World Analysis Newswire Archive

As I watched Iran being hauled in front of the United Nations ‘Security’ Council, a vivid picture conjured up in my mind – my native country Iran, a vulnerable and defenseless beauty being prepared for violation by brutal savages. As she struggles to defend her honor, no one is prepared to come to her aid, save a few. Even her own children, those raised on her soil hope she will be brutally violated. With lust-filled eyes, they hope to fulfill their ambitions on her ravaged ruins, her broken pride.

As I watched Iran being hauled in front of the United Nations ‘Security’ Council, a vivid picture conjured up in my mind – my native country Iran, a vulnerable and defenseless beauty being prepared for violation by brutal savages. As she struggles to defend her honor, no one is prepared to come to her aid, save a few. Even her own children, those raised on her soil hope she will be brutally violated. With lust-filled eyes, they hope to fulfill their ambitions on her ravaged ruins, her broken pride.

The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 am on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly “Argumenty Nedeli.”

On 23 March 2007, 15 Royal Navy personnel were taken at gunpoint by Iranian forces in the Gulf. Five days before, on 18 March 2007, the Sunday Times ran a story predicting that an incident like this had been threatened by Iran, and explained the reasons why.

Howard’s recent proposal to double the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan has been applauded by Rudd and the ALP. The notion that more occupying troops will bring stability to Afghanistan must be opposed. Immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops would be a genuine step towards stability. However, given the almost total destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, industry and other infrastructure since 1992, payment of large scale reparations is also necessary.

I bought a newspaper tonight with a headline about the fifteen British sailors and marines seized by Irans revolutionary guard. The girl selling it to me pointed to the headline and said 'That's it, we are all going to get nuked'. I pointed out Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons and she responded 'Well, they are starting taking our sailors, we have to nuke them'. I pointed out the captives and their families probably wouldn't agree with her.

The Brits appear to be guilty of staging “a deliberate provocation” by taunting the Iranians, who are rightfully paranoid of having their cities and populace shock and awed by the neocons.

Wind down from your artificially induced stress/pace and confront your personal reality – take stock for a moment. Your existence has been confined to sustaining and maintaining a system that makes ever-increasing demands on your liberty and freedom – the pillars upon which joy and satisfaction are built/derived! The frenzied pace of western society is largely the result of the manic need for ever increasing profits and greater concentrations of wealth in the fewest possible hands, which inevitably makes higher demands on those at the bottom of the financial scale. Obtaining wealth is simply a matter of applying unfair downward pressure in favour of upward flowing benefits; wealth is not created it is the result of manipulation and/or theft – the historical record bears this out. Put simply, profit is exploitation/theft!

Much attention has been given to the Bush Administration’s preparations for possible war against Iran as well as its drive to impose sanctions. Meanwhile, a less noticed policy has been unfolding, one that may in time prove to have grave consequences for the region. There is a covert war underway in Iran, still in its infancy, but with disturbing signs of impending escalation.

Two articles by gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell published this week:
The Independent. March 22nd_ Why has the Left gone soft on human rights?
Democratiya Journal_Spring 2007 Their Multiculuralism and ours.

I WONDER IF THIS POSTING WILL STAY UP..?

This analysis explores why dialogs among civilizations continually fail to produce results by showcasing one short dialog as an illustrative example. The showcased dialog is meant to illustrate the depth of passion, preconceptions, and self-interests that often formulate opposing view points such that if ever they come together for a discussion, they fail to communicate despite all the rationality and compassion they can muster in the best of cases, friends. The Preamble is informally structured into three seamless sections. First section is the narrative that highlights vast disparity in views, emotional affiliations, and cultural attachments, as exemplary of any deeply contentious and dichotomous problem space that is insoluble and irresolute under current best practices among nations and peoples. The second section is the analysis that points towards a rational approach that can potentially make this problem tractable and make contentious dialogs among civilizations actually work despite jealously coddled self-interests. It further examines a snippet from a dialog between former American President Jimmy Carter and his detractors on his own new book "Palestine, Peace not Apartheid" to extend the analysis. The third section develops the rational solution space by proposing a strangely commonsensical algorithm that has hitherto been ignored by nations and statesmen alike, like the proverbial trumpeting elephant in the bridal suite. It further makes suggestions on how to globally deploy this algorithm to validate its premise. The Preamble is followed by a short illustrative dialog in the form of letters and replies to demonstrate how dialogs fail. The illustrative sequence showcasing where it succeeds is left for Part-2. Hopefully that will happen - by employing the commonsensical algorithm developed here - before another civilization is made to hit the dust at the hands of hectoring hegemons!

