CounterVortex

Back Issues

Summer 2018: Turkish Kurdistan: Erasure of a Culture; Mass Protests Sweep Vietnam

Spring 2018: In Defense of Tactical Voting—With No Illusions, and No Apologies; Outcast Lawyers in China: Disbarment, Suspension and Harassment; The Struggle for a Federal Burma; Syria and the 'Anti-Imperialism' of Fools; Israel's Greater Jerusalem Bill; People of the Earth: The Mapuche Struggle in Chile

Winter 2017-8: China's Peaceful Rise? The Fate of Lawyer Liu Yao; Positively Quilca Street: Anarchist Scene Survives 'Clean-Up' in Lima, Peru; Seeking Justice for Gujarat Genocide: Interview with Teesta Setalvad; The Revolution Will not be Disneyfied: But Has Disney Been Revolutionized? The Paradoxical Politics of Black Panther; New Displacement Crisis in Syria: Turkey's Offensive Against Kurds Follows Assad's Offensive in Idlib; Europe Sends Afghans Back to Danger

Fall 2017: Violence, Power and Mining in Peru: The Case of Las Bambas; The Violence of Extractivism: Mega-Dam Project Now a Site of Heightened Conflict in Post-War Colombia; The Rise and Fall of Women's Rights in Afghanistan; Syria's Kurdish Contradiction; After Gauri Lankesh: Standing for the Human Rights of Journalists in India

Summer 2017: Panama: Criminalization of the Ngäbe; Cuba Verde Revisited: Will Island's Ecological Solutions Survive Economic Opening?; Dismantling Power: Zapatista Presidential Candidate's Vision to Transform Mexico from Below; A Feminist Future for Free Kurdistan: Interview with Houzan Mahmoud; The Gaza Siege at Ten: Reaching a Humanitarian and Political Breaking Point

Spring 2017: China's Ivanka Trump Sweatshops; Mussolini in Lower Manhattan: Against the Red-Brown Alliance; I Fought in Libya: Please Don't Call Us Terrorists; High Crimes and Misdemeanors: Did Trump Commit Them?; Syria's Nonviolent Fighters; Tribal Rights and Federal Obligations from Dakota Access to Keystone XL; Donald Trump: A Fascist by Any Other Name; India: Assamese Muslim Girl Overcomes Diktat

Winter 2016-7: Community Power Against Mega-Mining: The Municipal Resistance in El Salvador; Only Left Radicalism Can Stop Fascism; Burma: Scribe's Murder Tests Democracy; American 'Left' Abets Trump-Putin Axis; The Global Land Grab; Climate Change & Bolivia's Crisis Drought; New York City Protests Against Evictions… in Tibet

Fall 2016: Syria: Counter-revolution Crushes Aleppo; Electors Must Dump Trump; American 'Left' Abets Genocide in Syria; Trumps' Victory and Immigration, Algeria: New Staging Post for Migrants; The KGB Had Nothing on Verizon; Danes Who Stand with Refugees; The Dakota Access Pipeline: A Legal Environmental Justice Perspective; Saudi Women Push for Full Rights; War in Ukraine: The View from the East Village

Summer 2016: Another Week Closer to Fascism: Putin Shows What Trump has in Store for America; Self-Organization in the Syrian Revolution; The Fall of Daraya: From Roses to Evacuation in Syria; Climate Change & Creative Revolt; Peru's New Government Wants More China; Green Party, White Privilege; Defeat Pendejo-Fascism! Bernie's OK — But not 'Or Bust'; Oaxaca Teachers Movement: Not Thwarted by State Terror; Democracy Goddess Comes to Chinatown; Why Mining Corporations Love Trade Deals

Spring 2016: El Niño and Ethiopia's Threatened Pastoralists; Nigeria's Chibok Girls: Do We Really Care?; Adieu to the 'Peace Pentagon'; Challenging the Nation State in Syria; A Federal Syria: Kurdish Initiatives on the Rise; Syria's Independent Media: A Bold Challenge to Extremism; Fair Trade: Threat to Global Poor; The Free Trade Assault on Clean Water: Mining Companies Sue Colombia for 'Right' to Pollute; The Firewall Cafe Controversy: Chinese State Censorchip Reaches Manahttan's Lower East Side; Drilling Toward Disaster: Ecuador's Aggressive Amazonian Oil Push; Mozambique's Movement to End Land Grabs

Winter 2015-6: No Way Out: How Syrians are Struggling to Find an Exit; Water: Commodity or Human Right?; Berber New Year in a Ukrainian Church; Syria: Revolution and Intervention; India: Elusive Justice for Assam Victims; Drought and Disaster for Somali Herders; Iran's 'Moderate' Hangman; Relief for Libya's 'Chinese Camp'?; Ethnic 'Divide and Conquer' in Israel; The Sieges in Syria; Indigenous Communities Win Consulation Law in Guatemala; Syria: Raqqa Civilians on the Line; Independence Hero to Opposition Icon: Hocine Ait Ahmed, Algeria's Voice of Conscience, Passes On

Fall 2015: DIY in Damascus: Rooftop Gardens in Syria's Besieged Neighborhoods; Syrian Refugees Defy Crackdown in Turkey; Climate Change Migrants of Bangladesh; Suqatter Eviction has Pakistan's Poor on the Run; Asylum Seekers on Hunger Strike in Texas; Russia's Syria Intervention —and the Left; Refugees Face Backlash —in India; Rasul Kadaev: From Guantánamo Bay to Putin's Prisons; Epistemologies of Freedom: Interview with a Young Kurdish Revolutionary; Paramilitary Terror in the Philippines; For Solidarity, Against Imperial Narcissism: An Interview with Bill Weinberg; Japan's Constitutional Crisis: Questioning US Support for Tokyo's National Security Moves

Summer 2015: Afghanistan's Paramilitaries: Abuses Rise Along with Pro-Government Militias; US Failing Kids Fleeing Central America; So Much for Sanctuary: How an EU Asylum Rule 'Results in Death'; Uighurs Caught in the Great Game; Four Years After the Arab Revolutions; Chicago's Rebel Rabbi: An Interview with Brant Rosen; Yemen: Splintering Out of Control; Iraq's Deepening Divides; Border Control: Now a Global Game

Spring 2015: Bangladesh: After the Blogger Murders; US Failing Syrian Refugees; The Nicaragua Canal Plan: Resisting  Dispossession; Against the Imperial 'We': The Fight Against ISIS is My Fight; Asylum Seekers Detained —for Profit; Taiwan: One Year After the Sunflower Movement; Is Tibet a Country?

Winter 2014-5: Why Did UN Abandon Congo Operation?; Syria's Kurdish Revolution: The Anarchist Element and the Challenge of Solidarity; Omar Aziz: Syrian Anarchist; Death of Literacy: Digital Totalitarianism; What's Next for Libya?; Neither East Nor West: How a small group of anarchists took on the Soviet Union and won!; Nigerian Lives Matter: the Baga Massacre Controversy; Jihadist Scylla, Imperial Charybdis; Peruvian Communities Reject COP 20; Central African Republic: Whither Justice?

