Reading University has reminded me, and others, not just that we miss Norman Geras, but that it would be good to hear his views today. Reading University has also reminded us that there is no fool like a learned fool.
Subjects Archives: Terrorism
No nerve agents were used in Syria’s Douma, says OPCW
Certain chlorinated organic residues that were found do not come under the Chemical Warfare Convention, the interim report said.
Russia suggests UK possessed nerve agent that is “quite artificially” being linked to Moscow
Russian officials are voicing a full-throated dismissal of British accusations that Russia used a nerve agent referred to as “Novichok” in an attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The Russian Ambassador to the U.K., Alexander Yakovenko, is further charging London with making accusations in poor faith, while raising questions over whether […]
New CIA director Gina Haspel oversaw torture at a black site then lost evidence of it
As “chief of base” of a CIA Black Site in Thailand, Haspel oversaw the torture and waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, who still hasn’t been charged with a crime.
U.S. massacring hundreds of Syrian civilians every week in Raqqa
The eruption of U.S. imperialist violence in ever more bloody forms is a devastating indictment of all of those political forces which have sought over the past quarter century to portray Washington as the defender of “human rights” and “democracy.”
Seymour Hersh dishes on new exposé upending the official story about Trump and Syrian chemical attacks
Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who famously exposed the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, and more recently, the U.S. military’s abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. This weekend, Hersh reported that the alleged chemical attack in Idlib, Syria, this March was not perpetrated by the Syrian military, as the Trump administration has claimed
Trump ignored intel before bombing Syria
When the US bombed a Syrian military airfield in April, the White House said US intelligence had confirmed the Assad regime used chemical weapons in the town of Khan Sheikhun.… Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh reports US intelligence actually warned president Trump it had no evidence that the Syrian military had used sarin gas.
White phosphorus in Syria, Iraq
Photographs and video clips posted online on June 8 show blinding spots of light over the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. The pictures, distributed by the Amaq News Agency, which is linked to Daesh, and activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, show puffs of white light and smoke, which are signs of white phosphorous.
Curiouser and Curiouser
A story worthy of a mystery author—or dramatist—has been hitting German headlines. It began when police at the Vienna airport in Austria arrested a first lieutenant of the German Bundeswehr army when he picked up a pistol hidden some weeks earlier in a bathroom. He denied it was his and was released. But his fingerprints […]
America’s love affair with Salafi jihadists
Contrary to popular media portrayals, the Middle East wasn’t always plagued by regressive fundamentalism. Salafi jihadist groups like Al Qaeda were not popular in the region. They still aren’t. They have been violently imposed on people thanks in large part to the actions of the US, which has a longstanding pattern of backing religious fundamentalists […]
Samir Amin on the Charlie Hebdo Murders: Imperialism and International Terrorism
The Western errors and neo-liberal damages: Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi knew how to contain the Islamist drift, but they were slaughtered. In Libya, Paris and Washington have it all wrong. We reached Samir Amin — philosopher, economist, and director of the Third World Forum based in Dakar — in Paris by phone, to […]
Call for Solidarity with Kobanê
On Monday, October 6th, ISIS forces entered the autonomous Kurdish canton of Kobanê in Western Kurdistan (North Syria) following a siege which began on September 15th. Defending Kobanê are the skilled but ill-equipped People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), who are up against The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), […]
On Terrorist Attack in Damascus on February 21, 2013
A terrorist car bombing in close proximity to the Russian Embassy in Damascus which occurred on February 21, 2013 and was carried out by a suicide terrorist bomber, resulted in numerous victims and wounded among civilians, including students of a secondary school. The chancellery and the housing compound of the Russian Embassy were significantly […]
Venezuela Strongly Condemns Terrorist Attack in Damascus, Syria
Communiqué The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Comandante Hugo Chávez, in the name of the Bolivarian government and the Venezuelan people strongly condemns the terrorist attack perpetrated today in the city of Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic, causing more deaths of civilians and high-ranking officials of the Syrian government. The Bolivarian government wishes to […]
Venezuela Strongly Condemns Terrorist Attacks in Syria
Communiqué The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Comandante Hugo Chávez, in the name of the Venezuelan people and its government, expresses his strongest condemnation of the series of terrorist attacks perpetrated over the last several hours in the Syrian Arab Republic, which tragically left at least 40 people dead and hundreds wounded. The […]
