Imperial Wizards: The Nangarhar Massacre and U.S. Plans for Central Asia
At first, the Pentagon denied that American planes had slaughtered dozens of Afghan civilians on their way to a wedding in the Nangarhar mountains. “Pure propaganda,” said the usual media and blogosphere sycophants. “It’s always ‘a wedding’ being hit, the same old story.” The military brass promised the usual investigation, no doubt hoping it would all go away. But then Afghan government officials confirmed the truth, and the BBC’s Alastair Leithead was the first outsider to visit the actual site of the massacre:
Duce Bags: Italy Leads Fascist Revanche in Western Democracies
The first by-lined piece I ever had in a newspaper dealt with the rise of political parties in Italy that proudly claimed descent from the Fascists of Benito Mussolini. This was almost 30 years ago, when memories of the Fascist era in Italy and Germany were still relatively fresh; one didn’t have to be very old – hardly middle-aged – to remember growing up under those regimes or else being touched by their shadow in one way or another. And of course, the Fascist regimes in Spain and Portugal had
Disorderly Conduct: Subverting the Bipartisan Paradigm on Iraq
William Pfaff is one of the sanest writers in the mainstream media, and in his latest piece in the International Herald Tribune, he succinctly subverts the arguments for a continuing American presence in Iraq.
There
are basically three main rationales for keeping the imperial adventure
in Mesopotamia going in one form or another. First, that it is a fight
against terrorism, a battle to uphold the values of civilization
against the evil Islamofascist hordes. (This is the argument always
offered for public consumption, and it may well be that a few of its
champions actually believe
Ricorso on the Potomac: The Murderers of Democracy Return
“….the thunderclap, the ricorso, which, in Vico’s famous philosophy of history, presages the end of democracy and the return of leaders claiming to rule by divine sanction.”
Today the United States Senate voted by a wide margin to gut the Fourth Amendment and give the president dictatorial powers to violate the privacy of every American citizen, while also granting immunity to wealthy corporations who colluded with the president for years in a patently illegal program of warrantless surveillance. The vote was
The Forgotten: Somalia’s American-Made Road to Perdition
The on-going, American-backed atrocity continues to rage in Somalia, where George W. Bush has launched a third “regime change” front in his global Terror War, with the help of one of his many pet dictators, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.
This week the head of the UN Development Program in Somalia, Osman Ali Ahmed, was shot dead as he left evening prayers at a mosque near his home in Mogadishu. The Bush Administration immediately blamed insurgent factions fighting against the Ethiopian-imposed government; insurgent leaders immediately denied
A Glitch and a Pitch
Apologies for the technical glitch that left an insipid place-holder page on the site for a few hours today. The fault wasn’t on our end, but our intrepid co-founder, webmaster and champion of all causes, Rich Kastelein, got it straightened out. Anyway, we hope you enjoy those Hoobstank and Wishbone Ash tickets that the place-holder page was offering. You can’t say we aren’t down with the kids, no way.
This snafu might be a good opportunity to make a pitch for donations. We haven’t done that for a long time, and hate
Campaign Notes: Of Flip-Flops and Fly-Bys
I. Nominee’s Supporters Launch Flip-Flop Fightback
WASHINGTON — The presidential campaign of John McCain has taken several hits of “friendly fire” lately after a series of statements by the Republican candidate put him at odds with his own political base. But now some of his most prominent supporters say the intramural sniping has gone too far, and are fighting back on his behalf.
“All this flip-flop, sell-out, back-track, run-to-the-center stuff is mostly garbage,” said Coriolanus Murkin, who runs the influential “Murkin Dream” blog. “McCain is doing what
Heaven’s Got a Brand New Angel
Winter Patriot finds something for all Americans to celebrate on this festive day: Jesse Helms has joined G.I. Jesus in that great plantation house in the sky.
I reckon he can eat hisself a big ol’ cheesebugga anytime he wants to now.
Three Amigos: Bush, McCain, Obama Draw a Blood-Red Line on Iran
The development of a nuclear weapon by Iran is the great, glowing, neon “red line” of American politics today, one that every single major player in the American power structure says cannot be crossed. An ironclad bipartisan consensus has formed on the issue: Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Period. End of discussion. “All options are on the table” to prevent this from happening, George Bush has repeatedly declared, with John McCain singing along. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has hammered home the point even more forcefully: “I
Russian Roulette: A Bipartisan Consensus for Disaster
Stephen Cohen is right on Russia in “Wrong on Russia.” After first outlining Russia’s global importance and then the vast dangers of the accelerating deterioration in US-Russian relations, Cohen notes in the International Herald Tribune:
In the U.S. policy elite and media, the nearly unanimous answer is that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s antidemocratic domestic policies and “neo-imperialism” destroyed that historic opportunity. You don’t have to be a Putin apologist to understand that this is