Search Results for: syria

America’s corporate media are ringing with recriminations over the humiliating U.S. military defeat in Afghanistan. But very little of the criticism goes to the root of the problem, which was the original decision to militarily invade and occupy Afghanistan in the first place. Continue reading →

We’re getting a taste of what the civil rights and antiwar movements of the ‘60s would have been like without the not-quite-yet corporate media reporting on the daily events. But over the past half century with just about all the major media gobbled up by corporations, the monied powers and politicians decided very little of their criminal actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen would be televised. Now some are criticizing the American people for not caring about the death and destruction the US has rained on Afghanistan when it wasn’t being served up as a nightly dinner course by TV. Continue reading →

Kabul, it’s been noted, was not lost yesterday. It was the inevitable final fall of a calamitous, arrogant, 20-year, trillion-dollar, too-many-deaths imperial misadventure doomed, like too many before it, to failure from its inept start. In Biden’s speech, generally deemed resolute but callous about the mayhem unfolding, he asked a tough, good question – “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war?” – but framed it in a cynical, disingenuous way by adding, “when Afghan troops will not?” The fourth president to oversee yet another senseless war in “the graveyard of empires,” he thus found an easy target for what is the “breathtaking failure” of longtime U.S. foreign policy while blithely ignoring the blood-soaked, hubris-laden history behind it – a “post-imperial Western fantasy” of disastrous military or CIA interventions through Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and then Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, which was never at war with the U.S. and where Donald Rumsfeld, may he have no rest, demanded Bush “punish and get out.” Bush and his imperious ilk spoke of nation-building, “as if nations were made of Legos.” Instead, we got our forever war, where rather than offer schools, clinics, water, job training to a beleaguered population, the U.S. blew up whatever infrastructure they had and spent 86% of a staggering trillion dollars – though some say it’s closer to 2 trillion – on often hapless military initiatives that, thanks to “a complex ecosystem of defense contractors, Washington banditry” and corruption, largely returned to the U.S. economy. Add in corruption by Afghan elites, and ultimately less than 2% of U.S. money actually went to the people who needed it. A final irony: Even as the West frantically fought to stop it, soaring Afghan poppy production fueled the insurgency, spreading from six to 28 provinces: “Opium floated the Taliban back to power.” All topped by a rushed, artless, possibly balance-tipping “deal” giving too much to the Taliban by the idiot Former Guy. Continue reading →

I sat in Court 4 in the Royal Courts of Justice in London on August 11 with Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s partner. I have known Stella for as long as I have known Julian. She, too, is a voice of freedom, coming from a family that fought the fascism of Apartheid. On August 12, her name was uttered in court by a barrister and a judge, forgettable people were it not for the power of their endowed privilege. Continue reading →

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) just recently responded in the complaint brought by the Russian Federation against Ukraine for the mistreatment of the latter’s citizens based on their ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic self-identification. To quote more directly the topics covered in the complaint: “The case concerns the Russian Government’s allegation of an administrative practice in Ukraine of, among other things, killings, abductions, forced displacement, interference with the right to vote, restrictions on the use of the Russian language and attacks on Russian embassies and consulates. They also complain about the water supply to Crimea at the Northern Crimean Canal being switched off and allege that Ukraine was responsible for the deaths of those on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 because it failed to close its airspace.” Continue reading →

On July 28, 2021, in the Chinese city of Tianjin, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a visiting delegation from Afghanistan. The leader of the delegation was Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the co-founder of the Taliban and head of its political commission. The Taliban has been making significant territorial gains as the U.S. military withdraws from Afghanistan. During the meeting, China’s Wang Yi told Mullah Baradar that the U.S. policy in the Central Asian country has failed, since the United States had not been able to establish a government that is both stable and pro-Western. In fact, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan also emphasized this point and told PBS in an interview on July 27 that the U.S. had “really messed it up” in Afghanistan. The government in Kabul—led by President Ashraf Ghani—remains locked in an armed struggle with the Taliban, which seems likely to march into Kabul by next summer. Continue reading →

One of my most reliable guides to finding subjects to write about in these essays is to see what crimes the West is committing. It’s a very good bet that Russia will be accused of them. If the U.S. “accidentally” destroys an MSF hospital in Kunduz, then Russia must be routinely and intentionally bombing hospitals in Syria; if American officials pick the future prime minister of a foreign country, then Russia must be doing it more often and bigger; if Washington condemns reporters on dodgy evidence than Russians must do worse things. Likewise, Western deficiencies are minor at home but huge in Russia. (Admittedly it’s getting harder to say that—especially with the West’s dismal situation with COVID-19 but that doesn’t stop the trying; vide “U.S. takes the top spot on Bloomberg’s COVID Resilience Ranking as vaccine rollout speeds up return to normal.”) And so on: it’s all projection to deflect your attention. Continue reading →

The current Black-centered Cuban protest operation is very well orchestrated and if Black people in this country are not careful, they will end up amplifying the dictates of U.S. imperialism. Continue reading →

America has the single worst government in the world. Shut the fuck up about Cuba. Continue reading →

The weirdest thing about the Biden administration tasking itself with the censorship of “disinformation” on social media is that the United States is the hub of a globe-spanning empire that is built upon a foundation of disinformation, maintained by disinformation, and facilitated by disinformation. Continue reading →

The imperial propaganda machine is blaring loudly about anti-government protests in Cuba after ignoring anti-government protests in Brazil, Haiti, Chile and Colombia which were much larger and often met with much harsher police responses. Continue reading →

Don’t speak ill of the dead, they say, but if I were to choose candidates for an Evil Hall of Fame, I’d have to ignore such advice; the late Donald Rumsfeld would be close to the top of my list. Continue reading →

Americans: healthcare please Continue reading →

Forever war by hot and/or other means is official US policy against all nations free from its control. Continue reading →