By John Feffer | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Leaving aside the manufactured justifications, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to reassert U.S. power in the Middle East and reduce the influence of Iran. It wasn’t terrorism or yellow cake or even Saddam Hussein’s appalling human rights abuses that motivated one […]
Archives for March 2023
Why are We There? Biden Bombs Syria, after Drone Kills US Contractor, wounds 5 US Military Personnel
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden ordered air strikes on Thursday (Friday in Syria) against militiamen in the Harabish neighborhood just outside the city of Deir az-Zor, who are suspected of having launched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone against an American base in northeast Syria. The metro area of Deir az-Zor […]
Israel’s new Cycles of forcibly displacing Palestinians
Ramona Wadi ( Middle East Monitor ) – US President Joe Biden placed much emphasis on rhetorically opposing Israel’s settlement expansion. Hence the reaction from Washington over the Israeli Knesset passing the second and third readings of the Disengagement Law that would allow resettlement of Jewish Israelis in four previously vacated illegal settlement areas in the occupied West Bank. Israel’s Ambassador to the US […]
IPCC report: We’re in Deep Trouble on Climate Emergency, and Don’t Have Much Time to Act
By Frank Jotzo, Australian National University and Mark Howden, Australian National University | – The world is in deep trouble on climate change, but if we really put our shoulder to the wheel we can turn things around. Loosely, that’s the essence of today’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC […]
Prophecies, Then and Now: My Life at World’s End
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Indulge me for a moment. This is how “The Prophecy” in my 1962 high school yearbook began. It was written by some of my classmates in the year we graduated from Friends Seminary in New York City. “Being an historian, I am jotting down these notes out of habit, but what I […]
Hypocrisy: Putin should be Punished as a War Criminal, but so Should many in Washington, D.C.
Vancouver (Feature, Special to Informed Comment) – It’s true – Russian president Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. As I wrote when the conflict with Ukraine began: “the attack on Ukraine was a clear violation of international law, and there is absolutely no excuse for this invasion.” In fact, launching a war of aggression is […]
Calls for a ‘Green’ Ramadan revive Islam’s long Tradition of Sustainability and Care for the Planet
By Noorzehra Zaidi, University of Maryland, Baltimore County | – For many Muslims breaking fast in mosques around the world this Ramadan, something will be missing: plastics. The communal experience of iftars – the after-sunset meal that brings people of the faith together during the holy month starting on March 22, 2023 – often necessitates […]
On World Water Day: By 2036, 18 of World’s Water-Scarce Countries will be in Middle East
Elif Selin Calik CalikSelin ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Middle East may have an abundance of oil and gas, but it has very few natural water sources. This is fast becoming a source of tension. According to three UN Secretaries-General, water may well be the cause of future conflict […]
Texas Plaintiffs targeting Abortion Pill want Judge to Overrule FDA: Why that might not even be Possible
By: Sofia Resnick ( Florida Phoenix) – At the center of the federal anti-abortion lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the abortion drug mifepristone and the regimen that reportedly accounts for the majority of abortions in post-Roe America. That’s why the whole country is bracing itself for a ruling from a notoriously anti-abortion judge in Amarillo, Texas. The […]
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