Having served Washington’s propaganda purposes, the downed Malaysian airliner and the alleged Russian armored column that entered Ukraine and was allegedly destroyed have dropped out of the news even though both stories remain completely and…
Category: United States of America
The neocons who plunged the U.S. into the disastrous Iraq War never say they’re sorry. Instead, it’s all about how their idea was great but President Bush bungled the implementation or how the war was…
A fascinating nuclear/energy ballet involving Iran, Russia, the US and the EU is bound to determine much of what happens next in the new great game in Eurasia. Let’s start with what’s going on with the Iranian nuclear dossier. Iranian Foreign Ministry legal adviser Jamshid Momtaz has been forced to clarify that the interim nuclear deal signed by Iran and the P-5+1 nations on November 2013 is not an international treaty – yet. As we stand, the gap between the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on one side, and Iran on the other side, remains very wide. Essentially, the gap that really matters is between Washington and Tehran. And that, unfortunately, translates as a few more months for the vast sabotage brigade – from US neo-cons and assorted warmongers to Israel and the House of Saud – to force the deal to collapse. One of Washington’s sabotage mantras is “breakout capability”; a dodgy concept which boils down to total centrifuge capacity/capability to produce enough enriched uranium for a single nuclear bomb. This implies an arbitrary limit on Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium.
The deafening silence of the US media and government about the investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 one month ago reeks of a cover-up. In the hours and days immediately after the crash, without a single shred of evidence, US officials alleged that the passenger jet was shot down by an SA-11 ground-to-air missile fired from pro-Russian separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine. They launched a political campaign to obtain harsh economic sanctions against Russia and strengthen NATO’s military posture in Eastern Europe. Picking up on the scent, the CIA attack dogs in the US and European media blamed the crash squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The cover of the July 28 print edition of German news magazine Der Spiegel showed the images of MH17 victims surrounding bold red text reading “Stoppt Putin Jetzt!” (Stop Putin Now!). A July 26 editorial in the Economist declared Putin to be the author of MH17’s destruction, while the magazine ghoulishly superimposed Putin’s face over a spider web on its front cover, denouncing Putin’s “web of lies.”
Century of Disaster: Riddles, Lies, and Lives — from Fidel Castro and Muhammad Ali to Albert Einstein and Barbie He learned to write in the language of Georgia, his homeland, but in the seminary the monks…
As the people of Gaza find momentary respite to survey the impact of Israel’s brutal terror, our ‘leading’ media show no let-up in its selective demonisation of Hamas. You don’t have to support Hamas to see the way in which its…
The frostier their relations are with the US, the more likely they are to sympathize with the Palestinians Since the Israeli offensive against Gaza began, images of Palestinian children murdered in their homes…
Brazil’s scheduled October presidential election was seen as a virtual cake walk for incumbent President Dilma Rousseff. That was until a plane crash killed Rousseff’s rather lackluster opponent, economist and former governor of Pernambuco, Eduardo…
Wars in an imperialist democracy cannot simply be dictated by executive fiat, they require the consent of highly motivated masses who will make the human and material sacrifices. Imperialist leaders have to create a visible and highly charged emotional sense of injustice and righteousness to secure national cohesion and overcome the natural opposition to early death, destruction and disruption of civilian life and to the brutal regimentation that goes with submission to absolutist rule by the military. The need to invent a cause is especially the case with imperialist countries because their national territory is not under threat. There is no visible occupation army oppressing the mass of the people in their everyday life. The ‘enemy’ does not disrupt everyday normal life – as forced conscription would and does. Under normal peaceful time, who would be willing to sacrifice their constitutional rights and their participation in civil society to subject themselves to martial rule that precludes the exercise of all their civil freedoms?
The public reaction to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., exposes the shifting dynamic of rebellion and repression in the United States. Spontaneous uprisings against the…