Fall 2014: Impressions of Rojava: Kurdish Revolution in Syria; Immigration Enforcement: Anti-Labor Tool; The World's Strangest Landgrab: Wandering Amu Darya River Opens Afghanistan Border Conflict; Mauritania: Crackdown on Land Struggle; Colombia: Talks with the Other Guerillas?; Yemen: Street Patrols and Polarization; Liberians in US Face Ebola Stigma; Burkina Faso: A Thousand Sankaras Come of Age; Bolivia's CONAMAQ Indigenous Movement; Black versus Yellow: Class Antagonism in the Hong Kong Protests; Kurdistan's Female Fighters: Revolution Kobani-Style; South Africa: New Struggle for Land; Fracking Fight Looms Large in Mexico

Summer 2014: Water vs Profits: Mineral Company Strikes Back at El Salvador; Why UN Climate Talks Continue to Fail; Standing Up for Gaza in New York City: Not for the Squeamish; Seeing the Women in Revolutionary Syria; The New PKK: Social Revolution in Kurdistan; Gazans Face Struggle on War Crimes Claims; Understanding Syria's Four-Front War; Practicing Peace in Wartime: Israelis and Palestinians Who Refuse to Be Enemies; Selective Internationalism: Gaza and Syria Reveal an Activist Disorder; Brazil's Defeat: Beyond Football; Archaeology and the Zionist Project; Left Solidarity with Syria: Supporting the Grassroots Movements; Nicaragua: Specter of the Canal; Iraq and ISIS: The Kurdish Factor

Spring 2014: Occupy Fortul: Colombian Poor Reclaim Lands Slated for Military Base; Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: Indigenous Anarchist Critique of Bolivia's 'Indigenous State'; Yuhang Protests Shake Chinese Regime; Did Narendra Modi Abet Mass Murder?; Nigeria: Towards a Post-Petroleum Future; Heartland Stands Up to Keystone; Ukraine: Revolution and Contradiction; From Algeria to Syria: Kurdish-Berber Solidarity; Taiwan's Alternative Future: Revolutionary Content in the Sunflower Movement; Rebirth of Hope in Colombia: Return of the Patriotic Union; Brazilian Hydro Behind Bolivia's Flooding?; China's Strategic Interests in Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan; Mali: Hopes for Reconciliation

Winter 2013-14: Yassin al-Haj Saleh: Interview with the Conscience of Syria; Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard Place; The Far Right in Ukraine: A New Order?; COINTELPRO and Divisive Hate; War and Women's Rights in Afghanistan; Mega-Mining in Uruguay; Nigeria: Slippery Justice for Oil Spill Victims; Empires of Gold: Colombian Extractivism Today; The Battle Over Sustainable Development in Ecuador's Intag Valley; The Return of Black Mesa: Restoring Navajo Country; Peru: Police in the Pay of Mining Companies; Syria: Genocide by International Consensus; The Veil: Flag of the Muslim Far Right

Fall 2013: Nagasaki Call for Nuclear Abolition; COP 19: True Crime; China's Third Plenum: More Market, More Dictatorship; Uranium Mining and Native Resistance; Syria: The Struggle Continues; Bolivia: The Politics of Extractivism; Burma: Open for Business of Genocide; Global Warming and the End of Growth; Indigenous Language Recovery in Peru; Trans-Pacific Partnership: Strict Secrecy; Global Warming's Arctic Feedback Loop

Summer 2013: Guantánamo Justice: No Justice At All; Syria: It's Still a Revolution; Solidarity Betrayed: How the Left Came to Abandon Syria; Revolutionary Egypt: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times; History Rewritten: Egypt's Battle Over Narratives; Military Seeks Egyptian Thermidor; Road Wars of Colombian Amazonia; Mexico's Drug War Prison Boom; Egypt: Revolutionaries Push Out Islamists; Egypt: A People's Revolution, Not a Crisis or a Coup; Monsanto Faces Opposition in Puerto Rico; Anarchism in Egypt: An Interview from Tahrir Square; Brazil: Private Transit, Public Protests; Is Mexico Failing to Protect Journalists?

Spring 2013: Guatemala's Long Road to Justice; Peru Backslides on Indigenous Rights; Turkish Hopes for a New Beginning; Whither Iran's Democratic Opposition?; Mexico: Violence and Impunity in Xalapa; US Still Supports Honduran Death Squads; Lakota Elders: "Going Extinct is Genocide"; Why Russell "Maroon" Shoats Must Be Freed from Solitary Confinement; Looking for Gandhis in Mexico; Curvarado Humanitarian Zone: Afro-Colombian Communities Reclaim the Land; Palestinians and the Syrian Revolution; Venezuela's Debt to Indigenous Peoples; Trans-Atlantic Partnership Trade Pact

Winter 2012-13: Planet Earth: Nuclear-Free Zone; Anarchism and the Arab Uprisings; Marx and Extractivism in Latin America; Can Vigilante Justice Save Mexico?; Tunisia on Razor's Edge; Struggle for Land and Water in the Andes; US Marines and the Drug War in Guatemala; Iraq: No Future for al-Qaeda's Children; The Sandstorm of War in Northern Mali; WikiLeaks, Ecuador, and the Belarus Connection; Global Warming and Bolivia's Kallawaya Healers; India: Tibetans March for Human Rights; If You're Reading This, the World Hasn't Ended —Yet

Fall 2012: Guatemala's "Little School of the Americas"; Ethiopia's Anuak Confront World Bank over Ethnic Cleansing; Honduras: Drug War as Counterinsurgency?; Military Intervention in Mali; The Descent of the Colombian Army; Haiti: Hidden Costs of the Industrial Zone; Peru's Sendero Luminoso Back —and the 'Dirty War'?; The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Pact: More Draconian Than NAFTA; Behind the Chicago Connection: The DEA and Sinaloa Cartel; Peruvians Stand Up to Newmont Mining; Guantánamo Detainees: The "Other" Victims of 9-11; Year Two of the Arab Revolution; Mexican Peace Caravan Occupies Wall Street; Goldcorp on Trial in Guatemala; The Babar Ahmad Case: Do US Prisons Violate European Human Rights Law?; Bolivia's Aymara Dissidents; Indigenous Nasa Resist Militarization in Cauca, Colombia; The Wal-Mart Corruption Case: Innocents Abroad?; Tibet & Assam: Pawns in India-China Game; Guatemala: Divide and Rule in the Land of Gold; The Dark Side of WikiLeaks: Revisited; Syria: The Myth of Palestinian Neutrality; Israel and Iran: Protesters Unite for Peace; Bolivia Pushes Back Against Glencore; Quebec Innu Protest Plan Nord

WW4R #178, Summer 2012: REDD: Peruvian Rainforest Dwellers Charge Privatization Scheme; Argentina's Oil: Will Privatization Make a Difference?; Occupy Guatemala!; Mesoamerica Project Replaces Plan Puebla-Panama; Mexican High-Tech Workers Demand Justice; India: Passive Resistance to Mega-Hydro in Assam

Special Feature: Left-Libertarians: The Last of an Ancient Breed

WW4R #177, December 2011: Will the World Betray Burma's Pro-Democracy Movement?; Occupy Juárez Defies Repression; Land Theft as Legacy of Genocide in Guatemala; Brazil: Guarani Leader Slain in Land Occupation; iDidn't Mourn Steve Jobs

WW4R #176, November 2011: Occupy Tijuana Tests Civil Rights; The Bolivia Genocide Case: US Shelters Top Fugitive; India-Burma Anti-Terror Alignment Betrays Pro-Democracy Movement; Israelis & Palestinians: Co-resistance vs. Co-existence; The Algerian Mosque that Sheltered Jews in Nazi-Occupied Paris

WW4R #175, July 2011: Chile: The Mapuche Struggle in Pinochet's Shadow; Love, Memory & Struggle in Ciudad Juárez; Feminist Solidarity with Iran; Labor Roots of Egypt's Revolution; China's Growing Presence in Latin America; Haiti 1994: Lessons for Libya; Secrets of Gaza: Izzeldin Abuelaish's Quest for Peace

WW4R #174, May 2011: Libya's Two Wars: Revolutionary Struggle and NATO Intervention; Syria's Downward Spiral; Wirikuta: Sacred Indigenous Site in Mexico Threatened by Canadian Mining Company; Trotskygrad on the Altiplano: Bolivia's "Permanent Revolution"

WW4R #173, March 2011: Anti-Imperialism and the Libyan Revolution; Latin America and the Arab Revolts; Washington's North Africa Dilemma: How Will the Empire React?; Revolution in the Age of Facebook

WW4R #172, January 2011: Bolivia's New Water Wars; Cancún Pact: No Victory for Climate Justice; The Dark Side of WikiLeaks; Turning Point for Chihuahua Drug War; Europe's Year of Intolerance

