| Old Articles | | Wednesday, January 06 | | · | The 'War on Terror' Has Been About Scaring People, Not Protecting Them |
| Thursday, November 05 | | · | From Gitmo to Palau: Who are the Uighurs? |
| Tuesday, September 01 | | · | Mercenary Armies Help White House Subvert U.S. Peace Movement |
| Thursday, February 05 | | · | Endless Propaganda: The War on Terror is a Hoax |
| Tuesday, March 25 | | · | Clueless In America: Primed to protect the Homeland |
| Monday, February 18 | | · | War on the Psyche |
| Thursday, October 11 | | · | Al-Qaeda: Sort of Like the Energizer Bunny |
| Saturday, September 08 | | · | Bin Laden: Still Dead After all these Years |
| Tuesday, June 05 | | · | Terrorism Defined |
| Sunday, June 03 | | · | JFK Four: Connecting Propaganda Dots from Jamaat to Hugo Chávez |
| Wednesday, April 25 | | · | Pat Tillman and the 'Elaborate Lies' of Psychopathic Rulers |
| Tuesday, February 13 | | · | How the World Can Stop Bush |
| Tuesday, January 16 | | · | Advocating Mass Murder |
| Thursday, January 11 | | · | Imagine |
| Thursday, November 02 | | · | Growing Anger As US Accused of Being Behind Madrasa Attacks |
| Thursday, September 14 | | · | Path to 9/11 Obscures Real Terror Network |
| Friday, June 16 | | · | Father's Day: The dangerous notions of Michael Berg |
| Tuesday, May 23 | | · | Vexed to nightmare: The unholy uni0n behind the war on terror |
| Tuesday, March 28 | | · | Stunning Zacarias Moussaoui into Submission? |
| Tuesday, January 24 | | · | The Goon Show of Bush and Bin Laden |
Older Articles
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World Focus: Our Misguided 'Wars of Choice'
Thursday, April 20 @ 10:45:51 UTC |  By Jeffrey D. Sachs
April 20, 2017 - Common Dreams
There is one foreign policy goal that matters above all the others, and that is to keep the United States out of a new war, whether in Syria, North Korea, or elsewhere. In recent days, President Trump has struck Syria with Tomahawk missiles, bombed Afghanistan with the most powerful nonnuclear bomb in the US arsenal, and has sent an armada toward nuclear-armed North Korea. We could easily find ourselves in a rapidly escalating war, one that could pit the United States directly against nuclear-armed countries of China, North Korea, and Russia.
Such a war, if it turned nuclear and global, could end the world. Even a nonnuclear war could end democracy in the United States, or the United States as a unified nation. Who thought the Soviet Uni0n’s war in Afghanistan would end the Soviet Uni0n itself? Which of the belligerents at the start of World War I foresaw the catastrophic end of four giant empires — Hohenzollern (Prussia), Romanov (Russia), Ottoman, and Hapsburg — as a result of the war?
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War and Terror: The Religious Element of Terrorism
Wednesday, December 09 @ 03:03:18 UTC | By William Blum
December 08, 2015
Is it terrorism or is it religion? Does the question matter?
From the early days of America’s “War on Terror,” and even before then, I advocated seeing terrorists as more than just mindless, evil madmen from another planet. I did not believe they were motivated by hatred or envy of American freedom or democracy, or of American wealth, secular government or culture, although George W. Bush dearly wanted us to believe that.
The terrorists were, I maintained, driven by decades of terrible things done to their homelands by U.S. foreign policy. There should be no doubt of this I wrote, for there are numerous examples of Middle East terrorists explicitly citing American policies as the prime motivation behind their actions. And it worked the same all over the world.
In the period of the 1950s to the 1980s in Latin America, in response to a long string of outrageous Washington interventions, there were countless acts of terrorism against U.S. diplomatic and military targets as well as the offices of U.S. corporations. 9/11 was a globalized version of the Columbine High School disaster. When you bully people long enough they are going to strike back.
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War and Terror:
Tuesday, November 17 @ 21:48:23 UTC | By Paul Gottinger
November 17, 2015 - counterpunch.org
The hysteria of vengeance has once again grasped hold of the West. Almost instantly, the West’s veneer of civilization has been peeled away, leaving in its place, a renewed commitment to barbarity and retribution against the monsters known as ISIS.
France, like the US after September 11, immediately rolled back its citizen’s rights and made promises to escalate the harassment and surveillance of Muslims. President François Hollande, taking a page from some of the darkest days of the Bush administration, pledged bloody revenge in a “pitiless” war against ISIS.
Hollande wasted no time making good on his pledge.
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War and Terror:
Thursday, January 15 @ 09:31:20 UTC | By Ramzy Baroud
January 15, 2015
It is still not about Islam, even if the media and militants attacking western targets say so. Actually, it never was. But it was important for many to conflate politics with religion; partly because it is convenient and self-validating.
