Geography Archives: Iraq

  • Libya: A Squalid Protectorate That the West Is Going to Create

    Yes, “collaborators,” that’s the word, not “revolutionaries.”  Calling a spade a spade can at least get rectification started, though, pace the street-fighting intellectual, too late in the game. — Ed. The US-Nato intervention in Libya, with United Nations security council cover, is part of an orchestrated response to show support for the movement against one […]

  • What Wisconsin Means for Immigrant Rights

    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 […]

  • Al-Jazeera: An Island of Pro-Empire Intrigue

    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 […]

  • COSATU Supports Democracy, But Condemns Foreign Military Occupation in Libya

    COSATU has reiterated its position in support of the legitimate and genuine struggles of the people and workers of the Middle East and North Africa for democracy, human dignity and social justice.  In doing so, we however, seek to exercise caution in the manner Western powers claim to be advancing the struggle for democracy in […]

  • Libya: Stop the Aggression

    The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: Libya: Stop the Aggression The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns the aerial bombardment by aircrafts and ship-based missiles on Libya by the Nato forces.  The military strikes by the Nato forces comprising France, Britain and the United States […]

  • The Libyan Rebellion: The West’s Cloak over the Gulf

    Fidel Castro was right.  The West was planning an attack on a sovereign third world nation imminently: Libya.  Nothing like a good old war against brown and black people in Libya by the West to remind oneself of what Western civilisation is all about.  Many of us who have been politically active since the 1990s […]

  • The West’s Aim in Libya: Interview with Aijaz Ahmad

    Prabir Purkayastha: If you really look at what is happening, what we have is a historical split between the east and the west, which could be the outline of what could emerge at least in the near future, unless Gaddafi has the strength to push his troops right up to Benghazi.  Aijaz Ahmad The real […]

  • A System Turned Upside Down

    The Tunisian revolution has wiped out the Ben Ali system, and the Egyptian revolution is about to eliminate the Mubarak system after the fall of the president.  No doubt, the epoch of unlimited domination in the Arab world is coming to its end.  After decades of despotic, patronage-based regimes, the Arab peoples seem determined to […]

  • Aslı Ü. Bâli and Ziad Abu-Rish on International Intervention in Libya: A Documentary Remix

    In evaluating calls for intervention, the first question we might ask is how the Libyan case differs from recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, where intervention of this type was not invited.  In both of those countries authoritarian leaders who were erstwhile Western allies were pushed out when their military institutions refused to turn on […]

  • The Bahraini Opposition Speaks

    Press Conference of the Opposition Political Societies on the Reasons for the Call to Overthrow the Government A coalition of seven opposition political societies invites you to join the Bahraini masses to attend the grand march on Friday, 4 March 2011, entitled “Down with the Government.”1  The opposition coalition believes the current government must resign, […]

  • No Tahrir in Benghazi: A Racist Pogrom Rages On against Black Africans in Libya

    American progressives and peace forces have been in a state of joyous delirium in recent weeks as they experienced vicarious, televised popular victories in Tunisia and Egypt.  Watching unarmed crowds achieve tentative victories against entrenched, U.S.-backed regimes produced a kind of giddiness on this side of the ocean — an otherworldly feeling that, somehow, the […]

  • Imperialists Prepare for Military Intervention in Libya

    The Libyan exiles and defectors begging for no-fly zones failed to get them at the United Nations Security Council on Saturday, but they are inching closer to lining up Western military support nonetheless.  This just in from the Wall Street Journal today: The Pentagon is repositioning warships and planes in the waters off Libya to […]

  • What Does the Libyan Opposition Want?

    As everyone knows, Muammar Gaddafi is an authoritarian dictator.  Authoritarian dictators are a dime a dozen in world history, though, so that is not what would distinguish him from the rest of his kind in history books.  What might make him stand out is this: in the twilight of his autocratic career, Gaddafi had become […]

  • Cynicism’s Danse Macabre

    The politics of plunder imposed by the United States and its NATO allies in the Middle East is in crisis.  This was inevitably unleashed with the high cost of grain, the effects of which are being felt with more force in the Arab nations where, despite their enormous oil resources, the shortage of water, arid […]

  • The Cynical Dance Macabre

    The policy of plunder imposed by the United States and their NATO allies in the Middle East has gone into a crisis. It has inevitably unraveled with the high cost of grain, the effects of which can be felt more forcefully in the Arab countries where, in spite of their huge resources of oil, the […]

  • Madison Is Our Cairo

    With the Koch Brothers footing his campaign, Scott Walker assumed the governorship of Wisconsin on January 7, 2011.  Walker’s first action as Governor was obeisance to the corporate class that put him in office: he gave $140 million in tax breaks to businesses, including WalMart, and then screamed “budget crisis!”  This move allowed him to […]

  • What Is Happening in Egypt

    What is happening in Egypt is of immense importance, not only due to the importance of the country but also due to the radicality of the demand.  The demand is not just that Mubarak should leave — that is a first step — but that the system be changed, putting an end to the neoliberal […]

  • A Glorified Military Coup in Egypt: An Aborted Revolution or the Genesis of a Genuine Revolution?

    Millions of people in Egypt and all over the Middle East erupted in joy as Omar Suleiman announced on Friday that Hosni Mubarak had resigned. The Egyptian military decided to oust a widely-resented dictator as it witnessed the growing threat of a potential revolution being born in Egyptian streets.  Had it been allowed to continue […]

  • What Does the Egyptian Revolution Mean for the United States Government?

    The US has not supported democratization in Egypt, or really anywhere else in the Middle East, because US policymakers would not like the outcome of democratic processes.  Policies made by governments that are freely elected by the people would not reflect, would not support, let alone enforce, the US polices that are unpopular, whether that’s […]

  • On the Egyptian Revolution and the American Strategy

    7 February 2011 . . . Today we declare our solidarity.  One of the forms of our solidarity is to defend this revolution, this intifada, this great historic popular movement.  One of the responsibilities of defending this revolution is to reveal its true image as all data indicate. . . .  We contact those on […]