Latest articles
by Ramzy Baroud / January 12th, 2016
Ali Abumghasib knows little about the current intrigues of the Fatah Movement, or, perhaps, he is just not interested. Although he has dedicated most of his life fighting within its ranks, he never saw his membership in Fatah as his defining identity. For him, it was, and will always remain, about Palestine and nothing else.
Now living in an old, rusty and tiny caravan somewhere in Gaza, Ali has no money, no family, but also no regrets. We spoke at length about his life. He wanted to share his story, and I wanted to understand what went wrong in what …
On the Fifth and Sixth Points of the Mont Order
by L'Ordre / January 12th, 2016
The Western powers are still deemed imperialist by their critics, due to their history of imperialism and their recent behavior as conquerors and exporters of their supposed “democratic” superiority. On the other hand, they try to accuse their own foreign opponents such as Iran, Russia or even the Palestinian people of having imperialist or similarly coercive goals against them or their allies.
Some commentators even astonishingly try to convince anti-war activists in the West to shift all their attention to criticizing non-Western governments and advocating military intervention for the sake of “peace” as well as the old “democracy”. They accuse …
by Jonathan Cook / January 12th, 2016
The decision to outlaw the northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel was announced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on November 17, 2015, days after attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, left 130 dead in Paris. Although the ban had been long in the making, the timing was patently opportunistic, with Netanyahu even comparing Israel’s Islamic Movement to ISIS. It is still unclear how the Israeli intelligence services and police will enforce the ban, given that the group has thousands of paid-up members among Israel’s large Palestinian minority, and ties to welfare associations and …
by Matt Peppe / January 11th, 2016
Five months ago, I wrote an article titled “Jimmy Carter’s Blood-Soaked Legacy” about how the former President’s record in office contradicted his professed concern for human rights. Despite campaigning on a promise to make respect for human rights a central tenet of the conduct of American foreign policy, Carter’s actions consistently prioritized economic and security interests over humanitarian concerns.
I cited the examples of Carter’s administration providing aid to Zairian dictator Mobutu to crush southern African liberation movements; financially supporting the Guatemalan military junta, and looking the other way as Israel gave them weapons and training; ignoring …
The imperialist Violence in Syria, Part 3 of 7
by Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri / January 11th, 2016
Read Part 1 and 2.
From The WikiLeaks Files
A December 13, 2006 cable, “Influencing the SARG [Syrian government] in the End of 2006,” indicates that, as far back as 2006 – five years before “Arab Spring” protests in Syria – destabilizing the Syrian government was a central motivation of US policy. The author of the cable was William Roebuck, at the time chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Damascus. The cable outlines strategies for destabilizing the Syrian government. In his summary of the cable, Roebuck wrote:
We believe Bashar’s weaknesses are in how he …
by subMedia / January 11th, 2016
2015 wrapped up with a bang, with dozens of militant actions carried out by anarchists under the banner of “Black December.” In Turkey, aspiring Fuhrer, Tayipp Erdogan, is attempting to wipe out the Kurds, but is faced with fierce resistance from the PKK and its allies. On the music break, a Savage Fam drops an anti-colonial hip-hop classic with “War Mask”. We follow up with news from Canada, as the country elects a new prime minister who’s cozying up to indigenous peeps, followed up by an exclusive interview with Ant-Loc of Savage Fam.
To hear the full interview with …
by Bruce Clark / January 11th, 2016
Section 91(24) of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1867, allots to the federal level of government the trust of “Protection” confirmed by King George the Third in the Royal Proclamation of 1763:
And whereas it is just and reasonable and essential to our Interest and the Security of our Colonies that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected and who live under our Protection should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as not having been ceded to or purchased by Us are reserved to them …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / January 11th, 2016
Human rights is a cause that runs deep in the British heart and long in British history.
(Britain is) Driven by a belief in fundamental human rights and a passion to advance them.
— Prime Minister David Cameron, Speech on the European Court of Human Rights, January 25, 2012
The British government under Prime Minister David Cameron’s leadership can claim absolute consistency in just one policy: towering, jaw dropping hypocrisy.
