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30 September, 2014

US Ramps Up War In Syria
By Peter Symonds

As US and allied warplanes continued to strike targets inside Syria, the Obama administration is marshalling support for a war that is more and more explicitly aimed against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rather than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Obama Reconsiders Attacking Assad
By Shamus Cooke

Sometimes bad ideas die slowly. It was only one year ago that Obama announced he would bomb the Syrian government, only to change his mind at the last minute. Now the same fetid war talk is sprouting fresh roots in the ever-fertile U.S. military. Various media outlets reported that Obama might “enforce a no fly zone in Syria to protect civilians from the Syrian government.”

Hong Kong : The ‘Umbrella Revolution'
Text And Photos By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

The “Hong Kong Wall of Shame” is filling up with yellow ribbons which are giving a sharp tone to the true sound of freedom. The barrier is no longer a barrier, it has turned into a tool of expression and expectation of the future. Iron bars surrounding the legislative council, known as LegCo, has been renamed the “Hong Kong Wall of Shame” by the protestors

Hong Kong Democracy Protest Demands Real Democracy
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

The recent democracy movement in Hong Kong has awakened the Chinese authorities from blinking slumber that not everything is smooth in its internationally successful territory. The development of which was not its contribution but of UK which made it a real world capital

Unity Or Separation? – Did The Scots Decide Sensibly?
By Saral Sarkar

The peoples of the world should rather pull together. They should cooperate and jointly seek solutions to the great problems humanity is facing today. The movements for splitting up existing states are therefore a very deplorable and reprehensible development, especially since they involve the risk of violent conflict, even civil war

Columbus: Buff And Ready For Genocide
By Mickey Z.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the estimated pre-1492 population of what is now called the United States ranges from 5 million to 15 million. By the late 1800s, the number of indigenous people was down to 25,000. Such a holocaust is only possible if the long traditional of dehumanization is utilized as a shield of denial

How American Intelligence Works In The Twenty-First Century
By Tom Engelhardt

You could, of course, say that the world is simply a hard place to know and the future, with its eternal surprises, is one territory that no country, no military, no set of intelligence agencies can occupy, no matter how much they invest in doing so. An inability to predict the lay of tomorrow's land may, in a way, be par for the course. If so, however, remind me: Why exactly are we supporting 17 versions of intelligence gathering to the tune of at least $68 billion a year?

What Is The Real Truth?
By Tim Gatto

I will definitely boycott the Federal elections in November. I'll vote in the local elections and the Statewide elections, but Congress critters and Senators are out of the question. Why you may ask? The reason being is that there is just nobody I would like to vote for, and the reason for that is because there isn't much difference between Democrats and Republicans. Sure, there are "cosmetic" differences", gay marriage, women's rights, gun control and voter suppression, but in the long run, neither party does anything about those issues

Kashmir: Case For International Aid
By Zahid G. Mohammad

Whatever little relief people have been getting even on date is from the local initiatives. But in view of harsher winter ahead international intervention and support for saving further catastrophe has become imperative. The United Nations and its allied humanitarian organizations need to know that as temperature falls, recording minus 13 degree Celsius in plains or as low as minus twenty in areas near to hills, life in Kashmir is likely to get threatened

29 September, 2014

Massive Military Escalation Planned In Syria And Iraq
By Patrick Martin

The comments this weekend by spokesmen for the White House, the Pentagon and US Congress are part of an orchestrated campaign to stampede the American people into an all-out war in Iraq and Syria that could spread quickly throughout the Middle East. The drumbeat for war has been carefully worked out to prepare public opinion in the United States and internationally for a dramatic escalation in military operations in the region, including the direct and open targeting of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad

The US' Unauthorized Air Strikes In Syria: Against Or Favouring Sunni Extremism?
By Dr. Peter Custers

The UN should immediately take the US to task and demand it halt its unjust war waged together with intolerant Wahhabi regimes

Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate":
A Book That Should Be Widely Read

Book Review By Kim Scipes

“You know your government has failed when your grandma starts to riot”: A Review of Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

Extracting Ourselves From The Extractivist Mindset: Review Of
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate Book Review

By Robert Jensen

Naomi Klein has written a brave book that not only confronts the calamity of climate destabilization but also examines the deep roots of the crisis in the perverse logic of capitalism and the dehumanizing values of the “extractivist” high-energy/high-technology world

Is Dissolving The Palestinian Authority An Essential Next Step?
By Alan Hart

The Obama administration or those who write its scripts must think that all of us who support the Palestinian claim for justice are stupid. It described Palestinian Authority President Abbas’s statement (during his speech to the UN General Assembly) that Israel’s last war on the Gaza Strip was a “genocidal crime” as “offensive and provocative” and one that “undermined peace efforts.” Peace efforts? There are no peace efforts to be undermined! And that causes me to return to the theme of my last post which was headlined Obama takes hypocrisy to new high levels

Should Bangladesh Take Al-Zawahri’s Threats Seriously?
By Taj Hashmi

The answer to the question planted in the title of this article is a definitive “NO”. There is absolutely no reason to take Ayman al-Zawahiri seriously or consider his threats “ominous”. If al Qaeda could, it would have attacked Bangladesh by now

Truth & Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) Can Overcome
Huge Inequities Suffered By African Americans Under American Apartheid

By Dr Gideon Polya

African Americans lack political power and suffer huge disparities in wealth, income and opportunity despite the fact that they constitute 12.6% of the US population. This essay systematically summarizes the major inequities suffered by African Americans and the deficiencies of the present African American leadership in a neoconservative- and Zionist-dominated American Apartheid lobbyocracy and corporatocracy

The TTIP Trojan Horse: Selling Out Europe To US Corporate Plunder
By Colin Todhunter

Do people in Europe want the likes of Monsanto determining policies in secretive meetings in Brussels? Would they like Unilever, Kraft or Nestle determining what is allowed in their food? Do they want big business removing or weakening health and safety standards and undermining consumer and workers' rights?

Jayalalitha Behind The Bars: A Post-Modernist Phantasmagoria
By Maharathi

The reality is a far cry, indeed, fully know the hoi polloi. At teashops, hairdressing salons, streetcorners and markets the commons pose the question: “Well! ‘Amma’ (Ms. Jayalalithaa) convicted… what about other politicians… don’t they have assets disproportional to their income?’’ Such queries keep swirling among endless debates that echo in refined intellectual parlances at educated fora

28 September, 2014

The Escalating US War In Iraq And Syria
By Peter Symonds

The real scope and purpose of Washington’s escalating war in the Middle East is rapidly coming into relief as the Pentagon boosts its military forces in Iraq, more European allies commit warplanes and the media drumbeat grows for the US to directly target the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Cameron Leads Britain Into War Again
By Colin Todhunter

The UK parliament has voted in favour of British involvement in air strikes on Syria and Iraq. On Saturday 27 September, RAF Tornado jets returned from the first bombing raids on the Islamic State

Syria, The Latest Crusade
By Andre Vltchek

In this surreal and post-modern ‘war’, the only victims will be the people of the Middle East, most likely civilians. Their lives will be risked by those who are sitting, in safety, on their destroyers and in control rooms, hundreds and thousands of miles away, drinking coffee and cracking jokes

Obama And The ISIS
By Steve Breyman

Every national peace group (large and small, new and old, religious and secular) opposes Barack Obama's war against ISIS in Iraq , and its recent extension to Syria . Their opposition extends to Obama's Congress-sanctioned arming of "moderate" Syrian rebels (for which legislators found half a billion dollars). The anti-war movement's antagonism is sturdy and reasoned. It's based on irrefutable historical, political, economic and cultural analysis focused on the past thirteen years of bloody, wasteful, failed war on Afghanistan and Iraq , Pakistan and Yemen , Libya and Somalia

Ukraine’s Uprising Against NATO, Neoliberals And Oligarchs –
An Interview With Boris Kagarlitsky

Interview by Feyzi Ismail with Boris Kagarlitsky

A revealing interview on what is really happening on the ground in Ukraine

The Conquest Of Europe
By John Chuckman

Russia’s President Putin is reported to have said in a conversation a while back that he could be in Kiev in two weeks. In our press, this was reported as yet more evidence of aggressive intentions, but, given even a moment’s thought, that is a patently false interpretation. It is also further evidence, as if more were needed, of the level of desperation American propaganda around events in Ukraine has reached. It is almost as though America’s intelligence/news media alliance started mimicking the almost forgotten Soviet apparatchiks of decades ago

The United Nations Climate Summit
By John Scales Avery

Throughout the world, people of all countries need to act with urgency to switch to an economy that aims at sustainability rather than endless consumption and growth, an economy based on renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, an economy devoted to life rather than to profits

From A Competitive-Capitalist-Growth-Economy To An Eco-Economy
By Lionel Anet

We must go from the present system to an Eco-economy that functions as a part of the ecosystem with its people interacting in a cooperative way. An eco-economy would indicate what we can or what we mustn’t do. How people functioned within those parameters is a political problem, which can be easily solved with accurate information and a population whose education is centred on understanding rather than just knowing by being indoctrinated. The big problem is how to go from present system to an eco-economy, which requires a different attitude and a way of thinking

Kashmir Floods: And It Finally Arrived
By Abdul Majid Zargar

Kashmir has been devastated by raging floods. While the human toll is yet to be ascertained, the over-all loss to property, infrastructure & business is estimated to be one lakh crores of Rupees. Our ruling class has lost no time in urging New-Delhi to declare the tragedy a national Calamity, but their tribe & administration cannot escape the blame of inviting this fury and in that respect it can legitimately be called a man-made calamity. While limiting this write-up to the floods submerging Srinagar City, following acts of commission & omission have become as contributory causes for the devastation

Of Media Hyped Military Rescue Operations In Kashmir Floods
By Ghulam Nabi

Though it is a bit too late to write the account of the early rescue operation in Kashmir floods, but it is always relevant and important to tell a story—and importantly a hard fact story

Kashmir Floods: Pain, Anger And Hope Among The Affected People
By Tahir Ibn Manzoor

The losses to business, housing and infrastructure is in tens of thousands of crores. The volunteers, mostly the brave local heroes rescued thousands and now can be seen distributing food, medicines and drinking water to the affected people

Nakhwa Without Borders: Gaza And The End of ‘Arab Gallantry'
By Ramzy Baroud

On its own the Arabic word al-Nakhwa, means “gallantry.” Combined with the word “al-Arabiya” - “Arab gallantry” - the term becomes loaded with meanings, cultural and even political implications and subtext. But what is one to make of “Arab gallantry” during and after Israel's most brutal war on Gaza between 8 July and 26 August which killed 2,163 Palestinians and wounded over 11,000 more? Is this the end of Arab Nakhwa? Did it even ever exist?

