On 7 September, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced that Canada is suspending all diplomatic relations with Iran, expelling all Iranian diplomats, closing its embassy in Tehran, and authorizing Turkey to act on Canada’s behalf for consular services there. Baird cited Iran’s enmity with Israel and its support of Syria and terrorism. Continue reading
The discrepancy between Western media on the Middle East and the reality is astounding. Egypt’s Mubarak is a good guy and reliable ally until, presto, he is a bad guy, corrupt, a tyrant, yesterday’s goods. This extreme myopia in the interests of empire is the case across the board. So it should come as no surprise, that ‘Axis of Evil’ Iran, supposedly just itching to build atomic bombs and terrorize one and all, has good relations—getting better all the time—not only with its neighbours, Afghanistan (reconstruction aid plus a new rail link from Herat to the Persian Gulf) and Pakistan (the gas Peace Pipeline), but its not-so-friendly rivals, Saudi Arabia and now Egypt. Continue reading
The world is living through a veritable slow-motion earthquake. If things go according to plan, the US obsession with Afghanistan and Iraq will soon be one of those ugly historical disfigurements that—at least for most Americans—will disappear into the memory hole. Continue reading
After more than a century of secuarlisation, Egypt’s cultural life is set to revolve again around the Quran. “The Quran is our Constitution” exhorted President Mohamed Morsi during the cliff-hanger presidential election, Egypt’s first ever bona fide presidential election, in which he trounced the old guard’s representative. But what does this arresting image really mean? Continue reading
Kabul was cast into chaos Sunday as the Taliban began their spring offensive with attacks on US, British, German and Russian embassies, NATO headquarters, Camp Eggers, a hotel, President Karzai’s palace compound and parliament. Continue reading
The phenomenal success the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has had since it began in 2005 has attracted attention from all corners of the political spectrum—for better or for worse. Israel is scared. Israeli think tanks have described BDS as a greater threat to Israel than armed Palestinian resistance. At the same time, at the forefront of the movement against what is now widely called Israeli apartheid are Jews—Israeli and diaspora. This is not surprising, as Jews have traditionally been active in “political mobilisation and opinion formation,” according to Benjamin Ginsberg. Continue reading
Salafist (excuse me, “deeply Catholic”) Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum appears back in the race for chief elephant after trouncing Mitt Romney in Minnesota. But beware: Minnesotans are an unpredictable lot, with the only black Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison, their own Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and, of course, 9/11 Truther and wrestler-Governor Jesse Ventura (1999–2003). Continue reading
Russia’s electoral scene has been transformed in the past two months, without a doubt inspired by the political winds from the Middle East and the earlier colour revolutions in Russia’s “near abroad.” Continue reading
Afghan immigrants Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Mahommad Yahya and their 21-year-old son Hamed were found guilty in a Canadian court January 29 of first degree murder in the 2009 “honor killing” deaths of four female family members, and sentenced to life imprisonment. These were not poor, uneducated people, but upstanding members of Canada’s economic elite. The enterprising Mohammad escaped to Pakistan as “free Afghanistan” descended into civil war in 1992, before emigrating to Australia and Dubai, where he made his fortune in Doha’s hot real estate scene, finally settling in Canada in 2007. Continue reading
The Third Annual BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ) Conference opened 17 December at Hebron’s Children’s Happiness Centre, “to expand Palestinian civil society’s active implementation of BDS that is deeply rooted in the Palestinian struggle.” European BNC coordinator Michael Deas affirmed, “BDS is now the main framework for solidarity. We are very close to closing the European market to Israel.” Continue reading
Scarcely a word is heard about foreign affairs amid US election talk, despite the many fires around the world that the US military is either stoking or trying to douse—depending on your point of view. Other than Republican contender Ron Paul—not a serious candidate for the mainstream—no one questions the plans for war on Iran, Israel’s continued expansion in the Occupied Territories, or US plans to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Continue reading
The lexicon of Israel and its Western lobbyists constantly needs parsing to know just what is meant. Continue reading
Tahrir Square continues to send out its beacon of light. Thousands of Russian riot police were deployed in Red Square on 10 December to prevent it from being turned into another Tahrir, when demonstrators, without any resources except cell phones and fur-lined winter coats, pulled off the largest uprising since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, in 60 Russian cities, across nine time zones, with at least one repeat performance scheduled for 24 December. Continue reading
Just in case there was an iota of doubt left in your mind, Israel was officially declared an apartheid state during a session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Cape Town on 7 November. Continue reading
With a 60 per cent turnout, United Russia’s solid 49.5 per cent plurality in the 4 December Duma elections, giving it 238 of the 450 seats, is the envy of any Western political party. But it is nonetheless a disappointment after its 2007 sweep, where it gained over two-thirds of the seats. Very, very few parties ever approach the magic two-thirds that lets them ignore the opposition and change the constitution, and Prime Minister and President-virtually-elect Vladimir Putin even put a positive spin on the results: “This is an optimal result which reflects the real situation in the country,” Putin, 59, said coolly. “Based on this result we can guarantee stable development of our country.” (He will be recrowned president in pro forma elections 4 March.) Continue reading
It’s hard to imagine a greater provocation than your bosom buddy killing 28 of your own soldiers. NATO helicopters violated the airspace of Pakistan from Afghanistan last month and opened unprovoked fire on a check post in Mohmand, northwest Pakistan at midnight. Presumably the pilots got the wrong coordinates from MacDill Air Force Central Command in Florida or took too many army-prescribed uppers. The attack continued even after Pakistani commanders pleaded with coalition forces to stop. Continue reading
