By Tom Balmforth | ( RFE/RL MOSCOW — More than two-thirds of Russians oppose sending troops to Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad’s government, while a majority approve of Moscow’s use of diplomatic and political channels to help its embattled ally in the Middle East, according to a respected independent pollster. At a time […]
Archives for September 2015
The Final Collapse of Bush’s Nation-Building: Kunduz falls to Taliban
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – On Monday, the Taliban swept into the provincial capital of Kunduz, taking it in half a day from a large and well-equipped Afghan National Army force. Tuesday’s riposte had only mixed success, with the ANA saying it had taken back the (no-empty) prison. An attempt to […]
Carly Fiorina Says Waterboarding Keeps America Safe
Elliot Hill and Mark Sovel | (TheLipTv) | – – “Carly Fiorina has defended the use of CIA waterboarding by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11, in an interview with Yahoo News. The Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO called the controversial interrogation method, which is equivalent to torture, an important strategy […]
UK: Israel has Attacked Gaza 696 Times Since Most Recent Ceasefire
By IMEMC News. | – – The Gaza Strip was attacked at least 696 times on different occasions since the August 2014 ceasefire, said Tobias Ellwood, the UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, according to the Middle East Monitor. During a parliamentary session, Labour MP Alex Cunningham asked “how […]
Americans are Powerful & Safe; So why do they feel Like Victims?
By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Given the cluttered landscape of the last 14 years, can you even faintly remember the moment when the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War ended in a stunned silence of shock and triumph in Washington, Eastern Europe was freed, Germany unified, and the Soviet Union […]
Why Obama and Putin are Both Wrong on Syria
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – President Obama seemed awfully defensive in his speech at the United Nations on Monday. The reason is not far to seek. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has surprised Washington by volunteering to get militarily involved in Syria and by arguing that only by enlisting the Baath regime of […]
Donald Trump wants to cut taxes of self, other Billionaires by $3 Trillion
John Iadarola and Jimmy Dore | (The Young Turks) | – – “Donald Trump’s tax plan is being pitched, and covered by the media, with terms like “populist” and “tax hikes for the wealthy,” but those are complete lies. John Iadarola (Think Tank) and Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show Podcast), hosts of the The […]
US-Backed Bombing Campaign Strikes Yemeni Wedding Party, Killing Dozens
By Lauren McCauley, staff writer | (Commondreams.org) | – – Many women and children among the dead in ‘mistake’ attack Monday’s accidental attack on a Yemeni wedding party drew references to the United States’ December 2013 drone bombing of another wedding party in Yemen, which resulted in the death of the 15 people. (Photo: AFP) […]
Disillusioned Daesh/ ISIL Fighters joined for ‘Adventure, Luxury & Saving Muslims’
By Sarah Marsden | (The Conversation) | – – They say disillusionment is the gap between expectation and reality. If the conclusions of a report just published by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence are anything to go by, it’s a gap that’s causing an increasing number of [so-called] Islamic […]