How does control over the entrance to the Red Sea and transit through the Suez Canal plus the port China now has or will have in Djibouti and the port in Syria Russia has use of play into all of this?
Well, surprise, surprise. Another supine Sec. General of the UN. Don't any of them have cojones these days. António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres pressured the head of the United Nations' West Asia commission, Rima Khala, to withdraw the report. At least she has cojones as he obviously does not. She has resigned.
The IMF in 1999/2000 was in Yemen with its normal prescriptive economic recipe for the restructering of the Yemen economy (oil producer and oil exporter ....surprise, surprise). Sooooo I don't think the comments to Dr. Coles column necessarily smack of mindless anti-Americanism.
I think you have vastly understated the role of the US in humanitarian disasters. You need to also take into consideration the role of the IMF and their prescriptive economic interventions in many of the African nations on behalf of US-based multinationals; the IMF is a creature of the US and intervenes in these economies on behalf of multinationals (mainly US based ones) selling off the assets of these countries and privatising the economies so that profits flow out of the economies to the multinationals and little is left to benefit the population of the country. Look at the African continent where there are humanitarian disasters today and I bet you can find multinationals today and a prescriptive intervention by the IMF in the past. War is a method of bringing uncooperative countries who are economically stable in line with the desire of the US multinationals to control the country and thus the economy to their benefit.
So what exactly is newsworthy here? Nothing has changed. This has been the plan of zionists for 100 years and the US and European gov'ts were/are never going to do anything about it. BDS in the long run en mass by ordinary citizens has the best chance of forcing the issue.
"Given that the price of petroleum has been halved in the past two years, Russia is desperate for new drilling, so it can make up some of the shortfall by new production."
Given that new production drives down the price of oil this makes no sense and that OPEC at present is desperately trying to limit production to drive up the price of oil. I know that Russia does not give a RA about OPEC except when it matters and that the Saudis were actually trying to drive US fracking production into bankruptcy so that the Saudis could control the price themselves.
"This detachment from reality and extreme violence to the facts will eventually come back around to bite America on the ass."
It is biting them in the ass. The US sheeple have been detached from reality for a long, long time. Look at who they just elected president. How much more proof do you need?
So after Israel votes to annex the West Bank then BDS will no doubt be endorsed by the US and all NATO countries as Russia has been sanctioned for "annexing" Crimea.
Here in the great white north, the land of igloos and dog sleighs, I have been waiting for solar to become economical to install. The local power monopoly does not like competition from NUGs (non utility generators) and makes it prohibitively expensive to hook into the local power grid as well as only allowing the NUG to run the meter backward until it reaches 0 but will not pay for any power put into the system beyond that. I can't wait until those bastards freeze in the dark.
"Russians prepare to defy Trump"
What? You too have drunk the kool aid of US government propaganda. The US is not in charge of anything except the US. Russia is not a poodle and does not need permission of the US to do anything. The sooner more countries realize that the US is not omnipotent the better.
I'm sure with the latest round of condemnations for settlement building that Israel is quaking in it's boots and will stop building them after it takes over all of area C and then the rest of the West bank. So keep up the condemnations. They are sure to work in the long run. And be sure to continue arming Israel so that it can protect the settlers against those Palestinians armed only with stones as you never know when they might actually hit a poor innocent Israeli armed only with US tanks, guns, shells, planes etc. and cause them to bleed. Horrors.
Fantastic. Now I can never go to Israel even if I wanted to..... not that I would ever want to because who wants to associate knowingly with a nation of war criminals.
The Democratic Party shot themselves and the country in the foot by not electing Saunders to run against Trump and by electing a leader who would continue to carry out the same old policies of supporting the banksters and funding the war machine and was sure to go down to defeat. Well done.
The US does not want to put the "peace" deal back together. It wants "to isolate Iran, and ensure it loses its land bridge to south Lebanon and perhaps ability to resupply Hizbullah". This is all about Israel and its ever expanding borders. It is counting on Russia to back down. The US does not give a shit about the people of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq or Libya as long as it controls oil and gas and the currency they are denominated in.
Welcome to history. The US and the Saudis got in bed with each other in 1971 when the US defaulted on it's currency (went off the gold standard) and became the BFF of the Saudis ergo the petro dollar.
What is so shocking about this? Consider the following about gun violence in the US since the start of 2016 alone?
Total Number of Incidents 23,592
Number of Deaths1 6,050
Number of Injuries1 12,401
Number of Children (age 0-11)
Killed/Injured1 258
Number of Teens (age 12-17)
Killed/Injured1 1,294
Mass Shooting2 139
Officer Involved Incident
Officer Shot/Killed2 147
Officer Involved Incident
Perpetrator Shot/Killed2 373
Home Invasion2 989
Defensive Use2 727
Accidental Shooting2 1,054
The culture of your country is violence with guns be it in the country or in a foreign country. Perhaps you should look at yourselves collectively and then then do something about it instead of writing endless articles about the horror of it all.
Thank you for this article. I have been waiting patiently for Dr. Roy to publish her last edition of this research. I am most interested in her analysis and conclusions.
Thank you Juan for the article. I have been waiting for many years for Dr. Roy to complete her study and have at last been rewarded for my patience. I look forward to reading her analysis.
So Obama gets some kind of credit for making Iran pay by making itself more vulnerable to attack by the US for an issue caused by actions of the US and the rest of the world is supposed to be awed by this. The Emperor has no clothes!