First, let’s be clear on some points. Islam has set in motion a system to abolish slavery over 1,200 years before the slave trade reached its peak in the western world.
Freeing the slaves, who were owned by pagan Arab tribes, was a recurring theme in the Koran, always linked to the most basic signs of piety and virtue:
“The charities are to go to the poor, and the needy, and those who work to collect them, and those whose hearts have been united, and to free the slaves, and those in debt, and in the cause of God, and the traveler. A duty from God, and God is Knowledgeable, Wise.” [Al-Koran. 9:60]
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War and Terror: How the US Helped Create Al Qaeda and ISIS
Saturday, September 20 @ 08:10:50 UTC | By Garikai Chengu
September 20, 2014 - counterpunch.org
Much like Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (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.
The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era. Back then, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side, the Soviet Uni0n and Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side, Western nations and militant political Islam, which America considered an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Uni0n.
The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the US has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation”.
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War and Terror: Convenient Genocide: Another Failed War to Re-arrange The Middle East
Tuesday, September 16 @ 06:59:00 UTC | By Ramzy Baroud
September 16, 2014
A few months ago, not many Americans, in fact Europeans as well, knew that a Yazidi sect in fact existed in northwest Iraq. Even in the Middle East itself, the Yazidis and their way of life have been an enigma, shrouded by mystery and mostly grasped through stereotypes and fictitious evidence. Yet in no time, the fate of the Yazidis became a rally cry for another US-led Iraq military campaign.
It was not a surprise that the small Iraqi minority found itself a target for fanatical Islamic State (IS) militants, who had reportedly carried out unspeakable crimes against Yazidis, driving them to Dohuk, Irbil and other northern Iraqi regions. According to UN and other groups, 40,000 Yazidi had been stranded on Mount Sinjar, awaiting imminent “genocide” if the US and other powers didn’t take action to save them.
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War and Terror: The Empire Reaps the Jihadist Whirlwind
Thursday, August 14 @ 22:29:47 UTC | By Glen Ford
August 18, 2014 - blackagendareport.com
“The problem is, the Pentagon’s proxies are evaporating.”
August 14, 2014 "ICH" - "BAR" -- The rise of the Islamic Caliphate in Iraq and Syria has flipped the script on U.S. proxy war policies in the region, and may ultimately bring down the royal oil states whose survival is indispensable to American hegemony in the world. At the foot soldier level, the imperial proxy strategy has already collapsed with the disintegration of the (always ephemeral) “moderate” armed opposition to the Syrian government and the defection to the Caliphate of formerly U.S.-financed Sunni fighters in Iraq.
The $500 million President Obama has requested for Syria has been rendered moot by the Caliphate’s stunning political and military victories; no amount of money can create an army out of phantoms. The most active Syrian insurgents have flocked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State formerly known as ISIS, whose leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, served notice on Washington: “You should know, you defender of the cross, that getting others to fight on your behalf will not do for you in Syria as it will not do for you in Iraq.”
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War and Terror: If Maliki's a good guy, then so is Assad
Wednesday, June 25 @ 21:26:31 UTC | Maliki's "anti-Sunni policies have blown up in his face — literally"--Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, January, 2014
By Stephen Gowans
June 25, 2014 - gowans.wordpress.com
The armed rebellion in Iraq is a broad-based attempt by Sunnis to press for the resolution of legitimate grievances against a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad which has marginalized them and treated them as second class citizens. Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government reacted to largely peaceful Sunni demonstrations earlier this year with mass arrests, torture and violence. This sparked an armed rebellion, of which ISIS, the Islamist group which has dominated Western media coverage of the conflict, acts as only one part of a larger alliance of Sunni rebel organizations. The Iraqi army has met the armed rebellion with barrel bombs and indiscriminate shelling of residential targets, including a hospital in Fallujah.
Maliki’s policies have marginalized Iraq’s Sunni minority politically and economically. He has targeted Sunni politicians for arrest, manoeuvred to transform political power into a Shiite monopoly, and alienated ordinary Sunnis, who say they’re discriminated against in housing, employment, and education. Sunnis complain of being treated as second class citizens.
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War and Terror: What Motivated the Boston Bombers
Wednesday, May 22 @ 17:02:38 UTC | Why It's Not a Chechen Thing, But All About the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
By Gary Leupp
May 22, 2013 - counterpunch.org
New details emerge every day, raising more questions. But the outlines of the stomach-churning story seem clear. Two young men, brothers who emigrated from Kyrgyzstan twelve years ago with their parents and sisters—high-achieving, “well-assimilated” immigrant men—planted bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring well over 250. They killed an MIT campus policeman for no apparent reason, hijacked an SUV, engaged in a gunfight with police, and sowed citywide fear for five days. Both self-identified as Chechens, although neither grew up nor spent much time in the Russian republic of Chechnya; and as Muslims, although the older was the observant one, the younger a pot-smoking (maybe pot-dealing) Hennessey drinker. The older held a green card and had applied for U.S. citizenship but had been denied it.