WW4R #171, September 2010: 9-11 at Nine: The Conspiracy Industry and the Lure of Fascism; The Mosque Controversy —In China; West Bank Bedouin: Worse Off than Gazans; US Attacks Iraqi Labor; Extreme Weather and Global Warming

WW4R #170, August 2010: BP: The Case for Public Ownership; Blockade! Dockworkers Worldwide Respond to Israel's Flotilla Massacre; Interview: Sheikh Anwar McKeen, King of Nubia; Book Review: Rwanda and the Politics of Denialism

WW4R #169, July 2010: Private Prisons, Public Pain: Systematic Abuse in Texas' For-Profit Archipelago; Wildcat Strikes in China: Towards an Independent Labor Movement?; Colombia Terror: Cinton's Complicity; The Supreme Court, Somalia and Sovereign Immunity: Historic Ruling Means US Is Not a Safe Haven for War Criminals

WW4R #168, June 2010: The Climate Justice Groundswell: From Copenhagen to Cochabamba to Cancún; Venezuela and the Myth of "Eco-Socialism"; Peru: Peasants Protest Irrigation Megaproject; Haiti: Struggle and Solidarity After the Cataclysm; Mexico's Other Disappeared: Demanding Justice for Missing Migrants; Pogroms, Paranoia and Polling in India: A Muslim Woman Confronts Her Fear of Voting—Eight Years After the Gujarat Massacres

WW4R #167, May 2010: Honduras and the Political Uses of the Drug War; Why the Media Ignore Latin America; Mexico: Media Misreadings of the Border Violence; Somalia: Where Fun is Forbidden

WW4R #166, April 2010: "Rebuilding Haiti": The Sweatshop Hoax; Falklands Crisis Redux; AfriCom and the New Scramble for Africa; Afghanistan: Women's Rights Still Trampled; The Traumas of Immigration Law

WW4R #165, March 2010: Bloody Calabria: Criminal Networks Exploit Italy's Anti-Immigrant Backlash; Drug War Drones Over Latin America; Plan Juárez: Echoes of Chiapas on Mexico's Northern Border; Gaza Fishermen Under Fire; The Paradoxical Politics of Avatar: A Hollywood Simulacrum of Indigenous Struggle

WW4R #164, February 2010: Haiti: the Challenge of Solidarity; Haiti and the Jews: Forgotten History; Mexico: Drug War Militarization Continues in 2010; Western Sahara and Aminatou Haidar; Obama's First Year: What Comes Next For the Anti-War Forces?; Venezuela: Voices of Participatory Democracy

WW4R #163, January 2010: Peru's Amazon Uprising: Indigenous Resistance to the Corporate Agenda; Somalia Case Threatens War Criminals Worldwide: US Supreme Court to Rule on Sovereign Immunity; Notes on Obama's Energy Plan: "Everything Must Change So That Everything Can Remain the Same"; Israel & Palestine: Combatants for Peace Speak Out; Holocaust Denial in the Arab World: Why It is On the Rise; A New Deal for Immigrants in 2010?

WW4R #162, December 2009: Obama's European Missile Plan and the Czech Anti-Bases Movement; Afghanistan: No to Fundamentalist Criminals, No to the US Occupation; The Torture of Syed Hashmi: Terror War on Trial in New York City; Women in Black Confront Impunity and Femicide in Ciudad Juárez; Colombia: One Year After the Minga; Corporate Bio-Colonialism Advances in Mexico; Book Review: Of Wobblies and Zapatistas

WW4R #161, November 2009: Iraqi Labor Leaders Speak; Venezuelan Labor Between Chávez and the Golpistas; Indigenous Struggle in Venezuela; Free-Trade Roots of Mexico's Narco Crisis; Coca-Cola Off the Hook for Colombia Terror; Plan Colombia: Exporting the Model; Why Neoliberalism Needs Death Squads in Colombia

WW4R #160, August-September 2009: Otto Reich's Fingerprints on Honduras Coup?; Honduras: the Banana Connection—Again; Politics-as-Usual While the Planet Burns: Climate Bill Offers Pseudo-Solutions; Worldwatch Plays Along: Malthus, Biofuels and Free-Market Environmentalism; A Billion Bucks for Clunkers Ain't Green; The Untold Story of Women's Resistance Behind Bars

WW4R #159, July 2009: Honduras: the Resistance So Far; Austerity, Privatization and Union-Busting in Iran; Sufis and Neocons: the Global War on Terrorism's Strangest of Bedfellows; Czech Republic: Neo-Nazis Exploit Growing Anti-Roma Racism; "Operation Chihuahua Plus": A Textbook Case in Drug War Failure; Teaching Rebellion in in Oaxaca

WW4R #158, June 2009: The "Colombianization" of Chihuahua; Kidnap, No Ransom: Drug Cartel Slave Labor in Northern Mexico?; Mexico's Resurgent Guerillas; Mega-Projects and Militarization in Oaxaca

WW4R #157, May 2009: The Voice of Free Somaliland; AfriCom: Making Peace or Fueling War?; Darfur and the International Criminal Court; Counter-Terrorism Threatens Spanish Democracy; Lost Daughters of the Rio Grande

WW4R #156, April 2009: Ciudad Juárez Militarized; Humanitarian Aid as Crime on the Southwest Border; Amnesty Now: How and Why; Guatemalans Resist Mega-Mines and Hydro-Dams; Mapping Controversy in Oaxaca: Zapotects Protest Pentagon-Funded Cartography Project; Is the Defense Budget A Stimulus Package?; Lessons from Post-Consumerist Cuba

WW4R #155, March 2009: Obama, Kyrgyzstan and the Great Game for Central Asia; Prisons Beyond Guantánamo: Thousands of "Enemy Combatants" Held in Global Gulag; Obama's Biggest Foreign Policy Challenge: Mexico?; Mexico's Southwestern Front: Low-Intensity War in Michoacán and Guerrero; NAFTA and Hemispheric Militarization; Terror in Perijá: Resource Wars on Venezuela's Indigenous Frontier; Biofuels: Promise or Threat?

WW4R #154, February 2009: Afghanistan: Building on Traditions of Peacemaking; Obama's Iraq Withdrawal: Real or Illusion?; Palestine: New Standards on Self-Determination Needed; Lomas de Poleo: Border Land Battle Sizzles; Chiapas: Portrait of the Resistance; Hipster Anti-Semitism

WW4R #153, January 2009: Opus Dei: The Vatican-Pentagon Connection; Czech Republic: Neo-Nazis Prepare Anti-Roma Pogroms; Border Under Siege: US Military Training and Texas Guns Fuel Mexico's Narco Wars; Obama and the Border Wall; The Financial Crisis Hits the Immigration Debate; Colombia: Indigenous Leader Assassinated

WW4R #152, December 2008: New Texas Gas War: Fort Worth Confronts Corporate Colonization; California Town Beats Back the Water Cartel; Colombia: U'wa Fight New Oil Exploration; Chávez Faces Geopolitical Nadir?; Who Is Behind the Assam Terror?; Nationalize the Banks!; Quantum of Anti-Imperialism: James Bond Saves Evo Morales from the CIA!