New research: European Public's Health And Safety Sacrificed On The Altar Of Corporate Profit
By Colin Todhunter

A new report by the campaign/watchdog body Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) reveals huge conflicts of interests in the Scientific Committees under DG SANCO, the European Commission's department in charge of consumer issues

Bootcamp Workout: Bringing The War Home
By Mickey Z.

When you’ve worked in gyms as long as I have, you become numb to the fitness-as-military-worship motif. For example: Bootcamps, civilian-military combines, Navy Seals this or that, and the ever-ubiquitous “Train Like a Soldier!” This approach not only normalizes the dangerous “soldier as hero” myth but also has the potential to turn something healthy like exercise into a dysfunctional obsession. With this in mind, I allowed myself to imagine what it would look like if I were asked to create a “realistic” Marine bootcamp fitness class and make sure my students ended up on the “winning side.”

America’s Ramped Up Nuclear Capability: Prelude To Another Cold War?
By Taj Hashmi

While people across the world for the last three years have been watching the unbelievable resurgence in state- and non-state-actor-sponsored violence and terror across the Arab World – Libya, Egypt, Syria, Gaza, and of late, Iraq – the Obama Administration’s recent decision to ramp up its nuclear capability has almost remained unnoticed to most analysts, let alone the common people. Even if, very similar to what happened during the Cold War, America’s ramped up nuclear capability does not lead to a nuclear conflagration, this is going to signal further nuclear proliferation, arms race and a new cold war

An Open Letter to President Obama: Stop Preaching Peace To The World,
Even As You Support Terrorists And Wage Illegal Wars

By Feroze Mithiborwala

After having heard your words at the UN a few hours ago, I felt compelled to write this letter, compelled, to expose your lies & deceit. You, Mr. President, are a war-monger & an abettor of terror. You essentially lend a liberal face to the Trans-National Military Industrial Complex

Supreme Court Decision On Coal Scam Emphasizes Need Of More Vigilant Citizens
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Role of citizens is most important. Vigilance with intelligence is need of the hour. Cooperation from media and good judgments and rectification from the judiciary will seal the win for the people and the countr

Why The Dual Track Policy In Governance? An Open Letter To Modi ji
By George Abraham

It appears that there is a continuance of the same two-pronged strategy by the Prime Minister who appears to stay above the fray of communal politics and dirty tricks but has quietly unleashed his surrogates to do whatever it takes to consolidate power and implement the Hindutva agenda that the RSS, the parent organization of BJP, has long advocated . The designation of Yogi Adityanath who is known for his virulent and vitriolic rhetoric against minorities, as the lead campaigner in UP for the just concluded election, is the latest in a series of examples of such a long-term strategy. However, the election results indeed proved that the people of UP and other states have rejected such politics of hate and polarization

Time For Ethical Investment In India: A Call To Divest From POSCO
By Countercurrents

We appeal to the readers of Counter Currents to listen to the appeal by the anti-POSCO movement which has been struggling for the last ten years in Odiasha to protect the lives of the local villagers as well as the environment. We appeal to all international readers and groups who listen to this voice, to do whatever you can to convince the share holders to divest from POSCO on this largest destructive development project which is taking shape in India. Remember, the future dictated by POSCO will be a pattern followed by all forces of globalization in India in future

Narmada - Sardar Sarovar Dam Can't Be Raised Further!
By Narmada Bachao Andolan

Not less than 40,000 to 45,000 families residing or not rehabilitated till date cry halt from the Narmada valley. While Government of Gujarat, blessed with Modi Government, is pulling together their junked material to the Dam site, adivasis, farmers, fishworkers...all warn the government not to violet law and impinge upon their right to life and livelihood!

24 September, 2014

US Air Strikes In Syria,Just The Beginning
By Peter Symonds

Following yesterday’s massive air attacks inside Syria, the Pentagon made clear that the operations were just the start of a protracted war. Lieutenant General William Mayville, director of operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the media the strikes were “the beginning of a credible and sustainable, persistent campaign” against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias. Asked about the length of the campaign, he said: “I think it would be in terms of years.”

Namibia: Germany's African Holocaust
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek

“The first concentration camps on earth were built in this part of Africa… They were built by the British Empire in South Africa and by Germans here, in Namibia. Shark Island on the coast was the first concentration camp in Namibia, used to murder the Nama people, but now it is just a tourist destination – you would never guess that there were people exterminated there. Here in the center of Windhoek, there was another extermination camp; right on the spot where “The Horse” originally stood.”

Ten-Day Village Building Convergence Rocks Small Town Sebastopol
By Shepherd Bliss

Participants in the ambitious ten-day First Annual Sebastopol Village Building Convergence (VBC) painted murals on streets in this small Northern California town and filled the Grange Hall, the Permaculture Skills Center, and other sites from September 12 to 21

War And Peace: Arab Time Capsule And Its Butterfly Effect
By Mahboob A. Khawaja

Devoid of knowledge, paranoid and vengeful, President Obama’s raging statements and policy outlines of “an inclusive government in Iraq and to defeat the ISIL” are obsessed with fear of the unknown threatening American global hegemony and futuristic vulnerability to remain a superpower. President Obama is operating amid matrix of lies and political deceptions. The extension of aggressive war against ISIL in Iraq- Syria simply replaces the old rhetoric of anti-Al-Qaeda syndrome

Climate Summit Needs New Philosophy Of Humanity For Solution
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

History is great teacher. The leaders of today must learn the message and chart the right path otherwise planet earth will move towards disaster with no point of return, we are at the middle of the climate crisis. Its impact are visible everywhere but we ignore, thinking that ignorance is bliss

Tackling The Climate Catastrophe Strategically
By Robert J. Burrowes

In summary, saving the climate is like saving the rainforests: fundamentally, we must reduce our consumption, particularly those of us who live in industrialised economies

Streams Of Profit And Rivers Of Poison: Big Agritech's Lasting Legacy
By Colin Todhunter

Handing over agriculture to Big Agritech concerns is akin to letting the foxes guard the hen house. What do they care if they wreck the environment or human health with their chemical inputs? The more chemicals applied to crops, the better. It's good for business. The bottom line is increased product sales

Why Secular Forces Failed To Curb Communalism?
By Newsclick Production

Nakul Singh Sawhney from Newsclick speaks to Subhash Gatade about the growing instances of communal assaults to analyse the politics of both majority and minority communalism and why secular forces have failed to curb them

23 September, 2014

US Launches Air Strikes Inside Syria
By Peter Symonds

The US began a series of devastating and ongoing air strikes inside Syria early Tuesday, bombing the town of Raqqa and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets along the country’s border with Iraq. The attacks on ISIS are the pretext for stepping up the US-backed regime-change operation against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and mark the expansion of a reckless and illegal war that will have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond

Struggle Against ISIS Shields US Oil Grab
By Jean Shaoul

President Barack Obama and Hagel’s talk of going after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which its regional allies have financed as a proxy force to topple the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, is a cover for their plans to overthrow Assad. But an additional issue at stake is the control of Iraq’s vast energy resources and the supply routes through its territory

The Agony Of Iraq
By John Scales Avery

Against the historical background discussed in this article, we can appreciate the enormous hypocrisy of Obama's claim that the current bombing of Iraq is “humanitarian”

Back To The Future In Iraq
By Peter Van Buren

America is now fighting the Iraq War for the third time, somehow madly expecting different results, while guaranteeing only failure. To paraphrase a young John Kerry, himself back from Vietnam, who'll be the last to die for that endless mistake? It seems as if it will be many years before we know

Lessons From Scotland For South Asia
By Satya Sagar

Though ‘No’ finally trumped ‘Yes’ and the United Kingdom stayed ‘united’ the recent referendum for Scottish independence holds several important lessons for both votaries of separatism as well as national unity everywhere. It also raises many questions, chief among them being, on a planet run by corporations and shaped by tsunami-like capital flows, do terms like national ‘independence’, ‘unity’ or ‘sovereignty’ have real meaning anymore? An even more fundamental question would be whether the nation-state, in its current form, has any future at all or not?

Scotland Referendum Entails Implications For India
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

The BBC has monitored the world media to know the impact of the 18 September Scotland referendum ‘beyond the British Isles’. It shows that the Scotland development has emboldened separatism in the Europe but cast a ‘worrying spell’ on ‘nations’ in other parts of the world. Like India, other Asian ‘nations’ deliberately sought to keep mum over the referendum so that it should pass off as a ‘non-issue’

Steel Cage Match: America’s Torturous History vs. ISIS
By Mickey Z.

