One of the major consequences of the September 11 attacks ten years ago was that members of the Bush administration decided to “take advantage” of the resulting passions to pursue their long-planned vendetta against the government of Saddam Hussein. There followed the greatest US foreign policy disaster since the British occupied Washington, DC and burned […]
Turkey Crisis Provokes Israeli Army Anger at Lieberman
The crisis between Turkey and Israel deepened on Monday, allegedly provoking severe tensions between the Israeli officer corps and the far right-wing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. There was also disarray among the officers over an allegation by one general that the Middle East might be moving toward comprehensive war, an assessment that was […]
Accord Reached for Peaceful Entry of Bani Walid?
Aljazeera Arabic is reporting a breakthrough in the negotiations between the new government in Tripoli and the elders of the city of Bani Walid, a center of pro-Qaddafi military personnel and sentiments. The city authorities say they will permit the Transitional National Council’s troops to enter the city without opposition around noon on Tuesday, according […]
Top Ten Good News Green Energy Stories
Here are the week’s top ten energy good news stories. 1. A Japanese technical innovation has the potential to double or triple the power generated by wind turbines. 2. Germany now gets over 20% of its energy from low-carbon sources: 6.5% wind, 5.6% biomass, 3.5% solar, 3.3% hydro and 0.8% other. 3. Over 100 companies […]
China offered Qaddafi Armaments in midst of war
People who favored saving the civilian populations of Benghazi and other eastern Libyan cities from Qaddafi’s tanks and artillery have often been termed “interventionists.” But it turns out that there was more than one kind of interventionism. The Globe and Mail reports that documents discovered in mid-July show that state-owned Chinese weapons companies offered to […]
Israeli Likud Gov’t Buffeted by Turkish Suit, Massive Protests
The far right wing government of Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel is being buffeted both internationally and domestically. In both instances, the discontent is being produced by right wing policies, which argue for the goodness of hierarchy, the legitimacy of inequality, and express a preference for the use of force to settle problems. Turkey has decided […]
Qaddafi was a CIA Asset
Human Rights Watch found documents in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi that it passed on to the Wall Street Journal, which is analyzing them. The WSJ reported today that the documents show that Qaddafi developed so warm a relationship with George W. Bush that Bush sent people he had kidnapped (“rendition”) to Libya […]
Libya: Oil Bids on Basis of Capacity; World releases $15 bn in Assets
The CSM reviews the jockeying for position in Libya at the Friends conference in Paris, and especially the prospects of the US. But a spokesman for the Transitional National Council emphasized that oil bids would be let on the basis of the company’s expertise and experience, not on the political grounds of whether its nation […]
NATO Refuses Ground Troops for Libya as “Friends” Conference Opens
A NATO official has told Agence France Presse that it is the “firm view” of NATO member states that they reject the idea of sending any ground troops to Libya. And, they want the UN to authorize any extension of the no-fly zone. Gee, it doesn’t sound to me as though NATO is the kind […]
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