Pages: << 1 ... 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 ... 1326 >>
Kerry and Abbas Conspire Against Palestinians
by Stephen Lendman
Abbas is a longtime Israeli collaborator. Washington one-sidedly supports Israeli interests, including decades of ruthless occupation harshness.
Whenever Kerry shows up anywhere, especially in the Middle East, he’s always up to no good. His current trip took him to Berlin (meeting with Netanyahu while there) and Amman, meeting with Jordanian officials and Abbas, plotting ways to betray Palestinians again, urging calm at the expense of their interests.
On Saturday, he “strongly condemn(ed) (Palestinian) terrorist attacks against innocent civilians,” ignoring Washington’s full support for ongoing Israeli instigated violence.
Donald Trump Says the U.S. Should Have Stolen Iraqis’ Oil After Destroying their Country
Eric Zuesse
On Sunday the 25th of October, Republican U.S. Presidential aspirant Donald Trump was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, and was asked about Iraq. He said, "I told you very early on, if we're going to leave, take the oil.” He then repeated this theme again, in this CNN interview: “And I said, take the oil when we leave. But we shouldn't have really left.” So: he thinks that the U.S. occupation of Iraq should have continued on, and should be continuing, and that the U.S. should have “taken” Iraq’s oil. But he added that, “We shouldn’t have gotten in” to Iraq in the first place. This latter opinion from him was purely a retrospective comment, and Trump had never even expressed himself publicly about the invasion until it had already been done. He had said at that time (August 2004) only that it was . This new retrospective evaluation by Trump of the invasion of Iraq, now on CNN, sparked from the interviewer, questions about whether Trump thinks that “the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein” in power in Iraq. Trump answered directly, “A hundred percent.” He added: "They're worse now than they ever were. People are getting their heads chopped off. They're being drowned. They're — right now, they are far worse than they were ever under Saddam Hussein.” And, in fact, no reasonable person can doubt the truth of that statement. The recently released "Gallup 2015 Global Emotions Report” interviewed a thousand citizens of each of 148 countries and found: "Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest Populations in the World.” Furthermore, Iraqis were found to have the world’s “Highest Negative Experience Scores,” which is a misery-index. Therefore, Trump is accurate to say that the American government did such a thing as that, to the people of Iraq.
Global Peace and Security: Mankind is Traumatized by the Middle East Conflicts
Mahboob A Khawaja
“We are waging war on terrorism even as we embody terrorism. No wonder we seem sometimes to be at war with ourselves, and have been for most of the 21st century….. No American under 12 has Lived in a Country at Peace… whatever the U.S. government knows, or thinks it knows, is not widely shared with most of its citizens….. The American Enemies List Is Decided Anonymously and Secretly.” - William Boardman
(“America a country at war with an Illusion”).
Wars and societal conflicts do not end with political statements. The mankind is fraught with painful experiences of the unwanted Two World Wars. The perpetrators escape the consequences pushing humanity into unthinkable disasters generations after generations. A war of words and conveniently arrived erotic hypothesis of the few sadistic warlords on complex global issues are draining out the positive energies, time and opportunities for peaceful dialogue towards conflict prevention and conflict management. If Israel and the PLO had moral and intellectual capacity to talk and reconcile, the killings and stabbing of innocents could have been averted by ending the occupation and coming to terms with the two state solution. While Israelis and Palestinians live in open prisons of mutual fear and hatred, their leaders compete for numbers in opinions polls and are unable to provide proactive leadership role for conflict resolution. Likewise, the sectarian conflicts in Syria and Iraq require moral and intellectual foresights and creative strategies to strike peaceful conclusion. Ironically, America, Russia and few West Europeans are competing in bombing the civilians and causing unthinkable losses of life and destruction of human infrastructures across the Arab world.
Is Jordan Switching Sides?
by Stephen Lendman
On Friday, Sputnik News, RT International, the Jordan Times and Reuters said Russian and Jordanian officials agreed to establish a “special working mechanism” to share information on counterterrorism operations in Syria.
“Under an agreement between His Majesty King Abdullah II and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the militaries of the two countries have agreed to coordinate their actions, including military aircraft missions over the Syrian territory,” Sergey Lavrov explained. He urged other nations to join their coalition against a common enemy.
Lavrov in Vienna
by Stephen Lendman
On Friday, Lavrov met with his US, Turkish and Saudi Arabian counterparts - mainly discussing ways to resolve Syria’s long-running conflict, waged by Washington for regime change, Obama fully responsible for genocidal slaughter and mass displacement.
