2021

The Accumulated Evil of the Whole: That time Bush and Co. made the September 11 Attacks a Pretext for War on Iraq

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Kyle Swenson at the Washington Post reported in 2018 that Floridian Ishnar Lopez-Ramos was in love, but her intended only had eyes for another woman. So Ms. Lopez-Ramos enlisted two 22-year-old accomplices to target the other woman, who worked at the Ross Dress for Less at a shopping Center near […]

Afghanistan

September 11 and the Debacle of ‘Nation-Building’ in Iraq and Afghanistan

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Walden Bello | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – In one of his interviews before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, blamed the American failure in Afghanistan on a change in Washington’s mission from anti-terrorism to “nation building.” In his view, Washington should just have held strategic […]

al-Qaeda

9/11 survivors’ exposure to toxic dust and the chronic health conditions that followed offer lessons that are still too often unheeded

The Conversation

By Roberto Lucchini | – ( The Conversation) – The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York resulted in the loss of 2,753 people in the Twin Towers and surrounding area. After the attack, more than 100,000 responders and recovery workers from every U.S. state – along with some 400,000 residents […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian Prisoners take hope from emptying of South African Apartheid Jails

Middle East Monitor

By Alie Komape | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – When you do an online search for South Africa’s Robben Island, one of the suggested words used is “escapes”. It is obviously a common research topic. Robben Island was the site of a prison for those who resisted colonial rule going back centuries. Early […]

al-Qaeda

Think Again: 9/11

Juan Cole

“Think Again: 9/11,” by Juan Cole. Published in Foreign Policy No. 156 (Sep. – Oct., 2006), pp. 26-28, 30, 32. Copyright Foreign Policy, all rights reserved. Not for further reprint. These responses were my assessment of 9/11 and the Bush Forever Wars five years after the attacks. It is perhaps worth revisiting them now, 20 […]

Afghanistan

Minerals, drugs and China: How the Taliban might finance their new Afghan government

The Conversation

By Hanif Sufizada | – Now that the Taliban have reportedly taken full control of Afghanistan and begun forming a government, a looming challenge awaits: How will they keep their country and economy afloat financially? For the past 20 years, the U.S. government and other countries have financed the vast majority of the Afghan government’s […]

Climate Crisis

“That night, I became a climate Refugee:” The Dixie Fire and our Hot Future

Tomdispatch

ByJane Braxton Little | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – GREENVILLE, CA — At 10 a.m. on July 22nd, I interviewed a New York University professor about using autonomous robots, drones, and other unmanned devices to suppress structural and wildland fires. I sent the interview to an online transcription service, walked down the steps of my second-floor […]

Afghanistan

How Can America Wake Up From Its Post-9/11 Nightmare?

Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies | – ( Code Pink | – Looking back on it now, the 1990s were an age of innocence for America. The Cold War was over and our leaders promised us a “peace dividend.” There was no TSA to make us take off our shoes at airports […]

Afghanistan

No, WSJ, Taliban are not important to the Muslim battle of ideas — as Moroccan elections bring crushing defeat of religious party

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan has provoked a tidal wave of punditry about what it says about Islam. Since Islam is a 1400-year-old religion with 1.8 billion adherents, the answer to that glib query is surely obvious. Nothing. It says nothing about Islam in general. It […]

Archives for 2021