They follow Tony Blair and his tantrum prone, nail biting successor, Gordon Brown’s bombing, year zero inducing, orphan-creating footsteps as they attempt to market potential war crimes and illegal assaults, dressed as democracy bringing, …
by Alli McCracken / January 11th, 2016
President Obama should be given props for the progress made in thawing US-Cuban relations, but there’s a piece of unfinished business that he could–and should–still attend to: returning the US Naval Base in Guantanamo to the Cuban people. In doing so, he could also solve another dilemma that has plagued his administration: closing the Guantanamo prison.
In November 2015, CODEPINK brought 60 delegates to the city of Guantánamo for an international conference about the abolition of foreign military bases. To delve more into the impact of the Guantánamo naval base on the Cuban people, we took a …
by Kathy Kelly / January 11th, 2016
In Kabul, where the Afghan Peace Volunteers have hosted me in their community, the U.S. military maintains a huge blimp equipped with cameras and computers to supply 24 hour surveillance of the city. Remotely piloted drones, operated by Air Force and Air National Guard personnel in U.S. bases, also fly over Afghanistan, feeding U.S. military analysts miles of camera footage every day. Billions of dollars have been invested in a variety of blimps which various vendors, such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and Aeros have shipped to Afghanistan. All of this surveillance purportedly helps establish “patterns of life” in …
by Walter Brasch / January 10th, 2016
Several TV networks covered the Rose Parade. ABC, NBC, RFD, the Hallmark network, and Univision had frequent interruptions to unleash commercials on us. The Home and Garden network ran the two hour parade uninterrupted—except for endless on-air self-promotion about HGTV and its programs.
The networks had commentators who chatted with each other and seemed to spend more time enjoying being on air than in reporting the parade.
They aren’t unusual.
TV news—including parade coverage—has become more of a personality-based medium than a news medium. The Happy News TV anchors chat with each other. A few seconds here. A few seconds there.
“With Tonight’s weather …
by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / January 10th, 2016
In June 2008 the Community Climate Change Consortium for Ireland (C4I) produced a 118 page report entitled “Ireland in a Warmer World: Scientific Predictions of the Irish Climate in the Twenty-First Century” (supported and co-funded by Environmental Protection Agency, Sustainable Energy Ireland and the Higher Education Authority) which forecast “an increase in the frequency of very intense cyclones, and also increases in the extreme values of wind and precipitation associated with them. This implies an increased risk of storm damage and flooding in vulnerable Irish coastal areas.” The report also suggested that the “[d]emand for heating energy is likely …
The Bosnian Problem
by Binoy Kampmark / January 10th, 2016
I do not think we will have another war. Why would someone go to war? Thousands died, and are their descendants living better now?
— Milorad Dodik, Feb 19, 2015
The whole basis for Republika Srpska being an autonomous entity of its own accord was always going to be problematic. It was a child born of secessionist misfortune, and misfortune, as a mother, tends to give birth to many problematic children. The President of the Serb dominated entity, Milorad Dodik, is a creature of that tendency, a product of extremes, and behaves accordingly. Enlightenment is deemed a weakness, and …
by Graham Vanbergen / January 10th, 2016
Back in September True Publica published an article “Grand Theft Auto – UK and EU Bank Depositor Bail-In Regime Implemented” which described how banks throughout the EU would simply steal your deposits if any of them failed.
The first paragraph stated, “Shares and stocks are tumbling around the world, with investors worried that the next global crisis has already begun. There is considerable uncertainty and nervousness amongst economists and trend forecasters. Government’s sooth jittery markets with misinformation in the hope that confidence does not evaporate and their legitimacy with it.”
On the first day of 2016 all banks located within …
by John Andrews / January 10th, 2016
The single most important myth about Toryism — that the Tories are the best managers of the economy — needs to be confronted, and destroyed. The Tory party is best identified by its support for an economic system called capitalism, an ancient belief that concentrates wealth, and political power, in the hands of a tiny minority.
Britain’s best-known economists were Adam Smith and JM Keynes. Smith made the following observation about the capitalist model that ruled the world throughout modern history:
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim …
by John R. Hall / January 9th, 2016
The enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed…don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.
