By Lucy DerTavitian | (Informed Comment) | – – The battle over Mosul appears to have ignited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s expansionist Ottoman era fantasies. He gained a few more adversaries recently when he claimed that Mosul, along with Aleppo, Western Thrace in Greece, and Kosovo, are part of Turkey. Erdogan’s comments come at […]
Archives for November 2016
Frackopoly
by H. Patricia Hynes | ( Truthdig.com) | – – Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment A book by Wenonah Hauter (The New Press, 2016) Branding fracked natural gas as a bridge fuel to renewable energy is one of the great fossil fuel ruses of our times. Two other scams […]
The Manhattan White House, the Secret Service, and the Painted Bikini Lady
By Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – High above, somewhere behind the black glass façade, President-elect Donald J. Trump was huddled with his inner circle, plotting just how they would “drain the swamp” and remake Washington, perhaps the world. On the street far below, inside a warren of metal fencing surrounded by hefty […]
In Trump’s Shadow, is East Aleppo on Verge of falling to Regime, Russia?
By Juan Cole | – – In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian backer have thrown caution to the wind. No less than the Republican Congress, Damascus and Moscow know that Barack Obama is a lame duck. Understanding that Trump campaigned on giving Syria to […]
Maybe if most Americans knew who Berlusconi was they wouldn’t have elected Trump
By Bill Emmott | (Project Syndicate) | – – LONDON – For the past couple of weeks, the world has been guessing at how US President-elect Donald Trump will behave in office and what policies he will pursue, following a long campaign full of contradictory statements. America’s previous businessman-presidents – Warren G. Harding and Herbert […]
The Catastrophic Downstream Effects of Trump Anti-Climatism
By Tharanga Yakupitiyage | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24 2016 (IPS) – Although U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has hinted he may be softening his stance on climate change, many are still uncertain of what lies ahead concerning climate action within and beyond the United States. A demonstration against the XL […]
When Reagan backed S. Africa Racism and Castro inspired Mandela
TeleSur | – – The world remembers Nelson Mandela as the freedom fighter and president who liberated South Africa from apartheid. But many look back with a selected memory of how the former prisoner’s story unfolded. The man who former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher [and US President Ronald Reagan] branded a “terrorist” was a […]
Fidel Castro’s Top Moments in the Middle East
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Fidel Castro is dead at 90. He presided over the only pro-USSR Communist state in the Western Hemisphere, and was therefore a thorn in the side of Washington, which insists on hegemony and capitalism in the New World. Castro was the last of the Communist guerrillas […]
Trump, Putin, and the new Middle East
By Maged Mandour | ( OpenDemocracy.net ) | – – The election of Trump will give second wind to autocrats in the region as well as create space for the growth of Russian influence. The presidency of Donald Trump, symptomatic of a deep crisis in the liberal capitalist order, can spell wide ranging structural changes […]