"there is one area where he has had success in reducing world tensions, and that is with regard to Iran" World? Only if the "world" consists of the US, Israel and perhaps Saudi Arabia. Hardly "the world". The majority of the world did not consider Iran a threat. The US if you have forgotten combined with Britain engineered the overthrow of the elected government in Iran in the early 1950's because it wanted to nationalize it's oil and a despot dictator the Shah was installed by the aggressors. So because the Iranians overthrew the dictator and had the temerity to take a few US hostages the US has had an irrational hate and goal of the destruction of Iran ever since. Iran was no threat to the US, Saudi or Israel certainly not with the US providing billions of dollars in armaments to the Saudi regime and to Israel. I forsee another regime now that Iran has no nuclear capability as the US has a habit of invading any state non compliant (to US diktats) without nuclear capabilities.
Diplomacy my ass. The US has actually been waging an undeclared war against Iran since 1979 when it stopped being a client state. It has been turning the screws tighter in the past 15 years by manipulating the IAEA and the SWIFT system. Iran recognizes that non-client stats are the most likely to be invaded by the US especially if they are not a nuclear state. If Iran continues to develop it's missile system and the US congress applies sanctions against it for having defensive non-nuclear weapons then the game is up and the real reason for sanctions will have been revealed. Gaddafi (who was planning another currency) gave up it's nuclear option and was invaded. Iran continues to sell it's oil in currencies other than US dollars and the US is very afraid it's fiat currency will become toilet paper.
Also may it bankrupt the US economy building it and give the Canadian armed forces some target practice monitoring and enforcing a 100 mile area along the barrier south of the Canadian border like the Israeli's monitor the fence they erected along the border with Gaza and the US is so found of supporting with US dollars.
The rest of the world recognizes US citizens as navel gazers with little education who know little about other countries and who are brainwashed with the self importance of the US to the rest of the world. So why bother interviewing notables from other countries who are of little interest to the US audience if they are not from the US and not talking about the importance of the US.
Since we all know the US did not absorb 80 million refugees last year, how many did they absorb and how many of these wars (none of them on US soil of course) is the US involved in bombing, sanctioning, droning or supplying weapons or aid of some kind to one side.
Who cares what SCOTUS rules. The US barely tolerates the UN and certainly ignores it when it is convenient which appears to be most of the time. The rest of the world understands the US is a declining power and it's time is just about up.
And if the Palestinians sign the Rome Statutes what then? I suspect life will go on with little change for the Palestinians. What they in fact need to do is to stop co-operating with the Israelis and leave the policing and the expense of maintaining the occupation to Israel. That will produce more results than signing the Rome Statutes. The ICC has no power at all. The US and Israel don't recognize nor implement any of it's findings nor have they ratified their signatures of the Rome Statutes
"Palestinian launches have been rare and sporadic and occurred almost always after successive instances of Israeli cease-fire violations." source: link to blog.thejerusalemfund.org
Perhaps Mr Haniyeh can comment on when Israel might be expected to 1) live up to the terms of the latest ceasefire and also 2) not to break the ceasefire because as as the sun surely rises every morning Israel has broken the latest ceasefire with impunity and there has been no retaliation from Hamas.
About bloody time that a country recognized the Palestinian State. More interesting is the wording of the announcement by this Arab zine for its English speaking readers.
Why wait until 2016 to take Israel to the ICC? Abbas has had plenty of opportunity to do just this since at long last Palestine to the belated step of becoming an observer state at the UN. There will be no change in Israeli policy towards the occupied territories unless it is forced to do so. I suspect this is a stalling tactic on the part of Abbas until the next "election" in the occupied territories which he hopes to win by appearing at last to be proactive before lapsing once again into complicity with Israel in their ongoing crimes against the Palestinians.
I'll believe that when I see it. He has had years to implement "political war" on Israel and only when pushed by the population's realization that Hamas defends them and Abbas co-opts them has he decided to "act". Why wait three more years to take Israel to the ICC when this could have been done years ago?
Somewhat lacking in historical background and therefor somewhat biased. How about mentioning that the US violatd an agreement with Russia not to its expand its "missle defence" into old Soviet bloc nations and that the Ukraine owed Russia a few billion dollars from past gas deliveries at a greatly subsidised price from previous years, and that the US has been attempting to cut off Russian gas delivery to Europe to destroy the Russian economy and that controlling the Ukraine and therefor gas delivery to Europe is only part of the plan. Ignoring of course that the US is not going to freeze in the dark but the Europeans probably will but who cares about them.
Surprise, surprise. Israel has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Hopefully the general population world wide will force governments to BDS Israel (and in the future the US if it continues unconditional support for Israel) or face problems in future elections.
Shame on you to suggest that an Israeli is worth far more than many Palestinians. To put your comment in reverse - many thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel, more thousands imprisoned by Israel and many thousands ethnically cleansed by Israel don't count? Shame on you.
"Zanoli seems to realize that the two-state solution is no longer plausible, given the hundreds of thousands of Israeli squatter settlements on the Palestinian West Bank and the physical isolation and siege of Gaza."
Zanoli has said no such thing. This is your incorrect interpretation. Zanoli asked only that the Palestinians be granted the same rights as the Jews as he believed were entitled to in Europe. He did not ask for a 1 or 2 state solution but for the same rights..
Why is it that the illegal squatters in the west bank are deemed to have more rights to the land they have stolen than the rightfull owners... the palestinians. There is no reason on earth why they cannot be moved back into Israel behind the original line of division of1947... never mind 1967.
So let us (the rest of the world) BDS the US. No more tourism, buying of good/services produced by/in the US or by US multinationals, and BDS politicians of your own country that buy US made goods (such as munitions, planes, weapons etc.,). Money talks to US citizens, and that will get their attention.
Nonsense. The Israelis have no intention of ever giving up the occupied territories. If Abbas had really been serious he would have applied to join the ICJ, and disolved the PA and then the wall would have come tumbling down instead of continuing to act as a police force for the Israelis on international monies at no cost to Israel.