— John Yossarian from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
For those of us here in the belly of the beast who were weaned, raised, and educated on her toxic mix of capitalism and propaganda, the word “revolution” automatically conjures up images of The American Revolutionary War. But as Dmitry Orlov points out; “The American Revolution wasn’t a revolution at all because the slave-owning, genocidal sponsors of international piracy remained in power under the new administration.” In the end, after all the bodies had …
by Kim Petersen / January 9th, 2016
On 8 December 2015, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau told gathered First Nations leaders: “It is time for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples, one that understands that the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations in Canada are not an inconvenience but rather a sacred obligation.” ((“Remarks by Justin Trudeau at the Assembly of First Nations 36th Annual General Assembly.”))
These words, and many other lofty sounding promises come on the heels of approval of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for Northcliff Resources’ Sisson Brook Mine project, albeit with 40 attached conditions, in the province of …
by Stuart Littlewood / January 9th, 2016
Several organisations in the UK that support Palestinians in their struggle for freedom are reported to have had their accounts frozen or closed by the Co-op Bank or been threatened with the chop.
The bank until recently was part of the well-regarded Co-operative movement and famed for its business ethics. After running into financial difficulties it was rescued in 2013/4 by, among others, US hedge fund outfit Perry Capital which now has a seat on the board. According to Wikipedia billionaire Richard C. Perry has served as a director of the Israel Project.
Friends of Al Aqsa (FOA) is one of the …
by Vacy Vlazna / January 9th, 2016
On Sunday, January 3, two passengers who had paid their fares, had passed security checks, boarded the Aegean Airlines flight from Athens to Tel Aviv and found themselves at the centre of a racist onslaught by belligerent Jewish-Israeli passengers. The Jewish-Israeli passengers accused the two other passengers of being ‘terrorists’ and demanding their removal from the plane.
The victims were attacked for one reason only — they are Palestinian, even though one carried an Israeli passport and the other an Israeli residence permit.
For almost 2 hours, the Palestinians made a stand on their rights to stay on the plane. But as …
by Chris Williams / January 9th, 2016
Somehow the watercourse is to dry country what the face is to human beauty. Mutilate it and the whole is gone.
— Aldo Leopold, Conservationist in Mexico, 1937
… these subsidized water projects, they’re not really intended to serve growth, or to meet growth, they’re intended to create it.
— interview with M.H. “Dutch” Salmon, author of ¡Gila Libre!, August 2015
New Mexico’s Gila is not a big river. At least, once it has left the state, along its lower reaches, it’s not a big river anymore: Once it wends its dammed and diverted way through Arizona, it becomes a dry, sandy-bottomed reminder of …
Cultural survival means resurrecting tribal thinking and the way humans thought a million years ago up to the Great Forgetting
by Paul Haeder / January 9th, 2016
There’s a real sense that we are past staying this mono-cultural collapse, and a book that came out 20 years ago, enlightens now more than ever, with the multiple forces of environmental, economic and societal collapses occurring under the weight of an elite and the barbarity of capitalism and extreme ecosystems and social systems exploitation.
This concept is what the subtitle suggests – An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. A book that ties into an earlier one, Ishmael, where writer Daniel Quinn gives us a gorilla with the power of human history locked up inside his brain, whereupon he …
Millions in Need of Food Aid
by Graham Peebles / January 9th, 2016
A shadow of fear and panic is creeping through villages in North Eastern, central and Southern Ethiopia, where once again famine stalks the land. The seasonal rains that usually fall between June and September did not arrive, and now, with the ‘dry season’ here the already severe situation can only deteriorate.
According to the UN, Ethiopia “is experiencing its worst drought in 30 years.” In some areas the poorest, most vulnerable infants are already dying at a rate of two per day.
Around “350,000 children are in need of treatment for severe acute malnutrition,” UNICEF relates, and up to 8.2 …
Netanyahu slammed for exploiting killings in Tel Aviv to vilify entire Palestinian community in Israel
by Jonathan Cook / January 8th, 2016
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of exploiting a shooting attack in Tel Aviv on New Year’s Day to intensify a campaign of incitement against the country’s large minority of Palestinian citizens.Palestinian leaders in Israel have also harshly criticised the police for making sweeping arrests of Nashat Melhem’s relatives in what they believe is an attempt to pressure him into turning himself in.