WW4R #151, November 2008: Assam in Flames: Jihad and Ethnic Conflict Heat Up India-Bangladesh Borderlands; Darfur and Sudan: Towards Revolution; Bolivia: Congress Approves Constitutional Referendum; Lomas de Poleo: Land Struggle in Ciudad Juárez; Book Review:The World We Wish To See

WW4R #150, October 2008: Behind the Econocataclysm: Globalization, Oil Shock and the Iraq War; Venezuela: the Next Cuban Missile Crisis?; UN Membership for Eurasia's Phantom Republics?; Sami Al-Arian Case Exposes Federal Immigration Gulag; Corporate Power and the Secure Border Initiative

WW4R #149, September 2008: New Orleans Three Years Later: Katrina and Counterinsurgency; Public Housing Defenders Face Terror Charges; Permanent People's Tribunal on Colombia; Indigenous Peoples and Ecuador's New Constitution; Immigration Detention: the Case for Abolition

WW4R #148, August 2008: Colombia's Heart of Darkness in Manhattan—and Washington; McCain's Big Oil Ties—from Iraq to Colombia; Total Recall in Bolivia; General Strike in Peru; Hokkaido: the Anti-Climate Summit

WW4R #147, July 2008: Shake Djibouti: Eritrea Crisis Destabilizes Imperialism's Horn of Africa Beachhead; Will Bolivarian Revolution End Coal Mining in Venezuela?; Obama and the School of the Americas; John Hagee & Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Fearful Symmetry; Israel & Palestine: Demanding Co-existence

WW4R #146, June 2008: Enough With the Hugo Chávez Hero Worship; Santa Cruz Autonomy Vote Polarizes Bolivia; Landowner's Rebellion & Slavery in Bolivia; Bolivia After the Water Wars; Guatemala Genocide Trial; The Anti-Imperialist Case for Tibetan Freedom; Global Article 9 Conference in Japan

WW4R #145, May 2008: Free Trade and the Global Food Crisis; The New Walls of Baghdad; Israeli Settlers Destroy Palestinian Olive Groves; Mapping the Complicity of Israeli Architecture; Colonization and Resistance in Tibet; Review: Memoirs of a Tibetan Marxist

WW4R #144, April 2008: The US Threat to Mexican National Security: Gringos Arm Narco-Gangs; The North American Union Farce: Right-Wing Paranoia Misses the Real Threat of NAFTA's Militarization; The Audacity of Vagueness: Barack Obama on Latin America; John McCain's Pastors; "MOVE 9" Await Parole

WW4R #143, March 2008: Roma Demand Holocaust Remembrance in Czech Republic; Kosovo’s Independence Reverberates Across Eurasia; Threatened Groves of Galilee: Palestinians Struggle for Land and Dignity—Inside the Green Line; Canada's Secret War in Iraq; Perspectives on Colombia from the US Civil War

WW4R #142, February 2008: Transnationals and the Oil Shock; Global Warming and Global Justice; Marlon Santi: New Voice of Ecuador's Indigenous Movement; Bolivar's Sword: Venezuela and the Colombian Insurgency; Zapatismo in New York City

WW4R #141, January 2008: Iraq's Civil Resistance Stands Up; Pictures from Palestine; Betrayal at Bali: Towards a People's Agenda on Climate; Fear and Loathing in Bolivia; Immigration & the Surveillance State

WW4R #140, December 2007: Interview with Niger's Tuareg Resistance; Iran's Left Opposition Rejects US Aggression; Plan Mexico: Militarization and the "Mérida Initiative"; Constitutional Conflict in Bolivia and Venezuela; "Downwinders" Say No to Revived Nuclear Weapons Program

WW4R #139, November 2007: Iraq: Exposing the Corporate Agenda; Darfur: Not a "Clash of Civilizations"; El Salvador: Struggle for Water Rights; Flathead Flashpoint: the Coming War with Canada; Book Review: Mexican Radical Noir

WW4R #138, October 2007: Israeli High Court Returns Palestinian Lands?; Militarism and Islamist Extremism in Pakistan; Darfur: A New Cold War Over Oil; Paraguay: Laboratory for Latin America's New Militarism; Colombia: Paras, Army Still Killing Peasants; Indigenous Anarchism in Bolivia; Book Review: Pirates of the Mediterranean

WW4R #137, September 2007: The Israel Lobby & Global Hegemony: Revisited; Yemen: The Next Quagmire; Mauritania's New Anti-slavery Law; Bolivia: End of the New Social Pact?; Guatemala: Maya Fight the Mineral Cartel; Quebec: Protests Rock NAFTA Summit; NYC: Toxic Dust at Ground Zero; Against the Carbon Culture

WW4R #136, August 2007: Colombia's Paramilitary Paradox; Iran: The Anti-Imperialist Case Against Nuclear Power; Iran: State Still Stones Women; Roma: "Verging on Genocide" in Czech Republic; Book Review: The Great Syrian Revolt

WW4R #135, July 2007: Iraq: A New Age of Genocide?; Voices of Iraqi Oil Workers; Israel & Palestine: One State or Two?; Free Speech in Venezuela; ILEA in El Salvador; The MOVE Massacre: 22 Years Later; The Gas-Guzzler Lobby

WW4R #134, June 2007: Czech Dissidents Resist the New Euro-Missiles; Algeria: Democracy Crumbling?; Africa's Indigenous Peoples Fight for Inclusion; Hydro-Colonialism in Canada and Mexico; Latin America: ALBA Grows, World Bank Shrinks; Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Ingénue or Provocateur?

WW4R #133, May 2007: Return of Plan Puebla-Panama; Indigenous Summit in Guatemala; Mining & Violence in Mexico: the Canadian Connection; China in Africa: the New Debate; India: Human Rights & the Naxalite War; Costa Rica to Vote on CAFTA; Nicaragua: Sandinista Redux

WW4R #132, April 2007: Yemen on the Brink of Sectarian War; Somalia: the New Resistance; Gaza Strip: Still Under Seige; Rape & Reform in Pakistan; Bionoia Pt. 6; Tom Forçade: Unsung Hero of the Counter-culture

WW4R #131, March 2007: Iran: the Left Opposition Speaks; Sufism under attack in North Africa; FARC on Trial, Pt. 2; Bolivia: Street Heat for Nationalization; the Vietnam GI Movement & Iraq

WW4R #130, February 2007: The Shi'ite "Cult" Militia and Iraq's Apocalypse; Guatemala: Mineral Cartel Evicts Maya Peasants; Africa: Presidents in the Dock; Russia: Conscientious Objection & Chechnya; Review: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change

WW4R #129, January 2007: Niger Delta Militias: Behind the Mask; Colombia: the Paras and the Oil Cartel; Land & Power in Bolivia; Peru: Elite Face the Heat; Review: Apocalypto

WW4R #128, December 2006: Chiapas: Struggle for the Lacandon Selva; Rafael Correa: Ecuador's Chavez?; Venezuela: Zulia Separatism & the Oil Cartel; Indigenous Border Summit; Betrayal of Western Sahara; Nuclear-Free Central Asia; Real Scoop on Biofuels

WW4R #127, November 2006: The Israel Lobby & Global Hegemony; Bush Moves Towards Martial Law; FARC on Trial; Demilitarizing Latin America; Bolivia: gas & coca updates; Trade Protests Rock Costa Rica; Review: Endgame in Western Sahara

WW4R #126, October 2006: Save Darfur: Zionist Conspiracy?; Slavery in Sudan & Mauritania; Mexico's Two Presidents; Ecuador: Luis Maca interveiw; El Salvador: water privatization update; Review: Understanding Iraq

WW4R #125, September 2006: 9-11 Conspiracy Theory Deconstructed; Lebanon: After the 33-Day War; Agrarian Reform in Bolivia; Mexico: the Labor Crisis Behind the Electoral Crisis; Bionoia Pt. 5; Review: The Big Wedding: 9-11, The Whistle Blowers and the Cover-Up

WW4R #124, August 2006: Lebanon: Endgame of the Neo-cons; Somalia: Washington's Warlords Lose Out; Constitutional Reform Bolivia; Politics of the Queens Blackout; The "Si Se Puede" Insurrection: A Class Analysis

WW4R #123, July 2006: Sufism & the Struggle within Islam; Bionoia Pt. 4; South America: IIRSA & the FTAA; Cuba and North Korea: Peak Oil Preview; Review: Insurgent Iraq

WW4R #122, June 2006: Iraq's Civil Resistance: Samir Adil Interview; Anatomy of the West Bank "Realignment"; 9-11's Hidden Victims; Politics of the FARC Indictments; Bolivia: Evo Seizes the Gas; Review: The Da Vinci Code—decoding the hype

WW4R #121, May 2006: Bird Flu hype deconstructed; Bionoia Pt. 3; Elections in Palestine & Haiti: This is What Democracy Looks Like!; Colombia Quagmire Deepens; Latin America's Battle of Ideas