How to define these men, and to describe the event? Let us step back and survey the big picture.
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Africa Focus: Gaddafi's warnings now used to justify Mali intervention
Wednesday, February 27 @ 20:46:50 UTC | Once derided, Gaddafi’s warnings about jihadists now used to justify Mali intervention
By Stephen Gowans
February 27, 2013 - gowans.wordpress.com
In the January 20th New York Times, Steven Erlanger justifies the French intervention in Mali on these grounds:
- It responds to “a direct request from a legitimate government.”
- It combats “the spread of radical Islamists, some of them foreign jihadists, strongly connected to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.”
Erlanger uses the word “legitimate” to describe Mali’s government. “Democratic” carries more weight, but Mali is governed by a military dictatorship, a truth one suspects Erlanger would prefer not to draw attention to. Neither does Erlanger’s report mention that Human Rights Watch accuses the Malian military of killing civilian Tuareg and Arab minorities (1). Being every bit a salesman, Erlanger presses “legitimate” into use as an inferior, though still high-sounding, surrogate for “democratic” and ignores the civilian killings. A military operation to help a legitimate government must be legitimate, right? In any event, it sounds a whole lot better than the truth, namely, that the West has mounted a military operation to prop up a dictatorship that kills its own people.
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War and Terror: You are all suspects now. What are you going to do about it?
Monday, April 30 @ 14:23:14 UTC | By John Pilger
April 26, 2012 - johnpilger.com
You are all potential terrorists. It matters not that you live in Britain, the United States, Australia or the Middle East. Citizenship is effectively abolished. Turn on your computer and the US Department of Homeland Security's National Operations Center may monitor whether you are typing not merely "al-Qaeda", but "exercise", "drill", "wave", "initiative" and "organisation": all proscribed words. The British government's announcement that it intends to spy on every email and phone call is old hat. The satellite vacuum cleaner known as Echelon has been doing this for years. What has changed is that a state of permanent war has been launched by the United States and a police state is consuming western democracy.
What are you going to do about it?
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War and Terror: Venezuelan Government Demands End to U.S. Occupations
Wednesday, May 04 @ 06:47:41 UTC | Venezuelan Government Demands End to U.S. Occupations Following Supposed bin Laden Killing
By Tamara Pearson
May 04, 2011 – Venezuelanalysis.com
Following the announcement by the U.S. government that its forces had supposedly killed Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, in Pakistan, the Venezuelan government released an official statement, rejecting the use of “terror to fight terrorism”.
The statement criticises the “military operation carried out by U.S. forces in Pakistan without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities” and reminds the public that bin Laden was trained by U.S. intelligence before becoming a “pretext for the current wars against Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, assuming bin Laden’s announced death is true, demands an immediate stop to the occupation and violence provoked by the U.S. in Central Asia with the alleged intention of neutralizing bin Laden.”
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War and Terror: Britain's War on Islam
Tuesday, January 11 @ 19:08:59 UTC | By Stephen Lendman
January 11, 2011
Western vilification of Islam is longstanding, cruel, and unjustifiable. In his 1978 book "Orientalism," Edward Said explained a pattern of Western misinterpretation of the East, especially the Middle East. In "Culture and Imperialism" (1993), he broadened Orientalism's core argument to show the complex relationships between East and West by referring to colonizers and the colonized, "the familiar (Europe, West, us) and the strange (the Orient, East, them)."
He explained Western high-minded/moral superiority notions compared to culturally inferior Muslims. They're now portrayed as dangerous bomb-throwing terrorists, making them easy prey to wrongfully victimize.
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War and Terror: Assassinating US Muslim Cleric is Illegal, Immoral and Unwise
Monday, May 10 @ 22:11:00 UTC | Targeting Al-Awlaki
By Bill Quigley
May 10, 2010 - counterpunch.org
Agents of the United States are openly trying to assassinate Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen, while he is in hiding in Yemen. Despite what the apologists for assassination argue this is illegal, immoral and unwise.
Assassinating Awlaki in the US would be murder, a capital crime, punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty. Morally, few would argue that agents of the FBI or the CIA could murder the cleric in the US. If it is illegal and immoral to kill a Muslim cleric in the US why would it be legal, moral or wise to do so in Yemen?
The Imam, who lived in the US for more than two decades, is accused of using his powerful speaking and teaching skills on behalf of terrorism. Authorities say he was in e-mail contact with the Army Major arrested for killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. He is loosely linked to the Nigerian Christmas bomber. The Times Square SUV bomber is reported to have listened to the cleric’s online lectures.
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War and Terror: Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?
Sunday, January 10 @ 03:27:37 UTC | By Paul Craig Roberts
January 09, 2010 - vdare.com
What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.
If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.
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