Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives by Tag 'NATO'
Two years after the failed NATO intervention, Libyan society is in chaos. Over 50,000 were killed in a mission that was meant to protect civilians, and there are reportedly more than 1,700 competing militias marauding the streets. One outcome of this chaos was the attack ...
Dalarna, Sweden
“Will there be war?” (”Kommer det bli krig?”) was the question posed in the 22 April report by the one of country’s most respected papers, Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), its article revealing some alleged particulars of a Russi...
Recently, best-selling author Chris Hedges announced his resignation from PEN, a prominent international writers’ organization. That resignation was partially motivated by the fact that while PEN purports to speak on behalf of dissidents, it’s been completely silent r...
Dalarna, Sweden.
The catastrophe of global warming is rapidly bringing accessibility to the Far North, an often discussed ‘rush’ to claim land and resources ongoing as I write this. Historically, there have been numerous other ‘rushes’ for land and ...
An Israeli-Turkish rapprochement is unmistakably underway, but unlike the heyday of their political alignment of the 1990’s, the revamped relationship is likely to be more guarded and will pose a greater challenge to Turkey rather than to Israel.
Israeli media re...
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. peace movement came up with a catchy phrase: “What if the schools got all the money they needed and the Navy had to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier?” Well, the Italian Navy has a line of clothing, and is taking a cut from a so...
Critics of President Obama’s 2011 aerial intervention in Libya may recall one of that conflict’s most striking features: the administration’s failure to invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR). The War Powers Resolution is that tasteless congressional fruit of t...
Kabul.
I have come to Kabul to give my support to the campaign for 2 million friends of the Afghan people. You have chosen to run this campaign because you remember that 2 million people from Afghanistan have died in violence under war, under killing....
From the Congress of Vienna of 1815 to the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to the “Allies” invasion of Russia in 1918 to the formation of what became the European Union in the 1950s, the great powers of Europe and the world have gotten together in grand meeting hal...
“Whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions”
Statement by US Justice Robert Jackson at the International...
From the ice-bound passes of the Hindu Kush to the blazing heat of the Karakum Desert, Central Asia is a sub-continent steeped in illusion. For more than two millennia conquerors have been lured by the mirage that it is a gateway to immense wealth: China to the east, Indi...
In his new book, Slouching Towards Sirte, which will be released in December, Maximilian ...
Now we know that not only did the United Kingdom already have drones, but more are coming to join the Royal Air Force for surveillance and combat operations in foreign lands. And, for the first time, they will be controlled from Britain. According to a report in the Guard...
The Norwegian parliamentarians have just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. Now, Norway is one of the few Western European countries that does not belong to the EU. So we suspect that the Norwegians’ modesty held them back from nominating the org...
Turkey took a page from Washington’s play book on October 4, 2012. After an errant shell landed in Turkish territory and killed a family there, the Turkish legislature authorized the Turkish military to enter foreign lands. In other words, they manipulated an incident i...
The month of October 2011 stands as an historical monument to heroism and apocalypse in the Libyan desert as the people of Sirte, hometown to Col. Gaddafi, staged a desperate, doomed fight to protect their families and homes from the might of NATO and its allied b...
The deceptive ways a loss in war is described can be contagious. Retreats are often regarded as odious, but sometimes necessary. These can either have the genius of the British spirit of tactical withdrawal, or a more laughable concept of an honourable peace. When t...
Sydney.
Around 1500 people, mostly Australians of Syrian descent marched in Sydney on August 5, calling for an end to foreign intervention aimed at destroying the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Australian media gave the march almost no cove...
The current cast of the longest-running play in the world is ready for its changeover – and that doesn’t just refer to hegemonic power-shifts in theatres of war. The Mousetrap, showing in the West End of London and currently starring Georgina Sutcliffe was written by ...
Libya seems well on its way to becoming the next Somalia, with much of the country already ruled by tribal/clan based armed militias. As was the case in Somalia, Libya is in the process of separation, with the eastern, oil rich, Cyrenica region having issued a de facto de...
The Russian government has finally caught on that its political opposition is being financed by the US taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA/State Department fronts in an attempt to subvert the Russian government and install an American puppet s...
Recent wars from Libya to Afghanistan and Pakistan in a region of vast natural wealth and strategic importance highlight a phenomenon as old as humanity. Iraq and Libya had oil, but their leaders were longtime foes of the United States, now the world’s lone hegemon. Sad...
When wading into the ever muddied waters of the West’s never ending war against the people and states of the Middle East, it is useful to have some kind of mechanism if one is trying to find a bit of clarity. The mechanism I prefer is that of history. While not in...
This week is “Hands off Syria” week, with the United National Antiwar Coalition, with a call out for groups across the nation to take a stand against western antagonism of Syria and Iran. I volunteered a week or so ago to create a ‘fact sheet’ ...
What was that Turkish F-4 Phantom II up to when the Syrians shot it down?
Ankara said the plane strayed into Syrian airspace, but quickly left and was over international waters when it was attacked, a simple case of carelessness on the part of the Turkish pilot tha...