Subjects Archives: War

  I see you being dropped off.  I stop the movement of my scope and then I center the crosshairs on you . . . and on you waving the driver goodbye.  He drives away . . . leaving you behind at the place where three roads meet, behind the date grove on the other […]

Absent from Israeli and most other TV networks are the ongoing activism and protest inside Israel against Israel’s siege and, now, war on Gaza.  Immediately below is a video report on two of many such actions.  In Hebrew and Arabic, they nevertheless offer glimpses of current activism in Israel.  The first segment documents a demonstration […]

  “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]

  “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]

  “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]

  “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]

Within the political and intellectual circles in the country I am living in, and maybe even beyond, in mainland Europe and North America, an ignorant and insidiously complacent attitude towards the war in Afghanistan is more or less taken for granted.  At the time of writing it is exemplified in the few editorials, scholarly analyses […]

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.

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 […]

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 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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]

Nine US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this week in a major attack attributed to the Taliban. More US troops have been killed in Afghanistan than Iraq in the past several months. We can expect as a result that the Democrats and their Presidential candidate Obama will intensify their calls for shifting the “war […]