By John Pilger
The following is an edited version of an address given by John Pilger at the University of Sydney, entitled ‘A World War Has Begun’.
I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, “Where is that?” If I offer a clue by referring to “Bikini”, they say, “You mean the swimsuit.”
By Ramzy Baroud
It is not true that only three wars have taken place since Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Other wars that were deemed insignificant or ‘skirmishes’ also took place. Operation Returning Echo in March 2012, for example, killed and wounded over 100 people. But since the death toll, relative to the other major onslaughts seemed trivial, it was not cited as ‘war’, per se.
By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
[Photo courtesy Human Rights Watch.]
“Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shiites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control….Muslim disunity has made it possible for Israel to dispossess the Palestinians, for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and for the U.S. to rule much of the region through puppets. ….Egypt receives $1.5 billion a year from Washington, which enables President Mubarak to buy off opposition. The opposition had rather have the money than support the Palestinians. Therefore, Egypt cooperates with Israel and the U.S. in the blockade of Gaza….. Another factor is the willingness of some Muslims to betray their own kind for U.S. dollars. ….The U.S. and its NATO puppets have been killing Afghan women, children, and village elders since October 7, 2001, when the U.S. military invasion “Operation Enduring Freedom,” a proper Orwellian title for a self-serving war of aggression, was launched. ~ Paul Craig Roberts “Muslims are Their Own Worst Enemy.” Global Research: 3/01/2010).
By Mahboob A Khawaja
[Photo: Pakistani Peacekeepers – UN]
“We are waging war on terrorism even as we embody terrorism. No wonder we seem sometimes to be at war with ourselves, and have been for most of the 21st century….. No American under 12 has Lived in a Country at Peace…whatever the U.S. government knows, or thinks it knows, is not widely shared with most of its citizens….. The American Enemies List Is Decided Anonymously and Secretly.” ~ William Boardman (“America a country at war with an Illusion”).
By Gary Corseri ( first posted at newdemocracyworld.org, 2005)
[Bombing in Aleppo, Syria in 2013. Screen capture from Channel4 News.]
This poem by Gary Corseri was originally published in 2005 by New Democracy World. Sadly, this poem remains fresh as the United States extends its war across the Middle East and Africa with bombing in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and “surgical” drone strikes seemingly everywhere. All of this leaving a trail of tragedy in its wake. When destruction spreads beyond the specific target, the term “collateral damage” is applied. Civilian casualties fall under this label as well.