WW4R #120, April 2006: Iraq's Civil Resistance: Houzan Mahmoud Interview; Blaming "The Lobby"; Nagorno-Karabakh & the Caucasus Pipeline; Anti-CAFTA protests in El Salvador; Review: V for Vendetta

WW4R #119, March 2006: From Baghdad to Tokyo: Japanese Anti-War Movement Hosts Iraq's Civil Resistance; Operation "Green Colombia": chemical warfare continues; CAFTA update; Water Privatization in El Salvador; Bolivia's Radical Cabinet; Review: We Are Iran—Blogging in Farsi

WW4R #118, February 2006: South America Pipeline Wars; Bolivia's Trial by Fire; Jordan Valley Apartheid; Bionoia Pt. 2; Review: Three Cities Against the Wall

WW4R #117, January 2006: Gilbert Achcar Interview; Media Under Fire in Iraq, Pt. 3; Bolivia: struggles for land and hydrocarbons; Review: Syriana

WW4R #116, December 2005: Politics of the Anti-War Movement; War on Truth at Guantanamo; Paraguay: Pentagon Beachhead; the Bird Flu scare & Avian Fascism; Bionoia Pt. 1; Review: Foucault & the Iranian Revolution

WW4R #115, November 2005: Ojeda Rios: State Terror in Puerto Rico; Algeria's amnesty vote; Eastern Anatolia: Iraq's Next Domino?; Review: Imperial Overstretch

WW4R #114, October 2005: Peru: Camisea pipeline advances; Guatemala: Maya resist mineral cartel; Amjad Aljawhary: Iraq labor leader speaks; Eco-warfare in Palestine; Review:Globalizing Liberation

WW4R #113, September 2005: Mauritania: Anti-Slavery Resistance Speaks; Oil & Occupation in Western Sahara; Darfur: Janjaweed Out of Control?; Iraq's Unionists Defy Assassination and Occupation; "Peak Oil" Deconstructed; Review: Inside the Kingdom

WW4R #112, August 2005: The UN's Congo War; Media Under Fire in Iraq, Pt. 2; Srebrenica Ten Years Later: Against Bosnia Revisionism; Hunger in Africa: Critque of "Live 8"; Review:The Long Emergency

WW4R #111, July 2005: The Re-Occupation of Haiti; the New Resistance in Argentina; Lebanon at the Crossroads; Battleground Brooklyn: Muslim immigrants still targeted. Review: A Berber Exile's Paranoia on Route 66

WW4R #110, June 2005: Plan Colombia's Secret Air Force Program in Peru; Chemical Warfare in Colombia; Indonesia Tsunami Fallout: Remilitarization; Review: Is George Bush a Sith Lord?

WW4R #109, May 2005: Darfur: NATO Intervention?; Iraq: the Provocateur State?; New Nuclear Disarmament Campaign; Review: Kingdom of Heaven

WW4R #108, April 2005: John Negroponte exposé; Colombia v. Venezuela: the next oil war?; Colombia Peace Community update; Chechnya: Farewell, Alsan Mashkadov; NYC: 9-11's Toxic Menace; The Anti-war Movement: Two Years Later; Review: The Librarian of Basra

WW4R #107, March 2005: Colombian Peace Community massacre; Is there a "Third Alternative" in Iraq?; Media Under Fire in Iraq; Nuclear Agenda 20005; Islam Karimov: Uzbek Dictator, US Ally; In Defense of Judi Bari; Lynne Stewart Convicted

WW4R #106, January-February 2005: Welcome to World War 4; Tsunami's hidden toll on India's indigenous peoples; Pipeline Politics in Ukraine; Iraq & Colombia: the Halliburton connection; War's Toll at Home; Farewell, Gary Webb

WW4R #105, December 2004: Congo: Rwanda's Secret War; Towards a Petroleum Commons; US Attacks Iraqi Agriculture; War Crimes charges for Donald Rumsfeld; Free Vermont?! Review: Refusenik!

WW4R #104, November 2004: Updates: genocide in Sudan, Ethiopia; US doubles Colombia troop presence; Iraq's Marsh Arabs; Global Oil Squeeze: Deconstructing the Propaganda

WW4R #103, October 2004: Indigenous march in Colombia; "Peak Oil" Shock; US-India Terror Summit; Attack on Palestine Cave-Dwellers; Cocaleros Revolt in Peru & Bolivia; Haiti: Armed Gangs Deepen Post-Hurricane Agony

WW4R #102, September 2004: RNC protests in NYC; Secret Oil Wars in Northeast India; Venezuela: Oil Politics & the Recall Vote; Colombia: Uribe Fingered as Nacro Lord; Israel: Civil War Next?

WW4R #101, August 2004: Iraq's Civil Resistance: Yanar Mohammed Speaks; Israel to UN: Drop Dead!; Darfur: Military Intervention?; Bolivia's Muddled Gas Nationalization; Farewell, Farouk Abdel-Muhti

WW4R #100, July 2004: Proxy Wars in Congo; Ingushetya: Next Caucasian Domino?: Iraq Meets the New Boss

WW4R #99, June 2004: Hakim Bey on the New Jihad; Darfur: Rwanda Revisited?; US troops fight in Colombia?

WW4R #98, May 2004: Iraq: Interview with Civil Resistance leaders; Israel's Oppressed Jews; Tear Gas on the West Bank; Harsh Hand for NYC Palestine Protesters; Farouk Free at Last

WW4R #97, April 2004: Special Reports: Genocide in Ethiopia; Hell in Chechnya; Terror in Colombia; Sahel Terror War Front Opens; Anti-War Re-mobilization

WW4R #96, March 2004: Destabilization in Haiti; ethnic cleansing in Sudan; power play in anti-war movement

WW4R #95, February 2004: US imperialism targets Mars; Bruce Ratner targets Brooklyn; land-grab and industrial conspiracy on the West Bank; Anuaks face genocide in Ethiopia

WW4R #94, January 2004: Who really captured Saddam? IDF shoots Israeli activist; secret wars for the Nile; Chiapas: the Acteal massacre six years later; indigenous feminism in India; update on political struggle Antarctica

WW4R #93, December 2003: Palestine faces robo-occupation; Justice Department threatens World War 4 Report

WW4R #92, September-October 2003: Cancun WTO protests; Haitian refugees: forgotten terror war victims; eye-witness reports from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

WW4R #91, August 2003: West Bank: Jayyous under siege; Plan-Puebla Panama resistance in Honduras; eye-witness reports from Colombia's war zones

WW4R #90, July 2003: The New Scramble for Africa; Iraq archeological plunder; Which World War is This?

WW4R #89, June 9, 2003: Impeachment for Bush? Andes aflame; Congo genocide
WW4R #88, June 2, 2003: NATO split: almost official; Blair to The Hague?; US to Africa: eat shit or die

WW4R #87, May 26, 2003: Indonesia unleashes Aceh bloodbath; Israel represses nonviolence movement
WW4R #86, May 19, 2003: Iraq's independent press stands up; secret wars in Africa; "Palestinization" of Chechnya
WW4R #85, May 12, 2003: Anti-US protests in Baghdad and Kabul; Benny Elon: Fear of a Muslim Planet
WW4R #84, May 5, 2003: Bechtel back in Iraq; Oxy funds terror in Colombia; Islamic terrorists in Venezuela?

