Hamid Karzai, the American-installed puppet in Afghanistan, was dealt another blow when Haji Gilani, one of his close allies, was gunned down outside his home in Deh Rawood, Uruzgan province, during the night of April 3. His nephew was also shot dead by six armed men, who then managed to escape.
After claiming for months that everything in Afghanistan is under their control, the Americans got a rude shock at the end of January; it has forced them to concede that several of their soldiers have been killed. But even this admission came with a fantastic amount of ‘spin’...
The attacks on September 11 have brought a slow thaw to the frosty relations between Khartoum and Washington. America’s drive since then to enlist new allies for its “war on terrorism” gave the government of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir an opportunity to establish a working relationship with Washington.
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone by Joseph S. Nye Jr. Pub: Oxford University Press, New York, USA, 2002. Pp: 222. Hbk: $26.00
A month after 54 Afghani civilians were killed when American planes bombed a wedding party, the Times (London)newspaper published details of a report written by UN officials who visited the village two days after the bombing.
Take the fact that NATO has embraced Russia (its Cold War enemy) and is reorganising to engage ‘terrorism’, and president Bush’s recent declaration that he reserves the right to strike at 60 countries that he deems to be a threat to the US
fghanistan’s long-awaited Loya Jirga (council of leaders) finally opened 24 hours late, on June 11. The circumstances make it clear that the traditional Afghan institution is in fact now little more than a front for decisions being made behind the scenes by the country’s established faction leaders...
The annual celebrations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran on February 11 were marked this year by mass defiance of the US after George Bush’s State of the Union address on January 29 promised action against an "axis of evil" comprised of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
America’s policy vis-a-vis its declared enemies — real or imagined — is clear: first demonize, and then attack and destroy them. Interestingly, even those who are considered “friends” for a while are not spared...
THE GLOBAL GAMBLE: WASHINGTON’S FAUSTIAN BID FOR WORLD DOMINANCE by Peter Gowan. Pub: Verso Books, London/New York, 1999. Pbk: 320. £13.00 / $ 20.00
The USA is often described by its critics as a global empire. Those who are less critical of its role in the world sometimes prefer to describe it as the world’s sole superpower.
As if not to be left out of the big league, the Canadian government has introduced a bill in parliament, called Bill C-36, that threatens to remove the freedoms individuals currently enjoy in the country.
One feature of the crisis that began on September 11 has been the extent to which the US’s subsequent policy has been questioned and opposed by so many people even in the West. Even in America, where war-fever has been most intense, opposition to the attacks on Afghanistan has been evident, in demonstrations on university campuses, in New York and other cities...
George W. Bush insists that nations who do not support the “war against terrorism” are themselves terrorists: Muslim leaders in Southeast Asia have their own reasons to take the ‘ultimatum’ seriously.
THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER by Christopher Hitchens. Pub: Verso, New York, USA, 2001. Pp. 159. Hbk. US$22.00.
As Indonesians celebrated their independence from Holland in 1945 on August 17, western governments congratulated president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
For some Americans, the ‘information revolution’ has transformed life radically. Yet for others the new technology and the ‘new economy’ it has helped to set in motion have only created a new dividing line between the information “haves” and “have-nots.”
American foreign policy hacks coined the term ‘rogue state’ to refer to those regimes that refuse to bow to American aspirations for world supremacy. At different times, this appellation has been applied to Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, North Korea, and others.
America loves Israel. This love is unconditional, perhaps even eternal, and is expressed in countless ways. Presidents come and go, politicians live and die, and people spend their lives, but the love outlasts them all.
It is no secret that the media and political establishment in North America are viciously anti-Islamic. This continent’s power elite is obsessed with the Islamic movement, insisting on projecting it as the new “threat” replacing communism.
