Month: August 2006

With Salam Talib Southern Iraq saw the biggest outbreak of government violence against Shi’ite groups this week as Iraqi government troops attacked followers of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hassani al-Sarkhi. “The government raided the religious school of the followers of Hassani,” explains Sarmad Abdul-Karem, who heads up the agency Iraq4All news. “Hassani supporters defended the school and … Continue reading “Government Fights Militia in Southern Iraq”

CARACAS – After returning from a whirlwind tour abroad and as he prepares for his next one, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has kept busy on the diplomatic front, visiting convalescent Cuban leader Fidel Castro on his 80th birthday, replacing his foreign minister, and receiving Colombia’s new foreign minister. The Venezuelan government has expanded its diplomatic … Continue reading “Chávez Expands and Hardens His Diplomatic Thrust”

The U.S. and Israel are close allies, so perhaps it comes as no surprise when both make the same mistakes. Still, Israel always seemed to be more insightful and ruthlessly pragmatic than America. Yet just as the U.S. jumped into the Iraqi imbroglio based on fantasies about the peaceful, pro-American democracy that would soon arise, … Continue reading “Abetting Catastrophe in Lebanon”

MONTEVIDEO – A group of Paraguayan human rights activists and government officials had met Wednesday morning in Asunción to inaugurate a museum in what was once a torture center of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. But suddenly the news arrived: The elderly former dictator was dead. The coincidence was interpreted by human rights lawyer and … Continue reading “Stroessner’s Death Closes Dark Chapter of History”

KARACHI – Amid reports of money collected by Pakistani charities abroad ending up in funding terrorist activity comes new research that suggests that the prosperous Pakistani-American community is extremely wary of sending money to organizations from the home country. According to the study, Pakistani-Americans give away, annually, a $1 billion in charity, but only 40 … Continue reading “Pakistani Expats Wary of ‘Charities’ From Home”

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations is on a global hunt for troops, military equipment, and logistical support to revamp its existing peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which has been mandated to monitor last week’s cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. "We have no formal offers yet," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Tuesday. "We would like … Continue reading “UN Seeks Mostly Western Troops for Lebanon Force”

During Israel’s war against the people of Lebanon, our media, politicians, and diplomats have colluded with the aggressors by distracting us with irrelevancies, by concocting controversies, and by framing the language of diplomacy. In the fragile truce that is currently holding while Lebanon waits for Israel to withdraw, we are simply getting more of the … Continue reading “Lebanese Deaths, and Israeli War Crimes, Kept Off the Balance Sheet”

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, remain both an overwhelming and under-considered horror. TomDispatch will devote the week leading up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11 to various reconsiderations of that moment. In the meantime, the anniversary season was inaugurated early by World Trade Center, Oliver Stone’s reverent blockbuster movie. Ruth Rosen went to see … Continue reading “Oliver Stone’s WTC
and the Iraq War”

The Empire Is Crumbling "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand." – W. B. Yeats, "The … Continue reading “Things Fall Apart”

“What we’re seeing here, in a sense,” said Condoleezza Rice at a July 21 press conference announcing her trip to the Middle East, “is the growing – the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going … Continue reading “About Those ‘Birth Pangs’”