This article about Cleopatra in the Smithsonian Magazine questions the image of her in subsequent Western literature as a mere seductress. The author argues that she was a canny and powerful monarch, a savvy street fighter, and a great queen in her own right, who presided over one of the more prosperous and powerful countries […]
Bush-Cheney Use of Torture Derails Ghailani Prosecution
This is how George W. Bush and Dick Cheney got Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, suspected of involvement in the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998, off hundreds of murder charges: They had him tortured. Ghailani was convicted Wednesday of conspiracy to damage US government property, for which he could well face life […]
Afvietnam
Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2010: “As NATO leaders meet in Lisbon this weekend, the U.S. is expected to endorse a plan for slow withdrawal and gradually handing over security responsibility by 2014.“: “At a summit in Lisbon this weekend, Obama and other NATO leaders will endorse a plan to gradually turn combat responsibility over […]
Allawi Predicts new Iraqi Government will Fall Quickly
Iyad Allawi in London is throwing cold water on the idea that a stable Iraqi government is now being formed. According to Reuters he is saying that the original power-sharing formula (presumably the one worked out with the Americans Nov. 6) has collapsed and is “dead.” He told Reuters, “The formula for power sharing has […]
4 Christians Killed in Mosul, Iraq, as Exodus Continues
From Monday evening through Tuesday, extremists launched several attacks on Iraqi Christians in the northern, mostly Sunni Arab city of Mosul (pop. 2 million), killing four. It should be remembered that attacking Christians is a political tactic of the militants. Otherwise, the Christians were there because they had been tolerated by Muslims, and Iraqi Muslims […]
Jahanpour: In Israel-Palestine Dispute, Obama Must Start Putting US Interests First
Farhang Jahanpour writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: According to the U.S. media, after eight hours of pleading with Netanyahu to extend the freeze on illegal building work in the occupied territories for merely 90 days, the Secretary of State gave an undertaking Not to request further extensions of the freeze (what happens […]
Cole in Truthdig: Kandahar the Invisible Campaign
My column in Truthdig is out, on the invisible Kandahar campaign in the invisible Afghanistan War– and the Karzai/ Petraeus soap opera. Read the whole thing.
Why Obama gave in on Israeli Settlements in Jerusalem: Eric Cantor, Ros-Lehtinen Channel Israeli Right on Usurpation of Holy City, Displacement of Palestinians
Why in the world would the Obama administration put forward a proposal to the Israelis that allows them to continue to build illegal new squatter settlements in what the Israelis call the district of Jerusalem on Palestinian land while asking them to refrain from starting new settlements on the West Bank? The Palestinians complain that […]
Species Loss Threatens Humankind
The attempts by the world’s governments 2002-2010 to stem massive loss of species completely failed. So the recent conference on species loss at Nagoya in Japan found. Failed. It doesn’t make a person optimistic about the recently concluded Nagoya agreement. Though, bless the Japanese for pledging $2 billion to fight species loss. A fifth of […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved