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This year, Ramadan—the ninth month of the Islamic year, in which observant Muslims fast to commemorate the revelation of the Quran—happens to coincide with most of Gay Pride month. Quiet as it’s kept, there are uncounted numbers of queer Muslims in the gay community. One of them is Izzadine Mustafa.
Declassified documents released last week shed light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s central role in the 1953 coup that brought down Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh, fueling a surge of nationalism which culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and poisoning U.S.-Iran relations into the 21st century.
When the US bombed a Syrian military airfield in April, the White House said US intelligence had confirmed the Assad regime used chemical weapons in the town of Khan Sheikhun.… Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh reports US intelligence actually warned president Trump it had no evidence that the Syrian military had used sarin gas.
President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack.
Photographs and video clips posted online on June 8 show blinding spots of light over the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. The pictures, distributed by the Amaq News Agency, which is linked to Daesh, and activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, show puffs of white light and smoke, which are signs of white phosphorous.
In a new video Syria Civil Defense members—popularly know as the “White Helmets,” the Nobel Prize-nominated group that has received at least $23 million in funding from USAID (a wing of the State Department)—are shown assisting in a public execution in a rebel-held town in Syria. It is at least the second such execution video […]
“There were always two parallel streams in the Syrian uprising at the beginning. The civil activists who wanted democratic reform and change in the form of a secular state, and the conservative stream, which was markedly more Islamist and sectarian in its tone and demands.… the former was mostly urban, the latter rural.… As the […]
With a few days to go to Iran’s upcoming presidential elections on 19 May, six candidates could survive the vetting process of the Guardian Councils.… The role of the media, both in Iran and throughout the diaspora, to shape public opinion is significant. Iranian state media, radio and television are supposed to give the “hopefuls” […]
The information contained within the 2017 edition of the National Footprint Accounts, and especially its elegant publishing platform, will be useful to critics of the status quo maintained by the major capitalist economic powers. To make sense of the data critically, however, one must go far beyond the explanation given below, as root causes are […]
The anti-Russia bandwagon has gained so much momentum that a national frenzy is boosting the odds of unfathomable catastrophe. Vast efforts to portray Donald Trump as Vladimir Putin’s flunky have given Trump huge incentives to prove otherwise. Last Thursday, he began the process in a big way by ordering a missile attack on Russia’s close […]
The people that have written about Rania [Khalek] publicly range from truly creepy stalkers to left academics who fired off a quick set of libels and then expressed dismay at the responses to them. But other than people talking about her, it is in fact rather difficult to find any sources for these “views” of […]
The article discusses surveillance in today’s capitalist society with a reference to a recent revelation that the German intelligence agency spied upon scores of foreign journalists.
Contrary to popular media portrayals, the Middle East wasn’t always plagued by regressive fundamentalism. Salafi jihadist groups like Al Qaeda were not popular in the region. They still aren’t. They have been violently imposed on people thanks in large part to the actions of the US, which has a longstanding pattern of backing religious fundamentalists […]
Russia’s strategic alliance with Iran is at the heart of global tensions, and the speed and ferocity of statements by the new U.S. administration do little to allay concerns.… The crusading language of the new US administration is alarming and is engineered to promote “Iranophobia.” Once again the narrative that the Islamic Republic is on […]
2016 was a very difficult year for the Egyptians. Most—both the average man and the political caste—even say it was / is the worst year in the country’s history. Attacking the “revolution” or uprising of 2011, its aims, symbols and representatives, has no longer become an excess of some “Mubarakists”, but obviously, the policy of […]
Do federal courts have the legitimate power to block Presidential orders concerning immigration and border control? Yes. Article 3 of the constitution gives them that power. In the current controversy, we should remind ourselves of this fragile and endangered separation of powers, on which we now rely as a bulwark against racism, bigotry and xenophobia.
Since 2011, the torrent of ill-informed, inaccurate and often entirely dishonest analysis of events in Syria has been unremitting. I have written previously about the dangers of using simplistic explanations to make sense of the conflict, a problem that has surfaced repeatedly over the past five years. However, there is a greater problem at large.
This dream. Something is in the house, something’s breaking, the things I love are going away. I reach for Laura, she becomes translucent, evaporates. I wake up, telling myself this dream means I’m worried about how tired and worn Laura has grown from years of activist work trying to get people out of prison. I’ve […]
1. The recent election of Donald Trump after Brexit, the rise of fascist votes in Europe, but also and much better, the electoral victory of SYRIZA and the rise of Podemos are all manifestations of the depth of the crisis of the system of globalized neoliberalism. This system, which I have always considered unsustainable, is […]
The escalating attack on worker rights in the United States has taken several forms in recent years. In some American states, right-wing politicians have passed laws denying public employees such as teachers, janitors, police, and firefighters the right to organize into unions and bargain collectively. Some of these laws strip recognition and power from existing […]
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