Media reports falsely suggested the four ministers agreed on Assad’s resignation. “Rumors have begun to circulate that we are discussing or will be discussing that President Assad must go after some time. This is not true," Lavrov stressed.
“Of course, there will be speculation. (It) appeared before this meeting even took place. I heard that the rumors are being spread already that it has been agreed on in some place or another that in some period of time Assad will step down. This is not the case.”
Syrian War Pits Syria, Russia, Iran; versus U.S., Saudis, Qatar, Turkey, ISIS
Eric Zuesse
U.S. aim is a failed Syrian state, so Russia will lose an ally. Thus, on October 13th, Brandon Turbeville headlined, As Russia Bombs ISIS, US Bombs Syrian Civilian Power Stations.”" The U.S. aims to destroy Syria; Russia wants to salvage Syria. So: while Russia bombs ISIS and other jihadists, U.S. bombs Syria’s infrastructure. A nation without the infrastructure to hold it together is a failed state — America’s goal.
The U.S. doesn’t announce this as its goal. Instead, the U.S. says simply, that Syria’s President, Bashar al-“Assad must go,” or, “the time has come for President Assad to step aside” so that there will be “a new government, without Bashar Assad.” This is like George W. Bush’s constant demands for “regime change in Iraq.” Who gave the U.S. the right to replace nations’ leaders and still claim that doing this doesn’t constitute an international crime, of aggression, if not of aggressive invasion — the war-crime for which Nazis were hung at Nuremberg?
US Imperial Strategy in Disarray
by Stephen Lendman
Russia’s intervention changed the dynamic in Syria and the region with potential global implications. Washington is reeling, stumped about what to do next.
Kerry’s Friday power play meeting with his Russian, Turkish and Saudi counterparts in Vienna changed nothing. Nor will other discussions he plans. Russia and Washington agree to disagree. Putin’s arm won’t be twisted.
At Syria’s request, he’s waging real war on ISIS with devastating effectiveness - polar opposite Obama’s war on Syrian infrastructure targets, supporting ISIS and other terrorists, using them as regional foot soldiers with plans to employ them in Russia, Central Asia and China.
Police State Public Education in America
by Stephen Lendman
Democracy requires an educated citizenry. America's founders believed it was insurance against loss of liberty.
Jefferson said “(e)very government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved…”
Public education is vital because it serves the public interest - giving meaning to “we the people.” Father of American education Horace Mann called “(t)he common school...the greatest discovery ever made by man.” He meant public, not privatized, prioritizing profits over teaching. He believed all students should be educated equally and responsibly.
In America today, they’re intimidated, persecuted and controlled, not taught the way young people were when I grew up in inner city Boston from kindergarten in 1939 to my 1952 high school graduation.
Then college and graduate school when both were extremely affordable, extraordinarily cheap by today’s standards. America’s student loan racket didn’t exist - debt-entrapping millions of students repressively, some facing a lifetime of debt bondage.
Putin Straight Talk
by Stephen Lendman
He’s refreshingly forthright and straightforward - saying what he means and meaning what he says. Compare him with Obama:
● a serial liar with no credibility, disgracing the office he holds, heading a neocon-infested administration, waging war on humanity at home and abroad;
● a war criminal belonging in prison;
● nominally heading a police state apparatus, spying on everyone without just cause;
● operating the world’s largest gulag, a global enterprise filled with political prisoners;
serving monied interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people, suffering from forced-fed austerity;
● systematically destroying America’s social contract; thirdworldizing the nation, leaving tens of millions impoverished, unemployed or underemployed, food insecure, with growing numbers homeless;
● responsible for making America the world’s leading pariah state, universally reviled for good reason.
On October 22, Putin addressed the Valdai International Discussion Club’s (VIC) 12th annual meeting. The conference’s theme was “Societies Between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict in Tomorrow’s World.” Experts from 30 countries participated from October 19 - 22.
State Terror or Capitalist Terror, Military Coup or Capitalist Coup
James Petras
Introduction
Democratic critics of military seizures of power commonly refer to them as military coups. They adopt a very narrow and misleading conception of what is taking place.
Likewise, human rights activists and progressive analysts who conceptualize the reign of violence which follows, a ‘coup’ as state terror fail to take account of the systemic forces – the capitalist social order and class relations – which determine the classes which wield state power. They ignore the specific classes and groups which are targeted and which classes direct and benefit from terror.
<< 1 ... 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 ... 1326 >>