Much like the electoral system in the US which is now courtesy of the Supreme Court of the US owned by the 1% who can buy all the votes they they need to make and apply what ever laws are the most profitable to them.
Perhaps Afghanistan and also Iraq should sue the members of "the coalition of the willing" for war crimes and resulting damages. I don't remember Saudi Arabia (from whence the "terrorist" perps of Sept 11 came, not Afghanistan or Iraq as the US press would have you believe) being attacked or unsupported financially at anytime since by any members of "the coalition of the willing". These wars were and are still all about oil and the fiat dollar.
It was intended simply to make Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands more economical, in terms of Jewish blood and money, so that taxes could be cut even further and liberalization of the economy could proceed to even greater heights.
Only the US public would swallow that reason. The rest of the world is better informed however. The real reason is off shore.... off the shore of Gaza. "In recent years, Israel's state-owned utility company Israel Electric Corp has embarked on a large-scale program to shift its power generation from oil and coal to cleaner burning natural gas. The Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure's plan is to increase the share of natural gas in power generation from 20% last year to around 40% in 2012. The decision was controversial primarily due to the unreliable nature of gas supply versus that of coal and oil as well as the insufficient natural gas pipeline and power generation infrastructure. Israel is in the process of constructing a system of 12 natural gas power stations and a network of pipelines connecting them with import gas terminals. Upon completion of the construction project 4 of the 12 stations will be located in areas which are covered by Hamas' current range of fire. (See a map of Israel's Natural Gas Transmission System at link to mni.gov.il)" Journal of Energy Security, Feb. 2009.
Israel has no offshore gas reserves. Lebanon and Gaza do however.
You forget conveniently of course that it was Saudi Arabians who flew planes into the World Trade towers and not Afghanis. I haven't seen any talk of bombing Saudi Arabia in the past 10 years. It is much easier to bomb a country with no armed forces and no defense. However this war like the Vietnamese war is being won by those without money and high tech equipment. The US has created enough enemies by overthrowing governments, bombing, and invading countries, as well as supporting dictators that few will have sympathy for your country when the dollar is not longer the worlds fiat currency and your debts come due.
Who cares what the US and Israel want. The days of the US being able to call any shots are almost over.
"China announced that it has discounted the value of US Treasuries held as collateral against futures trades, and China and the European Central Bank have arranged a currency swap in preparation of a US default." Instead of honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies.
"The solution, for Beijing, is to “de-Americanize” the current geopolitical equation – starting with more say in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for emerging economies and the developing world, leading to a “new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant US dollar”"."As for the move away from the US dollar, it’s also already on, in varying degrees of speed, especially concerning trade amongst the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, China and South Africa), which is now overwhelmingly in their respective currencies. The US dollar is slowly but surely being replaced by a basket of currencies".
Exploitation Racism combined with Competition Racism sounds very much like the Israeli attitude(s) toward the Palestinians both in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Why Meir Javedanfar is this a very sensitive issue for the US? Please enlighten me. "it must ensure that Assad stops any further (or new) use of Chemical weapons. Because if he did use Sarin and was not punished because of the small quantity, he may then see this as a loophole and use it on more occasions to his advantage". What has all of this got to do with the US? Who appointed the US as the policeman of the Middle East or anywhere other than within it's own borders for that matter? Is that not what the UN is for?
Not one of the commenters including Prof. Cole has called for a change in US foreign policey. Empathy does not heal wounds, reunite families, inprove economic conditions, nor bring back people killed. Empathy is cheap when what is called for is action.
I agree with Christine about the US desire to control oil supplies but I also believe that the Iranian use of currencies in oil trade other than US dollars in more important. Why else would they have interferred in the BIS (which is supposed to be an independent organization but not from US interference which does not bode well for any other miscreants of US policy/control. Should the US dollar not remain the fiat currency of commodity trading, all the US debt will come due over time with no way for the US to pay and the dollar will tank as will also what remains of the US economy.
Control over the world's petroleum is certainly a US goal as maintaining the US dollar as the world's fiat currency is the most important goal. In the cases of Iraq and Iran, their use of currencies other than the US dollar in oil trading is/was far more relevant. Anyone paying attention would have noticed that as soon as the US took control of Iraq, Iraqi oil trading was switched back to being denominated in US dollars. If and when the US dollar stops being the world's fiat currency, all the outstanding US debt then becomes a huge issue as the US will no longer be able to print dollars with impunity.
Some think that the US is the terrorist nation here. Iran has not attacked another nation in well over 200 years; something that cannot be said about the US. How would the US feel if Canada and Mexico were nuclear armed by China and maintained Chinese basses which flew drones at will over the US as well as having fleets of warships in it's territorial waters.
This is true. The US does find the independence of Iran and thus lack of control over it's oil more than irritating; but more immediate than that of the independence of the now up and running Iranian Oil Bourse which is selling Iranian oil in currencies other than US petrodollars: gold, rubles, euros, yuan, etc.. The escalation of the sale of oil here and then probably elsewhere in currencies other than the petrodollar will have serious consequences in the short and long run to the US economy.
This whole fear mongering about Iran and it's nuclear capabilities is just a smoke screen for what is really bothering the US. Iran has instituted an oil bourse and is selling oil in denominations other than the US petrodollar: gold, rupee, yuan, euros, rubles etc. The US is petrified (pun intended) that this trend will escalate and the petrodollar will be discarded and the US will no longer be able to print money at will with no domestic consequences. Saddam Husein (remember him) was selling oil in other than US petrodollars until Iraq was controlled by the US and then the sale of oil was returned to the petrodollar. There were no weapons of mass distruction unless you consider selling oil in other than petrodollars a weapon of mass distruction (of the US economy) which the US might have considered it to be.
The Telegraph (UK) has put the word “genocide” in its headline as a description of what has been going on in Syria.
