The September 11 attacks have been revealed as a last gasp of a fading, cult-like twentieth-century vision, not as the wave of the future. They were the equivalent of the frenetic dashing to and fro of a chicken already beheaded. Al-Qaeda’s core assumptions have been refuted by subsequent events and above all in 2011 by […]
Archives for September 2011
State of Alert in Egypt after Breach at Israeli Embassy
The assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday represented a dangerous escalation of tensions between the protesters and the transitional regime. The military declared a “state of alert” and cancelled the vacations of all the police. I don’t think the incident seriously threatens Egyptian relations with Israel, though the Israeli ambassador and his […]
A tale of two Afghan Leaders, before and after 9/11
Ten years ago, a horrific suicide bombing carried out by Algerian al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists snuffed out the life of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the great Afghan Mujahidin leader and among the few Afghans who could have hoped to unite the country against the Taliban. Massoud told journalist Sebastian Junger that he opposed the religious […]
Sadrists to Demonstrate in Baghdad against US Troops Remaining
One of the major consequences of the September 11 attacks ten years ago was that members of the Bush administration decided to “take advantage” of the resulting passions to pursue their long-planned vendetta against the government of Saddam Hussein. There followed the greatest US foreign policy disaster since the British occupied Washington, DC and burned […]
Turkey Crisis Provokes Israeli Army Anger at Lieberman
The crisis between Turkey and Israel deepened on Monday, allegedly provoking severe tensions between the Israeli officer corps and the far right-wing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. There was also disarray among the officers over an allegation by one general that the Middle East might be moving toward comprehensive war, an assessment that was […]
Accord Reached for Peaceful Entry of Bani Walid?
Aljazeera Arabic is reporting a breakthrough in the negotiations between the new government in Tripoli and the elders of the city of Bani Walid, a center of pro-Qaddafi military personnel and sentiments. The city authorities say they will permit the Transitional National Council’s troops to enter the city without opposition around noon on Tuesday, according […]
Top Ten Good News Green Energy Stories
Here are the week’s top ten energy good news stories. 1. A Japanese technical innovation has the potential to double or triple the power generated by wind turbines. 2. Germany now gets over 20% of its energy from low-carbon sources: 6.5% wind, 5.6% biomass, 3.5% solar, 3.3% hydro and 0.8% other. 3. Over 100 companies […]
China offered Qaddafi Armaments in midst of war
People who favored saving the civilian populations of Benghazi and other eastern Libyan cities from Qaddafi’s tanks and artillery have often been termed “interventionists.” But it turns out that there was more than one kind of interventionism. The Globe and Mail reports that documents discovered in mid-July show that state-owned Chinese weapons companies offered to […]
Israeli Likud Gov’t Buffeted by Turkish Suit, Massive Protests
The far right wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel is being buffeted both internationally and domestically. In both instances, the discontent is being produced by right wing policies, which argue for the goodness of hierarchy, the legitimacy of inequality, and express a preference for the use of force to settle problems. Turkey has decided […]
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