|
|
|
|
Tuesday 09th February 2010
The escalating drone war of the United States in the Pakistani tribal borderlands has ominous parallels with Richard Nixon's secret bombing in Cambodia 40 years ago to destroy a "Bamboo Pentagon", where North Vietnamese communists were supposedly orchestrating raids deep into South Vietnam. Could the US be repeating the same mistakes that brought the Khmer Rouge to power?
Related Links
A killer above the law?
|
|
Monday 08th February 2010
Just days after Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said Tehran's nuclear fuel could be processed abroad, he ordered stockpiles of uranium to be enriched to a high degree domestically. Tehran's dualistic diplomacy is designed to increase Iran's bargaining ability in regards to a fuel deal, while proving a point to hawks in the United States.
Related Links
A misreading of Iran that risks a fatal replay of Iraq
|
|
Monday 08th February 2010
Pakistan's military establishment, taken fully on board by the United States in the efforts to find solutions for Afghanistan, has made clear that its cooperation comes with strings attached. Any Indian role is to be restricted to civilian development projects, and Pakistan will choose for itself who its enemies are.
|
|
Friday 05th February 2010
For Muslims, the Chilcot Inquiry is the latest in a series of litmus tests in a post Bush/Blair era. If there is any hint of whitewash in the Iraq inquiry, it will only exacerbate an already inflamed situation. Muslims need a frank acknowledgement of culpability for the "shock and awe barbarity" in Iraq and Afghanistan and more importantly for the relentless on-going brutal ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Obama's early promise on Palestine has sadly been bartered in the miasma of domestic US healthcare politics.
Related Links
Archbishop of Canterbury chides Tony Blair over Chilcot inquiry
|
|
Monday 08th February 2010
"The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security does not come from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe. ..... I do not know whether Siddiqui is innocent or guilty. But I do know that permitting jailers, spies, kidnappers and assassins to operate outside of the rule of law contaminates us with our own bile. Siddiqui is one victim. There are thousands more we do not see. These abuses, justified by the war on terror, have created a system of internal and external state terrorism that is far more dangerous to our security and democracy than the threat posed by Islamic radicals." Chris Hedges in Truthdig.com
Related Links
Lawyers call for inquiry into Iraq abuse claims
|
|
Friday 05th February 2010
Iran’s proclaimed ambitions in Africa are particularly worrying for Israel, which once had a lot of friends on the continent and wants to keep the few that remain. Israel is rattled. Its diplomatic links are fewer and frailer than before—and Iran is doing its best to shred even these. Last year Mauritania, one of the few Arab League countries to have diplomatic relations with Israel, told it to close its embassy. After Iran’s foreign minister visited the country, Iran said it would take over a hospital that Israel had been building in the capital, Nouakchott, adding that it would provide more doctors and equipment than Israel had promised. In Senegal the Israelis had offered to help the notable Sufi Muslim town of Touba to build a water and sewage system. But negotiations were abruptly broken off at an advanced stage, after Iran promised to carry out the same work—and give a bigger donation to the town as well as the water pumps.
|
|
Tuesday 09th February 2010
Demonisation of the adversary has always formed the basis of European barbarity. In An Intellectual History of Cannibalism (now translated from Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth), Catalin Avramescu examines the place of cannibalism in European intellectual discourse. If the cannibal represents a subversion of the moral order, then it is a subversion that crusaders embraced as their own. As we see from Richard the Lionheart and others, 'the idea of cannibalism' emerged alongside Christian Europe's early martial encounters with Islam, where Europeans reveled in their reputation as brutish flesheaters. Cannibalism is not simply something bad that others do: its practice and imagery wend through romance and history into the very fabric of Europe's own sense of itself. The story of the idea of cannibalism in Western thought is the story of European ambivalence about its own capacity for and history of consumption, destruction, and fear.
|
|
Tuesday 09th February 2010
Newcomers to France will be made to sign a declaration of values as part of a new campaign to define national identity, France's Prime Minister says. Other measures include the flying of the French flag and the singing of the national anthem - La Marseilleise - at schools, to promote patriotism. Under the scheme, newly arrived immigrants will have to undertake classes in French and gender equality, while new citizens will pledge to adhere to a list of French values at a solemn ceremony. Instead of succumbing to this thinly veiled Islamophobia, France's 6 million plus Muslim subjects who have vivid memories of colonial barbarity may seek to robustly take up the challenge of defining values for their country!
|
|
Monday 08th February 2010
Right-wing circles are transfixed by the relationship between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the neoconservative historian Niall Ferguson. In true neocon fashion both have much to rehabilitate in their personal conduct. Niall is ditching a doting wife who was injured in a serious riding accident. Ayaan, is still unclear about her strange "arranged" marriage and asylum application made on questionable grounds. They seem to be birds of the same feather with their duplicity providing ideal neocon material and venom for Islamophobic tirades.
Related Links
'It's tricky to find men when you're living under a fatwa'
|
|
Monday 08th February 2010
Britain's use of drones in the war in Afghanistan must be in accordance with international law. History contains numerous examples of government secrecy breeding abuse. Drone programmes are perfect candidates. In the wake of the recent revelations, the onus is on the MoD to establish accountability mechanisms to show that drone killings are in fact being carried out in accordance with accepted international legal standards. It is also important to remember that wanton killing of innocent civilians also risks massive blowbacks on occupying and invading forces and their countries.
Related Links
17 Pakistanis Killed in US Drone ‘Revenge’ Strike
Iraq war was illegal, says former lord chief justice
|
|
Tuesday 09th February 2010
The institutional malise in the Metropolitian Police identified by the McPhearson Inquiry is informing the debate on the case of Commander Ali Dizaeie. Depending on which side one chooses to blieve, Commander Dizaeie is either a victim of justice or a beneficiery of political correctness. The choice is made even more difficult if one reads the catalogue of antics the Met has indulged into nail Dizaeie.
Related Links
The case against Commander Ali Dizaei
Sorry mess of the Ali Dizaei case
|
|
|
|
|
29447 searchable items
