Tariq Ali says in an interview with Der Standard: To continue its war in Afghanistan, the US accepts the risk of destabilizing Pakistan. But only a regional diplomatic approach can help. STANDARD: How would you evaluate the danger often invoked today that Pakistan is collapsing and its nuclear weapons may fall into the hands […]
Subjects Archives: Imperialism
Imperialism, Globalization, and War
Action Boycott Israel in Montigny, Paris Region
This action was led by the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA), especially Omar Slaouti, who heads the NPA list in Île-de-France, as well as by Senator Alima Boumediene-Thiery (Greens), conducted in a clear, educational fashion, with the participation of many local politicians. The NPA walks the walk, demonstrating that the call for the boycott of […]
From Blunder to Blunder in Afghanistan
“I also made it clear that the United States will work with our Afghan and international partners to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties as we help the Afghan government combat our common enemy,” US President Barack Obama promised. He received his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari at […]
Mexican Human Rights Organizations Speak Out against US Militarization of Mexico
On May 6, 67 Mexican human rights organizations (all non-governmental organizations) along with several other Mexican organizations and individuals, made a call to end US support to the Mexican military in the war on drugs. The letter came after the approval of the 2009 installment of the controversial three-year Merida initiative which provides US […]
Antonio Giustozzi, Researcher, London School of Economics and Political Science: “The New Afghan Taliban Are Waging a Real Guerrilla War”
Antonio Giustozzi, a researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, is one of the internationally recognized specialists on the Taliban. Author of Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press, 2008) among other books, this academic divides his time between London and Afghanistan. Talking to Le Monde in […]
Stanford Anti-War Alumni, Students Call for Condi War Crimes Probe
During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War. Veterans of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement had gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion during the weekend. The […]
Energy (and Empire) in World History
Introduction Vaclav Smil’s Energy in World History (1994) provides an overview of global changes in human energy use from before the Neolithic Revolution to modern times. In various places in the book, Smil discusses the relationship between energy use and the rise of centers of economic and political power in world history. In explaining what […]
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built: The Cases of Margo Ramlal Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao, and Loretta Capeheart
Earlier this month, the jury in Ward Churchill‘s civil trial against the University of Colorado found, in his favor, that the university had fired him because of critical remarks he made after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While Churchill awaits a hearing on his ongoing employment at the university, this victory is […]
Trade Union Leader Bala Tampoe on the Sri Lankan War
Al Jazeera reports today that “the Sri Lankan government has given them [Tamil Tigers] till noon on Tuesday to surrender or face further military action. . . . It’s not known how many civilians are trapped inside the Tamil Tigers’ last stronghold. The government here in Colombo put it at around 60,000. The United Nations […]
Rethink Afghanistan
Part 1: Afghanistan + More Troops = Catastrophe Part 2: Pakistan: “The Most Dangerous Country” Part 3: Cost of War Anand Gopal, Afghanistan Correspondent, Christian Science Monitor: The United States has only forces to go and control certain urban areas. . . . They don’t have the troop size, nor could they conceivably ever […]
Patterns of Adjustment in the Age of Finance: The Case of Turkey as a Peripheral Agent of Neoliberal Globalization
Abstract Following the 2000-01 crisis, Turkey implemented an orthodox strategy of raising interest rates and maintaining an overvalued exchange rate. But, contrary to the traditional stabilization packages that aim to increase interest rates to constrain domestic demand, the new orthodoxy aimed at maintaining high interest rates to attract speculative foreign capital. The end result was […]
Gringo: Reviewing a North American Anti-imperialist Student’s Experience of Latin America
Chesa Boudin, Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America, 240 pages, Scribner (April 2009). Chesa Boudin’s South American travel memoir and coming of age story Gringo is good and useful on several levels. It’s a poetically personal On the Road for a new generation and a vivid primer in the human cost of […]
Chávez: The Empire of the Dollar Is Coming to an End
Proposal for the Creation of the “Petro” Currency Should Not Be Seen in Isolation Caracas, 31 Mar (ABN) — The proposal of the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, to create a new currency called the “Petro” should not be seen in isolation from what is happening in today’s global economy, said the governor of […]
Changing the Rules of War
The extent of Israel’s brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: “That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a […]
Investigate the Israeli Missile Contract
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: Investigate the Israeli Missile Contract The Rs. 10,000 crore missile production deal with an Israeli company, the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), has now been exposed as a deal involving massive kickbacks besides being an unnecessary contract. The Left parties […]
Protests Mark the Sixth Anniversary of the Iraq War
From the Bush Wars (more Iraq than Afghanistan) to the Obama Wars (more Afghanistan and Pakistan than Iraq). . . . Scenes from the “March on the Pentagon” RallyVideo by William Hughes Hollywood San Francisco Atlanta St. Paul, Minnesota Madison Tacoma
Decolonization’s Rocky Road: Corruption, Expropriation, and Justice in Bolivia
Over 3,000 Bolivian and Peruvian indigenous activists recently marched in El Alto in commemoration of the March 13th, 1781 siege of La Paz, Bolivia launched from El Alto by indigenous rebels Tupac Katari and Bartolina Sisa. The siege was against Spanish rule and for indigenous liberation in the Andes. At a gathering the night before […]
Mess O’Potamia — The Iraq War Is Over
Barack Obama announces that everyone is coming home except for several dozen thousands of soldiers. President Barack Obama: Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end. Jon Stewart: War — is — over . . . . (swaying to the song “Happy Xmas […]
The Soils of War: The Real Agenda behind Agricultural Reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq
In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and […]
Sharia in Pakistan’s Swat
Part 1 Part 2 Cf. Kamran Rehmat, “Swat: Pakistan’s Lost Paradise” (Al Jazeera, 27 January 2009); “‘Peace March’ in Pakistan’s Swat” (Al Jazeera, 19 January 2009); Sanjeev Miglani, “Pakistan Islamists in a Deal with China Communists: a Sign of the Times?” (Pakistan: Now or Never? 19 February 2009); Patrick Goodenough, “Turn to China, Islamists […]
