The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d’état, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random pat-downs and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or quick trip to the shopping mall. Continue reading
The Yemeni people are unrelenting in their demands for democracy. Millions continue to stage rallies across their country in a display of will that is proving the most robust out of all the Arab revolutions. The Yemenis face great challenges, however, including the political vacillation of their country’s opposition, and the US’s military and strategic interests in Yemen. Continue reading
A controversial Supreme Court decision less than two years ago could have the unintended consequence of significantly reducing the government’s 46-year campaign against cigarettes. Continue reading
Many commentators today are basing the success of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the June 12 elections largely on its ability to guide the country through a decade of remarkable growth. Continue reading
The 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, held June 15, in the Kazakh capital Astana highlighted how the major rivals to empire, led by Russia and China—themselves rivals—are trying to fashion an alternative to US hegemony. Continue reading
United Nations Agenda 21—Blueprint to Advance Sustainable Development . . . doesn’t that sound nice? Who could be against sustainable development? Who doesn’t care deeply about mother Earth? Let’s save the world. Continue reading
In the complicated calculus of the men who would plan our destinies for us, if we would only let them, it is often hard to fathom which line of reasoning represents their dominant thinking on any strategic subject. In Afghanistan and in Pakistan, it is getting harder to distinguish between the minimum acceptable goals for the Empire and less desirable, though ultimately acceptable conditions for ending the war. In particular, thinking of the “pipeline wars” (which American corporations seem to be losing, badly), if America is projected to fail miserably in its plans for Central and South Asia, then what secondary objectives is the Empire preparing for the region? Continue reading
In light of the brutal death and destruction wrought on Libya by the relentless US/NATO bombardment, the professed claims of “humanitarian concerns” as grounds for intervention can readily be dismissed as a blatantly specious imperialist ploy in pursuit of “regime change” in that country. Continue reading
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) renewed mandate puts the electoral seal of approval on its shift towards the Middle East, even as its importance to Europe increases. Now Turkey itself is being courted by both NATO countries and, increasingly, the Arab world. Continue reading
A few days ago, I came upon a New York Times article, Obama Seeks to Win Back Wall St. Cash. The lead-in read, “A few weeks before announcing his re-election campaign, President Obama convened two dozen Wall Street executives, many of them longtime donors, in the White House’s Blue Room.” It wasn’t just to say hello. Continue reading
While “Europe’s slow-motion financial collapse”—as Mother Jones magazine described it in a June 6 article—continues to unravel, Spain, like other European states continues to implement anti-social-neo-liberal policies with strong opposition from the citizenry. Continue reading
The militarization of American police—no doubt a blowback effect of the military empire—has become an unfortunate part of American life. In fact, it says something about our reliance on the military that federal agencies having nothing whatsoever to do with national defense now see the need for their own paramilitary units. Among those federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions are the State Department, Department of Education, Department of Energy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, to name just a few. These agencies have secured the services of fully armed agents—often in SWAT team attire—through a typical bureaucratic sleight-of-hand provision allowing for the creation of Offices of Inspectors General (OIG). Each OIG office is supposedly charged with not only auditing their particular agency’s actions but also uncovering possible misconduct, waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency’s operation. At present, there are 73 such OIG offices in the federal government that, at times, perpetuate a police state aura about them. Continue reading
The American/Pakistani/British shenanigans in S. Waziristan are once again exposing the old patterns–America makes more demands, unidentified militants attack Frontier troops, British press releases misleading disinformation (SEE: Deadly militant attack on Pakistan security checkpoint), making the reality of the situation nearly impossible to understand. In addition, the press is now starting to claim that the attack actually took place in N. Waziristan (SEE: Eight soldiers killed in N Waziristan militant attack), possibly to create the impression that the reported N. Waziristan offensive had begun. Continue reading
Recent Wikileaks documents confirm what some of us have been warning about for years, that plans for a North American Union dismissed by many as a conspiracy theory are indeed real. Continue reading
“The test of a first-rate intelligence,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, “is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” When it comes to what’s been dubbed the “Arab Spring,” most Middle East analysts pass Fitzgerald’s test with flying colours. Continue reading
It was surprising that bilateral relations with the U.S. did not play a more prominent role during the recent Canadian election considering that both countries are pursuing a trade and security agreement. In fact, the issue did not really surface until the dying days of the campaign. After winning a much coveted majority government, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are moving ahead quickly with perimeter security and regulatory harmonization negotiations. NAFTA and the defunct Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) both addressed issues such as regulatory cooperation. The push for a single unified North American business-friendly regulatory regime continues on different fronts. Continue reading