By presenting all our enemies as a never-ending parade of savages auditioning for a starring role as the "next Hitler," wartime spin plays into our worst fears -- the bogeyman -- while shoving America’s catalogue of criminality down the proverbial memory hole

Australian State Terrorism - Zero Australian Terrorism Deaths, 1 Million Preventable
Australian Deaths & 10 Million Muslims Killed By US Alliance Since 9-11

By Dr Gideon Polya

One can estimate that 81,000 Australians die preventably each year, and over 1 million have died thus since the US Government's false-flag 9-11 atrocity (3,000 killed) as compared to only 6 Australian deaths by terrorists (none Muslim) in the last 36 years. Yet the major Australian parties, the currently ruling Coalition and Opposition Labor (aka the Lib-Labs or Liberal-Laborals) have committed $125 billion to the Islamophobic War on Terror and killing 10 million Muslims abroad rather than keeping 1 million Australians alive at home. Australian state terrorism indeed

Palestine: Israel’s Arms Testing Lab
By Dr. Elias Akleh

After each Israeli attack on Palestinian territories Israel conducts arms trade exhibitions and invites military leaders and arms dealers from all over the world, to show real-life footage of the effectiveness of Israel’s use of weapons being used on live real Palestinian targets. Israel also markets itself as the testing ground for all sorts of weaponry and what they call “homeland security equipment” that have not yet been regulated in many parts of the world

Israeli Refuseniks: Occupation’s Dark Underbelly Exposed
By Jonathan Cook

A letter signed by 43 veterans of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit declaring their refusal to continue serving the occupation has sent shockwaves through Israeli society. But not in the way the soldiers may have hoped

Now, What Climate Action?
By Bill Henderson

Action on climate - what type of action now? Our political so-called leaders won't lead so those who do recognize the dangers and who are serious about climate mitigation must step up to the plate

20 September, 2014

Russia Rejects Ukrainian Seperatists Bid To Join Russian Federation
By Eric Zuesse

The leader of the Ukrainian separatists says that their efforts to get Russia's President Vladimir Putin to accept their territory as being a part of Russia have been firmly rejected by Putin's Government; and, so, "We will build our own country." This important statement from the rebel leader Andrei Purgin was inconspicuously buried halfway through an AP news story

UN Climate Summit, People's Mobilisations And A Mutual Top- Down/Bottom- Up Solution
By Avinay Umesh-Saiyogita

Sustainability means different things to different region and people. What could be sustainable for a low income, high population country like India may be not be for the USA and vice-versa. For a long time now we have tried only a top-down, technocratic, one-for-all approach to solve the climate problem without any significant success. Should we not push the world leaders for a mutual top-down/bottom up approach for mitigation and adaptation? Therefore, if the world leaders could agree over common principles such as emission reductions, yet different practices based on sustainable models for a given context and people, in international and in their respective domestic spheres, the problem of climate change and equity could be solved

Mobilising A Counter- Hegemonic Climate Movement
By Rajesh Makwana

As concerned citizens mobilise for climate change demonstrations across the world, never has it been more important to embrace a collective demand for ‘system change' as the surest way to limit global warming and ensure environmental sustainability

A study on the status of Integrated Child Development Service (PDF)
By Ajay Kumar Ranjan

Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is a Unique Public Health Program in India. ICDS is currently the most significant government intervention program for reducing the maternal and childhood nutrition. Despite the considerable expansion and additional investment made after 2005 (and Following the Supreme Court Orders for ensuring ICDS universalization and quality) progress has been slow. ICDS being the so important institution to look into the matter of child development ineffective resource allocation, inappropriate monitoring mechanism and the lack of proper execution in the operation of the institution put a question mark on the development of the future nation.

Book review: A Detective Story Set In The Middle Af An Indigenous Insurgency
Demands of the Dead By Justin Podur, Reviewed by Megan Cotton-Kinch

Demands of the Dead transcends the genre, and moves beyond works like The Wire by actually looking at the larger political context and offering possible solutions. In the case of Podur’s novel these are represented by the Zapatista Indigenous insurgency, which has an important presence in the book

Who's Left Holding The Bag?
By Tim Gatto

Let's all admit it, the wars we have been fighting in the Middle East have been for resources, mostly oil. When something happens in other parts of the World that are devoid of resources, we invariably ignore it. One only has to look at the situation in Darfur, where people were starving en masse, and we turned a blind eye. If the country isn't in a strategic area, or it has no resources we want, we ignore whatever is happening there

Love Jihad Propaganda Spurs Hate, Not Dialogue
By Ram Puniyani

The ‘Love Jihad’ propaganda is a double-edged weapon: By stating that Muslim youth are being trained to lure Hindu girls, on the one hand they demonize Muslims and on the other they tighten their control of the lives of girls and women. In this propaganda, Hindu women are projected as gullible, easy to be lured and incapable of deciding for themselves. In a way the communal agenda’s twin goals are achieved here. Communal politics wants to marginalize the religious minorities at the surface level and at the deeper societal level it aims to restrict the rights and freedom of women

Kashmir Floods: Flood, Blood And Bowl
By Tahir Ibn Manzoor

The magnitude of the tragedy is very huge. The water is receding but the threat of water-borne diseases looms large.

Lenin: State And Revolution: Chapter 5 - Withering Away The State (Part Two) Review
By Thomas Riggins

Chapter 5 of State and Revolution has a brief introduction and four sections. Part Two of this review covers section three

19 September, 2014

US Lays New Chemical Weapon Allegations Against Syria
By Peter Symonds

US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday laid fresh allegations of chemical weapons use against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, thereby establishing another pretext for turning the imminent US air war in Syria against the regime in Damascus

America Created Al-Qaeda And The ISIS Terror Group
By Garikai Chengu

Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran's growing influence in the region. The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history

Foreign Affairs As Opera Buffa: The Global Fight Against ISIS
By John Chuckman

As al-Qaeda fades into the sunset, we are suddenly flooded with media noise about an even more bizarre organization called ISIS (or ISIL) which honorable and honest Western leaders – try not laugh: Obama, Cameron, and Hollande - insist is ready to attack us in city streets, sabotage power grids, and poison water supplies if we don’t start bombing the crap out of them in Iraq and Syria

Convenient Genocide: Another Failed War To Re-Arrange The Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud

Experience has taught us that not all “acts of genocide” are created equal: Some are fabricated, and others are exaggerated. Some are useful to start wars, and others, no matter how atrocious, are not worth mentioning. Some acts of genocide are branded as wars to liberate, free and democratize. Other acts of genocide are to be encouraged, defended and financed

Damaging Our Country From Wars of Choice
By Ralph Nader

Here they go again. Another result of Bush’s war in Iraq. Washington has already expended thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of American injuries and illnesses, and over a million Iraqi lives. The achievement: the slaying or capture of Al Qaeda leaders, but with that came the spread of Al Qaeda into a dozen countries and the emergence of a new Al Qaeda on steroids called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which has nominal control over an area in Syria and Iraq larger than the territory of Great Britain

The Iraq-Syria Two Step
By Arshad M Khan

Strategically the situation is almost farcical: Fighting ISIS in Iraq, the US is placed on the same side as Iran and its Shia sphere of influence, i.e. the Iraqi Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, the Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad. In Syria, from where ISIS originates and is the strongest rebel group fighting the Assad regime, the US is on the opposite side, i.e. against the Assad regime and its supporters (who happen to be the same Iran, Hezbollah, and the Shia government in Baghdad)

A Climate Week To Change Everything
By Amy Goodman

Just days before Ban Ki-moon’s invite-only summit next week, a broad coalition will hold the People’s Climate March, expected to be the largest march addressing climate change in history. People from all walks of life will gather on Central Park’s west side on Sunday, Sept. 21. Organizers expect over 100,000 people. More than 1,200 marching bands have been confirmed

The Wheel Turns, The Boat Rocks, The Sea Rises: Change In A Time Of Climate Change
By Rebecca Solnit

As you probably know, the actual oceans are rising -- almost eight inches since 1880, and that’s only going to accelerate. They’re also acidifying, because they’re absorbing significant amounts of the carbon we continue to pump into the atmosphere at record levels. The ice that covers the polar seas is shrinking, while the ice shields that cover Antarctica and Greenland are melting. The water locked up in all the polar ice, as it’s unlocked by heat, is going to raise sea levels staggeringly, possibly by as much as 200 feet at some point in the future, how distant we do not know. In the temperate latitudes, warming seas breed fiercer hurricanes

Spending on Preventing Climate Wars versus Spending to Secure Sources of Oil
By Dr. Brent Blackwelder

This summer, my CASSE blog featured the pending Iraq War III and argued that a steady state, true-cost, sustainable economy cannot be achieved if the US in going to engage in perpetual warfare over Middle East oil. The wars in Iraq have cost trillions in the name of national security—trillions that could have been spent on putting the US on a clean energy basis, including electric cars charged by solar and other renewable sources

One Percenter Greed & War Means Over 1.5 Million Americans Die Preventably Each Year
By Dr Gideon Polya

The One Percenter-dominated US state terrorists and US Alliance state terrorists (UK state terrorists, French state terrorists and Australian state terrorists) are using the Big Lie of “terror hysteria” as an excuse for illegal and war criminal invasion of Iraq and Syria. However sensible analysis reveals that the “annual empirical probability of an American dying preventably from preventable causes from homicide to smoking” (P = 1 in 207) is about 500,000 times greater than the “empirical annual probability of an American being killed by a terrorist attack in the US ” (P = 1 in 100 million)

Donors Will Fail Gaza Again
By Nicola Nasser

On 12 October, Cairo is due to host a conference, sponsored and chaired by Egypt and Norway, of international and Arab donors for the reconstruction of Gaza. This is their ostensible aim. But the reasons that the donors cited for not fulfilling earlier pledges, made in Paris in 2007 and Sharm El-Sheikh in 2009, still exist. This means that the donors who attend the upcoming Cairo conference will probably make the same pledges they made at the two previous conferences and then once again fail to fulfil them

Racism Is Natural: The Banality of Brahminist Evil
By Ankur Betageri

Why is racism the norm in India today? Why is it okay to talk about the Dalits as “those people”? What is the ideology which normalizes and validates a racist view of the Indian society? The ideology is varna ideology or Brahminism, an ideology that is imposed on the whole of the Indian past, as if, all the texts – religious, legal, economic, scientific – support and validate this ideology

Kashmir Floods: Rotten Carcasses The Major Concern, Epidemic Looms Large
By Tahir Ibn Manzoor

On a gloomy morning I was on the way to Srinagar, I found the animal carcasses floating and some dogs in a group eating the flesh, their party begins with the smelly making a way in the inundated city and the outskirts, people were seen crying for the help some were hungry and some lampooned the government for not being able to do anything in the dire need of rescuing them while the water level was rising in most parts of the city

Lest We Forget: The Batla House Case, Six Years On
By Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association 