When will the Telegraph (UK) or any newspaper in the US and its poodles print the same headline as applied to Israel wrt the occupied territories.
Article 7 can be applied as well to Israel and its Palestinian population in the occupied territories.
So why would the Palestinians even want to get into bed with the Israelis based on their experience with the Jews of the area over the past 80 or so years: - ethnic cleansing, occupation, targeted extermination, martial law, stealing of resources and land, collective punishment, bombing, imprisonment without charge, etc.? Do you really think the Palestinians are stupid enough to think that the Israeli behaviour will change over the next 55 years?
Come now. The US could give a hoot about S. Korea or Japan, where they also have bases. Containing China is the game. North Korea, with whom the US has never signed a peace treaty since the end of the Korean War ie they are still at war with N. Korea, thus has every reason to want to acquire nuclear arms given the US propensity to bomb non compliant countries without them. The past 60 odd years has only been an armistice for the express purpose of allowing the US to invade at will should China prove to be difficult to control.
"Al-Maliki has his own reasons for what he is doing. But it is possible that he is being pressured by Iran to do something about some Iraqi politicians." So what. If it wasn't the Iranians pressuring Al-Maliki to do something then is sure as hell would be the US or perhaps Britain or the EU who have pressured Iraq to comply with their dictats for the past 20 odd years by bombing the hell out of Iraq and destroying it's economy and infrastructure as well as murdering 100s of 1000s of it's peoples in a totally illegal war.
In December of 1979 Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev, perhaps baited by the Carter administration, sent in Soviet troops and began a brutal 8-year occupation of among the least developed and most poverty-stricken countries in the world.
In 2002 the US administration sent in US troops and began an ongoing brutal occupation of among the least developed and most poverty-stricken countries in the world.
The US occupation is ongoing and is about two things: surrounding Russia and China with US bases, and oil.
How about free education and free healthcare. That alone will lower the birth rate. And how about vasectomies and an ipod for all males who will agree to be sterilized.. certainly cheaper and safer than a tubal ligation. But as you are a neanderthal......
"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must enjoy sticking the West with this winter’s high prices, as a little revenge for the sanctions" and "Another petty act of revenge". Come on Jaun. Give me a break. The US has been wreaking revenge on Iran since the overthrow of their installed puppet.. the Shaw of Iran..in 1979.
"The Obama administration tried to do the right thing, but has little leverage with Netanyahu". No it has not tried to do the right thing. I agree that it has little leverage with Netanyahu because it has never tried to leverage Netanyahu. The Obama administration has lain prostrate on the floor so Natanyahy can walk all over it and kissed Netanayahu's rectum and repeatedly since elected.
"only a bilateral Israel-Palestine agreement is probably viable". Nonsense. Israel does not want an agreement as it is not in it's interests to have one and the occupier is supported to the tune of billions of dollars by the US who does nothing but support what ever Israel wants to do to the occupied and surrouding countries. The end of the occupation of the Occupied Territories by Israel needs a peace process forced on it by the UN and monitored by UN troops in Israel with rules of engagement orders allowing them to controll the Israel armed forces.
"But what happens the day when America is proven wrong and everyone who isn’t American understands that?"
We ( the rest of the world) have understood this for years. The US has been wrong since it's founding. The day of reckoning is comming for the Excited States. What goes around, comes around.
Before Sept 11, 2001, U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. Until the preceeding August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban as a regime that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia from the oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. When the Taliban's refused to accept U.S. conditions, "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" the US government decided to go to war. Bin Laden and Sept 11, 2001 was a most convenient excuse, not the raison d'etre.
"And here is the moral question: Is it right to ask US warriors to fight and day to prop up the administration of Hamid Karzai?"
Come on Juan. The moral question should be: When is the US admin going to be charged with war crimes? as it attacked a country that had not and could never be a threat. It seems you have forgotten that Afghanistan offerered to turn over bin Laden (the supposed mastermind) if the US provided proof of his involvement in the terrorist attack on the US on Sept 11, 2001; an offer which the US chose to ignore: fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt (Atta), and one from Lebanon. I had not noticed that Saudi Arabia, UAE, or Egypt had been attacked by the US but the US indeed supported Israel in the 2006 attack on Lebanon. Karzai is a puppet of the US (free and fair elections in an occupied country at war for 9 plus years my ass) and is now exhibiting the characteristics of the puppetmaster, corruption. Surprise, surprise. It is really all about oil/natural gas and surrounding China and Russia with US client states and US controlled missiles.
So, the Jews of Israel do not want their children to grow up next/near to a nuclear armed Iran now but from 1953 (after a made in the USA, CIA backed coup) to 1979 that would have been ok as the US was giving Iran nuclear power. So what has changed? Iran is no longer a US client state however Iran has not attacked/threatened Israel or any other country for that matter but did defend itself against Iraq. Nor does Iran have nuclear armaments unlike Israel which has had them for a number of years. On the other hand Israel has threatened and attacked and occupied for years at a time a number of it's middle east neighbours and is still occupying Palestinian territory and has been for 60 plus years. Sounds like transference to me.
Thanks Prof. Cole. I now have a better understanding of the internecine politics of the region.
There never was an "American Century" except in the minds of Americans. The rest of us got over the US being the exceptional state before it began.
How does control over the entrance to the Red Sea and transit through the Suez Canal plus the port China now has or will have in Djibouti and the port in Syria Russia has use of play into all of this?
Well, surprise, surprise. Another supine Sec. General of the UN. Don't any of them have cojones these days. António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres pressured the head of the United Nations' West Asia commission, Rima Khala, to withdraw the report. At least she has cojones as he obviously does not. She has resigned.
We all know this and have done for years! And the UN is going to do what? Jaw, jaw?
