Whether Operation Green Hunt actually exists or is, as P. Chidambaram insists, a figment of the media’s imagination, Monday’s deadly Maoist attack on a bus in Dantewada suggests it is the hunted that are doing most of the hunting. Over the past six weeks, the Maoists in Chhattisgarh have killed more than 90 policemen or […]
Subjects Archives: Imperialism
Imperialism, Globalization, and War
India: Responses to the Maoist Attack on a Bus in Dantewada
People’s Union for Civil Liberties, 17 May 2010 PUCL strongly condemns the brutal killing of the innocent civilians traveling in a bus at Chingavaram on the Dantewada-Sukhma road in Chhattisgarh on 17 May 2010. Killing of innocent civilians is the most heinous crime against the humanity and has no justification whatsoever. PUCL feels that […]
Obama Steps Up America’s Covert War against Iran
When, in an Op Ed published in the New York Times in May 2009, we first criticized President Obama’s early decision to continue covert anti-Iranian programs he inherited from George W. Bush, some expressed disbelief that Obama would undermine his own rhetoric about engaging Tehran in a climate of mutual respect by conducting a dirty […]
Thailand: On the Brink of Civil War
UDD Leadership Statement, 16:13 Bangkok Time, 14 May 2010: 1. The government must stop the use of force, cease fire, and immediately withdraw troops back to barracks. The government must end the state of emergency which has been an excuse to kill citizens. 2. Parliament should be dissolved immediately, and Abhisit and Deputy Sutep must […]
What I Like Most about War
What I like most about war is its budget. Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was first published by Granma. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
Mexico: A New Slogan for the Drug War
New Slogan Federal Government: So that drugs won’t get to your children . . . WE ARE KILLING THEM FOR YOU. José Hernández is a Mexican cartoonist. This cartoon — drawn on 23 March 2010 in response to Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs, especially the deaths of Juárezyouth and Monterrey Tec students as its […]
About The War Before
In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black Panther for selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street corner. The young pre-med student felt compelled to intervene in defense of the Panther’s First Amendment right; she ended up handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car. The War Before traces […]
Tricks of the Theatre
The following statement by Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg was delivered outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on May 3, 2010 where supporters of Fahad Hashmi have been gathering since last October to bear witness to the inhumane conditions of Fahad’s detention and to call for an end to the US […]
Iraq Redux: Defectors, Terrorists, and Unnamed Officials in the Media’s Iran Coverage
On April 25, the Washington Post had another piece on Iran, this time on the front page, that could easily have been run about Iraq back in 2002. We have recently criticized the Post for relying on Green Movement partisans for ostensibly objective “analysis” about Iranian politics. This front page article relies almost entirely on […]
Threatening Iran Is Wrong
The antiwar movement everywhere should be extremely alarmed about the Obama Administration’s declaration in April that Washington can target Iran with nuclear weapons. Although vague “all options are on the table” warnings were also issued under George W. Bush, now the threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran is enshrined in the revised […]
Why Are the US and Israel Threatening Iran? And Who Really Rules the World?
Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 while at the same time sending more troops to the Afghanistan War. What has become of the promise of “change”? I am one of the few who are not disillusioned, because I had no expectations. I had written about Obama’s positions and prospects even before […]
Managing Liberalization and Globalization in Rural China: Trends in Rural Labour Allocation, Income and Inequality
Abstract: China’s integration into the global economy, while rapid, has been managed as part of a wider liberalization process. The structural changes in the rural economy arising from these twin processes have led to widening intra-rural inequalities. To address these, the central leadership has, in Polanyian manner, moved to counter some of the adverse […]
Sustained Downward Pressure on House Prices
The Census Bureau reported on Monday that the vacancy rate edged up to 11.0 percent of all housing units in the first quarter of 2010, slightly above the year-round average of 10.9 percent for 2009. The data showed a slight decline of 0.1 percentage points in the vacancy rate for ownership units compared with the […]
An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People
Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which US forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. […]
Chicago Hearing: Does U.S. Policy on Israel and Palestine Uphold Our Values?
Sunday, April 18, 2010 from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM University of Chicago, Ida Noyes Hall Limited Seating, Registration Required at chicagohearing.eventbrite.com Live Webcast from a link at www.chicagohearing.org The Chicago Hearing is modeled after a Congressional Committee fact-finding meeting. It will bring together witnesses to tell seldom-heard stories from Israel-Palestine that raise critical […]
Haiti: There Is Aid, and Then There Is US Aid
EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI Soldiers Health Professionals Victims Assisted United States 10,000 550 871 Cuba 0 1,504 227,143 Source: Comparative figures of contribution to health in Haiti, as of 23 March 2010, based on Emily J. Kirk and John Kirk, “Cuban Medical Aid to Haiti” (CounterPunch, 1 April 2010) / Emily J. Kirk and John […]
Victims of Empire
Jim Frederick. Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. 439 pages. Cloth. $26.00. Black Hearts is not a story about your father’s army, or your grandfather’s — this is a tragic narrative of soldiers of the American empire running amok. In recounting the rape of […]
Our Summer in Tehran
(Phone Message) “Hey, Justine, I just wanted to say, ‘Come back safely.’” May 16, 2007. Tomorrow morning, my son and I leave for Iran. (Phone Message) “Hi, Justine, I want you to be careful and maybe not mention to people that you’re Jewish.” (In-flight Announcement) “. . . We do ask you to respect […]
Civil Warfare in Central India
Maoist guerrilla attack kills 75 security personnel in Dantewada, in the indigenous homelands of Central India. Are security personnel cannon fodder in the ‘Maoist infested’ heartland of India? Should the state send in the Air Force? But what about collateral damage? These are some of the loud speculations in the never-fail-to-miss-the-point mainstream media, the […]
The United States, Iran, and the Middle East’s New “Cold War”
The absence of US-Iranian rapprochement will perpetuate the new Middle Eastern Cold War, imposing costs on the United States, Iran and other regional and international players. However, in strategic terms, the heaviest costs of continued US-Iranian estrangement are likely to be borne by the United States. In particular, lack of productive relations with Tehran will […]