19th September marks the sixth anniversary of the Batla House ‘encounter'. Six years ago, on this day, the Special Cell of Delhi Police claimed to have hit upon the perpetrators of the serial blasts that had struck the capital city the previous week. The so-called encounter resulted in the death of Inspector Sharma, a veteran of dozens of encounters and two young men, Atif Ameen and Sajid

India Shields Colombo From International Pressure
By Athithan Jayapalan

The possibility for any shift in the Indian establishments relationship with the Sri Lankan state is disintegrating as the Modi led New Delhi is increasingly aligning its interests with Colombo. In appointing anti Tamil opinion makers as emissaries to Sri Lanka and in shielding it from ‘international' pressure, the BJP government is subscribing to the resilient Indian state endorsement of Colombo and its genocidal actions towards the Eezham Tamil nation

17 September, 2014

Combination Of Man's Greed And Climate Change Could Be Behind Kashmir Disaster
By Marianne de Nazareth

Walls of swirling brown water, homes and buildings on the banks of the Jhelum being washed away like little match boxes, shades of the Kedarnath tragedy was the thought that crossed one's mind watching TV footage of the Kashmir tragedy. The recent disaster in Kashmir Valley is being increasingly looked at as having been compounded by man, aggravated by reckless “developmental” activities with no regard for nature conservation. On the same lines, the very same lines as Kedarnath

Naomi Klein: 'Ferocious Love' And The Climate Fight To Come
By Jon Queally

If there's a way to adequately condense the central tenet of Naomi Klein's new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, it's the observation that just as the rise of global greenhouse gas emissions coincided with the emergence of neoliberal globalization as the dominant economic paradigm in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, it's also possible that the growing and various social movements that have been building up to counter those dual forces are now converging at just the right moment to help save us from the destructive path humanity now walks

The People’s Climate March: Meet The Next Movement Of Movements
By Naomi Klein

The most important climate gathering next week will not be happening at the UN, but in the streets: thousands upon thousands of us will be sounding the climate alarm, literally, at the historic People’s Climate March on September 21. While the decision was made not to have speeches during the march, at 12:58pm there will be two minutes of silence followed by the unleashing of a chorus of magnificent sound—part of what organizers are describing as a global call for climate justice—complete with church bells and some 32 marching bands

This Changes Things
By Mark Kirkwood Callingham

A MANIFESTO REMIX, Written by Naomi Klein, Rebecca Tarbotton, Malcolm X, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, David Wolf, George Monbiot, Chief Si'ahl, Art Solomon, M K C

US Prepares For “Generational” War In The Middle East
By Peter Symonds

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey set the stage for a massive and protracted expansion of US military operations in Iraq and Syria. “This will require a sustained effort over an extended period of time. It is a generational problem,” Dempsey told the committee

Hell (On Earth) Is For Children
By Mickey Z.

"Stop killing our kids,” warns indigenous author Ward Churchill, “if you want your own to be safe." What's that? You're not killing anybody's kids? Au contraire, mon ami... With nearly half of all U.S. tax dollars going to the military, the vast majority of Americans have contributed to enough death to make Kissinger blush

Ukraine And Neo-Nazis
By William Blum

Ever since serious protest broke out in Ukraine in February the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States, has seriously downplayed the fact that the usual suspects – the US/European Union/NATO triumvirate – have been on the same side as the neo-Nazis. In the US it’s been virtually unmentionable. I’m sure that a poll taken in the United States on this issue would reveal near universal ignorance of the numerous neo-Nazi actions, including publicly calling for death to “Russians, Communists and Jews”. But in the past week the dirty little secret has somehow poked its head out from behind the curtain a bit

History Does Repeat Itself: Novorossiya, Ukraine And Crimea
By Gaither Stewart

Novorossiya or New Russia, so absent in mainstream media and so present in alternative news sources today, is popularly believed to be a fleeting matter, simply a new name created ex-novo for effect by the local militias of southeastern Ukrainians today fighting and defeating the Ukrainian regular army troops invading their territories. In doing so the people of Novorossiya are also shattering the dream of American President Obama. The truth is the people of this region are closely linked to the history of their lands

Can You Pass The "China Threat" Quiz?
By Jeffrey Rudolph

In terms of both economic and military power, the United States and China are the two most important countries in the world. World stability requires that the US, the established power, and China, the emerging power, effectively work out their differences over issues such as navigation rights in the seas surrounding China and the political status of Taiwan. Perhaps the greatest danger to peace is that China may overestimate its power—thus leading to hubris and aggression—or that the US may overestimate the threat China poses—thus leading to unnecessary fear and confrontation. The main purpose of the following Quiz is to examine China's evolution into an important economic and military power, and to assess the extent of its threat to the US

Lessons Learned In The Bucca Camp 
By Kathy Kelly

We need not choose blindness, or the hatred that lets us be herded in fear. We can reach out with truth, with compassion, with the activist courage that leaps from heart to heart, rebuilding sanity, civility, community, humanity, resistance. We can find hope in our own active work to prove that humanity persists, that history can yearn toward justice and that a love which is in no way comfortable, sentimental bosh remains vigorously at work in a world with such need of it

Demagogue’s Delight: US Extremist Leader Advances Militant Agenda
By Robert Barsocchini

Extremist groups in the US have publicly announced that they are going to violate international law and commit aggression by detonating large-scale explosives inside Syria, without UN member-state Syria’s permission or cooperation, without being attacked, and without UN Security Council authorization, which is legally required. It is countless international terrorist actions like this, combined with silly claims like “We are a nation of laws”, that have made Obama a worldwide laughingstock and tragicomic dunce

If ISIS Were Really a Movie
By David Swanson

ISIS has created a movie preview for the coming war, a war it eagerly wants Washington to take part in. The White House and Congress would like to oblige, as long as the movie can be a short one, on the model of Libya. Here's the plot: Evil force arises out of nowhere; United States destroys it; credits roll. If Libya-The-Movie had begun with years of support for Gadaffi or ended with the disaster left behind, the critics would have hated it. Framing is everything

Obama Has A “Strategy” Now!
By Taj Hashmi

America and its allies want the overthrow of the Syrian and Iranian regimes, and are paradoxically fighting the ISIS, which has also been fighting Assad, and all pro-Iranian elements in Syria and Iraq. One wonders why the enemy’s enemy is not a friend to the West! This “paradox” looks quite ominous

16 September, 2014

Kashmir Floods: An Appeal
By PIPFPD

This is an appeal from the Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD), joined by many concerned people – doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, social workers, activists and students from across India and the affected areas of Jammu & Kashmir – in writing this appeal letter. We understand that the scale of devastation is unprecedented but we strongly believe that much more needs to be done, on an urgent basis. Towards this, PIPFPD’s has initiated a coordination effort between groups and individuals to help devastated people of J&K get additional support, rescue and relief

Paris Conference Gives Green Light To New Middle East War
By Patrick Martin

A French-sponsored, US-backed international conference on “peace and security in Iraq,” held in Paris Monday, brought together most of the world’s great powers along with a majority of the Arab states to offer political, economic and military backing to the government in Baghdad. The conference issued a communiqué that committed all participants to work together to “eradicate” ISIS and support the newly formed Iraqi government “by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance.”

UK Terror Hysteria Exposed – Empirical Annual Probability Of
UK Terrorism Death 1 In 16 Million

By Dr Gideon Polya

The West is again in the grip of “terror hysteria” as an asserted justification for illegal and war criminal US-led invasion of Iraq and Syria . Ostensibly impelled by barbarous war crimes by ISIS, the UK has joined the US-led Coalition to destroy the ISIS rebels and has raised the UK “terror threat” level to “severe”. However as described below, it is estimated that the empirical annual probability of a UK resident dying from a preventable cause (e.g. smoking, drinking, obesity, adverse hospital events, violence etc) is 1 in 417, this being 38,000 times higher than the empirical annual probability of a UK resident being killed by a terrorist of about 1 in 16 million

Sacrificing The Vulnerable, From Gaza To America
By Chris Hedges

The people in Gaza deserve to be free. So do we. But do not look to our political mandarins for help, or expect anything but vaudevillian smoke and mirrors from the billions poured into our campaign circus. Look within. We too are powerless. We have undergone a corporate coup d’état in slow motion. It is over. They have won. If we want to wrest power back, to make the consent of the governed more than an empty cliché, we will have to mobilize, to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience to overthrow—let me repeat that word for the members of Homeland Security who may be visiting us this afternoon—overthrow the corporate state. And maybe, once we have freed ourselves, we can free the people of Gaza

How Historian Shlomo Sand "Stopped Being A Jew"
By Rod Such

“Is not the very fact of defining oneself as a Jew within the State of Israel an act of affiliation to a privileged caste which creates intolerable injustices around itself?” the Israeli historian Shlomo Sand asks, and in turn answers in the affirmative in the very title of his latest book, How I Stopped Being a Jew

RSS Targets Punjab And The Sikh Predominance
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), described by eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy as fountainhead of ‘demonic and seductive Indian religious nationalism’ seems to have put Punjab on its radar. Its chief Mohan Bhagwat finished a five-day ‘training camp’ of RSS at Doraha, near Ludhiana in second week of September (2014) in quick succession to a similar camp at Mansa (south Punjab) organized a few months ago. The Sangh Parivar activists from Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh attended these camps. Just before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls Mohan Bhagwat had toured Punjab and camped at Malerkotla, a small pocket of Muslim population in the state

The Epistemological Bias of Indian Conscience
By Iqbal Sonaullah

This is in response to the startling comments and abuses that I received for my piece published on 13th September in Countercurrents.org, from some protectors of ‘Indian nationalism’. I am not a sentimentalist: so I am neither hurt, nor excited. But not writing a response, I think, would be unfair. Certain things, I suppose, need a little more clarification

15 September, 2014

Obama’s “Coalition Of The Willing” Against Syria, Iran
By Peter Symonds

The Obama administration is rapidly putting together a “coalition of the willing” to ramp up its new war of aggression in the Middle East. Using the pretext of “degrading and destroying” Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias, Washington has revived its plans, put on hold last year, directed at ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and also aimed against Syria’s backers, Iran and Russia

If You Live In New Zealand, You Are Being Watched: Snowden
By Jon Queally

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has penned a firm rebuke to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, accusing the head of state of "not telling the truth about mass surveillance" and issuing this plainly worded warning to residents of the country: "If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched."

