America’s enforcer in the Middle East
Stephen Gowans is an independent Canadian political analyst. His writings, which appear on his What’s Left blog have been reproduced widely in online and print media in many languages and…
United States
Perfidious America
Early in 2018, U.S. President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, a deal largely negotiated by and signed off on by his own country.…
Scapegoating the oil industry
I always admired that great philosopher Pogo. I still remember the picture of he and a friend looking out over their polluted swamp as he uttered those immortal words, “We…
The US/Canadian attack on Cuba and Venezuela
Winnipeg, Oct. 3, 2019 – Arnold August, speaking at the University of Manitoba about US and Canadian foreign policy regarding Cuba and Venezuela. Photo: Paul S. Graham There is no…
Bye-den
The Democracts mostly don’t mind having a President going out of his mind after being boiled frogs thanks to Trump and Bush. Check out Biden’s rambling answer in a debate.…
Build a Wall? Canada’s Response to Trump
Donald Trump’s main export to Canada has been a sense of national smugness, that his outrages and absurdities could never find purchase here. But it would be an act of…
Evil Men Destroying Our World Have Names
“What is happening here is a crime” – Brazillian fascist President accusing environmentalists of what he’s done. “I am not looking for who is responsible.” https://t.co/SoBmT90cDf — John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina)…
Toronto Star: Build a Wall? Canada’s Response to Trump
It would be an act of monumental self-deception for Canadians to believe that our country is an island set above the rage bubbling across the world.
Waeza Shamsia Afzal, U.S. Evangelicals, and the corruption of dogma
Reading about the courageous young Canadian woman Waeza Shamsia Afzal carried my thoughts to American evangelical Christians and their worship of Donald Trump. The connection is religion. Ms. Afzal is…
Trump is no Substitute for Unions
The major reason Donald Trump was elected to the job he is manifestly unfit for was his appeal to electors in the Rust Belt states. These states had seen a…
Britain has bullied Iran for centuries
Britain’s imperial designs on Iran go back at least to the Great Game with Russia over control of trade routes through central Asia in the 19th century. Indeed, Iran’s southern…
Metric for Americans
American exceptionalism often means things like calling football soccer while the rest of the world calls it football . Yes, us northern neighbours do the same thing but it’s still…
How much crap should Iran be expected to take from the U.S.?
Iran under the Ayatollahs is hardly a model nation. Domestically, it is repressive and, due largely to sanctions imposed by the United States, impoverished. Its foreign policy is aggressive. It…
The Democrats Reinvigorate Their Party and American Democracy
While there is much to despair about American democracy these days, there are also rays of hope, at least in the Democratic Party. If I had been an American during…
Putin Fails Liberal Democracy 101
Vladimir Putin is perhaps first among the anti-democratic strongmen that have emerged to soil the world. At the recent G20 summit he couldn’t resist taking a shot at liberal democracy,…
Is Anglosphere Democracy Becoming an International Joke?
Not long ago, if one were asked to name the world’s two leading democracies, the answer would probably have been the United States and the United Kingdom—the United States largely…
Did the Chinese learn their trade antics from the U.S.?
The China/U.S. trade war heats up. The rest of us get dragged along willy-nilly. Nonetheless, there is a lot of sympathy for the American case. The Chinese have hardly walked…
Speaking The Truth
CBC and other media need to recognize the following as true if we’re going to advance as a society. It’s likely to make them, and you, uncomfortable. Growth isn’t automatic…
$33USD/Hour To Match Wall St
If you’re working in a more just world, or if CEOs were less greedy, the minimum wage in the USA would be very different. People would be insulted by the…
WikiLeaks: US Shows Hand
As many journalists and others have been saying for a decade, the US was seeking Assange to charge him with an anti-Constitutional law that threatens investigative journalists around the world.…