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War on Syria:
Monday, October 06 @ 10:51:42 UTC |  By Ramzy Baroud
October 05, 2014
What if the so-called Islamic State (IS) didn’t exist?
In order to answer this question, one has to liberate the argument from its geopolitical and ideological confines.
Many in the media (Western, Arab, etc) use the reference “Islamist” to brand any movement at all, whether it is political, militant or even charity-focused. If it is dominated by men with beards or women with headscarves that make references to the Holy Quran and Islam as the motivator behind their ideas, violent tactics, or even good deeds, then the word “Islamist” is the language of choice.
According to this overbearing logic, a Malaysia-based charity can be as “Islamist” as the militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria. When the term “Islamist” was first introduced to the debate on Islam and politics, it carried mostly intellectual connotations. Even some “Islamists” used it in reference to their political thought. Now, it can be moulded to mean many things.
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War on Syria: 'US seeks to use IS to weaken each state in the region'
Thursday, September 18 @ 11:12:24 UTC | The US is attempting to use ISIS to destroy each government in the region including Syria and Iraq, and is trying to drag Iran into this, Soraya Sepaphour-Ulrich, a researcher and expert on Iran, told RT.
September 17, 2014
http://rt.com
RT: Why do you think Iran doesn't want to cooperate with the US on fighting the Islamic State?
Soraya Sepaphour: I think Iran is well aware of what the United States’ end game is. They have been observing America repeating the same pattern. And they are well aware that this is not really a fight against a group of terrorists - of the making of Americans themselves and their allies - but it is really to reoccupy the Persian Gulf region. Its angle is to remove Assad from power and to reoccupy Iraq and then perhaps even to take the offensive to Tehran. So Tehran appreciates the threat from these terrorist groups which they call ISIL or IS right now. They also understand that without the Americans, without the Saudi money, and American training it wouldn’t exist here in the first place.
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War and Terror:
Wednesday, June 25 @ 21:02:23 UTC | By Ramzy Baroud
June 25, 2014
“Brother, brother,” a young man called on me as I hurriedly left a lecture hall in some community center in Durban, South Africa. This happened at the height of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, when all efforts at stopping the ferocious US-western military drives against these two countries terribly failed.
The young man was dressed in traditional Afghani Pashtun attire, and accompanied by a friend of his. With palpable nervousness, he asked a question that seemed completely extraneous to my lecture on the use of people history to understand protracted historical phenomena using Palestine as a model.
“Brother, do you believe that there is hope for the Muslim Ummah?” He inquired about the future of a nation in which he believed we both indisputably belonged to, and anxiously awaited as if my answer carried any weight at all, and would put his evident worries at ease.
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War and Terror: US Political Impotence in the Middle East
Thursday, May 23 @ 16:54:43 UTC | Syria as a Game-Changer
By Ramzy Baroud
May 23, 2013
In an article published May 15, 2013, American historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein wrote, “Nothing illustrates more the limitations of Western power than the internal controversy its elites are having in public about what the United States in particular and western European states should be doing about the civil war in Syria.”
Those limitations are palpable in both language and action. A political and military vacuum created by past US failures and forced retreats after the Iraq war made it possible for countries like Russia to reemerge on the scene as an effective player.
It is most telling that over two years after the Syrian uprising-turned bloody civil war, the US continues to curb its involvement by indirectly assisting anti-Bashar al-Assad regime opposition forces, through its Arab allies and Turkey. Even its political discourse is indecisive and often times inconsistent.
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Arab Spring:
Thursday, January 24 @ 20:39:17 UTC | By Ramzy Baroud
January 24, 2013
A reductionist discourse is one that selectively tailors its reading of subject matters in such a way as to only yield desired outcomes, leaving little or no room for other inquiries, no matter how appropriate or relevant. The so-called Arab Spring, although now far removed from its initial meanings and aspirations, has become just that: a breeding ground for choosy narratives solely aimed at advancing political agendas which are deeply entrenched with regional and international involvement.
When a despairing Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire on December 17, 2010, he had ignited more than a mere revolution in his country. His excruciating death had given birth to a notion that the psychological expanses between despair and hope, death and rebirth and between submissiveness and revolutions are ultimately connected. His act, regardless of what adjective one may use to describe it, was the very key that Tunisians used to unlock their ample reserve of collective power. Then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s decision to step down on January 14, 2011, was in a sense a rational assessment on his part if one is to consider the impossibility of confronting a nation that had in its grasp a true popular revolution.
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Arab Spring:
Tuesday, September 25 @ 07:49:11 UTC | By James Petras
September 23, 2012 - globalresearch.ca
The so-called “Arab Spring:” is a distant and bitter memory to those who fought and struggled for a better world, not to speak of the thousands who lost, life and limb.
In its place, throughout the Muslim world, a new wave of reactionaries, corrupt and servile politicians have taken the reins of power buttressed by the same military, secret police and judicial power who sustained the previous rulers[2].
Introduction
Death and destruction is rampant, poverty and misery has multiplied, law and order has broken down, retrograde thugs have seized political power, where previously they were a marginal force. Living standards have plunged, cities are devastated and commerce is paralyzed. And presiding over this “Arab Winter” are the Western powers, the US and EU, - with the aid of the despotic Gulf absolutist monarchies, their Turkish ally and a motley army of mercenary Islamic terrorists and their would-be exile spokespeople.
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Arab Spring: Aljazeera Coverage: The Revolution Will Be Televised, and also Manipulated
Friday, January 13 @ 16:08:14 UTC | By Ramzy Baroud
January 13, 2012
In the final days of the Libyan conflict, as NATO conducted a nonstop bombing campaign, an Aljazeera Arabic television correspondent’s actions raised more than eyebrows. They also raised serious questions regarding the journalistic responsibility of Arab media – or in fact any media - during times of conflict.
Using a handheld transceiver, the journalist aired live communication between a Libyan commander and his troops in a Tripoli neighborhood targeted by a massive air assault. Millions of people listened, as surely did NATO military intelligence, to sensitive information disclosed by an overpowered, largely defeated army. The Doha-based news anchor sought further elaboration, and the reporter readily provided all the details he knew.
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