Washington’s War Against Russia
By Paul Craig Roberts

The new sanctions against Russia announced by Washington and Europe do not make sense as merely economic measures. I would be surprised if Russian oil and military industries were dependent on European capital markets in a meaningful way. Such a dependence would indicate a failure in Russian strategic thinking. The Russian companies should be able to secure adequate financing from Russian Banks or from the Russian government. If foreign loans are needed, Russia can borrow from China

Why We March: Stepping Forth For A Planet In Peril
By Eddie Bautista, La Tonya Crisp-Sauray, and Bill McKibben

On Sunday, September 21st, a huge crowd will march through the middle of Manhattan. It will almost certainly be the largest rally about climate change in human history, and one of the largest political protests in many years in New York. More than 1,000 groups are coordinating the march -- environmental justice groups, faith groups, labor groups -- which means there’s no one policy ask. Instead, it’s designed to serve as a loud and pointed reminder to our leaders, gathering that week at the United Nations to discuss global warming, that the next great movement of the planet’s citizens centers on our survival and their pathetic inaction

Achilles Heel of Narendra Modi Is Nuclear Power
By Buddhi Kota Subbarao

If according to Barack Obama, every four minutes another American home or business is going solar, why should India invest heavily on nuclear electricity – amounting to more than 5 lakh crore rupees? Why India should not commit all that money to solar, wind, hydro, bio-fuels and on plans for conservation of electricity? If the dangerous nuclear electricity path is abandoned and the money is diverted to solar, wind, hydro, and bio-fuels will it not immensely improve employment opportunities in India, apart from realising safe and clean electricity production?

Nation Of Cowards
By John Chuckman

Turning a blind eye to the Holocaust three-quarters of a century ago was an unforgivable thing, but in at least one very real sense, it is now even more culpable the way the West turns a blind eye to Israel’s horrors. The Holocaust was perpetrated in great secrecy, and there was no Internet or international media equipped with satellites to tell the world what was happening. There was no United Nations or other international organizations watching. Today, what Israel does is everywhere to be seen. People in America eat their suppers watching Israeli jets bombing homes. Without much effort you can find images of Palestinian children with portions of their heads missing. And we all saw the Israelis from Sderot sit in lawn chairs on a bluff in the evening breeze laughing and applauding as women and children writhed in agony far below much like ants being stepped on

Palestinian Reconciliation At Crossroads
By Nicola Nasser

President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement, which he commands, have unleashed a media campaign against Hamas and the resistance. If pressure from the Palestinian public fails to stop the campaign, Abbas may achieve politically what Israel failed to achieve militarily: forcing the Palestinian presidency to choose “peace with Israel” over national reconciliation

Ransoms Have Been Paid In The Recent Past - Then Why Were
David Haines, Steven Sotloff & James Foley Sacrificed?

By Feroze Mithiborwala

precedents exist whereby the governments of the US, UK & other European nations have all negotiated with terrorists & have paid out millions of dollars to ensure that their citizens are freed from captivity. Yet in the case of Foley, Sotloff & Haines, the governments deliberately chose not to

We'll Never Learn
By Tim Gatto

America is on the verge of another "Crusade". Of course they are not telling us this directly, but the mass media has lined up its "polls" and has concluded that 90% of Americans want to defeat ISIS or ISIL or IS (whatever). The reason for this is because of the beheadings of two Americans and a Brit. Understandable, right?

14 September, 2014

US Bypasses Security Council On Impending Invasion Of Syria
By Thalif Deen

The United States has refused to go before the UNSC for authorization and legitimacy – even if it means suffering a veto by Russia or China or both

What Will It Take To Create Climate Justice?
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

All of the elements required to create climate justice seem to be in place. The climate movement can put hundreds of thousands on the streets, organize creative civil resistance, get thousands to risk arrest and mobilize blockades of tar sands, fracking, oil pipelines and mountain top removal

Good News On The Recovery Of Earth's Ozone Layer
By Marianne de Nazareth

“There are positive indications that the ozone layer is on track to recovery towards the middle of the century. The Montreal Protocol – one of the world's most successful environmental treaties – has protected the stratospheric ozone layer and avoided enhanced UV radiation reaching the earth's surface,” said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner

Carbon Bomb Blows Up Near West Point
By Tarak Kauff & Katherine Ball

On Tuesday morning, a 30-foot carbon bomb blew up in the airspace over the Hudson River in front of West Point Military Academy. An inflatable bomb pressurized with carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen contained in outer shell of silver radiant barrier foil, the carbon bomb was manufactured as part of a research program coordinated by the inflatable fabrication group Tools for Action. Lettering on the side of the bomb read, "US Military: Largest consumer of oil, largest emitter of CO2."

Aryadan Muhammed or 'Aryan' Muhammed ?
By K. P. Sasi

Kerala Minister Aryadan Muhammed has come out with a statement that his great grand parents were Hindus. This has created a celebrative mood in the face book among the Sangh Parivar, with an attitude: `We told you so, you guys came from us’. It has also created resentment and confusion among some of the Muslims

PR Mind Control: Even Better Than The Real Thing
By Mickey Z.

I could go on and on detailing the damage done by Edward Bernays and his ilk yet never keep up with the deluge. In the era of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, we are now exposed to more propaganda than ever before as Bernays’ PR progeny continue refining and honing their skills -- keeping us passive, divided, and distracted

Piketty For Progressives -- Part 3
By Thomas Riggins

The distribution of wealth becomes, for Piketty, the most important area of study if we are to understand the growth of inequality. To determine this we must collect data on the economic history of many countries and forecast future developments by a scientific understanding of past and present trends

Book Review: Confess The Bleak
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

The latest autobiography written by an eminent human rights defender and jurist, Basil Fernando, a self-exiled son of this nation, is able to light the candle of new discourse with rich narratives of his personal life. This is a careful selection of his life story which takes up a quarter of his life as a human rights activist and a poet. Most certainly Basil has faced a great deal more in his seven decades of life but for some reason he has chosen to ignore much of it while writing this autobiography

Outsourcing Love: Globalization, Care Economy
And Its Impact On Social Relations Within Families

By Shalu Nigam

The economic growth in India is not resulting in equitable distribution of wealth, resources or improvement in quality of life for all its inhabitants. Moreover, globalization is making a drastic impact on social relations as well as love, care, and emotions within a family, and in general, creating a situation which is adverse for women and children. It may be said that the city is becoming a symbol of a power, status, sumptuousness, opulence and affluence where the desire for money, wealth, status and professional achievement is surpassing the desire for love, care, affection and above all humaneness

Garba Mana Hain
By Manasi Gandhi

"One swallow doesn't make a summer" is the response given by BJP spokesperson Jay Narayan Vyas to the statement made by Madhya Pradesh BJP vice president and MLA, Usha Thakur, seeking a ban on entry of Muslim youths in 'garba' in MP, during the festive navratri. She has come out with 11 point guidelines, which consist of checking the voter ids of the youth trying to enter the garba pandal . There are also guidelines on the 'dress code' for girls, decent to be precise, to defend themselves from the so called 'love jihad'

13 September, 2014

Kashmir’s Epic Floods: Anger Mounts As Hundreds Of Thousands Still Stranded
By Countercurrents

Authorities in Pakistan and India are struggling to cope with raging monsoon floods which have killed more than 460 people, displaced nearly a million people, and still threaten many more

Indian Army In Kashmir Floods: Demystifying The Truth
By Iqbal Sonaullah

When people of Srinagar rejected any help from Indian army and stopped their choppers—a part of propagandist-rescue-operation—from landing, the rhetorical embellishment about Army’s role instantly perished. This is the truth about Kashmir: even in the state of absolute crisis India’s manipulating assistance is unwelcome

How The Monsoon Has Changed
By Sunita Narain

On the one hand, we are mismanaging our water resources, intensifying floods and droughts. On the other hand, climate change is beginning to make the country even more vulnerable, because of the increased frequency of extreme weather events

“ISIS –An American-CIA-Mossad-Saudi Intel Covert Operation”
By Feroze Mithiborwala

In terms of the rise of the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq & Syria) the question that we must ask ourselves is that, is it possible for a terrorist organization to grow as powerful as on view, without the backing of certain nations & intelligence agencies? This is precisely what we will seek to achieve

Islamic State And The American Way Of War: The New Enemy Creation Process
By Steve Breyman

Propagating an endless steam of new enemies transforms war into a permanent enterprise that generates trillions in debt, billions in profits, and millions of security clearances. New bureaucracies are built. Old ones are strengthened and expanded. Militarization transforms formerly civilian police forces and once quiet international borders

Say ‘No’ To War And Media Propaganda
By Mairead Maguire

While the United States, United Kingdom and NATO are pushing for war with Russia, it behoves people and their governments around the world to take a clear stand for peace and against violence and war, no matter where it comes from.We are at a dangerous point in our history of the human family and it would be the greatest of tragedies for ourselves and our children if we simply allowed the war profiteers to take us into a third world war, resulting in the death of untold millions of people

Obama Iraq War And Obama Syrian War Will Both Involve US Alliance In 12 Types Of War Crimes
By Dr Gideon Polya

President Barack Obama has announced the Obama Iraq War, the Obama Syrian War and indeed an explicitly adumbrated Obama War on Indigenous Muslim rebels “wherever they are”. These Obama wars will involve commission of war crimes in 12 technical areas by US state terrorism and US Alliance state terrorism

Obama Takes Hypocrisy To New High Levels
By Alan Hart

So in my view THE question is this. Is there anything that could be done to change the dynamics of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel in order to improve the prospects for America taking the lead in calling Israel to account for its defiance of international law and crimes?

