Geography Archives: Americas

Gilbert Achcar defends the recently “UN-authorized” imperialist intervention in Libya on the ground that general principles may require exceptions in concrete cases.  “Every general rule admits of exceptions.  This includes the general rule that UN-authorized military interventions by imperialist powers are purely reactionary ones, and can never achieve a humanitarian or positive purpose.”1  This kind […]

  Food Sovereignty Tour + Agroecology Short Course in Venezuela, July 10-22 July 10 to 22, 2011 Please register ASAP! You are invited to participate in a study tour to study food sovereignty, social movements, and social change in Venezuela, July 10 to 22.  The tour will examine issues of land reform, urbanization, rural development, […]

A declaration by the Ecuadorian government that U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges is “persona non grata” and must leave Ecuador as soon as possible should not come as a surprise, Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said.  Weisbrot noted that the expulsion follows recent troubling revelations in cables released by Wikileaks […]

In the weeks following the Fukushima accident, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear industry officials have been asserting that US nuclear plants are better prepared to withstand a catastrophic event like the March 11 earthquake and tsunami than Japanese plants because they have additional safety measures in place. According to internal NRC documents, however, there […]

Washington is broken — there has been no real debate on the $126 billion requested to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet $33 billion is being cut from vital programs — from heating oil for poor families to milk for infants to Pell grants for college students.  We have a new opportunity to […]

  Nik Theodore is Director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a leading theorist of the urban dimensions of neoliberal restructuring.  He has collaborated closely with the Right to the City Alliance, the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, and other groups that have been at the […]

With respect to international law, in what ways does this intervention in Libya differ from those carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq? The intervention in Afghanistan, despite protestations to the contrary, was not authorized by the Security Council, whose relevant resolutions did not even mention Afghanistan, let alone authorize “all necessary means.”  That was because […]

Could it be that Syrian refinery workers thought it wise to warn imperialists not to descend on Syria to liberate their oil and jobs from them in the name of liberating them from Bashar? — Ed. Tartous, Syria, 29 March 2011 Cf. “Syria is the only significant crude oil producing country in the Eastern Mediterranean […]

The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil.  Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB).  A U.S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U.S. and eager “to create a […]

Bashar al-Assad is a lucky man.  Even the mother of the Angry Arab (himself no fan of the Syrian president) seems to like him: “As my mom says about him: he is the best educated among Arab leaders (many of whom are illiterate) and it shows.” — Ed. Beirut, Lebanon, 27.03.11 Cairo, Egypt, 31.03.11 Bucharest, […]

  The dark cloud hanging over the future of nuclear power because of the unfolding crisis in Japan may have a silver lining in China by increasing attention to reactor safety. Within days of the earthquake that crippled the nuclear plants in Japan, the Chinese government abruptly suspended approvals for new plant construction, suspended work […]

United Nations, Mar. 31 (Prensa Latina) — Former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel D’Escoto, now appointed as the representative of Libya to the UN, said Thursday that the United Nations has become a “lethal weapon of the Empire (United States).” “We have to get it back, because if it dies it will not be born again,” […]

  Against the strong will of Ohioans, the House Commerce and Labor Committee passed a version of Senate Bill 5 today that goes further in gutting the rights of workers and destroying the working middle class than the bill passed by the Senate. This blatant assault on working families, orchestrated by Gov. Kasich and his […]

  Long before it happened in Japan, regulators in the United States knew that a similar, days-long power failure, whatever the cause, could lead to a radioactive leak in this country. Alan Kolaczkowski, Nuclear Engineer: Looking at the blackout situations and losses of all power, we know that once those pumps finally die off — […]

The rebel leaders tipped their hand too early.  Now the whole of Libya, including the rebels, understand what they are: traitors dependent on invaders.  The rebels thus now lack motive force as well as military training: “Libyan Rebels Flee as Kadafi’s Forces Defend Surt” (Los Angeles Times, 29 March 2011).  The only way they can […]

You didn´t have to be clairvoyant to foresee what I wrote with great detail in three Reflection Articles I published on the CubaDebate website between February 21 and March 3: “The NATO Plan Is to Occupy Libya,” “The Cynical Danse Macabre,” and “NATO´s Inevitable War.” Not even the fascist leaders of Germany and Italy were […]

A few weeks can do a lot to sweep away old assumptions.  Last year U.S. leftists were wondering why the worst economic crisis in 70 years hadn’t inspired a stronger response from its victims; now Arabs have toppled neoliberal regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, and U.S. workers have fought cutbacks and union-busting in Wisconsin with […]

The multinational empire has come up with a great deal for itself: using Libya’s own money to finance the Libyan rebels to fight against Libya.  Ali Tarhouni, a US-educated economist who just got appointed “finance minister” of the rebel “Interim Transitional National Council,” explains the deal: “Right now, there is no immediate crisis kind of […]

The Empire admits: without Al-Jazeera, they could not have bombed Libya. How did Al-Jazeera, once dubbed the ‘terror network’ by some and whose staff were martyred by US bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, end up becoming the media war propagandist for yet another Western war against a small state of the Global South, Libya?  We […]

Latin Americans are not born-criminals nor did they invent drugs. The Aztecs, Maya and other pre-Columbian human groups in Mexico and Central America, for example, were excellent farmers and didn’t even know about growing coca. The Quechua and Aymara were capable of producing nutritious foods on perfect terraces that followed the mountain level curves. On […]