Geography Archives: Iraq

On May 17, 1987, a double act of Exocet missiles skimmed through the air and slammed into the American Perry-class frigate the USS Stark. The first Exocet antiship missile punched into the warship “at 600 miles per hour and exploded in the forward crew’s quarters.”  The warhead failed to detonate but managed to smash through […]

It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties.  Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country’s forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue. […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its May 2008 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. Today, but few can recall memories of the Bengal famine of 1943 and 1944.  Most disturbingly, after almost two decades of “reform” and a full decade or more […]

Last month, the US House of Representatives amended foreign debt relief legislation to exclude countries with “business interests with Iran.”  The bill, titled the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation (HR 2634), is intended to provide low-income countries relief from debts owed to the United States and international financial institutions. The bill […]

  On Sunday, May 4, 2008, I joined two dozen progressive activists marching in a circle in front of the Bolivian embassy.  Thanks to our spirited presence, 150 or so right-wing Bolivians from the province of Santa Cruz were unable to get in front of the embassy to demonstrate in favor of the autonomy referendum […]

James A. Tyner.  The Business of War: Workers, Warriors, and Hostages in Occupied Iraq.  Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006.  viii + 152 pp.  Bibliography, index.  ISBN 978-0-7546-4791-1. In The Business of War, James A. Tyner provides an engaged and readable synthesis of scholarship and informed polemic produced in response to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation […]

The current global financial crisis is said to originate with a few dodgy “sub-prime” mortgages made by US banks to poor people. Yes, the financial crisis that began in late 2007 is associated with the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market.  But that is just one aspect of a much larger financial crisis and that […]

On May 1st, International Workers’ Day, ten peace activists in Burlington, Vermont entered General Dynamics and locked themselves together in the main lobby of the building in protest against the company’s weapons manufacturing and war profiteering.  University of Vermont student Benjamin Dube, one of the dozens of other activists present at the event, leaned out […]

  (SAN FRANCISCO, CA) More than 25,000 longshore workers at 29 west coast ports are exercising their First Amendment rights today by taking a day off work and calling for an end to the war in Iraq. “Longshore workers are standing-down on the job and standing up for America,” said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath.  “We’re […]

This time the message was delivered by the Pentagon’s own premier educational institute.  The opening line of a report released April 17 by the National Institute for Strategic Studies read: “Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle.” The document goes on […]

April 29th, 2008 On this day of international labour solidarity we call on our fellow trade unionists and all those worldwide who have stood against war and occupation to increase support for our struggle for freedom from occupation — both the military and economic. We call upon the governments, corporations and institutions behind the ongoing […]

The shameful exposition by the American presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton of her genocidal intentions towards Iranians was tragic proof of the dehumanizing impact of warmongering on an elite Western mind.  It is said that humanity is the first casualty of war, and this has been made starkly clear, not only by the murderous boasting of […]

Nicolas Sarkozy has gone out of his way to sound pro-American.  He made a special visit in 2007 to Kennebunkport to have a cozy meeting with George W. Bush.  Since neither spoke the other’s language, they must have had translators.  So perhaps I might be allowed to try to translate what has been going on. […]

No one requires additional proof of the growing hatred that drives the slaughter in Iraq, a country where 95 percent of the population is Muslim —of these, over 60 percent are Shiites and the remainder Sunnis—or the killings in Afghanistan, where over 99 percent of the population is also Muslim —80 percent Sunni and the remainder Shiite. The two nations are also made up of nationalities and ethnic groups of diverse origins and locations.

Several months ago, an English sociologist told us that she was commissioned by her government to conduct a survey of “moderate Muslims.”  The survey was about what a score of Muslim leaders in Great Britain thought about the fight against terrorism, the place of Islam in Europe, religious fundamentalism, etc.  According to the sociologist, not […]

When I was growing up in the 1950s, a photo of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1932-1945) still hung in the homes of some family members and friends.  Our only four-term president was remembered by them as the leader — and even the savior — of the country.  Those like my parents, who experienced the Great […]

  Pledge of Commitment: People of Faith with Palestine in Struggle Our world is in crisis.  We face a growing, more aggressive empire with an insatiable appetite for consuming the resources of our world, subverting justice and humanity by its desire to strengthen its global hegemony; destroying the environment; feeding racist ideologies and practices of […]

The Student Muqtada al-Sadr has decided to take time out of his rebellion for studies.  The increasingly popular Iraqi nationalist and Shi’i religious leader, it was reported late last year, is seeking the title of Ayatollah (“Sign of God”).  Muqtada’s Iraqi supporters presently confer on him the title of Hujjat al-Islam (“Proof of Islam”), although […]

The US media and party election machines have once again transformed the run-up to the US elections into a melodrama.  Across the country, party candidates have been swaggering across stages, surrounded by stars and stripes and CNN logos, to spew out the latest piece of propaganda that the spin doctors have managed to conjure up.  […]

Although it’s been over five years since the United States invaded Iraq, a few non-patriots among us refuse to understand or endorse our wartime zeitgeist.  I have, therefore, persuaded our noble, statuesque Icon of America to gas up her torch and shed some light on a few selfish queries posed by our huddled, recalcitrant masses. […]