World Analysis Newswire Archive

The Brits really should've quit while they were ahead . . .

Too late now.

Former British serviceman opined that most of what British troops do in Afghanistan is not constructive at all and it only works to further alienate Afghan population.

Here is the full transcript of Captain's Air's interview with Sky news, which confirms that the mission was to spy on Iran, in the context of ongoing coalition war preparations.

Jundullah members captured in Iran after blowing up a bus with members of the Revolutionary Guard onboard back in February “said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan.” Back in 2003, the CIA established “secret bases” in Pakistan, ostensibly to hunt for the dead Osama bin Laden and his dour pranksters, that is to say patsies and mental deficients.

This article by Professor Boyle, first published in February 1986 provides an incisive historical review of Washington's foreign policy agenda during the Iran Hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq war.

It is of particular relevance to an understanding both of the US sponsored Iraq war as well as the foreign policy stance of the Bush adminstration in relation to Tehran.

It is worth noting that the Reagan administration's anti-Iranian policy was conducted by many of the same NeoConservatives who are today working for the Bush Junior Adminstration

Imagine coalition leaders recoiling in horror at the prospect of facing the truth that it is they who are the most criminally liable and culpable terrorists in the world today! Former Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, stated that in order to effectively combat terrorism a universal definition of ‘terrorism’ would be imperative. A ratified definition would eliminate politically motivated, arbitrary definitions made by various groups/States for the principal purpose of servng their own interests. In the absence of a universal definition the legal system and International criminal courts are ‘hamstrung’ or worse, subject to manipulation by powerful (criminal) interests.

When someone comes to visit how do you greet him or her? With open arms and a welcome mat or with a list of allegations and a naming and shaming file? True it is Labor this time but not Liberal even though Lab is Lib hence Lib/Lab but what proves the point is that when it's too embarrassing for Lib then it's up to Lab to do the dirty work and attempts to get away with it. But the process is clear it's all about Isamophobia and what mileage John Howard's ABC and their mass media and political allies can make out of it for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)?

US Democrats in opposition and the ruling Republicans have embroiled the American public in a political crisis over deadlines for combat operations in Iraq that could develop into a constitutional showdown, but for Arabs and Iraqis it is merely playing electoral politics with Iraqi blood for oil because the Democratic Alternative, when scrutinized, promises them no fundamental change.

The group says Australians have now lost faith that the Government will come to their aid if they are treated unjustly overseas.

The Iraq and Lebanon wars have shown up the limits of the latest in military technology. Relatively small militias, armed with rudimentary weapons, fought the U.S. and Israeli armies to a standstill; one withdrew hastily, the other doesn't even know how to retreat or even avoid slow attrition. This imposes severe limits on U.S. capabilities and projects for seeking military solutions to political problems. If the U.S. repeats in Iran the folly it committed in Iraq, the myth of its military prowess shall be in full ruin.

On the other side of the globe are the mass movements of Latin America. They are neither "terrorists", nor "rogue states"; hence not even fictitious targets for invasions. Not even a spectre of communism. Just millions of the poor on the march for equality, justice, and redistribution of wealth. Not a cauldron of religious millenarianism, sectarian strife and ethnic divisions, as in so much of the Muslim world. But a direct revolt against neoliberalism and imperialism as such.

In response to article posted on Danielpipes.org titled: "Recruiting Soldiers Against Radical Islam" at:  http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4410

1. Why I made a guilty plea 2. The guilty plea: how I advised David 3. My island home: first weeks at Guantanamo 4. Ten torture techniques in 12 months 5. Solitary confinement was one thing, just don't get me started on the food 6. I never met a DFAT official I didn't like. Come to think of it, I never met a DFAT official

It seems the CIA, Indonesian and Australian authorities are trying to cover their tracks with propaganda. Now they say that they have found explosives 'four times bigger' than the Bali bombs in 2002. But that is not possible because the biggest blast was a [mini nuke] Megablast. And there is ample evidence of it from eyewitness accounts.

Britain and the US have a long history of covert action against and provocation of Iran in their bid to aggressively control the region. Our governments have continually violated Iranian territory covertly for decades and then covered up the fact.

Nothing has changed. These facts and past precedents are exactly the reason why we should be questioning our own governments on the authenticity of the current seizure of the British marines by Iran. It seems that we are once again witnessing the unfolding of ongoing covert military action by our governments against (whether you agree with it or not) a democratically elected foreign government in Iran.

I wrote this as the Introduction chapter to my book "Prisoners of the Cave" in 2003 - almost exactly 4 years ago as the bombing of Iraq was underway and the American peoples were mesmerized by the "shock and awe" of a defenseless civilization on their television screens. Is another one about to commence on another defenseless nation - Iran? How relevant is this introduction today after all that has been disclosed over the past 4 years? Are the voices that are actually heard in the American mainstream only to be of those wearing the distinguished garb of "scholarship" lining the streets of Washington DC and the well walked hallways of the Ivys? When will the voices of the ordinary peoples themselves be allowed to inform the ordinary peoples? After all, it is us who are the ultimate enablers of "shock and awe", and also us who pay the heavy price. It is indeed only our profound complicity through our uncourageous silence and inaction that bestows the unspeakable power on the minority of opinion makers and the handful of hectoring hegemons which in turn enables them to send America's sons and daughters to new heights of barbarism while visiting the munificence of their high-tech "shock and awe" upon defenseless human beings. How can a civilization claiming to be a "populist democracy" permit such "imperial mobilizations"? Did "Good Germans" only live in Germany? How about the public living in the rest of the "civilized world" in Western nations hoisting their "democratic" ideals on the rest of humanity? Of the 6 billion peoples on the planet, at least 2 billion live in these "democracies". Where are their voices? Shame!

The attack dogs at neoconservative headquarters in Washington, DC, are at it again. They have seized on the ‘crisis’ that was brought about by the capture of the 15 British sailors and marines by the Iranians inside Iranian waters to call again for confrontation and war against Iran.

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 fourth of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 7 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 3 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 19th December 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
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 3 | mp3 | doc

Now, four years later, the Security Council has outdone itself. Not only has it failed to condemn the U.S. and Israeli threat to attack Iran—the threat itself a violation of the UN Charter,[4] and one made ever-more real by the U.S. invasions of neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq during this decade alone, now followed by a huge U.S. naval buildup near Iran's coast to levels not seen since the U.S. launched its war on Iraq four years ago in what the New York Times just called a "calculated show of force."[5] But even worse, the Council has aided and abetted these potential aggressors by adopting three resolutions in the past eight months under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, each of which affirms that Iran's nuclear program is a threat to international peace and security, and reserves for the Council the right to take "further appropriate measures" should Iran fail to comply—that is, should Iran not cave-in to U.S. demands on exactly the terms demanded.[6]

The recent story of the arrest of 15 British sailors in the Persian Gulf has revealed interesting and often hidden facts regarding the current administration in Britain.

Imagine that when Hitler was threatening to invade Poland, after having swallowed Czechoslovakia—with the help of the Western European powers' appeasement of Hitler at Munich in September 1938—the League of Nations imposed an arms embargo on Poland, making it more difficult for the imminent victim to defend itself, and at the same time suggested that Poland was the villainous party. That didn’t happen back in 1939, but in a regression from that notorious era of appeasement something quite analogous is happening now.