WW4R #83, April 28, 2003: Shi'ites boogie in Karbala; oily politics of occupation; real raiders of the Lost Ark
WW4R #82, April 21, 2003: Anti-US protests in Baghdad, Mosul; Garner and Bechtel chart occupation
WW4R #81, April 14, 2003: Baghdad occupied; war grinds on in Afghanistan, Palestine, Colombia
WW4R #80, April 7, 2003: Baghdad besieged; Karbala under bombardment; West Bank: forced expulsions in Tul Karm

WW4R #79, March 31, 2003: Bloody road to Baghdad; civilian casualties mount; corporate vultures circle in
WW4R #78, March 24, 2003: Bush launches Iraq invasion; new offensive in Afghanistan; Chiapas jungle burns
WW4R #77, March 17, 2003: Rachel Corrie: US activist killed in Gaza Strip; Israeli military in Chiapas rainforest?
WW4R #76, March 10, 2003: Israeli chem-war on Bedouin; "Stealth" Colombia aid; NYC: fear on Atlantic Ave.
WW34R #75, March 3, 2003: Deconstructing Israel's "Apartheid Wall"; 1993 WTC blast retrospective; redevelopment battle for Ground Zero

WW4R #74, Feb. 24, 2003: US troops to fight in Philippines, Colombia? Bangladesh on the brink
WW4R #73, Feb. 18, 2003: Anti-war movement re-emerges; millions march worldwide on Feb. 15
WW4R #72, Feb. 10, 2003: Imperialist carve-up of Iraq planned; Kurds screwed yet again; France next?
WW4R #71, Feb. 3, 2003: Iraqi Kurdistan: staging ground for war; US plans bio-war in Colombia

WW4R #70, Jan. 27, 2003: Election-eve ethnic cleansing on the West Bank; political struggle in Antarctica
WW4R #69, Jan. 20, 2003: Special Report: Land Grabs and Evictions on the West Bank
WW4R #68, Jan. 13, 2003: The case for impeachment; Pentagon mad scientists; Is Saddam the New Churchill?
WW4R #67, Jan. 6, 2003: Is there a draft in your future? Basra gets bombed for New Year's; Kurdistan: the next Bosnia?

WW4R #66, Dec. 30, 2002: Special Holiday Nuclear Paranoia Issue; Korea back to the brink—Iran next?
WW4R #65, Dec. 23, 2002: Sweeps of Muslims in California; secret Iraq arms deals; Enron screws Palestine
WW4R #64, Dec. 16, 2002: Bush on Iraq: Nuke 'Em!; chemical warfare on West Bank?; guerillas in Mexico
WW4R #63, Dec. 9, 2002: New imperialist carve-up of Middle East planned; Canada: the Forgotten Front
WW4R #62, Dec. 2, 2002: Reservists desert in Israel, US; Enron, Bechtel and Halliburton invade the Andes

WW4R #61, Nov. 25, 2002: Homeland Security Act passes; Poindexter leads Pentagon cyber-snoop agency
WW34R #60, Nov. 18, 2002: State terror in Palestine, Gujarat, Chiapas
WW4R #59, Nov. 11, 2002: UN passes Iraq resolution; Jordan destabilization; Latin America's "Axis of Evil"
WW4R #58, Nov. 4, 2002: Israel-Lebanon water wars; Afghan opium wars; Persian Gulf oil wars

WW4R #57, Oct. 28, 2002: Sharon prepares ethnic cleansing; Mossad in Kashmir; Wellstone murdered?
WW4R #56, Oct. 21, 2002: Bali blast backlash in Australia; Farouk Abdel-Muhti and the fight for habeas corpus
WW4R #55, Oct. 14, 2002: Al-Qaeda back?—in Yemen, Kuwait and Bali
WW4R #54, Oct. 7, 2002: Olive harvesters attacked in Palestine; EPA snow-job in Colombia coca eradication

WW4R #53, Sept. 30, 2002: Halliburton, Carlyle smell porkfest in Iraq; Israel to step up "black ops"?
WW4R #52, Sept. 23, 2002: US sells out Georgia, Uighurstan to win Russian, Chinese support on Iraq invasion
WW4R #51, Sept. 16, 2002: Saddam's mistress tells all; updates on Georgia, Philippines, Ground Zero
WW4R #50, Sept. 9, 2002: New York City: One Year Later
WW4R #49, Sept. 1, 2002: US schmoozes Turkmenbashi for pipeline; Fascist legacy behind Gujarat massacre

WW4R #48, Aug. 26, 2002: Ethnic war looms in Iraq; IDF shuts down peaceniks; Russia to re-take Georgia?
WW4R #47, Aug. 18, 2002: Israel prepares for nuke war; White House woos Kurds; al-Qaeda in Oklahoma?
WW4R #46, Aug. 12, 2002: Nuclear strikes on Iraq planned; Russia signs trans-Afghan pipeline deal
WW4R #45, Aug. 5, 2002: Special Hiroshima Day Nuclear Paranoia Issue! Also: New Persian Gulf crisis

WW4R #44, July 28, 2002: Special Issue on the Secret Oil Wars: Burma, Aceh, Xinjiang, Bolivia
WW4R #43, July 21, 2002: Special Issue on Bush, Cheney & Croporate Sleaze
WW4R #42, July 14, 2002: Latin America update; crackdown on Islamic militants in Chiapas
WW4R #41, July 7, 2002: First post-9-11 July 4th: grateful throngs pledge allegiance to police state

WW4R #40, June 30, 2002: Lynne Stewart interview; 4th of July nuclear paranoia report
WW4R #39, June 23, 2002: US plans military action against Iraq, Canada, Netherlands
WW4R #38, June 16, 2002: "Dirty Bomb"? Don't believe the hype! Also: Victory in Judi Bari case
WW4R #37, June 9, 2002: Special

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GLOBAL OIL SQUEEZE: DECONSTRUCTING THE PROPAGANDA

Both George Bush and John Kerry made "energy independence" a key issue on the campaign trail. Kerry promised to "make this nation independent of Middle East oil in ten years." Bush said in his State of the Union address last year, "Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country." (NYT, Oct. 25)

Meanwhile, analysts place the blame for grossly inflated prices squarely on Bush’s own policies. And with US military planners charting a new global command structure aimed at securing oil resources in sub-Saharan Africa, the talk of "energy independence" seems largely intended for domestic consumption.

BUSH INFLATES PRICES

Oil prices continue to hover at around $50-per-barrel, an unprecedented high–a trend apparently exacerbated by White House purchases for the US Strategic Reserves. Reported Bloomberg News Nov. 4: "Deliveries of about 100,000 barrels a day to the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the US-led occupation of Iraq sapped supply at a time of rising global demand, contributing to a 76% surge in prices in the past year. Bush plans to add at least 57 million barrels more of oil to guard against disruption in supplies."

Prices, which had dropped slightly below $50 for the first time in months just before the election, immediately surged back up as Bush emerged victorious. (Reuters, Nov. 3)

The ongoing horror-show in Iraq is clearly a key factor in escalating prices. On Nov. 2, as US voters went to the polls, insurgents again blew up Iraq’s northern pipeline, shutting down the 400,000-barrels-a-day flow to the Turkish port of Ceyhan–where storage is currently down to 4 million barrels, half the port’s capacity, largely due to incessant sabotage of the Iraq pipeline. (NYT, Nov. 3)

AFRICA BECOMES STRATEGIC

Strife in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta has simultaneously caused Royal Dutch Shell to sharply reduce output. Deep poverty in the midst of oil wealth, as well as the contamination of peasant lands and waters by Shell operations, have led to local armed movements, especially among the Ijaw ethnicity. Two rival armed groups are fighting both the Nigerian government and each other. Ateke "The Godfather" Tom of the Niger Delta Vigilantes is opposed by Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, a self-proclaimed admirer of Osama bin Laden who boasts of terror training in Libya and Afghanistan. Dokubo went on TV in late September to promise a wave of bombings and killings of foreign oil facilities and workers—to be dubbed "Operation Locust Feast"—unless the government agreed to grant the Delta region self-determination by Oct. 1. President Olusegun Obasanjo actually sent one of his official planes to bring the two militia leaders to the capital for talks, forestalling the promised terror campaign and leading to a temporary ceasefire. (Newsday, Nov. 1)

Labor unrest is also shaking Nigeria, where consumers are suffering from fuel price hikes despite the fact that the country is a top global oil producer. Unions declared Shell "an enemy of the people" in an Oct. 31 statement and called for a Nov. 16 national strike that could send further shock waves through global markets. The country’s umbrella union, the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC), staged a four-day national walk-out in protest of high fuel prices in mid-October, shutting down Lagos, the largest city and commercial center. The government’s jailing of NLC leader Adams Oshiomhole only served to harden the union’s position and widen the protests. (Afrol News, Oct. 11)

On Oct. 14, just as the general strike was paralyzing Lagos, Richard Wilcox, a member of the US National Security Council under President Clinton, had a New York Times op-ed piece calling for the Pentagon to establish an African Command. Noting that Africa is currently divided between the European, Central and Pacific commands, he argues that military planners have underestimated the continent’s strategic importance. While posing the possibility of "a humanitarian mission to help the people of Darfur", Wilcox does not fail to mention oil: "The Navy has conducted major exercises off West Africa, an area that, according to a recent study by the National Intelligence Council, may surpass the Persian Gulf as a source of oil for the United States in a decade."

