Only the demented minds of American officials could concoct a story of the alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir. In making this scandalous allegation on October 11, US Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller looked shifty and visibly uncomfortable.
Early month, as much of the western world was either wallowing in sentimental commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, or reflecting on the far greater atrocities perpetrated by the US in its aggressive exploitation of 9/11 in pursuit of their imperialist interests worldwide, warnings of an emerging tragedy of potentially even greater proportions were largely ignored.
Two Americans accused of spying were released on September 21 as part of a humanitarian gesture by the Islamic Republic of Iran. A delegation of American Christian and Muslim leaders had traveled to Tehran to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other officials to seek the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.
Since April 1978, the Afghans have experienced nothing but war. An entire generation has grown up with violence, murder and mayhem. First it was the Russians, followed by various Afghan factions fighting it out among themselves, then came the Taliban and now the Americans and their NATO allies.
Disturbing evidence has emerged of continued abuse and torture of prisoners by sadistic American guards in Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), the American gulag in the illegally occupied Cuban island. To protest mistreatment and continued illegal detention, many prisoners resort to hunger strikes.
Colonel Muammar Qaddafi is an easy figure to hate. Given his eccentric behaviour, he is the butt of many jokes that are easily conflated into hate against the man and his policies. Qaddafi need not be our favourite tyrant but the West’s attack on his regime as well as the country’s infrastructure is not motivated by the desire to rescue the Libyan people.
Since he entered the White House in January 2009, Barack Obama has made war on Pakistan the most important policy of his presidency even while he has maintained a broad grin on his face. the presidential campaign: speak softly but carry a big stick.
Pvt. Bradley Manning’s case is cutting through the calcified US domestic landscape with a sword of sympathy. After his incarceration, the public is associating the Guantanamo images associated of “those Muslim terrorists” — shackled bodies, sexualized humiliation, minds breaking under psychological torture — with the cheery and too relatable photograph of the young American soldier.
Has the American dream of permanent supremacy in the oil-rich region of the world been shattered? It’s a question that not only haunts influential institutions that function as pillars of power in America’s global hegemony, but also torments a wide array of rightwing think tanks masquerading as “impartial analysts”.
The global political scene is not only changing, it has changed quite dramatically over the last decade or so. The pompous notion of a unipolar world in which the self-proclaimed “sole superpower” maintains perpetual full-spectrum dominance a la Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is no longer tenable.
As he was wheeled into the operation theatre at a Washington hospital, Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, must have prayed the Pakistani surgeon tending to him would successfully stitch his torn aorta to save his life so he could “save” Afghanistan.
Wikileaks has proved to be the kingmaker of all news, defying the short lifespan of most news cycles to reign for a solid week-and-a-half over world headlines. Reactions over the release of secret US State Department cables ranged from shock, titillation, amusement, or apoplectic fury.
When Wikileaks arrested world headlines, the mainstream media coped by focusing on the gossip dished up by embassies on US allies, “frenemies” (friendly enemies), and outright foes
This writer remembers the time — about 25 years ago — when friendly members of the Islamic Movement would ask: why can’t our brothers in Iran have a more subtle approach and a dodgy political posture when it comes to their official decisions as well as their public relations and information services?
Tortured endlessly, deprived of sleep for 21 days, attacked by dogs and threatened with rape, Omar Khadr, now 24, was handed one last piece of vigilante justice: guilty plea to all charges because confessions extracted under torture
Haiti was the first African colony of slaves in the New World to declare independence from its colonial (French) overlords in 1804. The United States refused to recognize this new expression of freedom.
If one thinks about it seriously, the world looks like a bizarre place. Scientific strides and technological developments make us think and believe that we are living in the “genteel” and “civilized” 21st century. Few can argue about the scientific and industrial progress in all fields of physical applications and material evolution.
Professor Shahram Amiri’s kidnapping ordeal finally ended on July 12 when he escaped from his American captors in Virginia and took refuge in the Iranian Interest Section at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, DC. Kidnapped by CIA agents working in tandem with Saudi intelligence.
There is a complex balance of factors on each side of this geostrategic equation. The pressures building up in the Muslim world against US foreign policy are self-evident..
There are numerous international institutions with high-sounding names and even higher sounding principles. Led by the United Nations, others include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), etc...
