Ever notice the way certain basic human values quietly transform into their opposite on their way to becoming national policy? At the human level, the immorality of murder is fundamental, and most people understand the insanity of armed hatred.
Keeping these dark forces under wraps is essential to the existence of human society. So why is it, then, that at the abstract level of nationalism, those forces are honored, worshiped, saluted, extolled as glorious, and given command of an enormous budget? Why is it that their perpetuation via increasingly sophisticated technology is equated with national security and no one talks about the completely predictable negative consequences of basing security on murder and hatred? And why does it feel so naïve to be asking such questions?
Category: Europe
The Maimed: On Eleven Years of War in Afghanistan [Chris Hedges gave this talk Sunday night in New York City at a protest denouncing the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. The event, at…
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin welcomes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during their meeting in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, on 10 October 2012. Putin hosted al-Maliki for talks, hoping to take ties to a…
World leaders urged Turkey to step back from the brink of war with Syria after its parliament voted to attack Bashar al-Assad’s regime at will. Ankara’s forces continued their artillery bombardment of Syrian territory for a…
The mainstream American press has trumpeted for days the claim that Turkey is “retaliating” for artillery fire coming from Syrian government forces on the Syrian-Turkish border near the town of Akçakale. Because Turkey is a member of Nato (for 50 years), a declaration of war by Turkey could well drag Nato into a conflict. The Turkish people don’t like the turn of events … thousands of Turks took to the the streets in Ankara and Istanbul after Turkey’s parliament approved military operations against targets in Syria following the mortar attacks. The New York Times concedes: It was unknown whether the mortar shells were fired by Syrian government forces or rebels fighting to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Turkish response seemed to assume that the Syrian government was responsible. Many alternative news sources claim that this was a “false flag” attack to justify a Turkish attack on Syria. Indeed, before the mortar attacks, Russia warned of such a possibility: Russia expresses its concerns about the tense situation on the Syria-Turkey border and warns both to avoid tension.
On October 9, 2012, a rather terse Netanyahu announced early elections to the Knesset on January 2013. Can we trust him this time? After all, in May he announced early elections for September. The previous…
An Iranian man counts his banknotes after Iran’s currency, the rial, crashed to a record low Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA (updated below) The Economist this week describes the intensifying suffering of 75 million Iranian citizens as a…
On May 31, 2010, the Israeli right-wing government sent armed military troops to illegally board in international waters Gaza aid ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish…
Weapons of Mass Destraction Ten years ago, on October 10, 2002, the United States House of Representatives made one of the most calamitous mistakes of a generation. Congress, with willful blindness, voted to attack, invade and occupy a sovereign, oil-rich nation in the Middle East that did not attack us and did not pose a threat to the American people. The war in Iraq will ultimately cost the United States five trillion dollars. Four thousand, four hundred, eighty eight Americans were killed. Tens of thousands of Americans were injured. At least one million innocent Iraqis were killed. Iraq has become a home to Al Qaida which it certainly was not before our intervention. Resentment against the United States has made pursuing peace more difficult. And we still have thousands of armed contractors in Iraq — paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Many are trying to rewrite the history of the Iraq war.
Turkey’s muscle flexing vis-a-vis Syria provides the newest fuse for the perennially unstable Middle East. While the Syrians rushed to offer a rare apology to Ankara over an errant mortar round that killed five Turkish…