April-July 2009
The Iranian uprising is home grown, and must stay that way By Stephen Zunes: The growing nonviolent insurrection in Iran against the efforts by the ruling clerics to return the ultra-conservative and increasingly autocratic incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinjead to power is growing. Whatever the outcome, it represents an exciting and massive outpouring of Iranian civil society for a more open and pluralistic society. The future of Iran belongs in the hands of the Iranians and the best thing the United States can do to support a more open and pluralistic society in that country is to stay the hell out of the way. Read More
Sharing Muslim common ground with the world By Syed Mahmood: It is unprecedented in our history that a Christian leader of a superpower felt compelled to reach out to the Muslim World. Obama started his message with the Islamic greetings, Assalamu Alaikum (peace be with you).Quoting references from the Holy Quran; “Always speak the truth. That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can.” Read More
Well crafted speech with little substance for the Muslims By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Contrary to the expectations aroused by the White House about his outreach speech to the Muslim world, Obama continues long war against terror which he has renamed as “violent extremism.” He described extremism (read terrorism) as the first issue. “The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.” Unlike his predecessor, George Bush, he did not mentioned terrorism a single time during his 55 minute speech. Read More
Military/industrial complex: nature/implications By Arthur Scott: Building the American Empire has been terribly costly to the American people. Economically, the Empire has impoverished the nation. Impoverishment of the nation by war started with the Vietnam conflict of the 60’s and 70’s. It reached its zenith during the Reagan-Bush years when the federal debt rose from less than a trillion dollars to more than 9.5 trillion dollars in 2008. Read More
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui’s denies shooting US officials By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist under U.S. detention, appeared on July 6, 2009, in the New York court of U.S. District Judge Richard Berman who had ordered prosecution to bring her in court against her wishes. Dr Aafia, 37, is in US custody facing charges of an alleged attempt to shoot American personnel in Afghanistan. Read More
Pelosi could undermine efforts by Obama to moderate U.S. policy toward Mideast By Prof. Stephen Zunes: Reports by international human rights groups and from within Israel in recent weeks have revealed the massive scale of war-crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law, committed by Israeli forces during their three-week offensive against the Gaza Strip earlier this year. Despite this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has steadfastly stood by her insistence that the U.S.-backed Israeli government has no legal or moral responsibility for the tragic consequence of the war. Read More
War is easy to start By Mertze Dahlin: Our existing foreign policy seems to demand that we continue to seek another war, but it needs to be provoked in order to make it plausible. America, as a debtor nation, should not be annoying Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Japan. We are trying our best to implement this, first of all, by naming the nations we want to annoy by calling them the “Axis of Evil” and hoping in some way they will provoke us. Read More
Mothers and the Lies About War By Diane Rejman: I learned it doesn’t matter how strong or smart a soldier is, or what kind of training he or she receives. I learned that death and injury in a war zone is a lottery. First prize may be a college education. But second place is getting physically or emotionally wounded for life. Third place is death. Read More
What is next for Iraq? By Zakia Isad: It would be needless to say what drove us to Iraq but we do know now we could not accomplish what we had envisioned for a long time. Now is the time to recognize our losses and focus on a different strategy that may have a chance to succeed. Read More
Blood oil By Jeremy Leung: Oil has undoubtedly been the dominant factor in international politics for recent decades, mainly due to its scarcity. Oil is not only a factor that affects Middle Eastern politics, it dominates the region. There were numerous reasons for US invasion in Iraq, all of them related to oil. As a result of all these factors, the US is now occupying Iraq. Such is the enormous effect of oil on relationships between oil producing countries in the Middle East and the West. Read More
The Veiled West By M. Burhanuddin Qasmi: The Muslim women’s veil issue in France is gradually taking an ugly shape across the world. The ‘extra’ liberal people possessed with a Western life style even in the East count banning the ‘burqa’ as liberating women from ‘the dark ages’ to be in tune with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, yet the majority of Muslims across the globe consider it as a direct attack on one’s freedom of living and religious practice. It is nothing less than the forceful conversion of Muslim women to a Western civilization, some argue. . Read More
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