The IMF in 1999/2000 was in Yemen with its normal prescriptive economic recipe for the restructering of the Yemen economy (oil producer and oil exporter ....surprise, surprise). Sooooo I don't think the comments to Dr. Coles column necessarily smack of mindless anti-Americanism.
I think you have vastly understated the role of the US in humanitarian disasters. You need to also take into consideration the role of the IMF and their prescriptive economic interventions in many of the African nations on behalf of US-based multinationals; the IMF is a creature of the US and intervenes in these economies on behalf of multinationals (mainly US based ones) selling off the assets of these countries and privatising the economies so that profits flow out of the economies to the multinationals and little is left to benefit the population of the country. Look at the African continent where there are humanitarian disasters today and I bet you can find multinationals today and a prescriptive intervention by the IMF in the past. War is a method of bringing uncooperative countries who are economically stable in line with the desire of the US multinationals to control the country and thus the economy to their benefit.
So what exactly is newsworthy here? Nothing has changed. This has been the plan of zionists for 100 years and the US and European gov'ts were/are never going to do anything about it. BDS in the long run en mass by ordinary citizens has the best chance of forcing the issue.
"Given that the price of petroleum has been halved in the past two years, Russia is desperate for new drilling, so it can make up some of the shortfall by new production."
Given that new production drives down the price of oil this makes no sense and that OPEC at present is desperately trying to limit production to drive up the price of oil. I know that Russia does not give a RA about OPEC except when it matters and that the Saudis were actually trying to drive US fracking production into bankruptcy so that the Saudis could control the price themselves.
Interesting that Mr. Lobe completely ignores the huge role of the US$ in the invasion of Iraq. Why?
"This detachment from reality and extreme violence to the facts will eventually come back around to bite America on the ass."
It is biting them in the ass. The US sheeple have been detached from reality for a long, long time. Look at who they just elected president. How much more proof do you need?
More jaw jaw but are they really going to drive their member states to BDS Israel?
So after Israel votes to annex the West Bank then BDS will no doubt be endorsed by the US and all NATO countries as Russia has been sanctioned for "annexing" Crimea.
Had not noticed that Israel nor the US for that matter gave a damn about international law and ignore it unless it is to their own advantage.
Here in the great white north, the land of igloos and dog sleighs, I have been waiting for solar to become economical to install. The local power monopoly does not like competition from NUGs (non utility generators) and makes it prohibitively expensive to hook into the local power grid as well as only allowing the NUG to run the meter backward until it reaches 0 but will not pay for any power put into the system beyond that. I can't wait until those bastards freeze in the dark.
"Russians prepare to defy Trump"
What? You too have drunk the kool aid of US government propaganda. The US is not in charge of anything except the US. Russia is not a poodle and does not need permission of the US to do anything. The sooner more countries realize that the US is not omnipotent the better.
I'm sure with the latest round of condemnations for settlement building that Israel is quaking in it's boots and will stop building them after it takes over all of area C and then the rest of the West bank. So keep up the condemnations. They are sure to work in the long run. And be sure to continue arming Israel so that it can protect the settlers against those Palestinians armed only with stones as you never know when they might actually hit a poor innocent Israeli armed only with US tanks, guns, shells, planes etc. and cause them to bleed. Horrors.
Fantastic. Now I can never go to Israel even if I wanted to..... not that I would ever want to because who wants to associate knowingly with a nation of war criminals.
The Democratic Party shot themselves and the country in the foot by not electing Saunders to run against Trump and by electing a leader who would continue to carry out the same old policies of supporting the banksters and funding the war machine and was sure to go down to defeat. Well done.
Surprise, surprise!
The US does not want to put the "peace" deal back together. It wants "to isolate Iran, and ensure it loses its land bridge to south Lebanon and perhaps ability to resupply Hizbullah". This is all about Israel and its ever expanding borders. It is counting on Russia to back down. The US does not give a shit about the people of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq or Libya as long as it controls oil and gas and the currency they are denominated in.
You should also read link to aljazeera.com
a more nuanced piece about the machinations of Peres the war criminal but of course an Israeli hero.
Reading todays column about Peres by Robert Fisk might give lie to the word "decent" in your assessment of that odious man. link to independent.co.uk
Welcome to history. The US and the Saudis got in bed with each other in 1971 when the US defaulted on it's currency (went off the gold standard) and became the BFF of the Saudis ergo the petro dollar.
What is so shocking about this? Consider the following about gun violence in the US since the start of 2016 alone?
Total Number of Incidents 23,592
Number of Deaths1 6,050
Number of Injuries1 12,401
Number of Children (age 0-11)
Killed/Injured1 258
Number of Teens (age 12-17)
Killed/Injured1 1,294
Mass Shooting2 139
Officer Involved Incident
Officer Shot/Killed2 147
Officer Involved Incident
Perpetrator Shot/Killed2 373
Home Invasion2 989
Defensive Use2 727
Accidental Shooting2 1,054
The culture of your country is violence with guns be it in the country or in a foreign country. Perhaps you should look at yourselves collectively and then then do something about it instead of writing endless articles about the horror of it all.
Thank you for this article. I have been waiting patiently for Dr. Roy to publish her last edition of this research. I am most interested in her analysis and conclusions.
Thank you Juan for the article. I have been waiting for many years for Dr. Roy to complete her study and have at last been rewarded for my patience. I look forward to reading her analysis.
So Obama gets some kind of credit for making Iran pay by making itself more vulnerable to attack by the US for an issue caused by actions of the US and the rest of the world is supposed to be awed by this. The Emperor has no clothes!