PROTEST: Stop the political repression in the Philippines.

Latest podcast from Bristol internet radio news magazine show
ID cards special.

Before there can be an irreversible transformation to a Level 4 Civilization it will be necessary for a critical mass of people on this planet to come to the full realisation that the way we live now is not the way we are meant to live. Further, the way we live now cannot continue for much longer without destroying, for all time, any pretensions that the human race may have about being the highest life form that has ever existed; a superior and unimpeachable species with both might and right on its side. This section is about helping others to see the fatal flaws in the old, 'Level 3' way of living, and how they personally can play a part in saving the world.

The current imperial slaughter in the Middle East, justified by the "Global War on Terror", that has resulted in at least 600,000 deaths in Iraq, is nothing new — the U.S. Empire has a long and sordid history of genocidal mass murder.

The history of the US imperialism and Empire is the subject of a series of ten monthly seminars from Dr John Marciano, "Empire as a Way of Life". Attached is a recording of the third of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 6 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 4 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 21th November 2006 by the L.A. Sound Posse, runs for 36 minutes and includes the discussion following. It has been made available under a Creative Commons license. If this recording is broadcast please let the L.A. Sound Posse know. This recording was originally made available on the A-Infos Radio Project site.

The following text has been reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr John Marciano and he can be contacted at johnmarciano@mac.com. He introduced this series of seminars in the following way:

A fundamental purpose of our meetings is to understand the systemic nature of the U.S. Empire and the economic and military imperialism that is its lifeblood. The historian William Appleman Williams argues that empire became "a way of life" in the U.S., a "combination of patterns of thought and action that, as it becomes habitual and institutionalized, defines the thrust and character of a culture and society." This "way of life" has convinced many U.S. "Americans" they have a right or "manifest destiny" to impose their political and economic policies upon others.

Dr John Marciano is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught courses on social and historical foundations of education and class, gender and race.

Previous parts of this series:

• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 1 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 2 | mp3 | doc

Presently we Iranian are facing two facets of US militaristic doctrine, on one hand, we can see their exercise of hard power and our country being encircled by US armies to the east, west and south. On the other hand, they are constantly flexing their soft power and there is no day that western media are filled with rumour, exaggerated claims and bare faced lie.

As the fifth year of the occupation of Iraq approaches, the United States is busily re-evaluating its military strategy there and elsewhere. On the eve of Helen Clark's visit to the US, will the Labour Government take the opportunity to re-evaluate New Zealand's military relationship with the Bush administration?

A recent article brought home the shocking truth of today’s new world order by contrasting the social outrage expressed against Richard Nixon for his minor offence of a break and enter (Watergate) with today's social complacency in the face of half-a-million civilian dead in Iraq. The office of president of the USA has become an experimental position where corporate placed buffoons are allowed to reign ruin on the world. The “bouquet of flowers, mission accomplished, WMD, give war a chance”, administration has got it wrong from the start yet ‘bouquet’ Wolfowitz has been promoted to the president of the World Bank, where he continues to bungle and lose to other interests (China). The incompetent clown, Bush, remains president and the criminals who benefit remain behind the scenes profiting on the misery of others!

Not only has Labor left the Iraqi's in the lurch by being complicit in the illegal and degrading act of aggression killing over 655,000 people in a holocaust but now they say, after the fact, that they won't leave the Iraqi's in the lurch. So why have we been left in the lurch?

For Iraq, March brings not alone the fourth anniversary of the illegal US led invasion, butalso the memory of the 1991 'turkey shoot' on the Basra Road and the US encouraged uprisings in the south and north - then bloodily put down - with US assistance. March marked the beginning of the forty day period of mourning for the thousands of retreating conscripts and civilian families incinerated in their vehicles, when B52's bombed the front and back of the sixty mile convoy, then relentlessly bombed the rest 'like sitting ducks', as one pilot explained.