By Madhav Joshi and David Cortright | – The Taliban continue to gain territory in their bloody insurgency to seize control of Afghanistan. Recently, Taliban leaders said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s removal is a condition for ending the conflict. If a mutually acceptable candidate were named to replace Ghani, a Taliban spokesman told The Associated […]
Archives for August 2021
An Outbreak of Populist Stupidity: Why is the Global Right Wing jumping on the anti-Vaccination Bandwagon?
( Foreign Policy in Focus) – You’d think that the whole world could unite against a deadly virus. COVID-19 has already sickened over 200 million people around the world and killed over 4 million. It has now mutated into more contagious forms that threaten to plunge the globe into another spin cycle of lockdown. Avoiding […]
The Great Washington Ponzi Scheme in Afghanistan comes Crashing Down
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United States lost the Afghanistan War a long time ago, as is quickly becoming apparent as the Taliban take city after city. After 2002, it was never clear what the US war aim was. You can’t win a war if you don’t have a clear objective. The war is […]
The Republican Party is Now Officially the Face of the Pandemic Surge
Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – The Republican Party is now officially the “face of the pandemic surge.” A recent Washington Post headline reads, “Republicans risk becoming the face of the Delta surge as governors oppose anti-Covid measures.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has actually PROHIBITED masks for public school students! How far will these […]
Our Slow-Motion Apocalypse just Speeded Up
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Admittedly, I hadn’t been there for 46 years, but old friends of mine still live (or at least lived) in the town of Greenville, California, and now… well, it’s more or less gone, though they survived. The Dixie Fire, one of those devastating West Coast blazes, had already “blackened” 504 square […]
Taliban seize Herat and assault nearby dam that provides water and power to hundreds of thousands of Afghans
By Elizabeth B. Hessami and Asef Ghafoory | – ( The Conversation) – The Taliban have taken over the Afghan city of Herat, capping three weeks of furious fighting in which both men and women took up arms to defend their city while many residents fled gunfights and rocket attacks. The fall of Herat follows […]
Dear CIA Director Burns: Don’t Listen to the Israelis on Iran– They just want you to fight a war for them
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jonathan Lis at Haaretz reports that the Israeli government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is lobbying the US to get on a war footing with Iran. The Israelis will try to convince CIA director William Burns of their position on Iran in his meetings there on Wednesday. Lis makes 3 […]
Israel’s siege of Occupied Palestinian civilians is halving Gaza patients’ survival rates
By Maya Abuali | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Lacking in 60 per cent of appropriate medicine and treatment protocols as a result of the siege, Gaza’s already deficient cancer care is slipping further into chaos as restrictions grow harsher. Beyond dealing with the Gaza Strip’s already uninhabitable living conditions, Palestinian cancer patients in […]
IPCC: Ocean has risen more than in any century in at least 3,000 years, and in worst case could rise 7 feet in next 80 Years
By Robert Kopp | – ( The Conversation) – Humans are unequivocally warming the planet, and that’s triggering rapid changes in the atmosphere, oceans and polar regions, and increasing extreme weather around the world, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns in a new report. The IPCC released the first part of its much anticipated […]