Ahmed Aber | (The Conversation) | – – Thirteen years ago, American and British troops launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Iraqis were promised freedom from tyranny, but the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi state apparatus as well as the cycle of violence that continues to this day destroyed the health system that cared for the […]
Archives for July 2016
Goodbye to Abbas Kiarostami, a Filmmaking Legend Whose Vision ‘Transversed His Persian Roots’
By Mahsa Alimardani | ( Global Voices) | – – News trickled out of a Paris hospital on the evening of 4 July that Iranian cinematic auteur Abbas Kiarostami lost his battle against cancer at the age of 76. Kiarostami had been admitted to Tehran's Arad Hospital in mid-June, where he had undergone an operation […]
A new American Century or a Century of Wars and Refugees?
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Vladimir Putin recently manned up and admitted it. The United States remains the planet’s sole superpower, as it has been since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. “America,” the Russian president said, “is a great power. Today, probably, the only superpower. We accept that.” Think […]
The Real Problem with the Iraq War: It was Illegal
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I won’t disguise my impatience with the of the Chilcot Report on Britain’s involvement in the 2003-2016 Iraq War. Most of it comes as no surprise to me. I chronicled it at the time, and it wasn’t actually hard to find information about shenanigans if you […]
Israeli commander testifies: soldier unjustified in point-blank Hebron execution
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli army commander testified on Wednesday in the ongoing trial of Elor Azarya, an Israeli soldier accused of shooting and killing a prone Palestinian in Hebron in March, saying that there was no justification for the shooting, which has been labeled by the UN as an “extrajudicial execution.” Col. Yariv Ben […]
Surprise! It was a War Crime
By Rebecca Gordon | (Informed Comment) | – – So now it’s official. The British Chilcot Report confirms what the world has known for 13 years: the invasion of Iraq was a legal, strategic, and moral disaster. The report runs to 12 volumes – 2.5 million words – but its primary author, Sir John Chilcott, […]
The Iraq War Never Ended: An Interview with Anand Gopal
An Interview with Anand Gopal by Charles Davis | ( TeleSur) | – – The United States is winning the war on terror, just as it always has. The Islamic State group is “on the defensive,” Col. Steve Warren told reporters earlier this year. In Iraq, it has reportedly lost 40 percent of its territory […]
H. Clinton and Ed Snowden: Some Animals are more Equal than others
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Hillary Clinton has repeatedly attacked Ed Snowden for being careless with government information. So it is ironic that she has been found guilty of being . . . careless with government information. She, of course, will suffer no consequences, since she is part of the ruling […]
On Eid al-Fitr 2016: Muslim-Americans becoming Thread in the US Tapestry
By Abbas Barzegar | (The Conversation) | – – Ramadan, a month of intense prayer and fasting, has been especially trying for American Muslims this summer: Other than the heat, the small community has been grappling with the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando and the presumptive Republican Party candidate Donald Trump’s call to ban […]