ISIS And Israel Allies Against A Palestinian State
By Jonathan Cook

The recent New York Times advertisement and Netanyahu’s depiction of Hamas and ISIS, or Islamic State, as “branches of the same poisonous tree” is a travesty of the truth

Losing The Plot: Israel's Premier To Face New Gaza Reality
By Ramzy Baroud

Netanyahu’s war-turned-genocide in Gaza has backfired badly - his strategy has helped resurrect Hamas, the very movement he tried desperately to crush

Let Us See Through Our Victims’ Eyes
By William A. Cook

By acting against the Constitution the President, in like manner, acts contrary to the will and the dictates of the people, and consequently must and should be brought to trial. Indeed, as Robertson points out “The charges against Milosevic at the Hague convey the same idea—the responsibility of the commander for all the natural and probable consequences of his command.” What alternative does the American citizen have then to take back their rights through the International Courts by bringing their own leaders before the law as Cooke did the King in 1649

32 Years After The Sabra-Shatila Massacre: Tension Mounts In Lebanon’s Teeming Camps….
By Franklin Lamb

They are beginning to arrive at Shatila Palestinian camp in Beirut this weekend. “They” being people of good will from around the world, many of whom annually visit Martyr’s Square in Shatila as well as some of Lebanon’s 11 other Palestinian Refugee Camps. It is the 32nd anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and commemorative events are scheduled all next week

Warning To War Supporters
By David Swanson

I know you mean well. I know you think you've found a bargain that nobody else noticed hidden in a back corner of the used car lot. Let me warn you: it's a clunker. Here, I'll list the defects. You can have your own mechanic check them out

Bangladesh On A Slippery Slope
By Fazal M. Kamal

While the world is watching with intense trepidation developments in what are known as hotspots around the globe---i.e. Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Palestine-Israel---a major catastrophic setting is being created in a country that, unfortunately, is more often in the news for all the wrong reasons. Especially after the non-election earlier this year the ruling party in Bangladesh has evidently embarked on an obviously well-thought-out project of enacting laws that will build a state structure which will gift the administration the full freedom to ensure that its decisions cannot be questioned on any ground, thereby assuring itself of comprehensive control over all the tentacles of the state

Scottish Independence Conference In london: When Getting Booed
By The Neo-Colonial Left Is Not A Bad Thing, But A Good Thing

By Sukant Chandan

Neo-colonial contradictions amongst the Scottish Independence socialists, neo-colonial contradictions of the british and western white left

US - UK Genocide Against Iraq 1990-2012 Killed 3.3 Million ,
Including 750,000 Children Says Prof. Francis Boyle

By Sherwood Ross

Approximately 3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children, were “exterminated” by economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted by the U.S. and Great Britain between 1990 and 2012, an eminent international legal authority says

Ecological Disaster At Polavaram
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

There are no clear estimates available at the moment but the number of people going to be drowned or displaced by dam under construction across the Godavari River would be nearly half a million if some activists are to be believed. The submergence area is not just in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana but also Odisha and Chhattishgarh but according to government’s own assessment it will be catastrophic

1120th Day Of Struggle Against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant
By The Women of Idinthakarai

We invite you to visit us and be with us. We request you to share our dreams and fears. We still do not get adequate safe drinking water, we still do not have good transportation facilities, a suitable hospital or a good road- nothing has changed for us, except that fear has increased. If establishing fear and anxiety in the minds of common people like us is the talisman of development, then that alone has been achieved ever since KKNPP became “operational”

Hand over data for surveillance or face fine $250,000 a day: US threatened Yahoo
By Countercurrents.org

Citing court documents news media including AFP, The Washington Post and BBC said in reports: US authorities threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day if it failed to comply with a secret surveillance program requiring it to hand over user data in the name of national security

Knowing Is One Thing; Doing Is Another Matter...
By Chandi Sinnathurai

The world stood and watched simply mouthing platitudes. Even today, nothing is done to the Tamils – the plight of the poor has worsened in spite of the economic upturn in Sri Lanka

 

09 September, 2014

Kashmir’s Epic Floods: A Wake Up Call To Climate Change
By Countercurrents

The death toll from floods in India and Pakistan has passed 375 as authorities continue efforts to rescue hundreds of thousands of stranded people. In Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir at least 175 people have been killed, many of them swept away by surging rivers. More than 200 people are now thought to have died in Pakistan, where flood waters have destroyed thousands of homes and large areas of farmland

Kashmir Floods: People Come To Their Own Rescue
By Basharat Ali

In Srinagar, which remains inundated even after three days, young people from areas unaffected by flood have managed whatever they could to recue people. The migrant laborers from different parts of India have also been rescued from their rented places and provided food and shelter at safe locations. Tourists caught in hotels have also been rescued. From areas like Bemina, Rajbagh, Indra Nagar, Humhama, Gogji Bagh, Habba Kadal and other places in the city all rescue and evacuation is done by the volunteers and the media, perhaps not on ground, are fascinated by the rescue and are all praise for the government

Girish Shahane's Straw Man Anti-GMO Activist:
Irrationalism Masquerading As Informed Debate 

By Colin Todhunter

Shahane's attack on Shiva, environmentalists and the ‘irrational left' is based on the notion that rational debate and science should be paramount. Given the actions of the sector as outlined above, there seems little scope for open debate and scientific discourse. There is no room for Merton's lofty scientific ideals in the world of the pro-GMO lobby. Secrecy, intimidation, the co-optation of officials and the hijack of regulatory bodies take precedence

Society of Suicide Bombers: Beyond 9/11
By Mickey Z.

If viewed without bias, one might justifiably characterize modern human behavior as displaying both collective suicidal and homicidal tendencies. We’ve created and sustained a culture that requires relentless consumption and violence in order for it to function as designed. The inevitable outcome -- among many other tragedies -- is irreversible damage to our eco-system, our source of sustenance.Thus, we’re not only killing ourselves; we’re taking almost everything else with us. We’ve become a society of suicide bombers, waging an un-holy war upon ourselves and all forms of life. You might even call it a kamikaze mission

What’s Next For Israel, Hamas, And Gaza?
By Noam Chomsky

For a century, the Zionist colonization of Palestine has proceeded primarily on the pragmatic principle of the quiet establishment of facts on the ground, which the world was to ultimately come to accept. It has been a highly successful policy. There is every reason to expect it to persist as long as the United States provides the necessary military, economic, diplomatic, and ideological support. For those concerned with the rights of the brutalized Palestinians, there can be no higher priority than working to change U.S. policies, not an idle dream by any means

The Astounding Violence Of Israeli Colonialism
By Matt Peppe

To understand the astounding degree of Palestinian suffering, it is necessary to look at the many types of violence inflicted on them for decades by Israeli policies. It goes far beyond the unimaginable death tolls and casualty counts. It won't stop when Israel stops bombing Gaza with fighter jets. It can only be stopped with the overthrow of the Israeli colonial regime

ISIS, Love Jihad And Peaking of Islam Phobia
By Ram Puniyani

How does bring in reason in ‘social thinking' in the face of powerful vested interests who want to use, abuse, religion for their political goals, demonize a religious community is a question not easy to resolve. Challenging the prevalence of ideas of the dominant sections, dominant social powers; is a tall order, which has to be taken up in all seriousness if we want peace and progress in our society

ISIS: The Birth Of A Narrative
By Mirza Yawar Baig

Demanding that Muslims must condemn the ISIS is typical xenophobic and communal nonsense. We don't have to condemn something that we didn't create nor support. Let those who created ISIS condemn it and stop supporting it. Let them freeze their funding which will stop them as surely as a hole in the head. Let their creators and funders understand that they are not fooling anyone. We the people of the world and we the Muslims are more than aware of what is going on and are able to see the schemes behind the events. We are not fooled by the whimpering of captive media who have sold the very spirit of free press and journalism down the drain

What Gujarat Does Today .... Vibrant Gujarat – No Place For Muslims ?
By Subhash Gatade

One learns that recently the National Commission on Minorities wrote to the Gujarat government where businesspeople/traders belonging to the minority community are intimidated/coerced to close their business. And the response by the state government was on expected lines. A senior minister in Ms Anandiben Patel's cabinet completely refuted the allegations and charged the complainants themselves

Terrorism, COINTELPRO, And The Black Panther Party
By Angola 3 News

An interview with law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell

08 September, 2014

Fighting Flares In Eastern Ukraine Despite Ceasefire
By Johannes Stern & Alex Lantier

Fighting in the east Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Donetsk continued Sunday despite Friday’s cease-fire between the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime in Kiev and pro-Russian separatist forces. The cease-fire was negotiated by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin

The West Paves The Road To War With Lies
By Paul Craig Roberts

Official statements from the Russian government indicate that the president and foreign minister continue to rely on the good will of “our Western partners” to work out a reasonable diplomatic solution to the trouble in Ukraine caused by Washington. Not only is there no evidence of this good will in Western capitals, the hostile measures against Russia are increasing. Moreover, hostile measures are on the rise even though their main effect is to disadvantage Europe

Climate Alarm Bells Ring But UN And Obama Administration Fail To Act
By Margaret Flowers & Kevin Zeese

This month, when the United Nations holds climate meetings in New York, people in the US have an opportunity to gather, raise awareness of the roots of the crisis and build a broader movement of movements that cooperates through a unified strategy. We must be clear in our demands and goals and lay a foundation to build a sustainable energy economy that provides universal access to basic necessities from the bottom up

Three Limits To Growth
By Herman Daly

Adopting a steady state economy allows us to avoid being shoved past the economic limit. We could take our time to evaluate new technology rather than letting it blindly push growth that may well be uneconomic. And the steady state gives us some insurance against the risks of ecological catastrophe that increase with growthism and technological impatience

Climate Change Means Lifestyle Change
By John Scales Avery

What then must we do? We must develop a new economic system which will aim at long-run sustainability. Within such a system, the problem of unemployment can be addressed by shifting jobs to the task of building renewable energy infrastructure. Secondly, we must recognize that our usual lifestyles cannot be continued. We must limit our consumption to necessities; and we must travel only when absolutely necessary. If we do not make these changes, we will have lost the struggle for the future

