“Come, I will make the continent indissoluble… O Democracy” once sang Walt Whitman, the 19th-century US poet laureate. With the unrest in Oakland, Portland, Berkeley, New York City, spanning the indissoluble continent as it were, democracy has once more become an unknown quantity, subject to definition.
Troy Davis was executed on the night of September 21, 2011 as hundreds of people maintained vigil outside the Jackson, Georgia prison hoping the Supreme Court would grant a stay of execution. It was all very civilized; he was killed by a large dose of lethal injection administered at 7pm.
As for the US economy, despite optimistic statements by President Barack Obama that it is on the mend — what else can he say? — statistics paint a very different picture.
With America’s departure from Afghanistan now almost certain, new alignments are beginning to emerge among regional players aimed at securing the most favorable outcome for each country. Islamic Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are in the forefront of this effort but Russia, China and the Central Asian republics are not far behind either.
Successive US regimes have claimed that al-Qaeda is their enemy number one and that no effort would be spared in costs or human lives to eliminate it. Does empirical evidence support this claim? Let us examine the facts.
Islamic movements, intellectuals and activists long tended to have a love-hate relationship with democracy. On the one hand, democracy has been associated with the aggressive, brutal, exploitative, hegemonic policies of the post-colonial Western powers, the cynicism, manipulation and dishonesty of Western politics and the increasing moral degeneracy of individualistic and hedonistic Western societies.
The Muslim East (Middle East) has been in the throes of revolutionary fervor for more than six months. Two dictators have been driven from power; others are teetering on the brink while some are also fighting back with mixed results.
Every June, ceremonies are held to commemorate the passing away of Imam Khomeini in 1989. This year, these ceremonies gain added significance in view of the uprisings underway in the Muslim East. Zafar Bangash, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, compares the Imam’s leadership with the near-leaderless movements in the Muslim East.
Dr. Haytham Mannaa a prominent Syrian opposition activist confirmed that the foreign hand was involved in the events in Syria from the very early start of demonstrations.
Raymond Davis, the CIA agent operating as a "security consultant" at the US Consulate in Lahore, will be set free, Crescent International has learned. Davis shot and killed two people riding a motorbike in Lahore on January 26 whom he accused of trying to rob him.
Barring some unforeseen problems, South Sudan will hold its referendum on January 9, 2011 and almost certainly secede from the North. The largest country in Africa would have been dealt a terrible blow whose consequences will reverberate for decades.
American officials are scurrying to various capitals to advise “friendly” governments that the undiplomatic, indeed nasty language used by their diplomats and officials about other leaders should not be taken too seriously.
The fact that America is in decline is indisputable. With a crumbling physical infrastructure, a growing gap between the rich and poor, a shrinking middle class, rapidly rising numbers of poor and unemployed, and an economy beholden to China, even American pundits admit the once proud superpower is sliding into rapid decline.
It was exactly nine years ago that US-led western forces invaded and occupied Afghanistan. The ostensible reason was to avenge the attacks of 9/11.
Nine years and tens of thousands of deaths later, it is the Americans that are begging the Taliban for talks
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the frail neuroscientist kidnapped in Pakistan and tortured and brutalized for many years in Kabul’s notorious Bagram prison, was sentenced to 86 years by a US court in New York on September 23.
“To fight and kill is worth three months without sex. Maybe it sounds idiotic but it is better than sex… When you are on the field it is you or the enemy. And when you see the ‘red mist’ [blood spurt from the sniper victim]… it is indescribable.
In President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad’s recent visit to the United Nations in late September, he easily became the most-watched head of state. In his various speeches, he took the UN and US to task for presiding over the wars on Afghanistan
The announcement by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on August 20 that the US is to host direct talks between Palestinian president Mahmood Abbas and Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu has singularly failed to raise hopes of progress toward any level of justice for the suffering people of Palestine.
The drums of war are once again getting louder in Washington. Led by the Zionist cabal and its neocon allies, American warmongers are itching for another war, this time against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not satisfied with the blood-letting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
