Fri 3 Jul 2009
William Blum The Anti-Empire Report 7/03/09
What is there about the Iranian election of June 12 that has led to it being one of the leading stories in media around the world every day since? Elections whose results are seriously challenged have taken place in most countries at one time or another in recent decades. (more…)
Fri 3 Jul 2009
A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands
By Chalmers Johnson TomDispatch 7/02/09
The U.S. Empire of Bases — at $102 billion a year already the world’s costliest military enterprise — just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new “embassy” in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don’t occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. (more…)
Wed 1 Jul 2009
Mon 29 Jun 2009
By Jeremy Scahill Rebel Reports 6/29/09
There is a lot of great analysis circulating on the military coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. I do not see a need to re-invent the wheel. (See here here here and here). However, a few key things jump out at me. First, we know that the coup was led by Gen. Romeo Vasquez, a graduate of the US Army School of the Americas.(more…)
Thu 25 Jun 2009
By Clive Safford Smith Guardian, U.K. 6/25/09
The BBC’s revelations about prisoner abuse at the US prison at Bagram airforce base in Afghanistan are the latest in a long line of revelations about abuse at US prisons around the world.
President Obama told us that this sort of thing has stopped. Well, it hasn’t. (more…)
Thu 25 Jun 2009
In Isfahan, Iran, an 80 year old woman stood defiantly in her doorway. Twenty baton-wielding Basij men arrived on motorcycles and threatened to enter her house in pursuit of a group of young demonstrators. Instead of running with fear or turning her back on the demonstrators, this woman looked the pursuers straight in the eye and said “You will not get past me.” (more…)
Mon 15 Jun 2009
This week marks the end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That’s over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful. (more…)
Sun 14 Jun 2009
From Vietnam to Abu Ghraib
By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN and DOUGLAS VALENTINE Counterpunch
Where you find administrative detentions, you are likely to find torture. (more…)