Geography Archives: Middle East

While Americans hailed the announcement that the U.S. would withdraw troops from Afghanistan after nearly two decades of war, President Biden left out the most important details about the war and how it will in fact continue.

After twenty years, the United States government–and the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)–will depart from Afghanistan. They said that they came to do two things: to destroy al-Qaeda, which had launched an attack on the United States on 11 September 2001, and to destroy the Taliban, which had given al-Qaeda a base.

At the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) convention last week, party members overwhelmingly passed a motion to sanction Israel. The policy book forthe center-left political party, which has existed in Canada since 1961, will now include a boycott of goods from illegal settlements and an arms embargo on the country.

The Saudi offer of a ceasefire in Yemen on 22 March was an acknowledgement by Riyadh and its backers in Washington that they had lost the war.

Israel has accused Iran of doing many nefarious things. But the historical record shows that whatever Israel accuses Iran of, it is likely that Israel is already doing it.

Palestinians affirm, yet again, that one cannot be a feminist while supporting gendered violence, settler-colonialism, indigenous dispossession, and apartheid.

In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, the ruling pigs led by Napoleon constantly rewrote history in order to justify and reinforce their own continuing power. The rewriting by the western powers of the history of the ongoing conflict in Syria leaps out of Orwell. 

The initial coalition against Syria has collapsed, with Turkey frustrated over the U.S.’ sustained support for the Kurds and the Arabs pivoting back to Syria.

The OPCW investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria.

Thousands of people displaced in the last eight years have returned to their towns liberated from terrorism in the coastal region of Latakia province, 337 kilometers north-west of Damascus.

How corporate media sell regime change, Intervention and war to progressive audiences.

Activist and scholar says he is being denied tenure at Harvard University because of his views on Israeli occupation.

Ken Loach, thankfully no smear campaign against him can succeed. Not only because Ken’s work and life are proof of the accusation’s absurdity, but also because of the courageous Israelis who take awful risks by defending the right of Jews and non-Jews alike to criticise Israel.

On orders of President Biden, the United States has launched an airstrike on a facility in Syria. As of this writing the exact number of killed and injured is unknown, with early reports claiming “a handful” of people were killed.

TURKEY’S revolutionary forces said today that protests centered on Bogazici University must remain a fight against fascism and oppression—not for “liberal ideas of academic freedom.”

“The Mauritanian,” directed by Kevin Macdonald, is the first feature film to dramatize how the war on terror became a war in court.

No state has an intrinsic “right to exist.” As international relations scholar Scott Burchill points out, there is no abstract “right to exist” in international law, or in “any serious theory of international relations.”

Sixty-five people were detained in Istanbul last week after a press conference announcing the launch of a new opposition alliance, the United Fighting Forces (BMG).

Trump was too busy nursing his grudge to bother with overseas matters, but both his son-in-law and secretary of state rushed through a package of foreign policy initiatives and policies, writes As`ad AbuKhalil.

In fact, those weren’t really separate horror shows: they were instalments of one long horror show.