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Archives: October 2011
Ganann: Police raids and violence against activists are Un-American
Gerald Ganann writes in a guest column for Informed Comment I opened my local newspaper one morning recently to find that the Occupy movement had made it all the way to page…
Kabul Bombing of US Bus Leaves 13 Dead
The Taliban claimed credit for a bombing of a bus in Kabul, which killed 13 US security personnel (apparently 5 US troops and 8 security contractors). Three innocent bystanders, Afghans and a…Why a No-Fly Zone won’t Work in Syria
Syrian troops fired into peaceful demonstrations in Hama and Homs on Friday. Repression of protests yesterday is estimated to have cost 40 lives. The BBC reports that some demonstrators are calling for…Justin Bieber on Sen. Klobuchar’s Criminalization of the Internet: She should be put away in Cuffs
Justin Bieber went off on Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on Friday, slamming her proposed legislation imposing criminal penalties for copyright violations on the internet and saying that she should go to prison.…Political Pluralism breaks out in Tunisia
Tunisia's election outcome gives 41% to the Muslim fundamentalist party Al-Nahda. One of the other two winners is the Rally for the Republic-- of long-time political exile Moncef al-Marzouqi. Then the third…Sefat: Top 10 ways OWS can Excel: Counsel from Iran’s Green Movement
Kusha Sefat writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Following the disputed Presidential election in Iran, our Western compatriots gave many suggestions on combating state oppression. Various tactics and strategies were…
If American Land were Distributed the way American Wealth Is
The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the top 1% has tripled its income since 1979, while the upper middle class has increased its wealth much more modestly, and the rest of the…
Is Syria in Civil War?
Robert Fisk uses the "C" word about Syria-- Civil War. He takes seriously both the human rights organizations' allegation that the regime has killed some 3000 people in the course of putting…Grossman: Call your Congressman and Save International Studies in the US!
The current House of Representatives don't hold with Amurkins knowin' 'bout furriners, and seems determined to defund federal support for international studies in the US. The Neoconservative lobbyists have been gunning for…Islamic Law not a problem in Bush’s Afghanistan & Iraq, but a Problem in Libya?
George W. Bush said of Iraq and Afghanistan,, "I'd like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people..." The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan [pdf], drafted and passed under…Namibia: Largest Solar Plant in S. Hemisphere Planned
US-based SSI Energy Solutions plans to construct the largest solar power plant in the southern hemisphere in the southern African country of Namibia (population 2 million). The plant is expected to cost…Ambassador Ford’s Departure a Defeat for al-Assad
With the departure of the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, from Damascus and the summoning home of Syrian ambassador Emad Moustafa, President Obama's original Syria policy has now crashed and burned.…Surprises of the Tunisian Election
Tunisia kicked off the Arab Spring, with its urban crowds effectively protesting the decades-long dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his nepotistic in-laws, the Trabelsi clan. The Tunisians were the…Karzai: Afghanistan would Side With Pakistan in War with US
Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told Congress that the Haqqani Network, a guerrilla group accused of hitting the US embassy in Kabul, is an "arm"…US out of Iraq, but Peace remains Elusive
The Iraq War is over except for the packing, President Obama announced on Friday. He held out hope that the US would be at peace for the first time since 2001 in…Qaddafi’s People’s Temple
The final weeks of Muammar Qaddafi's violent and coercive life reminded me vividly of Jim Jones and the People's Temple Cult. It was obvious from late last August that Qaddafi had lost.…
Turkey Goes into Iraq after Kurdish Attack
Many catastrophes ensued from George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq (launched in order to, he told an astonished and puzzled Jacques Chirac, then French president, thwart the biblical monsters Gog and…Iran Alleges Saudi Plot Story is MEK Sting
The state-backed Iran Times carries a report from Iran's Mehr news service that alleges that it learned from Interpol that Gholam Shakuri is a member of the People's Holy Jihadis guerrilla group…News that Makes you Go ‘Hunh’?