Morocco, with its 35 million people, where 1 in 3 are unemployed and poverty is widespread, has had multi-party elections since independence in 1956 without anyone taking much notice. Even Western Saharans get a taste of democracy from Rabat, however bitter. Continue reading
As protesters fed up with the increasing injustices of the global economic system get chucked out of their latter-day Hoovervilles, Euro-American elites might consider when their turn will come. For the financial crisis facing Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and who-knows-where next is really about who pays for the past three decades of largesse. Continue reading
The ongoing Freedom Waves campaign to break the siege of Gaza hit the world headlines last week with the attempt by the Canadian Tahrir and the Irish Saoirse—Arab and Irish for freedom—to bring aid to Gazans directly. This time the boats left from Turkey, not Greece, where last June authorities refused to let the Freedom Flotilla depart. Continue reading
The Boycott, Divests and Sanctions (BDS) movement is growing relentless. On the boycott front, Natacha Atlas, who won a 2007 BBC Music award for her fusion of Arabic and Western styles, cancelled a planned concert in Israel: “I had an idea that performing in Israel would have been a unique opportunity to encourage and support my fans’ opposition to the current government’s actions and policies, but after much deliberation I now see that it would be more effective a statement to not go to Israel until this systemised apartheid is abolished once and for all.” Continue reading
The economic and social experiments in the past three decades by British governments from left to right have left the plucky Brits reeling, as this summer’s unprecedented bread and iPod riots showed all too conclusively. For a year now, fiscal austerity and financial chaos have sent Britain’s economy into a nasty cycle of low growth and rising unemployment. Continue reading
The current crisis of capitalism is textbook Marx. Greedy capitalists, craven politicians, scheming bankers, dispossessed masses. It is also textbook Lenin. Imperial wars awakening the masses to revolt—though the days of Lenin’s competing empires are over. Rather, we are all one big happy family, with the exception of a few blaggards who will soon be “wiped off the map” to misquote a particularly blag blaggard. Continue reading
Radical Muslim cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, the victim of assassination by US forces 30 September, was born in New Mexico in 1971, educated at Colorado State University in engineering, and radicalised while preaching in US mosques and visiting Afghanistan in the 1990s. His sermons attracted a large following, first in Denver and then San Diego, where he completed a masters in education. Continue reading
The 711 coalition deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan last year made 2010 the deadliest one for foreign troops since the US invasion in 2001, continuing the upward trend since 2003. 2011 promises to be even more deadly, and already includes the most spectacular event in this gruesome body count, when insurgents shot down a helicopter in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans. Continue reading
Turkey’s foreign policy shift is now in full gear. Having kicked out the Israeli ambassador and rejected the UN Palmer Report, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that Turkey plans to take its case against Israel’s blockade of Gaza to the International Court of Justice, not alone, but with the support of the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union. “The process will probably reach a certain point in October and we will make our application.” Continue reading
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev’s nomination of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Russia’s pretender to the throne and Putin’s promise to keep his friend as premier was hardly a surprise. All along, except to a few starry-eyed liberals, it was clear, that the buck stopped not with Medvedev but Putin. The liberals were given their chance by Russia’s ex-KGB autocrat and failed spectacularly. Continue reading
A new Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was launched this summer by the United Church of Canada, which will try to persuade six companies operating in Canada—Caterpillar, Motorola, Ahava, Veolia, Elbit Systems and Chapters/Indigo—to stop supporting the Israeli occupation. Continue reading
Muammar Al-Gaddafi’s demise is all but a done thing, carried out with a UN blessing, however dubious, and only belatedly opposed by Russia and China. Russian policy makers are now wondering if their quasi-principled condemnation of Western-backed regime change in Libya was not just Quixotic but downright stupid. Continue reading
The massacre in peaceful Oslo was a replay of this earlier horror in reverse—no longer the Jews as victims but as the inspiration of terror against non-Jews—as Israel extends its wars not only to Greek ports and French airports but to Norwegian children’s camps, complete with rabbinical blessings for the murderers. Continue reading
Turkey’s foreign policy has changed dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the unrivalled ascendance of the US, Turkey’s principal ally since its founding as a republic in 1923. Formerly, it acted as a proxy for US power in the region. As a member of NATO since 1952, it was a strategic Cold War foe of the Soviet Union. Turkey was the second Muslim nation (after Iran) to recognise Israel soon after it declared itself an independent state in 1948, and maintained close political and economic ties with that key Middle East ally of the US through thick and thin. Turkey was encouraged by the US to move into ex-Soviet Central Asia as it opened up after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with the goal of co-opting the Turkic-speaking “stans,” bringing them into the Western fold by appealing to their Turkic heritage. Continue reading
The tiny Dignité/Karama, sailing under a French flag, left Corsica on 25 June, and has been chugged along for the past weeks mostly in Greek waters. Its last stop was the Greek island Kastellorizo on Saturday, after which it headed south. The 16 passengers onboard view themselves as representatives of the entire Freedom Flotilla II: Stay Human. The rest of the Flotilla’s ships have all been detained in Greek ports, some sabotaged, others on technicalities, and when that failed — the withdrawal of their flags. Continue reading
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TIFF: cultural Starwars
Posted on September 17, 2012 by Eric Walberg
The empire requires a nice juicy enemy to keep people’s minds off its own sins. During the Cold War, Hollywood responded admirably to the challenge, churning out anti-communist thrillers with Russian bad guys, most memorably during Reagan’s surreal presidency, when “Red Dawn” and “Rocky IV” reduced international politics to a comic book parody. Continue reading →