Africa already accounts for a larger share of US oil imports than most Americans realize. According to Energy Department figures, the top five US oil suppliers are Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Canada, Venezuela and Nigeria. The sixth is Iraq, where the industry remains under ostensible state control despite US pressure for privatization. Filling out the top 15 are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Kuwait, the UK, Norway, Colombia, Russia and Gabon.

ECOLOGISTS SCAPEGOATED

In a typically sneering paid advertorial on the Times’ Oct. 25 op-ed page, entitled "National Security and Energy," Daniel J. Popeo of the ultra-conservative Washington Legal Foundation scapegoated domestic environmentalists for the current oil shock (teaser: "Paying at the pump for activism"). Dismissing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as "a barren patch of Alaskan wasteland", Popeo writes: "These activists should call themselves ‘Environmentalists for Foreign Energy Dependence’–as we have them to thank for the decades of regulations and lawsuits that make it nearly impossible to discover and refine oil here. And then, when we must rely on oil from unstable regions of the world, like the Middle East, these very same activists hypocritically scream ‘no blood for oil.’ Such dependence empowers erratic foreign regimes and power-hungry terrorists to hold our economy and national security hostage."

Defenders of clean air as well as Alaskan wilderness are also portrayed as traitors and terrorist dupes. "Once oil is drilled, even more government mandates make it costly to turn crude into gasoline. Demand for gas in the US is simply outstripping the capacity of domestic refineries, adding to what we pay at the pump and furthering our reliance on overseas production. Thanks to activist-driven federal rules, a new refinery hasn’t been built here for almost thirty years."

While he pays brief lip-service to "responsible, authentic environmentalism" that "contemplates the balanced use and enjoyment of our resources," Popeo dramatically fails to contemplate the self-evident reality that our refineries wouldn’t be stretched past capacity if so many of us weren’t riding around in gas-guzzling SUVs. He also fails to note that at current rates of consumption, all the oil in the ANWR–a maximum 5.2 billion barrels–wouldn’t get the US through six months. Despite such intellectual dishonesty, Popeo has the chutzpah to call his paid column "In All Fairness."

RESOURCES:

Washington Legal Foundation

Solcomhouse, solar energy advocacy website, fact-page on ANWR

Pentagon Unified Command

See also WW4 REPORT #103

(Bill Weinberg)
—————————

Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, Nov. 5, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution

WW3Report.com

Continue ReadingGLOBAL OIL SQUEEZE: DECONSTRUCTING THE PROPAGANDA 

BUSH AND OSAMA: FEARFUL SYMMETRY

Progressives all over the United States are licking their wounds in the wake of the Nov. 2 electoral debacle. Not only was George Bush returned to office, but four more Republicans were elected to the Senate, and three to the House, and constitutional amendments banning gay marriage passed in 11 states. There were certainly some voting irregularities. Greg Palast predictably (and perhaps accurately) maintains in an article for TomPaine.com now circulating on the ‘net that "Kerry Won"–citing "spoilage" of 110,000 "overwhelmingly Democratic" votes in Ohio.

But the underlying dynamic spells a long-term sharp decline for what little remains of progressive content in national politics. The Faustian bargain between rural religious conservatism and corporate economic conservatism (ironically called "neo-liberalism" in the rest of the world) represented by the Reagan revolution has now become hegemonic. Until the electoral college is overturned, the Christian heartland and South will be able to hold sway. In a Nov. 4 post-mortem on the Kerry campaign on the New York Times op-ed page, "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out," Garry Wills summed up the successful Republican strategy–and its ominous implications: "Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin’s theory of evolution… Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?"

This presidential race was a de facto referendum on pluralist values, and a look at the Red-Blue map finds these values surviving significantly only in clusters around the Northeast seaboard, the Great Lakes and the West Coast.

This map will look familiar to history buffs as nearly identical to the Grey-Blue map of the Civil War, and that of free versus slave states in its immediate prelude. A basic divide in the American body politic seems to have persisted for a century and a half, and in retrospect the victory at Appomattox appears in many ways a Phyrric one. The only irony is that the postures of the two parties have completely switched. In 1860, the Republicans were the party of the Northeast, urban liberals and free labor. The Democrats were the party of the South and the frontier (today the heartland), rural bumpkins, racism and slavery.

Some facetious maps now circulating in cyber-space show the blue states seceding and uniting with Canada, leaving the South and heartland as "Jesusland" or "The United State of Texas."

The flight from modernity represented by the Bush base is ironically reflected in America’s ostensible new enemy of Islamic extremism. Even the alliance with the most sinister sectors of corporate power is there, as elements of the Saudi petro-elites continue to fund the jihadis (in a deal initially brokered by the Reagan White House to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan).

Commentators made much of Osama bin Laden’s surprise video communique released days before the election. Conservatives, of course, made an analogy to the devastating March 11 terror attacks in Madrid which apparently prompted Spanish voters to repudiate Bush’s terror war ally Jose Maria Aznar just four days later. The most widely-quoted lines from the communique seemed to offer cessation of terror attacks if the White House assumed a less bellicose stance: "I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaeda. No. Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn’t play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security."

A reading of the communique’s complete transcript reveals a different picture. One largely overlooked passage explicitly identifies Bush as at least an objective collaborator with al-Qaeda’s agenda:

"[T]hose who say that al-Qaeda has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinizes the results, one cannot say that al-Qaeda is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains. Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations–whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction–has helped al-Qaeda to achieve these enormous results. And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ."

Another overlooked passage takes on Bush’s accusation that al-Qaeda are "freedom-haters"–and makes clear that Osama, like his nemesis in Washington, believes he is acting on behalf of freedom:

"Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush’s claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don’t strike for example–Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don’t possess defiant spirits like those of the 19–may Allah have mercy on them. No, we fight because we are free men who don’t sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours."

An interesting question is whether Bush recognizes his connivance with Osama–just how cynical the game really is. It is also intriguing to contemplate whether either man recognizes the degree to which he is mirrored by the other. But more important than these intellectual exercises is the critical question of how the mantle of freedom can be de-coupled from the agendas of social reaction, both in the Islamic world and the US of A. (Bill Weinberg)

RESOURCES:

Pledge of Action to Stop a Stolen Election

See also WW3 REPORT #99

——————-

Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, Nov. 6, 2004

Reprinting permissible with attribution WW3Report.com

Continue ReadingBUSH AND OSAMA: FEARFUL SYMMETRY 

IRAQ: EDEN AGAIN?

Restoring the Marshes of Mesopotamia

by Azzam Alwash with Suzanne Alwash

I discovered the Mesopotamian marshes as a boy when my father, an
irrigation engineer for Iraq, took me on a motorboat that puttered between
reeds towering tall overhead. The air was perfectly still, thick with a
dank algal smell and the buzz of flies. It was blazingly hot. Suddenly, we
emerged onto an open lake, blown by a crisp breeze, where the whole world
was dazzling blue and green and brown. In the clearing was a village where
each house was its own island, built from centuries-old accumulations of
reeds and mud. We brought the boat to the largest island, disembarked and
were greeted warmly and loudly by the villagers. They grandly showed us to
the guesthouse (know as a mudhif) constructed of bundles of reeds bound
together, where men sat on richly embroidered carpets, arguing and laughing
and tending endless pots of strong black tea. The air inside the mudhif was
blessedly cooler. The villagers insisted we stay for dinner, and I slept in
my father’s lap on the way home, rocking through reed beds under the
moonlight.

