraqi
resistance, comprising not only Sunnis but also Shi’ites.
“It’s the resistance, stupid” - along with “it’s the oil, stupid”.
The intimate connection means there’s no way for Washington to
control Iraq’s oil without protecting it with a string of sprawling
military “super-bases”. Continue reading ‘It’s the Resistance, Stupid’
By Jim Holt
London Review of Books
Editors’ Note: The LRB and Holt are British mainstream liberals, conservative at times, a position Cyrano is certainly not comfortable with nor endorses. But this article presents a plausible explanation for what otherwise would have to be a case of historically unprecedented and criminally insane meddling in the affairs of another nation. But the fact this analysis posits a rational scenario for this murderous war is not exactly comforting.
Iraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’. Continue reading ‘It’s the Oil —hard lessons in realpolitik’
President Hugo Chávez interviewed by Marta Harnecker, Monthly Review, Sept. 2005
This article is excerpted from Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chávez Talks to Marta Harnecker published by Monthly Review Press. The book covers a wide range of topics, including Chávez’s political formation, the transformation currently taking place in Venezuela, and its place in the global context. In what follows, Chávez recounts the events of the failed coup d’etat of April 11, 2002.—Eds.
Continue reading ‘HISTORY ANNALS: Hugo Chávez on the Failed Coup’
Marva group of Jewish-American adolescents playing soldiers, and receiving a dangerous bath of Zionist chauvinism and the “correctness” of violence to solve political issues.
BY CHRIS HEDGES
CROSSPOST: http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20071001_israels_toy_soldiers/ ||| Posted on Oct 1, 2007
If you are a young Muslim American and head off to the Middle East for a spell in a fundamentalist “madrassa,” or religious school, Homeland Security will probably greet you at the airport when you return. But if you are an American Jew and you join hundreds of teenagers from Europe and Mexico for an eight-week training course run by the Israel Defense Forces, you can post your picture wearing an Israeli army uniform and holding an automatic weapon on MySpace. Continue reading ‘Israel’s Toy Soldiers’
The Iranian President at the United Nations.
COMMENTARY By Jerry Mazza /•\ Online Journal Associate Editor | Dateline: Sep 26, 2007 // Fraternal crosspost
The Ahmadinejad visit to New York provided the media and its associated political class with yet another feeding frenzy to exercise their well developed talent for high-handed hypocrisy. Obviously it helps when the target is long preceded by and shrouded in obstinate ignorance and consequent confusion in a culture where history is only of peripheral interest, and where vociferous Zionism has a de facto chokehold on almost all critical institutions—from Congress to the media, and certainly academia. It also doesn’t help matters much that the Iranian leader—like most US imperial targets—is scarcely adept at juggling the symbols of American propaganda, and is often quite skilled at shooting himself in the foot. Like many smaller-power leaders who stand in defiance to probably the most hypocritical empire on record, they do not seem to fully understand the importance of communicating clearly and forthrightly with the US public above and through the curtain of thick distortions certain to be deployed by the corporate media and professional politicians (two sides of the same coin). And therein they miss fine opportunities to neutralize at least some of the poison being continuously spread around by these agents of imperial propaganda as they character assassinate the leaders and cultures marked for eventual physical attacks. It’s high time these leaders made an effort to understand and master this very special but essential language that could—up to a point—lessen the probabilities of such an attack.—Eds.
Continue reading ‘The lessons of Ahmadinejad at Columbia’
Sheehan friends and relatives in demonstration in Virginia. Cindy presents a HUGE problem to the system’s apologists: a person of unshakable conviction who is firmly “on the left.” So far efforts at character assessination have failed, but should she gain public office, the most likely tack will be to kill her credibility with faint praise, suggesting she’s too “naive” about the world, she’s a one-trick pony, and so on. Media whores have their work cut out for them with Cindy.
BY CINDY SHEEHAN Dateline: September 19th, 2007
I am consistently amazed at things that right-wing nut jobs throw at me to justify their support of an unjustifiable war. Seriously, when you watch Generals, Ambassadors, Senators and Congress Reps and pundits who still cheerlead for a miserable, failed and murderous policy you can almost see the skepticism in their eyes, too. They know they are lying for their masters now, if they, like George and Dick didn’t always know they were lying. Continue reading ‘At What Price, Safety?’
“Hiya folks, I’m John Kerry. I’m full of shit and how do you like it?!” Extrapolate Kerry’s name for any name in the Democrats’ leadership roster, not to mention the GOP, and you get closer to the unspoken truth.
BY BILL VAN AUKEN Dateline: 19 September 2007 World Socialist Web Site | A fraternal site
Little more than 10 months after winning the leadership of both houses of the US Congress thanks to a swelling tide of opposition to the war in Iraq, the Democratic Party has largely abandoned even the pretense of a struggle to bring the war to an end. Continue reading ‘Democrats pack in their antiwar charade’
BUSH UNMASKED, By Molly Ivins. FROM THE CLASSIC FILES OF ALLEN L ROLAND Dateline: Tuesday, September 18, 2007
“Out Bush murderer!” screams this billboard in Uruguay during Bush’s recent trip to Latin America. Apparently many foreigners see what “W” is all about better than many Americans.
It’s not that he’s mean. It’s just that when it comes to seeing how his policies affect people, George W. Bush doesn’t have a clue : —Molly Ivins
TO FULLY UNDERSTAND George W Bush ~ you must listen to fellow Texan and columnist Molly Ivins who interprets why George Bush ” is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people .” Continue reading ‘BUSH UNMASKED: The Uncompassionate Conservative’
The Caudillo in winter, fading into history with all honors and total impunity. Certainly persona most grata in Washington.
BY VICENTE NAVARRO; September 15-16, 2007
According to conventional wisdom in Spain and in the U.S., in Spain’s transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy, it was King Juan Carlos, with the assistance of the U.S. government (first the Ford administration, then the Carter administration), who brought democracy to Spain. In this interpretation of events taking place from 1975, when the dictator died, to 1978, when the first democratically elected government was installed, the U.S. government actively supported the development of democracy in Spain. Continue reading ‘How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain’s Transition to Democracy’
Alan Greenspan, libertarian Republican and former controversial skipper of the Federal Reserve system, has finally found his voice to denounce George W Bush, albeit 1.2 millions lives (and still counting) too late…Thank you, Alan.
By Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters in New York
Sunday September 16, 2007
The Observer | GUARDIAN Unlimited [U.K.]
The man once regarded as the world’s most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was ‘largely’ about oil.
Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets. Continue reading ‘Greenspan admits Iraq was about oil, as deaths put at 1.2m’
