The Jewish Daily Forward – Two French Jews were sent to prison for placing a bomb in 2012 under the car of an anti-Zionist journalist in Paris. The two men, identified only by their last names, Bismuth and Benhamou, were sentenced on June 20 by a judge from the Versailles Correctional Tribunal to six months […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: Transmitted below is a thoughtful article by Stephen Kinzer on America’s destructive role in the world and its consequences for the United States and the world. My only quibble with this article is the assertion that the “intended result” of America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq was “to prevent Iraq from becoming a […]
By Mike Whitney. Eurasia Review – “It is no longer plausible to argue that ISIS was a result of unintentional screw ups by the US. It is a clear part of a US strategy to break up the Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah alliance. Now that strategy may prove to be a total failure and end up backfiring, but […]
By Juan Cole. Informed Comment – Already in the past week and a half, many assertions are becoming commonplace in the inside-the-Beltway echo chamber about Iraq’s current crisis that are poorly grounded in knowledge of the country. Here are some sudden truisms that should be rethought. 1. “The Sunni radicals of the Islamic State of Iraq […]
As Islamic militants gain ground in Iraq, Official Washington’s neocons and the mainstream media are blaming President Obama for ending the U.S. military occupation, but they ignore their own role in destabilizing Iraq with the 2003 invasion, Robert Parry reports. By Robert Parry. After Islamic militants captured the major Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, […]
John Whitbeck’s commentary: According to the FOREIGN POLICY post transmitted below, the U.S. government, notwithstanding its traditional hostility to international law in general and the International Criminal Court in particular, has decided to support a UN Security Council resolution authorizing an ICC investigation into alleged war crimes committed on Syrian territory – but only subject […]
By Philip Giraldi. UNZ – A fighting force is tied together by the bonds of comradeship and loyalty among the individual soldiers. Elite military units have translated this sense of brotherhood into “leave no man behind, living or dead” a concept that is as old as the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Greeks assiduously collected […]
Yemen is only a ‘news story’ if ‘Western interests’ are threatened, however, there is more to this country than this simplistic narrative By Ramzy Baroud. Middle East Eye – “In Yemen today, the US embassy is closed to the public. Officials telling CNN there is credible information of a threat against Western interests there,” read […]
The annexation of Crimea may be problematic, but it is less problematic than the occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel. By Gideon Levy. Haaretz – Saddam Hussein has already been executed, and so has Osama bin Laden. But all is not lost for the enlightened West. There is a new devil, and his name […]
By Juan Cole. This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page. TruthDig – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C., this week was even more of a disaster for him than might have been expected. It did not help that the Crimea crisis had broken out, which rather cast a bad light on one […]