Peace Ecology
By David Swanson

With serendipitous timing, as a big march for the climate, and various related events , are planned on and around the International Day of Peace , Randall Amster has just published an important book called Peace Ecology . This book bridges divides that very much need to be bridged between peace activism and peace academia, and between peace advocacy and environmentalism. This is, in fact, a peace book for deep environmentalists and an environmental book for deep peace advocates

Joan Rivers And Arafat
By Alan Hart

In 2010 Joan Rivers tweeted a joke about her death. “With all the plastic surgery I’ve had, I’m worried when I die God won’t recognise me.” If she was still alive today, I would say to her something like, “If he does recognise you, perhaps you should worry about whether he will forgive you for saying that because they voted for Hamas the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip prison camp deserved what they were getting when Israel was delivering them more death and destruction

Monsanto's Gamble: A Risk Not Worth Taking
By Colin Todhunter

There are particular products that should be held back, though, and the precautionary principle applied. This principle is based on the notion that there is a good chance that a certain item may pose widespread harm to the entire population if released for public consumption. For example, there is enough evidence to suggest that releasing genetically modified (GM) foods onto the market could seriously damage the entire population's health

Our Decadent MSM Proves Stalin Was Right!
By Gary Corseri

On the same day that hundreds of US citizens were arrested, while peacefully protesting for a living wage for fast-food workers, in 150 cities across the United States, I channel-surfed the evening news reports. Every single channel—ranging from Right to Far Right—from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN to FOX led their “news” broadcasts with tributes to the deceased “comedy legend” Joan Rivers!

Has Microfinance Lost Its Moral Compass?
By The University of Manchester

The industry that provides financial services for people on low-incomes and without access to traditional banking services is morally reprehensible according to new research from The University of Manchester

NATO Wales Summit Gives Dark And Limping Hopes
By Dr. Vivek Kumar Srivastava

NATO has used Ukraine to expand its sphere of influence in and around Russia. The strategy was well thought in the wake of dissolution of USSR after the end of cold war

The Overblown ISIS Threat: Prelude To Another Long War?
By Taj Hashmi

As the meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or simply the IS) – Ad-Dawlaht ul-Islamiyya – was enigmatic, so was the capitulation of Iraqi troops to this mysterious group surprising. Despite the misleading name, the terror outfit has no chance of establishing itself as a state, let alone its caliphate dream. Despite the hyped up threat perception, it neither poses an existential threat to any country in the region, nor is it a bigger security threat to the West than al Qaeda. This, however, does not mean that soon, the ISIS will go the IRA or LTTE way, into oblivion. Then again, Western warmongers’ demand for immediate military action in Iraq and Syria sounds ominously familiar. Is the West going to another long-drawn war in the region in the name of ensuring regional and global peace?

ISIS Cover For U.S. War Of Terror
By Ghali Hassan

ISIS is not an indigenous Islamic resistant movement; it is a U.S.-sponsored proxy terrorist force of foreign mercenaries. By creating and demonising ISIS, the West is demonising Muslims and Islam to justify a war of terror and to advance its imperialist-Zionist agenda, regardless of the loss of innocent human lives and the criminal tragedies it creates

Celebrating Onam In Challenging Times
By George Abraham

Today, that dream is being challenged by the forces of communalism which would like turn India on a path towards Hindutva. Yes, there are challenges; however, we all need to dream as individuals, as a society and as a nation. For many of us the dream of prosperity is only half of the puzzle. We might have accomplished them. We may be still missing that spiritual and moral dimension which made Kerala once a land of prosperity, justice and brotherhood

The Sikhs Losing ‘Political Identity’ In India
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

Contextualizing what Mountbatten had visualized 65 years ago against the Sikhs’ present predicament under the Modi-RSS regime, the things are stark clear; like Indian Muslims, the Sikh minority’s political space seems to be fast shrinking in India. Zoya Hasan, former JNU professor has aptly described the Modi phenomenon as “politics without minorities’ in India

05 September, 2014

At NATO Summit,US And Europe Threaten Russia, Plan Military Action Against ISIS
By Jordan Shilton

The first day of NATO’s summit in Wales was dominated by scheming against Russia and preparations for military action in Iraq and Syria

Can Supermarkets Ever Be Sustainable?
By Rob Hopkins

Can supermarkets ever be sustainable? Walmart’s new boss is on a mission. Will his drive for renewable energy and waste reduction transform the supermarket model?

Jihadism And How It Could Be Isolated, Contained And Defeated
By Alan Hart

I must start by saying that Jihadism is my necessary headline shorthand for violent Islamic fundamentalism in all of its manifestations. In this article I’m going to ask and offer answers to two main questions. The first is – Where does this madness come from? I mean what is it, really, that gives birth and life to violent Islamic fundamentalism?

How And WhyThe USA Has Sponsored Terrorism In The Mid East Since At Least 1948
By Robert Barsocchini

The USA started carrying out coups, assassinating leaders, and sponsoring terrorism and extremists in Syria in 1948, continuing to the present moment, as everyone knows, under Obama

Nine Reasons Why Scots Should Vote Yes For An Independent Scotland
By Dr Gideon Polya

A referendum on whether Scotland should be independent from the UK will take place on Thursday 18 September 2014 . There are many locally and globally important reasons for Scots to vote “Yes” for an Independent Scotland and reject the “No” advice from a plethora of UK Mainstream media, politician and academic presstitutes and from bloody warmongers, war criminals and state terrorists like Barack Obama and Tony Blair who have urged Scots to remain as subjects of the historically and internationally brutal, bloody and exploitative English Establishment

Because…
By Gary Corseri

The Children of Light flutter…and depart,
Leaving their questions in the quivering air:
“Why bring us into this pinwheel of sorrow?
Wasn't it better not to be born?”

No One Has To Ask Permission To Fight For Women’s Liberation
By Carol Downer

A Response To Katie Klabusich’s Attack On Stop Patriarchy In Bitch Magazine

The Other 9/11
By Mickey Z.

Whether or not activists will ever mount a serious threat to U.S. hegemony and propaganda remains to be seen. One thing is certain, however: Without such organizing, action, and sacrifice, there will be many more wars and interventions and many more lies told to obscure the truth about them

Falsehoods In The NYT's Editorial, 'Mr. Putin Tests The West In Ukraine'
By Eric Zuesse

A country where a 'news' organization such as that can repeatedly win highly touted prizes for 'journalism' cannot possibly be a democracy, because the voters are being deceived so much, and so thoroughly, on such basic issues, even of war and peace, and of what the country itself is doing, so that to call such a country "democratic" would be to insult democracy itself

Penetrating The Darkness Covering Two Malaysian Airline Disasters
By John Chuckman

In each case, there appears to be only one explanation consistent with known facts

The Failures Of US Foreign/Military Policy
By Jack A. Smith

The United States insists on throwing its formidable weight around and being recognized as world hegemon, but refuses to take any responsibility for the great number of negative results that emanate from its constant military and political interventions in the affairs of other states and regions

Lenin: State And Revolution: Chapter 5 - Withering Away The State, Review (Part One)
By Thomas Riggins

Chapter 5 of State and Revolution has a brief introduction and four sections. Lenin opens by telling us that Marx’s major discussion of the withering way of the state is to be found in his Critique of the Gotha Program. The Gotha Program was the founding document of the SPD in 1875. Although Marx wrote it in 1875, it was not published until 1891, eight years after his death

04 September, 2014

NATO Summit Begins As Anti-Russian Measures Heighten War Danger
By Chris Marsden

Wednesday began with an announcement of at least the outline of a “permanent ceasefire” between Ukraine and Russia, but ended in rhetoric just as warlike as any sounded in the days leading up to today’s NATO summit in Wales

What Is The Truth About ISIS?
By Peter Chamberlin

Why is it that no researchers have asked the question “How did AQI suddenly acquire enough money and equipment to turn a failing terrorist entity into an “Islamic Caliphate” overnight?” Even if they did bully the Free Syrian Army and take their weapons,pull-off a “string of bank robberies,” kidnappings and extortion, AQI could never have come up with enough cash to run an army, or to buy a fleet of shiny new Toyota trucks, or to become one of the best-paying employers in the Middle East, without being on some state’s payroll

Energy East vs. The Climate
By Bill McKibben

By building a movement capable of shutting down the tar sands, we’re standing up for the future of the planet

A Global Warming President Presides Over A Drill-Baby-Drill America
By Michael T. Klare

Considering all the talk about global warming, peak oil, carbon divestment, and renewable energy, you’d think that oil consumption in the United States would be on a downward path. By now, we should certainly be witnessing real progress toward a post-petroleum economy. As it happens, the opposite is occurring. U.S. oil consumption is on an upward trajectory, climbing by 400,000 barrels per day in 2013 alone -- and, if current trends persist, it should rise again both this year and next

Why Peak Oil Refuses To Die
By Richard Heinberg

Ignore peak oil (this could equally be said of climate change), and our view of the global problem-set immediately becomes distorted. We grasp at apparent solutions that turn out to be a useless waste of effort, or worse. Peak oil helps us understand what we’re faced with, and what we must do. It’s a gift wrapped in a curse. And it refuses to go away no matter how often it is pronounced dead

The Evidence: MH17
By Peter Haisenko

Peter Haisenko was a pilot for Lufthansa for 30 years. In the article below he explains his conclusion that the Malaysian airliner downed in Ukraine was hit first by an air-to-air missile from a Ukrainian fighter jet and then by machine gun fire. As Ukrainian air control has refused to release its communications with the airliner and Washington refuses to release its satellite photos, we have to form a judgment based on experience and available evidence. This judgment is superior to unsupported propagandistic claims. The withholding of pertinent information suggests that Washington and/or Kiev are responsible for the downed airliner

Winners And Losers In Gaza: On Victory And False Victory
By Ramzy Baroud

Gaza's ceasefire “celebrations” were not the kind of celebrations that would follow a football match win. To comprehend it as an expression of mere joy is a mistake, and reflects a lack of understanding of Gaza society. It was more of a collective statement by people who lost 2,143 people, mostly civilians, and have over 11,000 wounded and maimed to care for. Let alone the total or partial destruction of 18,000 homes, 75 schools, many hospitals, mosques, and hundreds of factories and shops

Israel’s Incremental Inhumanity Precludes The Right To Demand For Israelis
That Which It So Violently Denies The Palestinian People

By William Hanna

Israel’s ability to continuously cite highfaluting concepts and ethical Judaic principles while simultaneously committing the most heinous of crimes, has become a well-practised national trait that must be challenged and exposed as the manifest criminal fraud which it is

How Israel Won The Battle And Lost The War
By Prakash Kona

This is the sad and stupid plight of the state of Israel that has murdered sleep and lost its appetite for life. No wonder it embarks on the politics of meaningless murder instead of looking for a way to end the occupation whose consequences generations of Israeli children will have to pay for deprived of both "sleep" and "appetite."