Simple explanations for perplexing news headlines. * A poll shows that the US public blames politicians in Washington, D.C., more than they do Wall Street, for the bad economy. While legislative changes…Sanctions on Iran will Never Produce Real Change
After the announcement of the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C. (a case that, on the basis of what has been released so far, sounds as phony…This is the Way the Iraq War Ends, with Bangs and Whimpers
The Associated Press is reporting that its sources in the Obama administration are admitting that all US troops will have to leave Iraq by 31 December, in accordance with the Status of…Did Columbus Cause Climate Change?
This story is irresistible for a world historian interested in climate change. Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford, argues that the European advent in the New World, which killed 90% of the…Facebook Shanghaiing
There are lots of problematic things about the way Facebook is run, and many more serious than the one I'm going to complain about. For instance, Facebook is apparently letting your applications…
Somalia Drought Victims
Somalia has been suffering from drought for two years, but now the situation is becoming a crisis. Even the recent arrival of rains is problematic because of flash floods. The corporate media…Mayor Bloomberg and Occupy Wall Street by the Numbers
Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zucotti Park where the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been gathered for weeks, is insisting on "cleaning" its property on Friday. Although New York mayor Michael Bloomberg…Wagging the Dog with Iran’s Maxwell Smart
I personally do not understand how the corporate media in the US can report the following things about Manssor Arbabsiar and then go on to repeat with a straight face the US…Is an Iranian Drug Cartel Behind the Assassination Plot against the Saudi Ambassador?
As many observers have pointed out, the story given us by Attorney General Eric Holder about the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., makes no sense. Veteran…Why did the Egyptian Military Attack the Copts?
Monday saw clashes yet again between Coptic Christians and Egyptian police, when a crowd of mourners gathered outside a hospital where the bodies of some of the over 30 protesters killed Sunday…
Ballen: Terrorism Can’t be Taken out and Shot
Ken Ballen, author of Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals, writes in a guest column for Informed Comment : The policy of targeted assassinations and drone strikes as the…
Tawakul Karman, Yemen mother of 3, among winners of Nobel Peace Prize
One of the three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year is Tawakul Karman, 32, a Yemeni activist and mother of 3. Aljazeera has an interview with her in English about…
Pro-Perry Evangelical Leader says Romney not a Christian, Mormonism a Cult
The evangelical pastor Robert Jeffres, introduced Rick Perry at the Values Voters conference on Friday, He strongly implied in his introduction that evangelicals would have a choice between a non-Christian 'good man'…Palin was Right About those Government Death Panels
Well, the death panel has nothing to do with universal health care. But apparently it does exist, sited in the National Security Council. I discussed the assassination of Anwar al-`Awlaqi last Saturday,…
Best of the Web on Widening Wall Street Protests
The Occupy Wall Street protests spread Thursday to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Philadelphia, though these rallies were relatively small compared to the estimated 20,000 who came out in New York on…
Steve Jobs: Arab-American, Buddhist, Psychedelic Drug User, and Capitalist World-Changer
The culture wars kicked off by the 1960s are still with us. Indeed, much of the discourse of contemporary American conservatism can be boiled down to "damn liberal hippies ruined the country…China and Iran, Green Together
China says it is planning joint projects with Iran on solar and wind energy. This news is potentially very important. I once took a 24-hour bus trip through the Great Salt Desert…Amanda Knox and Troy Davis
The overturning of the conviction for murder of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito by an Italian court on Monday contrasts with the fate of Troy Davis. In both cases, a conviction was…
Iran Business Partners: Cheney & Reagan, not Just the Koch Brothers
Bloomberg's revelations that a subsidiary company owned by the radical rightwing billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, sold millions of dollars in refinery equipment to Iran has produced widespread outrage on the…Panetta Slams Israeli Isolation; Is Israeli Policy Destabilizing US Allies?
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta , on a visit to Israel and Palestine before heading to Egypt, publicly upbraided the Likud government of Israel for having become isolated diplomatically in the Middle…