Month
Category

Archives: October 2011

Kabul Bombing of US Bus Leaves 13 Dead

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…

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…
Is Syria in Civil War?

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…

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…

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

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…

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 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…

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…
Best of the Web on Widening Wall Street Protests

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…

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…

Al-`Awlaqi Should have been Tried in Absentia

A CIA drone operator killed the notorious proponent of radical terrorism against the United States, Anwar al-`Awlaqi, on Friday. The killing has provoked some controversy because al-`Awlaqi was a US citizen and…