"there is one area where he has had success in reducing world tensions, and that is with regard to Iran" World? Only if the "world" consists of the US, Israel and perhaps Saudi Arabia. Hardly "the world". The majority of the world did not consider Iran a threat. The US if you have forgotten combined with Britain engineered the overthrow of the elected government in Iran in the early 1950's because it wanted to nationalize it's oil and a despot dictator the Shah was installed by the aggressors. So because the Iranians overthrew the dictator and had the temerity to take a few US hostages the US has had an irrational hate and goal of the destruction of Iran ever since. Iran was no threat to the US, Saudi or Israel certainly not with the US providing billions of dollars in armaments to the Saudi regime and to Israel. I forsee another regime now that Iran has no nuclear capability as the US has a habit of invading any state non compliant (to US diktats) without nuclear capabilities.
Diplomacy my ass. The US has actually been waging an undeclared war against Iran since 1979 when it stopped being a client state. It has been turning the screws tighter in the past 15 years by manipulating the IAEA and the SWIFT system. Iran recognizes that non-client stats are the most likely to be invaded by the US especially if they are not a nuclear state. If Iran continues to develop it's missile system and the US congress applies sanctions against it for having defensive non-nuclear weapons then the game is up and the real reason for sanctions will have been revealed. Gaddafi (who was planning another currency) gave up it's nuclear option and was invaded. Iran continues to sell it's oil in currencies other than US dollars and the US is very afraid it's fiat currency will become toilet paper.
Also may it bankrupt the US economy building it and give the Canadian armed forces some target practice monitoring and enforcing a 100 mile area along the barrier south of the Canadian border like the Israeli's monitor the fence they erected along the border with Gaza and the US is so found of supporting with US dollars.
I would love to have a wall to keep the US out and abrogate the FTA.
The rest of the world recognizes US citizens as navel gazers with little education who know little about other countries and who are brainwashed with the self importance of the US to the rest of the world. So why bother interviewing notables from other countries who are of little interest to the US audience if they are not from the US and not talking about the importance of the US.
Since we all know the US did not absorb 80 million refugees last year, how many did they absorb and how many of these wars (none of them on US soil of course) is the US involved in bombing, sanctioning, droning or supplying weapons or aid of some kind to one side.
Who cares what SCOTUS rules. The US barely tolerates the UN and certainly ignores it when it is convenient which appears to be most of the time. The rest of the world understands the US is a declining power and it's time is just about up.
And if the Palestinians sign the Rome Statutes what then? I suspect life will go on with little change for the Palestinians. What they in fact need to do is to stop co-operating with the Israelis and leave the policing and the expense of maintaining the occupation to Israel. That will produce more results than signing the Rome Statutes. The ICC has no power at all. The US and Israel don't recognize nor implement any of it's findings nor have they ratified their signatures of the Rome Statutes
"Palestinian launches have been rare and sporadic and occurred almost always after successive instances of Israeli cease-fire violations." source: link to blog.thejerusalemfund.org
Perhaps Mr Haniyeh can comment on when Israel might be expected to 1) live up to the terms of the latest ceasefire and also 2) not to break the ceasefire because as as the sun surely rises every morning Israel has broken the latest ceasefire with impunity and there has been no retaliation from Hamas.
About bloody time that a country recognized the Palestinian State. More interesting is the wording of the announcement by this Arab zine for its English speaking readers.
Look up tzniut and ask what is the difference in practice between Arab and Jew where women are concerned?
Why wait until 2016 to take Israel to the ICC? Abbas has had plenty of opportunity to do just this since at long last Palestine to the belated step of becoming an observer state at the UN. There will be no change in Israeli policy towards the occupied territories unless it is forced to do so. I suspect this is a stalling tactic on the part of Abbas until the next "election" in the occupied territories which he hopes to win by appearing at last to be proactive before lapsing once again into complicity with Israel in their ongoing crimes against the Palestinians.
I'll believe that when I see it. He has had years to implement "political war" on Israel and only when pushed by the population's realization that Hamas defends them and Abbas co-opts them has he decided to "act". Why wait three more years to take Israel to the ICC when this could have been done years ago?
Somewhat lacking in historical background and therefor somewhat biased. How about mentioning that the US violatd an agreement with Russia not to its expand its "missle defence" into old Soviet bloc nations and that the Ukraine owed Russia a few billion dollars from past gas deliveries at a greatly subsidised price from previous years, and that the US has been attempting to cut off Russian gas delivery to Europe to destroy the Russian economy and that controlling the Ukraine and therefor gas delivery to Europe is only part of the plan. Ignoring of course that the US is not going to freeze in the dark but the Europeans probably will but who cares about them.
Surprise, surprise. Israel has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Hopefully the general population world wide will force governments to BDS Israel (and in the future the US if it continues unconditional support for Israel) or face problems in future elections.
Shame on you to suggest that an Israeli is worth far more than many Palestinians. To put your comment in reverse - many thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel, more thousands imprisoned by Israel and many thousands ethnically cleansed by Israel don't count? Shame on you.
"Zanoli seems to realize that the two-state solution is no longer plausible, given the hundreds of thousands of Israeli squatter settlements on the Palestinian West Bank and the physical isolation and siege of Gaza."
Zanoli has said no such thing. This is your incorrect interpretation. Zanoli asked only that the Palestinians be granted the same rights as the Jews as he believed were entitled to in Europe. He did not ask for a 1 or 2 state solution but for the same rights..
Why is it that the illegal squatters in the west bank are deemed to have more rights to the land they have stolen than the rightfull owners... the palestinians. There is no reason on earth why they cannot be moved back into Israel behind the original line of division of1947... never mind 1967.
So let us (the rest of the world) BDS the US. No more tourism, buying of good/services produced by/in the US or by US multinationals, and BDS politicians of your own country that buy US made goods (such as munitions, planes, weapons etc.,). Money talks to US citizens, and that will get their attention.
