How ISIS and Syria drove a stake through the Arab Spring The rise of ISIS is a setback for reform in a region that is crying out for it By Nahlah Ayed, CBC News Posted: Oct 03, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 03, 2014 5:00 AM ET The fact
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drive-by planet: New US-led Middle East war repeats old mistakes: fuels the cycle of violence
Airstrikes and rockets targeting sites in Syria and Iraq this week marks an escalation in the early stages of a war stamped with the trademark Made-in-the-USA. This misguided war is a continuation of earlier interventions and strategic errors that have fanned the flames of jihadist resistance around the globe. The
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Washington’s war to ‘destroy’ ISIL: what is ISIL and who is the real security threat?
In recent weeks Western media has been sounding the alarm over the speedy territorial gains made by the Islamic State – also known as ISIL and ISIS – with warnings of the threat it poses to the West. In some of the more alarmist commentary you would think ISIL had
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Murky Lessons Of History
Blindingly clear for some, obscure and ambiguous for others, the lessons of history need to be given close scrutiny these days, especially by our chickenhawk prime minister. Like so much else that his regime brays and sputters about, Stephen Harper’s recent tough talk about the Ukraine and the Middle East
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Washington Post Asks – Was Putin Right?
It was last September when Vladimir Putin penned an op-ed about Syria that ran in The New York Times. The West rejected Putin’s views then but now The Washington Post asks whether Putin was right all along. Putin argued against American airstrikes on the Assad regime. “A strike would increase
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Middle East Backgrounder – Mission Accomplished…
The chickens of western colonialism are coming home to roost. Excerpt from “The Guns of August” – by Matthew Stevenson via Counterpunch “Doubts about the sincerity of Americans in Iraq probably began when President Ronald Reagan dispatched his former national security advisor Robert C. “Bud” McFarlane to Tehran in
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Avoiding Another Imbroglio: A Mound Of Sound Guest Post
This note from the Mound of Sound accompanied the post that follows: Some of the course material I’ve been going through lately got me thinking about the conflicts raging in Syria and Iraq. I got thinking about them in the context of water and food security as well as climate
Continue readingTHE CANADIAN PROGRESSIVE: CJPME Urges Canada to Stop Dithering and Let Syrian Refugees In
The Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) urges Canada to resettle at least 5,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2014. The post CJPME Urges Canada to Stop Dithering and Let Syrian Refugees In appeared first on THE CANADIAN PROGRESSIVE.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Hide The Numbers, They Suck! #cdnpoli
Conservative Minister: “Why is that the only question that interests you?” Journalist: “Because you wont answer it, that’s why it’s interesting!” “You want the one question that I won’t answer because it changes every day. “We’ve been asking this for a year now,” Off says exasperatedly. … “click”. That's a
Continue readingArt Threat: Sheen and gloss, personal and political: A Review of We are the Giant
We Are the Giant, a powerful portrait of five human rights activists in Syria, Libya, and Bahrain, personalizes the multiple, simultaneous, and in many ways ongoing struggles often monolithically referred to as the Arab Spring. Through first-person interviews as well as archival, news, and cell phone footage, director Greg Barker
Continue readingdrive-by planet: NED, USAID – America’s ‘democracy building’ trojans: ZunZuneo – failed ‘Twitter-like op’ in Cuba
American NGO’s such as The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID and similar orgs have been employing a variety of highly questionable tactics in Ukraine and elsewhere in the name of so-called “democracy building.” Some of the tactics used by these organizations are arguably illegal because US Foreign Affairs is
Continue readingArt Threat: Banksy video asks that we stand #WithSyria on third anniversary of conflict
This week marks the third anniversary of the crisis in Syria, and a new campaign involving Banksy asks that we stand in solidarity with Syrians. #WithSyria asks the public to place pressure on political leaders to “do everything they can to make this the last anniversary marked by bloodshed.” The
Continue reading350 or bust: Saturday At The Movies
A Norwegian children’s charity left a thinly-dressed 11-year-old boy shivering at a bus stop in the winter cold to test how many people would spontaneously help him. * The advert is part of a new fund-raising campaign SOS Barnebyer is launching to provide blankets and shelter to displaced children in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: If the 1% Has Russell Brand Killed…
If the 1% has Russell Brand killed, we will see it in the corporate media as a drug OD relapse, or a freak accident. Why? He is dangerous because he fearlessly tells the truth and challenges pretence. Let’s examine this in some detail here [with video]: His brain works twice
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Systemic Pressures Make Journalists Sloppy
Gosh, the corporate media sure can be sloppy. The heart-wrenching photo of a four-year-old Syrian refugee pictured alone crossing a desert into Jordan spread far and wide this weekend, but the fact that his family was just metres away was left behind. Photo of 4-year-old Syrian refugee triggers sympathy, confusion
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Vijay Prashad on anti-imperialism [video]: the ‘third way’ on Syria
I concur with most of what Vijay Prashad is arguing in this video talk except to say that there is a lot more at stake in Syria than for example Libya, in terms of the power balance in the Middle East. When the NATO attack on Libya got underway some
Continue readingdrive-by planet: The Syrian nightmare Washington is helping to create
Many progressives and leftists find themselves in a conflicted position over the war in Syria. They don’t support western interventionism but by the same token are unwilling to give support to the Assad regime. A third way approach is support for the Syrian people and their legitimate demands – as
Continue readingdrive-by planet: MIT report contests US intelligence on sarin attack: Lloyd – "The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons"
Top: Fighters from the Free Syrian Army’s Saif al-Umayyad brigade prepare to launch a rocket towards regime forces in Ghouta, east of Damascus January 1, 2014. Bottom: Spent rockets from August 21 sarin attack A recently published MIT report titled Possible Implications of Faulty U.S. Technical Intelligence calls into question
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria opens school for kids in Daraa
Screenshots from al-Qaeda school video Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, isn’t just in the business of jihad. It has set up “education” programs to indoctrinate Syrian children. On the walls of a jihad-friendly school in Daraa you don’t find any colorful artwork or alphabets, instead there are posters celebrating
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