Is Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” a creation of George Soros, the National Endowment for Democracy and Julian Assange? No, but that hasn’t stopped Moammar Qaddafi from mouthing off.
Jan. 12 marks the 60th anniversary of the UN Genocide Convention—which has demonstrably failed to stop numerous genocides, including some directly backed by the United States.
With forces loyal to ex-president Laurent Gbagbo fighting with rivals and UN troops in Abidjan, Ivory Coast is divided into hostile camps and Nigeria is threatening military intervention.
The right-wing chattering and blogging classes are squealing with unanimous denial that Jared Loughner was influenced by their recent effluence of militaristic thunder.
A Homeland Security memo states that Jared Loughner—primary suspect in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords—is “possibly linked” to the white supremacist American Renaissance.
The NY Times reports that the US is warning foreign dissidents named in the WikiLeaks cables of possible repression—but fails to note that this is already happening in Belarus.
The paranoid are already calling it a prophecy of the End Times. But does anyone else out there find the official explanations singularly implausible?
Was the WikiLeaks cable on the lavish wedding of a Caucasus warlord a strategy by crypto-fascist Israel Shamir to undercut US efforts to isolate the Belarussian dictator?
The US House of Representatives passed Joint Resolution 37, calling for the withdrawal of US armed forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen. The resolution states that only Congress has the authority to declare war, and notes that Congress has not made any declaration of war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are the target of Saudi-led forces. US armed forces have supported Saudi Arabia through aerial targeting assistance, intelligence sharing, and mid-flight aerial refueling. The resolution gives President Trump 30 days to withdraw forces from hostilities in or affecting Yemen. Forces which are involved in operations directed at al-Qaeda in the region are exempt from the resolution. The resolution also does not restrict the sharing of intelligence. It also specifies that the resolution does not impact military operations undertaken in cooperation with Israel. (Photo via Jurist)
Some 600 dissidents arrested in Belarus over the past week—as so-called “progressives” in the West rally uncritically around the accused rapist who put those dissidents at risk.
The secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee, Saeb Erekat, issued a statement rejecting the US-led conference in Warsaw, ostensibly aimed at brokering Middle East peace. Said Erekat: “Today we face a reality whereby the US Trump administration, in cooperation with the Polish government, is pushing yet a new initiative to annihilate the Palestinian national project.” Poland has been making some efforts to resist turning the conference into a propagandistic anti-Iran meeting dominated by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia. The notable absentees from the summit are meanwhile convening their own meeting in the Russian resort of Sochi. The rival summit is bringing together Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani.  (Photo: Ma’an)
As in the Venezuela crisis, Donald Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, is making a cynical pretense of concern for democracy in Iran. Fortunately, his latest bit of exploitation of the Iranian protesters has blown up in his face. Noting the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, he issued a tweet featuring a meme with an image of a student protester from the 2017 anti-austerity uprising and the words: "40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure." Now, the courageous photographer who snapped the image at the University of Tehran in December 2017, Yalda Moayeri, comes forward to express her outrage at its co-optation by Trump. Alas, Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American feminist who last week met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, seems not to get how she is endangering opposition activists in Iran, allowing the regime to paint them as pawns of imperialism. (Image via @realDonaldTrump)