Nonsense. The Israelis have no intention of ever giving up the occupied territories. If Abbas had really been serious he would have applied to join the ICJ, and disolved the PA and then the wall would have come tumbling down instead of continuing to act as a police force for the Israelis on international monies at no cost to Israel.
As opposed to the US which of course must be better because it is lilly white and pure unlike the "evil empires of Russia and Iran".
Much like the electoral system in the US which is now courtesy of the Supreme Court of the US owned by the 1% who can buy all the votes they they need to make and apply what ever laws are the most profitable to them.
Perhaps Afghanistan and also Iraq should sue the members of "the coalition of the willing" for war crimes and resulting damages. I don't remember Saudi Arabia (from whence the "terrorist" perps of Sept 11 came, not Afghanistan or Iraq as the US press would have you believe) being attacked or unsupported financially at anytime since by any members of "the coalition of the willing". These wars were and are still all about oil and the fiat dollar.
It was intended simply to make Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands more economical, in terms of Jewish blood and money, so that taxes could be cut even further and liberalization of the economy could proceed to even greater heights.
Only the US public would swallow that reason. The rest of the world is better informed however. The real reason is off shore.... off the shore of Gaza. "In recent years, Israel's state-owned utility company Israel Electric Corp has embarked on a large-scale program to shift its power generation from oil and coal to cleaner burning natural gas. The Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure's plan is to increase the share of natural gas in power generation from 20% last year to around 40% in 2012. The decision was controversial primarily due to the unreliable nature of gas supply versus that of coal and oil as well as the insufficient natural gas pipeline and power generation infrastructure. Israel is in the process of constructing a system of 12 natural gas power stations and a network of pipelines connecting them with import gas terminals. Upon completion of the construction project 4 of the 12 stations will be located in areas which are covered by Hamas' current range of fire. (See a map of Israel's Natural Gas Transmission System at link to mni.gov.il)" Journal of Energy Security, Feb. 2009.
Israel has no offshore gas reserves. Lebanon and Gaza do however.
You forget conveniently of course that it was Saudi Arabians who flew planes into the World Trade towers and not Afghanis. I haven't seen any talk of bombing Saudi Arabia in the past 10 years. It is much easier to bomb a country with no armed forces and no defense. However this war like the Vietnamese war is being won by those without money and high tech equipment. The US has created enough enemies by overthrowing governments, bombing, and invading countries, as well as supporting dictators that few will have sympathy for your country when the dollar is not longer the worlds fiat currency and your debts come due.
Hear, hear!!!
Who cares what the US and Israel want. The days of the US being able to call any shots are almost over.
"China announced that it has discounted the value of US Treasuries held as collateral against futures trades, and China and the European Central Bank have arranged a currency swap in preparation of a US default." Instead of honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies.
"The solution, for Beijing, is to “de-Americanize” the current geopolitical equation – starting with more say in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for emerging economies and the developing world, leading to a “new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant US dollar”"."As for the move away from the US dollar, it’s also already on, in varying degrees of speed, especially concerning trade amongst the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, China and South Africa), which is now overwhelmingly in their respective currencies. The US dollar is slowly but surely being replaced by a basket of currencies".
Bloody well about time!
Exploitation Racism combined with Competition Racism sounds very much like the Israeli attitude(s) toward the Palestinians both in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Why Meir Javedanfar is this a very sensitive issue for the US? Please enlighten me. "it must ensure that Assad stops any further (or new) use of Chemical weapons. Because if he did use Sarin and was not punished because of the small quantity, he may then see this as a loophole and use it on more occasions to his advantage". What has all of this got to do with the US? Who appointed the US as the policeman of the Middle East or anywhere other than within it's own borders for that matter? Is that not what the UN is for?
Not one of the commenters including Prof. Cole has called for a change in US foreign policey. Empathy does not heal wounds, reunite families, inprove economic conditions, nor bring back people killed. Empathy is cheap when what is called for is action.
I agree with Christine about the US desire to control oil supplies but I also believe that the Iranian use of currencies in oil trade other than US dollars in more important. Why else would they have interferred in the BIS (which is supposed to be an independent organization but not from US interference which does not bode well for any other miscreants of US policy/control. Should the US dollar not remain the fiat currency of commodity trading, all the US debt will come due over time with no way for the US to pay and the dollar will tank as will also what remains of the US economy.
Control over the world's petroleum is certainly a US goal as maintaining the US dollar as the world's fiat currency is the most important goal. In the cases of Iraq and Iran, their use of currencies other than the US dollar in oil trading is/was far more relevant. Anyone paying attention would have noticed that as soon as the US took control of Iraq, Iraqi oil trading was switched back to being denominated in US dollars. If and when the US dollar stops being the world's fiat currency, all the outstanding US debt then becomes a huge issue as the US will no longer be able to print dollars with impunity.
Some think that the US is the terrorist nation here. Iran has not attacked another nation in well over 200 years; something that cannot be said about the US. How would the US feel if Canada and Mexico were nuclear armed by China and maintained Chinese basses which flew drones at will over the US as well as having fleets of warships in it's territorial waters.
This is true. The US does find the independence of Iran and thus lack of control over it's oil more than irritating; but more immediate than that of the independence of the now up and running Iranian Oil Bourse which is selling Iranian oil in currencies other than US petrodollars: gold, rubles, euros, yuan, etc.. The escalation of the sale of oil here and then probably elsewhere in currencies other than the petrodollar will have serious consequences in the short and long run to the US economy.
