The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation. The crisis in Japan has been described as “a nuclear war without a war”. In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami: “This time no one dropped a bomb on us … We set the stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our own lands, and we are destroying our own lives.” Nuclear radiation –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.
Category: Head Stories
Kerry replaced Clinton at State. He didn’t miss a beat. He continues her imperial arrogance. He prioritizes war. He deplores peace. He supports Israel’s worst crimes. He’s contemptuous of rule of law principles. He supports wrong over right. He’s indifferent to human suffering. US imperial priorities alone matter. His first overseas trip continues. He left Sunday. He’s visiting nine countries in 11 days. After meeting with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, he said: “We all agree that the time has passed for President Assad to heed the voice of his people and the voice of the people in the world who want a peaceful transition and a new opportunity for Syria.” “That’s why we are examining and developing ways to accelerate the political transition that the Syrian people seek and deserve.” Plans are to assure Western-backed death squads more aid. They’re not rebels. They’re invaders. They’re terrorists. Media scoundrels don’t explain.
Incisive and provocative analysis first published by Global Research in August 2003. You might think that reading about a Podunk University’s English teacher’s attempt to connect the dots between the poverty of American education and the gullibility of the American public may be a little trivial, considering we’ve embarked on the first, openly-confessed imperial adventure of senescent capitalism in the US, but bear with me. The question my experiences in the classroom raise is why have these young people been educated to such abysmal depths of ignorance.
“I don’t read,” says a junior without the slightest self-consciousness. She has not the smallest hint that professing a habitual preference for not reading at a university is like bragging in ordinary life that one chooses not to breathe. She is in my “World Literature” class. She has to read novels by African, Latin American, and Asian authors. She is not there by choice: it’s just a “distribution” requirement for graduation, and it’s easier than philosophy -she thinks.
When he visits Israel next month, US President Barack Obama will tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a “window of opportunity” for a military strike on Iran will open in June, according to an Israeli TV report Monday evening. Obama will come bearing the message that if diplomatic efforts and sanctions don’t bear fruit, Israel should “sit tight” and let Washington take the stage, even if that means remaining on the sidelines during a US military operation, Channel 10 reported. Netanyahu will be asked to refrain from any military action and keep a low profile, avoiding even the mention of a strike, the report said, citing unnamed officials. In London Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry said an Iran with nuclear weapons was “simply unacceptable” and warned the time limit for a diplomatic solution was running out.
Mohamed al-Zawahiri, younger brother of Osama bin Laden’s successor, Ayman, made a particularly intriguing statement in Cairo last month. Talking to that wonderful French institution Le Journal du Dimanche about Mali, he asked the paper to warn France “and to call on reasonable French people and wise men not to fall into the same trap as the Americans. France is held responsible for having occupied a Muslim country. She has declared war on Islam.” No clearer warning could France have received. And sure enough, one day later, suicide bombers attacked occupied Gao, while, exactly 10 days later, France lost its second soldier in Mali, shot dead by rebels in a battle in the Ifoghas mountain range.
The recent expeditions of the French in Africa clearly smack less of neoimperialism than they do neocolonialism, and have prompted many to wonder whether the events are the start of a new cycle of world politics in which an outgoing unipolarity is perhaps being replaced by a forthcoming multipolarity not hailed by everyone, or something different, something new or maybe a repeat of history, but in new packaging? Maybe something that would allow, for example, the United States «to leave without actually leaving», to continue implementing their global plans in a more complex system of interstate relations? If so, then the imperial projects and vassal relations of by-gone eras that had seemingly vanished forever will turn out to be much in demand…
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in an open letter has urged countries of the South American and African continents to unite into a “true pole of power”, while railing against recent Western interventions in Africa. The letter was read out yesterday by Venezuelan foreign minister Elias Jaua to the sixty-three countries at the III Africa – South America Summit (ASA), which is taking place in Equatorial Guinea. In the letter, Chavez called for “an authentic and permanent link of joint work” between Africa and South America to search for strategies of sustainable development that could benefit both continents.
On 3/26/2013 Iran is expected to meet with other world powers in Astana, Kazakhstan to discuss its nuclear program. Discussions that the occupiers of Palestine fervently hope will not be successful. It is toward this end that their key demand this week to the US Congress, the White House and the European Union is “to cast responsibility on the Iranians by blaming them for the talks’ failure in the clearest terms possible.” According to the Al-Monitor of 3/19/13, Israel also demands that the countries meeting in Kazakhstan “make it perfectly clear that slogans such as ‘negotiations can’t go on forever’ are their marching orders to the White House, and they want the Kazakhstan attendees to act “so severely that the Iranians realize that they face a greater threat than just Israeli military action.”
I was sceptical of the 9-11 event from the first time I saw it on television. It was on every major network within minutes. All the guilty partieswere declared before any evidence was shown.The first questions of any criminal investigation were erased. Who had the most compelling motives for the event? Who had the means to turn two central iconic buildings in New York into a pile of steel and a cloud of dust in seconds?[i] Other questions soon arose in the aftermath. Why was all the evidence at the crime scenes removed or confiscated? Who was behind the continuous false information and non-stop repetition of “foreign/Arab terrorists”when no proof of guilt existed? Who was blocking all independent inquiry?
If NATO further expands to Georgia and Ukraine, crossing the Kremlin’ s “Red Line,” hostility would be further heightened. The missile-defense installations are supposedly aimed at Iran, but do pose a direct threat to Russia in the event of a nuclear first strike. Former president Bill Clinton started his illegal air war over Kosovo ostensibly to save Kosovo Albanians from being massacred by the Serbs. The real purpose, however, has been rumored to be Moscow’s deprivation of its last European ally, Serbia. Moscow has steadfastly opposed Western efforts to block Iran’s nuclear program as those efforts could be designed to support a regime change that would pave the way for Western penetration into Central Asia.