ROME-BELGRADE—NATO seems to find Serbia’s autonomy outrageous, its semi-neutrality unacceptable, its modernity anomalous and above all its path to progress dangerous. For North Atlantic Treaty planners and schemers, Serbia—maverick, outsider, rebel—is an infectious disease to be eradicated. Serbia must be chained, normalized and integrated with the rest of Europe as are most southeastern European lands. Serbia’s neutral existence is an affront, an obstacle to a final solution of the thorny Balkan conundrum. Continue reading
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the Hamas-Fatah deal in Cairo was both swift and predictable. “The Palestinian Authority must choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility for peace with both,” he said, in a televised speech shortly after the Palestinian political rivals reached a reconciliation agreement under Egyptian sponsorship on April 27. Continue reading
If it’s true that, as Shakespeare famously put it, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,” then pro-democracy Arab dissidents must be very miserable indeed. Continue reading
With the release of a U.S. congressional report that found only a small fraction of the border with Canada was being adequately monitored, there is now more focus being placed on the northern border. As a result of increased scrutiny, there are efforts to militarize and expand surveillance on the Canada-U.S. border. The newfound attention is also attributed to a proposed trade and security perimeter agreement between the two countries which promotes a shared approach to border management. Continue reading
“The toppling of Egypt’s modern-day pharaoh through peaceful mass protests, aided by Facebook and Twitter, marks a watershed for Egypt and the entire Arab world,” wrote Larry Diamond, in a noteworthy February 14 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Contrary to widespread anxieties in the U.S. foreign policy establishment,” the prominent advocate of American taxpayer-funded “democracy promotion” maintained, “it will also serve the long-term interests of the United States—and Israel.” Continue reading
Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank—this before they even had a government. Continue reading
Russian politics is in turmoil as a result of the uprisings in the Arab world, in particular the Egyptian revolution. Those fed up with an increasingly autocratic political system hope that Russian citizens will be energised, while those who came out on top following the collapse of the Soviet Union are quick to dismiss any implications for the Russian political scene. Continue reading
Few around the world watching the drama unfolding in Ivory Coast root for the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, who to his credit held reasonably fair elections last year, but then promptly ignored the results, suddenly claiming that those who voted for his rival Alassane Ouattara were not really citizens of Ivory Coast at all. With even the cautious African Union against him, his demise looks inevitable. Continue reading
Within a few days, the “Silmiya” (peaceful) popular uprising against the 42-year old rule of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya had turned into an “armed struggle” and in no time the U.S. administration was in full gear backing the Libyan armed violent revolt, which has turned into a full scale civil war, despite being the same world power that officially label the legitimate (according to the charter of the United Nations) armed defense of the Palestinian people against the 34- year old foreign military occupation of Israel as “terrorism.” Continue reading
Turkey continues its struggle to rein in the trigger-happy Franco-Anglo-American coalition intent on invading Libya. From the start, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the idea of a no-fly zone as “such nonsense. What does NATO have to do with Libya?” But his NATO colleagues pushed ahead and achieved UN Security Council Resolution 1973 on 17 March, authorising “all necessary measures” against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the establishment of a no-fly zone. Continue reading
It’s impossible to make sense out of why we are at war in Libya through the lens of Republican/Democratic politics and outside the context of U.S. Empire. Continue reading
The current global economic cataclysm is not an anomaly. It is the 11th major financial disaster visited on the poor and working class by U.S. capitalism: Panic of 1785–1788, Panic of 1792, Panic of 1819–1822, Panic of 1837–1843, Panic of 1857–1861, Great Depression or Panic of 1873–1878, Panic of 1893–1897, Panic of 1907, Great Depression 1929–1941, Recession of the mid 1970s and now the Neoliberal Depression of 2008-? On average every 21 years U.S. capitalism provides the people with the gift of personal and financial disaster for many and severe hardship for many more. Continue reading
Canada and the U.S recently issued a joint threat and risk assessment as part of ongoing efforts to further enhance security on the northern border. This initiative supports a declaration by the leaders which will work towards facilitating the movement of travel and trade between the two countries. Continue reading
A message has been sent to the Arabs. Its contents and purpose are unambiguous and unmistakable. Continue reading
Polling from Pew and Gallup reveals major public misconceptions about the defense budget. Fifty-eight percent of Americans know that Pentagon spending is larger than any other nation, but almost none know it is up to seven times that of China. Most had no idea the defense budget is larger than federal spending for education, Medicare or interest on the debt. Continue reading
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