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Geography Archives: Middle East

Adirondack Drive

It had snowed the night before.  It was a cold spring day, and we were headed up the NY Northway from Troy to Plattsburg for a college interview for my son.  The sun was making fitful attempts to come out from behind the snow clouds. When we passed out of the morning traffic coming down […]

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Deir Yassin Remembered

On 9 April 1948, the Irgun and the Stern Gang, with the approval of the Haganah, attacked Deir Yassin, a village of about 750 Palestinians, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Over 100 men, women, and children were massacred, and 53 orphaned children were left along the wall of the Old City.  The Deir Yassin […]

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Soha Béchara, Ex-Lebanese Militant, Attacked by the Swiss Far Right [Soha Béchara, ex-militante libanaise, en butte à l’extrême droite suisse]

Soha Béchara, 39 ans, est une figure emblématique de la résistance à l’occupation israélienne dans le Liban sud. Cette ex-militante communiste a été emprisonnée durant dix ans, sans jugement, dans la prison de Khiam, après avoir tenté d’assassiner, en novembre 1988, en pleine guerre, le général Antoine Lahad, chef de l’Armée du Liban sud (ALS), […]

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The Internationalization of Genocide

Havana.  April 4, 2007 The Camp David meeting has just ended.  We all listened with interest to the press conference by the presidents of the United States and Brazil, as well as news about the meeting and opinions stated. Confronted by the demands of his Brazilian visitor regarding import tariffs and subsidies that protect and […]

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Regarding “The New SDS”

The following is Bernardine Dohrn’s letter to The Nation regarding Christopher Phelps’ “The New SDS“ published in its 16 April 2007 issue. — Ed. The Nation Chicago Christopher Phelps has written a timely but ultimately disappointing article about the vibrant and growing student movement.  He transforms the tough challenges of movement-building into a set of […]

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Keep on Pushin’

TODAY’S ANTIWAR DILEMMAS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE In March 1965, before ordering the first deployment of U.S. ground troops to Vietnam (U.S. “advisers” had been there for years) President Lyndon Johnson told Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara: “I don’t think anything is gonna be as bad as losing, and I don’t see any way of winning.” […]

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What’s Next? Interview with Ron Jacobs

  Ron Jacobs is the author of the first comprehensive history of the Weather Underground: The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground.  His articles, essays and reviews have appeared in CounterPunch, Monthly Review,  MRZine, Alternative Press Review, Jungle World, Works in Progress, State of Nature, and a multitude of other places.  Ron […]

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Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts

Dear Peter Pace, As a lesbian, I often turn, in my quest for moral guidance, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  You, Peter Pace, being Chairman of the JCS, are to me a virtual guru of ethical enlightenment!  So, naturally, I was struck by your recent Chicago Tribune interview, in which you said, “I believe […]

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A Compendium on the Iraq War

  Judging by the intensity of the debate that plagued much of the 2004 presidential election, the divisiveness of the Vietnam war has not been resolved.  If anything it has festered, inflamed by similar concerns and questions regarding the legality, morality, purpose, and necessity of the war in Iraq.  The continued polemic about a war […]

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Iran and Iraq: Fake Maritime Boundaries

Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, is also a former head of the Foreign Office’s maritime section, who was personally involved in negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.  His 27 and 28 March 2007 blog entries disputing the British claim that its sailors, seized by Iran, were in Iraqi […]

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Capitalism’s Three Oscillations and the US Today

Throughout its history and across its geography, capitalism has swung back and forth between private and state forms.  The former reduces while the latter enlarges the state’s intervention in the economy.  The economic events that precipitate swings (in both directions) have been various mixes of recession and widening inequality.  Political oscillations have paralleled the economic. […]

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Capital and Empire: An Interview with John Bellamy Foster

Q.  2007 is the 140th anniversary of the publication of Volume One of Marx’s Capital.  In your opinion, what is its main contribution to understanding contemporary capitalism? Marx’s object in Capital was to explain capital as a social relation in the fullest dialectical sense and in the process to describe its law(s) of motion.  I […]

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Canada and World Order after the Wreckage

The active imagining of an alternate global politics could hardly be more pressing.  Mounting global inequalities, the turbulence of climate change, and recurring military interventions by Western powers have been the daily fare of the neoliberal world order.  This world order was constructed over the last two decades under the hegemony of the U.S., in […]

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International Campaign for Freedom of Thought and Creativity and for Solidarity with the Egyptian Novelist and Writer Nawal El Saadawi

The Egyptian writer and novelist Nawal El Saadawi well known both in the Arab world and internationally is facing a political and religious campaign mounted against her by the authorities of Al-Azhar.  Basing themselves on a play written by her entitled “God Resigns at the Summit Meeting” published during the month of January 2007 in […]

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Losing the “Influencers”

In the jargon of military recruiters, “influencers” is the term used to refer to the family members, close friends, and peers of those young women and men who are considering enlistment in the U.S. armed forces.  It’s the circle of people in the daily home, school, work, religious, and social life of the potential inductee […]

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Life Under Occupation in Iraq

Local 2627, DC 37, AFSCME interviews labor leader Houzan Mahmoud. This interview was conducted on March 5, 2007, at an event sponsored by the Center for Study of Working Class Life and cosponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW).  Houzan Mahmoud is the international representative of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in […]

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