Fearing China by BINOY KAMPMARK

Posted on June 12, 2014 by kf1

The biblical assertion that there is nothing original under the sun finds form on a regular basis in the behaviour of states. This is particularly so regarding assumptions or more often than not, misassumptions, about military means and abilities. The entire Cold War complex was riddled with psycho-babble and speculation: If they (they being a loose term for the enemy) get this weapon before we do, what will it do to the balance of power? As ever, the weapons race was pre-eminent, giving tenured positions to game-theorists and promoters of the “prisoner’s dilemma”. Nothing was spared in terms of dollar or rouble. Continue reading →

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Who is the Jihadi Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? – Patrick Cockburn

Posted on June 12, 2014 by kf1

In the space of a year he has become the most powerful jihadi leader in the world, and on Monday night his forces captured Mosul, the northern capital of Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Dua, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has suddenly emerged as a figure who is shaping the future of Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East. Continue reading →

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The Pakistan zeitgeists: A nation through the ages By Nadeem F. Paracha

Posted on May 29, 2014 by kf1

The searching 50s

Pakistan was carved out from the rest of India in August 1947. It was made up of the region’s Muslim-majority areas on the west and east sides of colonial India.

The creation of Pakistan had been the work of lawyer and politician, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and his All India Muslim League. Jinnah and his party’s ideologues had argued for a separate Muslim nation-state. They emphasised that the Muslims of South Asia were a different cultural entity compared to the Hindu majority of the region.

After successfully achieving his goal of creating this Muslim nation-state (Pakistan), Jinnah described it as a Muslim-majority state where the Muslims could freely live according to their cultural ethos, but where men and women of other religions too, were free to practice their respective faiths. He maintained that in Pakistan, ‘religion was not the matter of the state’ and that the Pakistani nationhood would triumph and prevail over divisions triggered by religious and ethnic differences. Continue reading →

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Did a Neoliberal Energy Grab Backfire? Crimea: an EU-US-Exxon Screwup

Posted on May 25, 2014 by kf1

by PIERRE M. SPREY and FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

On 17 May, William Broad’s piece, “In Taking Crimea, Putin Gains a Sea of Fuel Reserves”, appeared in the New York Times.  Broad explained  how the annexation of Crimea by Russia changed the legal claims for exclusive access to the maritime resources for the littoral nations of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.  At the core of the change is the 200 NM exclusion zone promulgated by the Law of the Sea, 1982.  Typically for the Grey Lady, Broad spun this fact into an anti-Putin tapestry using a charged mix of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.  Nevertheless, Broad’s report contains tantalizing information that hints at a fascinating alternative explanation for the events leading up to the Crimean annexation. Continue reading →

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Iraq: the Biggest Petroleum Heist in History? – Mike Whitney

Posted on May 25, 2014 by kf1

“Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq’s oil market. But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973.”

– Antonia Juhasz, oil industry analyst,  Al Jazeera.

These are the ‘best of times’ for the oil giants in Iraq.  Production is up, profits are soaring, and big oil is rolling in dough.  Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal:

“Iraq’s oil production surged to its highest level in over 30 years last month, surprising skeptics of the country’s efforts to restore its oil industry after decades of war and neglect.”  (Wall Street Journal)

Mission accomplished? Continue reading →

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By Invitation Only: Proxy Patriotism India vs. Pakistan by FARZANA VERSEY

Posted on May 25, 2014 by kf1

Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi’s team did not need to work at this one. Sixty-seven years after the Partition, India continues to nurse the inherited insecurity garbed as braggadocio in its relationship with Pakistan. Every government has effectively used it to whip up emotion and, worse, conflate hostility towards our neighbour with patriotism. This has produced a bunch of nationalistic fanatics, irrespective of their political ideology. Continue reading →

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Liberating Syria – Franklin Lamb

Posted on May 25, 2014 by kf1
telawrence

It is clear that the Syrian public and their officials, in all 14 of the country’s governorates, are committed to the complete restoration of their nation’s peerless and incomparable archaeological heritage sites as soon as security conditions permit. Continue reading →

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A World War is Beckoning by JOHN PILGER

Posted on May 16, 2014 by kf1

Why do we ­tolerate the threat of ­another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our ­indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a “brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of ­hypnosis”, as if the truth “never happened even while it was happening”.

Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his “updated summary of the record of US foreign policy” which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to ­overthrow more than 50 governments, many democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders. Continue reading →

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Nakba Day – Israelis Forced to Confront a Guilty Secret by JONATHAN COOK

Posted on May 16, 2014 by kf1

For 66 years Israel’s founding generation has lived with a guilty secret, one it successfully concealed from the generations that followed. Forests were planted to hide war crimes. School textbooks mythologised the events surrounding Israel’s creation. The army was blindly venerated as the most moral in the world.

Once, “Nakba” – Arabic for “Catastrophe”, referring to the dispossession of the Palestinian homeland in 1948 – would have failed to register with any but a small number of Israeli Jews. Today, only those who never watch television or read a newspaper can plead ignorance. Continue reading →

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Awesome

Posted on April 30, 2014 by kf1

 

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