The Tragedy of The Greeks
By Atharva Pandit

An article on the current state of immigrants in Greece, attention on whom has increased after the judgement handed out by the High Court, acquitting three farmers who had shot a group of over 100 fruit-pickers in April 2013

Uranium Exports To India: Australia Not Playing Cricket With A Straight Bat
By Anuj Wankhede

There has been talk for the past many years about Australia which has the world's largest known uranium deposits - about 28% - lifting its ban on exporting uranium to India. The visit by the Australian PM Tony Abbott to India and specifically to Delhi on September 5th 2014 is expected to seal a deal which will probably end the 30 year ban on uranium exports to India by Australia

Elections In Kashmir: A Mockery Of Democracy
By Rayees Rasool

Had Indian state been sincere in their efforts and had helped free and fair elections in 87, we have strong reasons to believe that the political scenario in Kashmir would have been different

03 September, 2014

US And NATO Step Up Military Preparations Against Russia
By Niles Williamson

At their meeting this week in Wales, government heads of NATO member countries are expected to approve the creation of a special rapid response force of as many as 4,000 soldiers that could be deployed to any member state within two days. They are also expected to sanction the establishment of an ongoing troop presence in Poland and the Baltic states, as well as the buildup of equipment and arms stockpiles in Eastern Europe

Warning To The World: Washington And Its NATO And EU Vassals Are Insane
By Paul Craig Roberts

Herbert E. Meyer, a nutcase who was a special assistant to the CIA director for a period during the Reagan administration, has penned an article calling for Russian President Putin’s assassination. If we have “ to get him out of the Kremlin feet-first with a bullet hole in the back of his head, that would be okay with us.” As the crazed Meyer illiustrates, the insanity that Washington has released upon the world knows no restraint

Obama’s Paralyzed Presidency And The Push For War
By Shamus Cooke

President Obama is breathing fresh life into the term “lame duck.” At home and abroad the president seems frozen, powerless to confront the most demanding political issues. From foreign wars to Ferguson the president’s lack of audacity seems destined to be his legacy. And while working class people in Ferguson are demanding justice at home, the U.S. establishment is insisting on war abroad

“Law Proposes, And Politics Disposes: Questions Beyond/Beneath ‘Checks And Balances’ ”
By K.M. Seethi

There is a gratuitous twist given to the appointment of retired Justice Sathasivamn as the Governor of Kerala by scholars, lawyers and politicians. The controversy raises more questions about judiciary than about the gubernatorial selection

The Three Stooges of The NYPD Police Unions Should Resign
By Thomas Riggins

The heads of the three police unions in New York City are on the warpath against the head of the United Federation of Teachers because his union was in a civil rights march led by Rev. Al Sharpton on Staten Island Saturday August 23

Lynching: Public Celebration Of Painful Experience Of The Marginalised
By Kamalakar Duvvuru

The high caste tries to do anything, even lynching if it requires, to stop Dalits grow economically and educationally, so that the latter will never reach their level and challenge high caste supremacy. This is the underlying cause of some of the lynchings that have happened across India and of the real situation in educational institutions

From The Margins: Revisiting The Concept Of `Marginalized Women’
By Shalu Nigam

A few days back, I attended a seminar on `Violence Against Marginalized Women and Gender Justice’. The seminar discussed about issues relating to various subgroups within the category `women’ like widows, dalit women, tribal women, refugee women, so on and so forth. The deliberations made me think as to who constitute `marginalized women’ when `women’ being women are marginalized in the patriarchal world

02 September, 2014

NATO's "Military Hysteria" Undermines Hope For Peace
In Ukraine, Says Russia

By Jon Queally

In response to threats from NATO that it will be expanding its military capabilities eastward, Russia on Tuesday countered by saying such moves will only result in military recalibrations of its own

Iraq Has WMDs And Russia Has Invaded!
By David Swanson

The U.S. media has repeatedly been claiming that Russia has invaded Ukraine. They claim it for a while, and there's obviously been no invasion, so they pause. Then they claim it again. Or they claim that a convoy of aid trucks constitutes an invasion. But the aid trucks look like aid trucks in all the photographs, and yet nobody has taken similar photographs of any invasion. When Ukrainian tanks rolled into eastern Ukraine and were surrounded by civilians, we saw photographs and videos. Now there's just a Colin-Powellesque satellite photo from NATO supposedly showing Russian artillery in Ukraine

Putin’s Restraint
By Gaither Stewart & Paul Carline

Putin’s matter-of-fact statement over last weekend that “If I wanted to I could take Kiev in two weeks”, following his mid-week reminder of Russia’s sometimes forgotten nuclear capacity, was most certainly startling to European Union leaders gathered in Bruxelles to shuffle around EU functions in such way that the bureaucrats—who have made non-elected careers in Bruxelles running as much as possible the lives of Europeans—can keep their jobs

30% of Small Island States Population Threatened By Sea Level Rise
By Marianne de Nazareth

The new Global Environment Outlook report released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)says, Governments and the world at large are being confronted by accelerating climate change and environmental challenges to their economies and society. For many Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the experience is even more dramatic and is felt more rapidly because of their small physical scale, geographic isolation, unique biodiversity, exposure to natural hazards and disasters, high population growth coupled with outmigration and significant seasonal in-migration from tourism, limited resource base, remoteness from global markets and small economies of scale

How America Made ISIS
By Tom Engelhardt

Their Videos and Ours, Their “Caliphate” and Ours

Thai Elites And Coups: It is All About Controlling The People
Text and Photo: Andre Vltchek

A discussion with Andrew Marshall

Remembering Shays’ Rebellion
By Mickey Z.

Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago this month -- long before the cries of “support the troops” became commonplace during every U.S. military intervention -- the powers-that-be made it clear how little they intended to follow their own mantra

Celebrate Labor Day By Really Standing Up For Labor
By A D Hemming

Let us celebrate this Labor Day with the names of Lucy and Albert Parsons as well as FDR on our minds. This and the bloody struggle to bring a better balance between labor and business which now no longer exists and to commit ourselves to revive that movement of which all should be proud as real Americans as this right here should illustrate, for this is the zeitgeist the USA needs today for a “people century” Henry Wallace called for as vice president

History Could Help Sikhs Knowing Their Present Placing And Future In India’
By Jaspal Singh Sidhu

For better understanding of such process of banalisation ,the Sikhs should know the recent history to enable them to assessing their present placing and future probabilities in India. In this context, late Ram Narayan Kumar stands apart and so his book “ Terror in Punjab---Narrative, Knowledge and Truth” published in 2009 by Shipra Publications, Delhi

01 September, 2014

US And Europe Escalate Provocations Against Russia
By Johannes Stern

The European Union summit held in Brussels over the weekend represents a major escalation of the aggression by the Western powers against Russia, raising the specter of full-blown war in Europe and even a nuclear war between NATO and Russia

Top Ten Telltale Signs That Will Tell Whether Russia Has Invaded Ukraine?
By Dmitry Orlov

Armed with this list, you too should be able to determine whether or not Russia has invaded Ukraine last Thursday

Who Owns The Nukes If Wall Street Owns The Government?
Maybe it’s Time To Take Back The Government

By Nicholas C. Arguimbau

Paul Craig Roberts is not a fool. He cannot be dismissed lightly when he says the United States and Russia are already at war over the Ukraine, and the US is planning nuclear war, based upon a transparent pretense. He is not alone. Now there are almost daily expressions of concern that the US is positioning itself to take the first strike in a nuclear war with Russia

Why Are We Worried About The Islamic State? Did I Miss Something?
By Father Dave Smith

Just cut off their funding! The Islamic State are a weed without roots. Once we stop the flow of money the Islamic State will dry up and wither and disappear. We in the West have nothing to fear from Al Baghdadi and his band of mercenaries but we have everything to fear from the whirlwind that will eventuate if Mr Obama's dogs of war are let off their leash!

Hypocrisy, Double Standards, And The Politicisation Of Genocide
By William Hanna

Honest, self-respecting human beings — yes, including Jews — cannot on any grounds deny that Israel’s barbaric treatment of the Palestinian people warrants unconditional universal condemnation; Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions; and an unencumbered opening of investigations into Israel’s Gaza war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Anything less would constitute yet more contemptible criminal complicity

Cancellation of Foreign Secretary Level Talks: What Next?
By Z.G. Muhammad

If the stalemate in the relations between India and Pakistan persists will it follow a tradition pattern of ending into intensified ceasefire violations, skirmishes and armed stand off between the two countries along the LOC? And if it could explode into full-fledged war in 2015. Narendra Modi believes Pakistan has lost capacity to fight the conventional wars as India was far more superior in armoury and arsenals- rightly so India is five times bigger than India in size and strength. But in terms of possession of nukes the two countries are evenly placed. This strengthens the belief that South Asia is a most “dangerous place” in the world and Kashmir is a nuclear flash point that cries for a resolution

Labor’s Demise Is America’s Demise
By Paul Craig Roberts

Thoughts for Labor Day

Things My Mother Never Told Me
By John Chuckman

Despite my title, this is not a memoir, dealing as it does with some of the most deadly serious subjects on the planet

 

 




 

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