Dear World War 4 Report Readers:
We’re more than half way to our necessary winter fund-drive goal of $2,000. Please help us meet this goal so we can continue our work. And please do it today, so we don’t have to extend the winter fund drive into the spring. Help World War 4 Report continue to bring you important stories and provocative analyses overlooked by the mainstream and alternative media alike.
In the new issue, our writer Sarkis Pogossian dissects US-Russian intrigues over the post-Soviet states of Central Asia since 9-11, which have resulted in the US getting kicked out of its strategic air base in Kyrgyzstan. Matt Vogel of New York’s Catholic Worker newspaper brings an in-depth look at the secret prisons beyond Guantánamo that the CIA and Pentagon maintain for “enemy combatants.” With all eyes on Gitmo, the thousands who still languish in these prisons are forgotten. Since Catholic Worker has a small print run and no online presence, this important story reached very few people before we put it on the Web. The vital work of Frontera NorteSur news service, based in El Paso, similarly reaches too few readers. Their Yamilet Villa Arreola provides us with another critical and overlooked story—the “low-intensity war” in southwest Mexico‘s states of Michoacán and Guerrero, where narco-gang violence and state repression claim lives nearly daily. Our friends at the Venezuelan anarchist journal El Libertario report on the expropriation of indigenous land for mineral exploitation in the Sierra de Perijá, along the militarized Colombian border. And with disturbingly persuasive arguments, Ted Trainer of the Green movement journal Synthesis/Regeneration makes the case that ultimately renewable energy cannot sustain a consumer society.
Unlike most leftist websites, World War 4 Report believes in editorial rigor. We don’t just throw copy up on the Web unedited. Every piece we post is fact-checked with the same standards that print newspapers used prior to their demise and decay before the joint assault of digital hegemony and financial collapse. The current contraction of the world media has terrifying implications for democracy. We intend to continue to resist through our example the deterioration of journalism into mere bloggery and opinion-spewing. And to expand our readers’ horizons beyond the ten or so “sexy” stories that dominate the corporate news cycle in a given week.
In addition to our monthly offerings of finished journalism, we also produce our Daily Report—a comprehensive and fact-filled digest of overlooked stories from Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Colombia, Mexico, Guantánamo, New York City and more.
But we can’t do this without just a little help from our readers.
This is a lot of work for a very small team. And we are still in the midst of several necessary and long-overdue improvements to our website, which are costing us money. We depend on our readers to survive.
Once again, those of you who gave $25 or more last year are already on the list to receive the new addition in our pamphlet series, Petro-Imperialism: the Global War on Terrorism and the Struggle for the Planet’s Oil, which is now in production, and will include an analysis of the Obama cabinet. If you didn’t give $25 last year, this is your opportunity to get it hot off the presses. They will be in the mail to our supporters in March. But if you can’t spare $25, anything you give will be appreciated.
Our goal of $2,000 is modest compared to that of most of the big-name progressive websites. If you value our work, please help us meet it today.
Thank you, shukran and gracias,
Bill Weinberg
Editor, World War 4 Report
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