Subjects Archives: Imperialism

  I recently spent three weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India.  As a guest of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development), I traveled across central and eastern India visiting the sites of proposed industrial and mining projects, Special Economic Zones, and real estate developments.  I spoke […]

Notwithstanding the renewed public concern about the economy in the wake of the implosion of the global financial architecture, the so-called “war on terror” remains at the forefront of the American presidential election campaign as it heads into its final stretch.  Despite continuing popular opposition to Washington’s blatant empire-building policies both within the US and around the world, both Messrs. Obama and McCain are reiterating their commitment to good, old-fashioned American-style war making.  Indeed, how to take forward the Project for a New American Century will almost certainly be the preeminent issue facing the new occupant of the White House come January.

  For years, the U.S. never considered Africa as a priority foreign policy agenda.  The only context in which Africa came up in Washington was for preferential trade as in AGOA (Africa Growth & Opportunity Act) or in AIDS funding from PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and of course humanitarian assistance.  Despite its […]

Herbert Langer, The Thirty Years’ War, Trans.C. S. V. Salt, Blandford Press, 1980 The seventeenth century was ruled by an aristocratic caste that no longer exists, save in the minds of the credulous and easily-deceived.   It was an imaginary caste of devils, angels, and other powers now consigned to oblivion.  For peasant and prelate, soldier […]

Friends, Enemies, and “Existential” Threats In the ceaseless and invariably bellicose calls for war (both open and clandestine) against Iran, perhaps one argument invoked by pro-war pundits and politicians stands out and takes pride of place above all others: Iran, it is claimed, “poses an existential threat to the state of Israel.”  It’s certainly been […]

  In a statement drafted in scrupulously selected terms and circulated with exceptional discretion, the so-called U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) has publicly confessed to having squandered taxpayers’ money in its dirty war on Cuba. It did so in the face of warnings by certain scandalized congress members and the embarrassing revelations of audits […]

  Our country is facing a dramatic situation.  We have suffered the wrath of two powerful hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, in just eight days.  These natural disasters have seriously affected food production and essential sectors of the economy throughout the country.  Although very few human lives were lost, a massive amount of houses, schools and […]

Washington, DC – A poll commissioned by The Israel Project, an international non-profit formed to present a “more positive public face” for Israel, has found a strikingly large percentage of Americans view Iran as a major threat, leading them to support possible military action.  Serious questions remain however about the validity of the results due […]

Anti-Muslim material — the short film Fitna and the Danish cartoons spring to mind — usually raise hell when they first appear. They also raise some interesting questions. The propagandists have certainly enjoyed their handiwork.  Vilifying the enemy flavor of the month always wins vigorous rounds of applause (and money) from the right quarters.  The […]

  The question of responsibility for the conflict in the Caucasus didn’t trouble us for long.  Less than a week after the Georgian attack, two French commentators, experts on all things, pronounced it “obsolete.”  An influential American neo-conservative had set the tone for them.  Knowing who started the conflict is “not very important,” Robert Kagan […]

Modern economic class struggle, the unremitting, sometimes hidden, sometimes open, fight between capitalists and workers that erupted in the 19th century and dominated the 20th, is taking on new forms and dimensions in the 21st century. The stakes of this continuing conflict are higher than they have ever been.  Every aspect of human life on […]

The world has been witness this month to a mini-war in the Caucasus, and the rhetoric has been passionate, if largely irrelevant.  Geopolitics is a gigantic series of two-player chess games, in which the players seek positional advantage.  In these games, it is crucial to know the current rules that govern the moves. Knights are […]

Asunción, 15 August (EFE) — Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano today publicly apologized to Paraguayans for the war that his country, allied with Argentina and Brazil, fought against Paraguay between 1865 and 1870. “Let me take this opportunity to apologize as an Uruguayan, because that [imperialist] punishment [for the crime of protecting the workers and products […]

  Hailed as a subversive action flick for its portrayal of weapons industry corruption, Iron Man is a disappointing techno-imperialist fantasy, but its special effects will keep die-hard gadget fetishists on the edge of their seats. Based on Marvel’s successful Cold War-era comic book, Iron Man tells the story of American überman Tony Stark (Robert […]

“Georgia is a sovereign nation and its territorial integrity must be respected.”  Had George Bush said what he said about Georgia from Beijing about Serbia as well, this is how he would have approached the so-called independence of Kosovo.  The truth, of course, is far from this.  The US was the first country to recognize […]

Perhaps some governments are unaware of the concrete facts, and so for that reason Raúl’s message setting Cuba’s position seemed to us to be very timely. I shall be generous in the aspects that cannot be dealt with in a brief and precise official statement.

  Thank you for the opportunity to speak.  I want to thank also our friends in Hokkaido for the excellent preparation for this symposium. When we heard the news of the G8 Summit taking place in Toyako, we thought that we should urge the government of Japan, as the only country that has been bombed […]

As much as we enjoy puns in titles, Stephen Zunes’ recent defense of Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) in the article “Sharp Attack Unwarranted,” doesn’t have much else going for it.  Zunes spends most of his time diverting attention from the real issues: the AEI’s role in imperial projects, a role which is politically […]

Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I Part 1: Surprise Attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuRoWA-t2B0 Part 2: Military Disaster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG-bj-G5me4 Part 3: The Dardanelles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFVyEWsh5Q Part 4: Suez Advance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbDS3yqQ3a0 Part 5: Gallipoli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Kl8hLOIvk Part 6: Iraq Expedition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4bUWGBbKr8 Part 7: Caucasus Front https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SudftJJvKuo Part 8: Iraq Revisited https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iUcIg28TYs Part 9: Desert War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kC5BvoyYmc Part […]

  On the occasion of US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin, Christine Buchholz, a member of the Left Party executive board, comments: Many hopes are tied to Barack Obama, since George W. Bush is the most unpopular American President ever, and Obama promises to improve the social situation and bring the Iraq […]