Geography Archives: Iraq

It would be hard to find a better test of the integrity of the establishment U.S. media than in their comparative treatment of Iran and Honduras over the past couple of years (2009-2010). Iran has been on the United States’ regime-change hit list for many years.  Since the first-half of 2003 (and overlapping its soon-to-be-discredited […]

Equally at home in Tehran or New York, Hooman Majd benefits from a background as intricately woven as any Persian carpet.  The son of a diplomat under the shah of Iran, Majd attended schools in California, India, Iran, North Africa, and England.  After the tumultuous 1979 Islamic Revolution, return to Iran for Majd and others […]

Six years ago, I organized a bus from the Albany area to attend the “Million Worker March,” which was an attempt by longshore local ILWU Local 10 and some activist African-American union leaders to present labor’s demands during the 2004 election year.  That rally was not supported by the AFL-CIO and of course fell far […]

  Part 1 Aijaz Ahmad: Israel, which is completely isolated in the region, is very unhappy about the fact that Turkey is rising as a power which is establishing very productive and extensive contacts in the region.  Israel was very happy when both of them were completely isolated in the region: Turkey was in the […]

  On Oct. 2, tens of thousands of people from across the United States — members of civil rights organizations, labor unions, community groups and religious institutions — will rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to demand “Jobs, Justice and Education!”  (See www.onenationworkingtogether.org.) As part of this effort, the peace movement is mobilizing […]

  As’ad AbuKhalil, or Angry Arab as he is more commonly known after his blog The Angry Arab News Service, is in real life a most friendly and forthcoming man.  A Lebanese-born author of four books on the Middle East, he is professor of political science at California State University and is visiting professor at […]

27 September 2010 Iranian and Iraqi youth were the stars at a 24 September ceremony to celebrate peace between their countries.  On this date thirty years ago began the eight-year Iran‐Iraq war that killed and injured hundreds of thousands of both sides.  With a whole generation of orphans wishing to prevent future conflicts, the focus […]

Excerpts: In recent years, the Brazilian Government has invested heavily in South America’s integration and peace.  We have strengthened our strategic partnership with Argentina.  We have reinforced Mercosul, including through unique financial mechanisms among developing countries. The establishment of the Union of South American Nations — UNASUL — aims at consolidating a genuine zone of […]

Jean Bricmont is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Louvain, Belgium, and is a member of the Brussels Tribunal.  He is the author of Humanitarian Imperialism and co-author, with Alan Sokal, of Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science.  He has written critically about ‘humanitarian interventionism’ since the Kosovo war in 1999.  In […]

As he has every year since becoming President of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is coming to New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly.  Several important U.S. media outlets have either already conducted (MSNBC, ABC) or will conduct (PBS’ Charlie Rose and CNN’s Larry King) interviews with Ahmadinejad in connection with […]

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking military secrets to the public.  This week, his supporters are holding rallies in 21 cities, seeking Manning’s release from military custody.  Manning is in the brig for allegedly disclosing a classified video depicting U.S. troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in Iraq in July 2007.  The […]

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based neoconservative “think tank” that has consistently promoted hard-line policies against the Islamic Republic, came out with what it describes as “a comprehensive report . . . identifying 10 major Chinese energy companies that continue to do business with Iran in spite of international sanctions.”  According […]

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) was established at Bretton Woods in July 1944, at the initiative of forty-five countries that had come together for the first monetary and financial conference of the United Nations.  In 2010, it had 186 member countries, with Kosovo its latest addition (it joined in June 2009). The […]

In connection with the release of his memoirs, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has given a number of interviews this week in which he endorses the first-use of military force to stop Iran’s nuclear development.  Blair’s statements on the matter prompted us to reflect on where European policies toward the Islamic Republic are really […]

Uncle Sam reminds the world of the victims of September 11 while making war on Iraq and Afghanistan. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 2 September 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi. […]

We noticed a small news item, reported from Tehran, which we think deserves more media attention and reflection in the West than it received.  According to the story, Chinese Transport Minister Liu Zhijun is expected to visit Iran Sunday to sign a $2 billion contract to build a 360-mile-long railway linking key Iranian destinations that […]

  In your view, does the combat troop withdrawal mean that the mission has been completed successfully? Viewed from all conceivable angles the war must be considered a strategic failure and a humanitarian disaster.  True, the US government, together with its allies primarily the United Kingdom, managed to oust Saddam Hussein who was, by all […]

Veterans for Peace president Mike Ferner responds to President Obama’s rebranded occupation of Iraq. A veteran’s perspective makes it clear that two major points must be made in response to President Obama’s announcement regarding combat troops leaving Iraq. First, there is no such thing as “non-combat troops.”  It is a contradiction in terms.  It is […]

Depending on the poll one consults, anywhere from 54 percent to 61 percent, and as many as 68 percent of Americans, oppose the building of an Islamic community center two blocks from “Ground Zero,” the site of the World Trade Center.  Polls, of course, are notoriously inaccurate measures of public opinion.  Depending on the framing […]

Fox News accuses the Kingdom Foundation, which has funded (State Department-approved) Imam Feisal “I-Am-a-Supporter-of-the-State-of-Israel” Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative (dubbed “Ground Zero Mosque” and even “Terror Mosque” by the nutty Right) in the past, of also funding “radical madrasas all over the world.”  But it fails to mention that the Kingdom Foundation is a […]