Geography Archives: Middle East

“No genuine democratic nationalist movement in the world has ever asked for any imperialist intervention.” — Aijaz Ahmad Aijaz Ahmad is a Marxist critic in India.  Prabir Purkayastha is a member of the Delhi Science Forum.  Video by NewsClick (15 February 2012).  See, also, Prabir Purkayastha, “Why Syria Matters: Interview with Aijaz Ahmad” (27 November […]

Attempting to latch onto the just, vital, and growing movement in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Gilad Atzmon is one of a very small and unrepresentative group of writers who have argued (in agreement with many Zionists) that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between Jews in general and Israeli atrocities. […]

“Perception is 100 percent of politics,” the old adage goes.  Say something three, five, seven times, and you start to believe it in the same way you “know” aspirin is good for the heart. Sometimes, though, perception is a dangerous thing.  In the dirty game of politics, it is the perception — not the facts […]

Recent pro-Syria protests in Tunis, Tunisia, against foreign interventions in Syria . . . 19 February 2012 21 February 2012 24 February 2012 See, also, the Communist Workers’ Party, et al.’s joint statement against foreign interventions in Syria: . | Print

  Famous Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie recently directed a movie called In the Land of Blood and Honey in which Serbs are depicted as raping Muslim women prisoners during the Bosnian War.  As the movie doesn’t show the conduct of Bosnian soldiers, among the Serbian public it has been characterized as one-sided and anti-Serbian.  We […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

Translation of the TeleSur & RT tweets by Yoshie Furuhashi. | Print

  We all know it from the movies of Costa-Gavras: once “the leaders of the free world” start visiting your country frequently, carnage won’t be far behind. Nowadays, the capital city of Turkey, Ankara, looks very much like the set of a Costa-Gavras movie (except, of course, what we really want to see happens off-camera). […]

The attempt by sectarian Syrian oppositionists to silence Bahraini and Palestinian voices documented below by Maath Musleh and Sara Yasin occurred at a demonstration ostensibly for all Arab revolts organized by Amnesty International at Trafalgar Square, London, 11 February 2011. (It is noteworthy, though, that Amnesty International itself gives top billing to Syria in its […]

Still stinging from the “travesty” of their defeat in the United Nations Security Council over the weekend, the United States and the “international community” have already begun to hatch their next ploy for intervention into Syria. On Monday — with the Security Council, and ostensibly diplomacy as well, having been deemed “neutered” by Secretary of […]

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the Secretary General of Hezbollah.  This speech was delivered on 7 February 2012.  The tweets above are Mazen Shaer‘s translation of the speech, plus one note of his and one note of sshusma‘s.  See, also, twitter.com/#!/Amani_Lebanon, twitter.com/#!/les_politiques, and twitter.com/#!/rania_masri for other translations and notes. | Print

  Communiqué The heads of state and government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) reiterate their condemnation of the systematic policy of interference in and destabilization of the brother Syrian Arab Republic, the aim of which is to impose, by force, regime change on the Syrian people. The ALBA member […]

  Jorge Insunza: Look, the Communist Party of Syria, which is a great, serious, and responsible Communist Party and which is not part of the Syrian government, says that it is necessary for Syria to make progress in the deepening of the real exercise of democratic rights.  That there have been flaws and errors is […]

  Excerpt: 26. In Homs and Dera’a, the Mission observed armed groups committing acts of violence against Government forces, resulting in death and injury among their ranks.  In certain situations, Government forces responded to attacks against their personnel with force.  The observers noted that some of the armed groups were using flares and armour-piercing projectiles. […]

Dear Amnesty ([email protected]): “Russia’s threats to abort a binding UN resolution on Syria for the second time are utterly irresponsible,” said José Luis Díaz, Amnesty’s representative to the UN.  “Russia bears a heavy responsibility for allowing the brutal crackdown to continue.”1 With Libya still suffering the lethal consequences of western military “liberation,” with Iran gravely […]

a This is the full-text of the introductory remarks made by the author at the Fourth Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy on 20th January 2012 at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. I woke up this morning to the chirping sounds of the swallows.  Arundhati Roy seems to have brought in those love-birds that […]

One state or two?  Boycott of Israeli goods or goods from the settlements?  Is the lobby the genesis of American wrongdoing in Palestine or is it imperialism?  The questions — regarding vision, strategy, and analysis — produce sharp cleavages on the Left.  Indeed, generally ones much deeper than they need to be.  And they remain […]

Below is a statement by the UNAC CC on the assassination of Iranian scientists and the growing threat of war against Iran. Also, UNAC members participated in a national conference call on Tuesday with many other antiwar and Iranian groups.  The meeting called for demonstrations on February 4 to protest the threat of war against […]

  Jeremy Salt: I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that a large number of military, of civilians, have been killed by armed gangs and by defectors.  So, what we actually need to do is to disaggregate these (casualty) figures.  How many people have been killed by the Syrian Army?  How many of them […]

At yesterday’s meeting I saw the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, absolutely calm and composed, completely indifferent to Yankee threats, confident in his people’s capacity to confront any aggression and in the efficacy of Iran’s arms, which are in large part produced by Iranians themselves, for the purpose of imposing on aggressors an impossibly high cost. […]