This whole fear mongering about Iran and it's nuclear capabilities is just a smoke screen for what is really bothering the US. Iran has instituted an oil bourse and is selling oil in denominations other than the US petrodollar: gold, rupee, yuan, euros, rubles etc. The US is petrified (pun intended) that this trend will escalate and the petrodollar will be discarded and the US will no longer be able to print money at will with no domestic consequences. Saddam Husein (remember him) was selling oil in other than US petrodollars until Iraq was controlled by the US and then the sale of oil was returned to the petrodollar. There were no weapons of mass distruction unless you consider selling oil in other than petrodollars a weapon of mass distruction (of the US economy) which the US might have considered it to be.
Who was Whitney Houston? Global even M A.
The Telegraph (UK) has put the word “genocide” in its headline as a description of what has been going on in Syria.
When will the Telegraph (UK) or any newspaper in the US and its poodles print the same headline as applied to Israel wrt the occupied territories.
Article 7 can be applied as well to Israel and its Palestinian population in the occupied territories.
So why would the Palestinians even want to get into bed with the Israelis based on their experience with the Jews of the area over the past 80 or so years: - ethnic cleansing, occupation, targeted extermination, martial law, stealing of resources and land, collective punishment, bombing, imprisonment without charge, etc.? Do you really think the Palestinians are stupid enough to think that the Israeli behaviour will change over the next 55 years?
Come now. The US could give a hoot about S. Korea or Japan, where they also have bases. Containing China is the game. North Korea, with whom the US has never signed a peace treaty since the end of the Korean War ie they are still at war with N. Korea, thus has every reason to want to acquire nuclear arms given the US propensity to bomb non compliant countries without them. The past 60 odd years has only been an armistice for the express purpose of allowing the US to invade at will should China prove to be difficult to control.
"Al-Maliki has his own reasons for what he is doing. But it is possible that he is being pressured by Iran to do something about some Iraqi politicians." So what. If it wasn't the Iranians pressuring Al-Maliki to do something then is sure as hell would be the US or perhaps Britain or the EU who have pressured Iraq to comply with their dictats for the past 20 odd years by bombing the hell out of Iraq and destroying it's economy and infrastructure as well as murdering 100s of 1000s of it's peoples in a totally illegal war.
In December of 1979 Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev, perhaps baited by the Carter administration, sent in Soviet troops and began a brutal 8-year occupation of among the least developed and most poverty-stricken countries in the world.
In 2002 the US administration sent in US troops and began an ongoing brutal occupation of among the least developed and most poverty-stricken countries in the world.
The US occupation is ongoing and is about two things: surrounding Russia and China with US bases, and oil.
The USSR left, the USA has not.
How about free education and free healthcare. That alone will lower the birth rate. And how about vasectomies and an ipod for all males who will agree to be sterilized.. certainly cheaper and safer than a tubal ligation. But as you are a neanderthal......
"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must enjoy sticking the West with this winter’s high prices, as a little revenge for the sanctions" and "Another petty act of revenge". Come on Jaun. Give me a break. The US has been wreaking revenge on Iran since the overthrow of their installed puppet.. the Shaw of Iran..in 1979.
"The Obama administration tried to do the right thing, but has little leverage with Netanyahu". No it has not tried to do the right thing. I agree that it has little leverage with Netanyahu because it has never tried to leverage Netanyahu. The Obama administration has lain prostrate on the floor so Natanyahy can walk all over it and kissed Netanayahu's rectum and repeatedly since elected.
"only a bilateral Israel-Palestine agreement is probably viable". Nonsense. Israel does not want an agreement as it is not in it's interests to have one and the occupier is supported to the tune of billions of dollars by the US who does nothing but support what ever Israel wants to do to the occupied and surrouding countries. The end of the occupation of the Occupied Territories by Israel needs a peace process forced on it by the UN and monitored by UN troops in Israel with rules of engagement orders allowing them to controll the Israel armed forces.
"But what happens the day when America is proven wrong and everyone who isn’t American understands that?"
We ( the rest of the world) have understood this for years. The US has been wrong since it's founding. The day of reckoning is comming for the Excited States. What goes around, comes around.
Not much difference between Fox and CNN as far as mis-informing the US sheeple is concerned.
Before Sept 11, 2001, U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. Until the preceeding August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban as a regime that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia from the oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. When the Taliban's refused to accept U.S. conditions, "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" the US government decided to go to war. Bin Laden and Sept 11, 2001 was a most convenient excuse, not the raison d'etre.
"And here is the moral question: Is it right to ask US warriors to fight and day to prop up the administration of Hamid Karzai?"
Come on Juan. The moral question should be: When is the US admin going to be charged with war crimes? as it attacked a country that had not and could never be a threat. It seems you have forgotten that Afghanistan offerered to turn over bin Laden (the supposed mastermind) if the US provided proof of his involvement in the terrorist attack on the US on Sept 11, 2001; an offer which the US chose to ignore: fifteen of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt (Atta), and one from Lebanon. I had not noticed that Saudi Arabia, UAE, or Egypt had been attacked by the US but the US indeed supported Israel in the 2006 attack on Lebanon. Karzai is a puppet of the US (free and fair elections in an occupied country at war for 9 plus years my ass) and is now exhibiting the characteristics of the puppetmaster, corruption. Surprise, surprise. It is really all about oil/natural gas and surrounding China and Russia with US client states and US controlled missiles.
So, the Jews of Israel do not want their children to grow up next/near to a nuclear armed Iran now but from 1953 (after a made in the USA, CIA backed coup) to 1979 that would have been ok as the US was giving Iran nuclear power. So what has changed? Iran is no longer a US client state however Iran has not attacked/threatened Israel or any other country for that matter but did defend itself against Iraq. Nor does Iran have nuclear armaments unlike Israel which has had them for a number of years. On the other hand Israel has threatened and attacked and occupied for years at a time a number of it's middle east neighbours and is still occupying Palestinian territory and has been for 60 plus years. Sounds like transference to me.