( Code Pink) – At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban […]
Archives for July 2021
On the Brink in 2026: U.S.-China Near-War Status Report
( Tomdispatch.com ) – It’s the summer of 2026, five years after the Biden administration identified the People’s Republic of China as the principal threat to U.S. security and Congress passed a raft of laws mandating a society-wide mobilization to ensure permanent U.S. domination of the Asia-Pacific region. Although major armed conflict between the United […]
Palestinians appeal to the UN Security Council over further Israeli Land Theft, Squatter Settlement at Palestinian Beita
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has agreed with Israeli squatter organizations on the Palestinian West bank to clear roughly 25 acres of land in the Palestinian-owned Jabal Sbeih hilltop area of the town of Beita between Ramallah and Nablus. The government […]
Why we need a Debt Jubilee for Renters as the Covid eviction Moratorium expires
Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – What is going to happen when the eviction protections now scheduled to expire at the end of July finally do so? The rental deficits hanging over some tenants’ heads are so extreme that default is virtually inevitable, and the numbers affected so many that rental debt is […]
Afghanistan: two decades of Nato help leaves a failed and fractured state on the brink of civil war
By Natasha Lindstaedt | – ( The Conversation )- Afghanistan is falling apart. With US and Nato troops leaving the country earlier than planned, experts are warning that the Taliban could take control of the country within six months. Currently the insurgents control the strategically important province of Helmand, and control or contest territory nearly […]
Saudi Arabia: New Details of Alleged Torture Leaked
( Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – New accounts have emerged of alleged torture of high-profile political detainees in Saudi prisons, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities failed to independently and credibly investigate allegations that Saudi authorities tortured Saudi women’s rights activists and others detained in early 2018, including with electric shocks, beatings, […]
As CPAC Tinfoil Hat Crowd Decries Vaccines, Delta Variant ‘Velociraptor’ Menaces US Red States with India-Style Wave
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Delta variant of SARS-CoV-II is to the original vanilla COVID-19 strain as velociraptors were to gentle plant-eating sauropods. And it is coming for America. What is worse, the Republican Party and its media arms such as Fox, Newsmax and OAN, are playing the wicked witch to GOP voters’ Hansel […]
Waiting for US withdrawal, is Russia eyeing Iraq’s oil?
Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – When the George W. Bush administration launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003, many believed the campaign’s main goal was to gain control of the country’s oil. Almost two decades later, most U.S. oil corporations have exited Iraq and the last major, ExxonMobil, appears to be on the way […]
The Fires This Time: A Climate View from California
( Tomdispatch.com) – In San Francisco, we’re finally starting to put away our masks. With 74% of the city’s residents over 12 fully vaccinated, for the first time in more than a year we’re enjoying walking, shopping, and eating out, our faces naked. So I was startled when my partner reminded me that we need […]