War

By Max Blumenthal | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – “A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable,” declared Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in February. His ominous comments came just days after an anti-tank missile fired by the Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hezbollah killed two soldiers in an […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: The First Rule of Counter-Insurgency is that it Doesn’t Ever Work

contributors

By William R. Polk | (Informed Comment) | – – The people of Afghanistan at least since the time of Alexander the Great had repeatedly and violently demonstrated their determination not to be ruled by foreigners. In 1842 they inflicted the worst defeat the British army suffered in the Nineteenth century. Soberly, the British then […]

Iran

Why Exempt Israel? After Iran Deal, Make Middle East a Nuclear Free Zone

contributors

By Farhang Jahanpour | (TFF) | – – The announcement of the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers is a rare moment in history that gives us hope and provides a basis for optimism. By contemplating what the alternative would have entailed, any agreement, no matter how defective, is a great achievement and […]

Afghanistan

Pushtun Female Commandos Ready to Take on the Taliban

contributors

By Ashfaq Yusufzai | (Inter Press Service) | – – PESHAWAR, Pakistan (IPS) – For years, Robina Shah has dreamed of joining the police force. Ever since her father, a police constable, was killed in a 2013 Taliban suicide attack in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, she has longed to carry on […]

Children

For Gaza Children, Returning to School reminder of Dead, Wounded Classmates

contributors

Fred Abrahams | (Human Rights Watch) | — The fighting began one year ago and lasted for 51 days. In Gaza, Israeli attacks from land, air, and sea killed 551 children and injured 3436, ten percent of them suffering a permanent disability. In Israel, one child was killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire; dozens […]

Displaced and Refugees

Yemen Is Starving, and We’re Partly to Blame

contributors

By Chris Toensing | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – 80 percent of people in the Arab world’s poorest country are in danger of starving to death under a U.S.-backed blockade and bombing campaign. Twenty million people in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, are at risk of dying from hunger or […]

Featured

The Great Wall of Turkey? Ankara imagines DMZ w/ Kurds, ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So I am going to tell you a story about Turkey, Syria and the United States. It may or may not be true. Its details may or may not have happened, though there is reason to think they did. It is a story. The point is […]

Children

Yemen: Caught between Saudis & Houthis, Children Pay Price of War

contributors

By Belkis Wille | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – The deliberate targeting of schools has become a flashpoint in the war between Yemen’s rebels and a Saudi-led coalition. Hisham Yahya, 13, is an eager student. As we sat in the large, empty yard of his school in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, with weapons debris […]

Displaced and Refugees

Yemen: Saudi Airstrikes kill 58, including dozens of Women and Children

contributors

RT | (Video report) — “Saudi-led coalition warplanes are continuing to pound Houthi targets in Yemen despite the rebels agreeing to UN-backed peace talks. The strikes have killed 58 people across the country over the past two days, according to the Houthis. And the humanitarian situation is getting worse by the day, according to the […]