Melhem, aged 29, is reported to have been on the run since two Israeli Jews were gunned down in a bar in central Tel Aviv last Friday. He is also suspected of killing a taxi driver …
by Paul Craig Roberts / January 8th, 2016
According to Friday’s (January 8) payroll jobs numbers, almost 300,000 new jobs were created in December. Additionally, the previous two months were revised upward by 50,000 jobs. Apparently, the equity market did not believe the report, with the averages moving down today.
As I have pointed out almost monthly for what I think could be approaching two decades, the alleged job growth always takes place in nontradable domestic services, that is, in areas that do not produce exports and have no competition from imports. This is the job profile of a Third World country.
Twelve years ago I predicted at a major …
(and You Can Too!)
by Ralph Nader / January 8th, 2016
Can one person truly make a difference in the world?
Far too many people think not, and thus they sell themselves far too short. A wave of pessimism leads capable people to underestimate the power of their voice and the strength of their ideals. The truth is this: it is the initiatives of deeply caring people that provide the firmament for our democracy.
Take a sweeping look at history and you will discover that almost all movements that mattered started with just one or two people—from the fight to abolish slavery, to the creations of the environmental, trade union, consumer protection and civil …
by Andre Vltchek / January 8th, 2016
For now, Argentina is lost and Venezuela is deeply wounded, divided and frustrated. Virtually everywhere in socialist Latin America, well-orchestrated and angry protests are taking place, accusing our left-wing governments of mismanagement and corruption.
What was gained during those years of hard work and sacrifices is suddenly evaporating in front of our eyes. And there seems to be no way to stop the trend in the foreseeable future. Whatever magnificent work our governments have done have been smeared. Western propaganda and its local serfs belittle the achievements of our people. In several countries, revolutionary zeal has almost entirely vanished.
*****
It …
by Lesley Docksey / January 8th, 2016
Far too many people were knocked sideways, waking up the morning after Britain’s general election last May, hearing that the Tories had ‘won’ the election? That the majority was small and that they had done it on the support of less than 25% of the electorate was no comfort. What hurt was that the country faced five years of unchecked Tory ideology, favouring the rich by hitting the rest.
It was like being kicked in the gut. At least we were not alone in our despair, our inability to watch any news on television, hear it on radio or read it …
Anti-Empire Report #142
by William Blum / January 8th, 2016
New Years Eve 2016
I stayed up about two hours past my usual bedtime to watch the New Years Eve celebration in Times Square.
For one reason only.
To see happy people.
A year like 2015 can do that to you.
The sight of many thousands of young people standing in the cold for hours, hugging and kissing, screaming and laughing, was very precious.
Also a bit unnerving. What’s wrong with them? Don’t they know what kind of world they’re living in? Don’t they know that their celebration is a prime target for terrorists?
Well … nothing happened … thank you God that I don’t believe in …
The Imperialist Violence in Syria: Part 2 of 7
by Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri / January 8th, 2016
Read Part 1.
Previously, we asked, why is Russia concerned about US-promoted violence in Syria?
In a news dispatch, “Why Russia is standing by Syria’s Assad,” BBC, the voice of British imperialism, answers our question with these words, “By standing up for Damascus, the Kremlin is telling the world that neither the UN, nor any other body or group of countries has the right to decide who should or should not govern a sovereign state.” The writers agree with the expressed sentiment; however, Russia’s position on the Syrian conflict should be looked at from a …
by James Petras / January 8th, 2016
The Islamic State (IS) has become a magnet for international brigades, drawing over 30,000 fighters from 5 continents and 86 countries to their war in Iraq and Syria.
While the international brigades are part of a global movement, most of the volunteers come from two-dozen countries, mainly in the Middle East, Maghreb, Western Europe, Russia and Central Asia.
Most Islamist internationalists are paid a salary to fight and engage in police functions within IS-occupied regions.
…