Such was my introduction to Iraq’s Marsh Dwellers, a people whose culture
is shaped by their coexistence with the marshlands, and whose cultural
roots extend to the time of the ancient Sumerians. The Mesopotamian marshes
lie within Southern Iraq, along the confluence of the Tigris and the
Euphrates. The Marsh Dwellers live deep within these wetlands, their
villages accessible only by canoes called mashhoofs. Each home is its own
island, and families travel to their villages via the water. They harvest
and feed the sprouting reeds to their water buffalos and use buffalo dung
for fuel. They depend on fishing and hunting, and planting rice, fruits,
vegetables and date palms along the margins of the marshes.

Cuneiform tablets reveal that the Marsh Dwellers have essentially followed
this way of life for the past 5,000 years. Their home is the birthplace of
western civilization, ancient Sumer. The world’s first epic poem,
Gilgamesh, was written here. Tradition holds that this was the site of the
biblical Garden of Eden, sacred to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

In 1988 a half million Marsh Dwellers lived in the marshlands. At the end
of 1991 Sadam Hassein drained, dried and burned the marshes and their
villages. At least 300,000 Marsh Dwellers died, fled or were resettled. By
2000, less than a tenth of the original population remained close to the
Euphrates and the Tigris. A 2001 United Nations Environmental Program
report called "the disappearance of the Mesopotamian marshlands" a major
"environmental catastrophe that will be remembered as one of humanity’s
worst engineered disasters."

I shared the report with my wife, an environmental geologist who had fallen
in love with the marshes, and we committed ourselves to seeing the
marshlands restored. We established the Eden Again Project to promote the
restoration of the Mesopotamian marshes. The project seeks not only to
restore the marshes for their own sake, but also for the Marsh Dwellers,
whose culture and lifestyle depend on them. The Iraq Foundation, a
non-governmental organization led by Iraqi expatriates who work to promote
democracy and human rights in Iraq, agreed to sponsor the project. The
project leaders were optimistic and eager to find innovative ways to revive
the marshlands.

The initial evaluations were challenging: a US government scientist told
project leaders that there was too little water left in the rivers to
restore the marshes. A humanitarian group contended that the Marsh Dwellers
would really prefer to live in towns, making the need for restoration less
pressing. Despite the nay-saying, the Eden Project convened a panel of
international experts to serve as technical advisors. The panel decided
that restoration was warranted because the marshes provided environmental
services, ecological functions, economic goods and socio-cultural values:
restoration effects were technically judged feasible and worthwhile.

In the summer of 2003, I returned with a team to the country of my birth.
The marshes were in bad shape. The Central and Hammar Marshes were mile
upon mile of dried, desiccated land. Parched earth was split by foot-deep
cracks. We occasionally found an area that had been recently inundated,
where facility operators and local populations were removing embankments,
disabling pump stations, or opening sluice gates. Already, people had begun
moving back to the re-flooded areas, a powerful sign that Iraqis wanted
their marshes restored.

Eden Again staff advocated on behalf of the marshlands to Iraq’s
government, and the project members celebrated when in October 2003 the new
Minister of Water Resources declared restoration his highest priority.
Italy’s Ministry of the Environment supported a comprehensive survey of
water resource needs in March 2003. The ministry also provided the Iraq
Foundation funding to monitor environmental changes in the re-flooded Abu
Zarag Marsh. The Eden Again Project hired professors and graduate students
from Iraq’s major universities to work with the experts, monitoring
environmental conditions in re-flooded areas. The country has committed two
million euros and has pledged an additional five million euros to our
project. Italian experts and Iraqi scientists are working collaboratively
on restoration: the Italians providing the science of restoration and the
Iraqi providing local knowledge about the marshes. The United Nations
Environmental Program has other roundtable discussions for donor nations.
And they have engaged Iran in discussions of management of its Hawr al-Azim
Marsh. The U.S. provided $4 million in funding and sent of team of experts
to consult on the restoration, agriculture, fish, and water buffalo.
Slowly, this committed effort is beginning to achieve results.

The Iraqi people began efforts to break down embankments as soon as they
could without fear of reprisals. Consequently, the restoration partners are
treating these re-flooded areas as ready-made demonstration projects. One
of these sites is Karmashia, about 15 miles east of Nasiriyah.

I first visited Karmashia in September 2003. Already houses made of mud and
brick lined the riverbanks; the water turned from deep brown to green as
sewage flowed into the river. At the end of the distributary was a security
embankment built by the former regime to provide fast access to the
marshes; satellite images from 2001 suggested that beyond it, we would find
an entirely dried marsh bed. Instead there were thick forests of green
reeds. In a nearby field, people were singing as they harvested rice and
waved to visitors. It was difficult to believe that all this had grown in
only six months, after the local population opened the sluice gates and
allowed the water to flow naturally. Newly constructed reed huts lined the
edge of the embankment, and their inhabitants were herding livestock. These
settlers were not originally from Karmashia, they said, but were from the
Central Marsh; when their marshes were dried they had left to find work as
servants. Now they were returning home, waiting in Karmashia until their
own marshes were restored. Women were collecting dung to burn for fuel, and
men were fishing in canoes. Everywhere there were signs that life in the
marshes was progressing as it had for hundreds of years–except that when
we drove further and looked beyond the edge of the embankment, all we could
see was desert.

Through the direct actions of the Marsh Dwellers and Iraq’s Ministry of
Water Resources, the size of the marshlands has dramatically increased in
recent months. In 2003, only five to 10 percent of the original marshlands
remained. By February 2004, about 20 to 30 percent of the marshlands were
covered with water. Six separate areas have been re-flooded.

Within the re-flooded marshes, some have been re-vegetated and are visually
indistinguishable from the marshlands of the 1980s. However, the extent to
which wildlife has recovered has not yet been assessed. Some areas resemble
flooded deserts, with sprouting reeds and dying desert vegetation. Other
areas are flooded and barren – the water may be too deep or too salty for
germination, the seed bank may be too old, or the soil conditions may be
toxic to reed growth. Studies to resolve these questions are ongoing; the
answers are far from clear.

Fish have returned to many of the re-flooded marshes, migrating with the
floodwaters from the rivers. However, few of the re-flooded areas are as
interconnected as they once were. Fish still have few pathways for upstream
migration through the marshes, and Gulf species, such as the Penaid shrimp,
still cannot reach their marsh nurseries. The uncharacteristically small
size of the fish in some of the re-established marshes may be a result of
over-fishing by hungry settlers with few other options to feed their
families. It may be difficult to convince the Marsh Dwellers to use
sustainable harvest practices while accommodating their immediate economic
needs.

On a positive note, the Marsh Dwellers are returning. The UN High
Commission on Refugees estimated that there were 80,000 Marsh Dwellers
remaining in the marshes at the end of last year’s conflict. Since that
time, observers have witnessed a significant influx of Marsh Dwellers
returning from peripheral agricultural areas. More than 50,000 people have
left the Iranian refugee camps that provided shelter to many Marsh Dwellers
throughout the 1990s. The Marsh Dwellers are returning, and with them they
bring old traditions and new dreams.

The newly-established Center for Restoration of the Iraqi Marshes has a
dedicated staff that works from Ministry of Water Resources offices. The
Eden Again Project currently is helping the center develop a roadmap for
achieving its first goal, the development of a sustainable restoration plan
for the marshlands. Using the recommendations of Eden Again’s technical
panel, we are identifying the type and extent of data necessary to build a
scientific basis for decision-making. It is the priority of Eden Again that
decisions about marsh management and restoration be made in a
stakeholder-based, participatory process–a process that accounts for the
wisdom and preferences of the people who have lived in the marshes for
thousands of years. As Eden Again’s project director, I now live and work
in Iraq, dividing my time between Baghdad and the marshes. It pains me to
be separated from my children and my wife, who continue to promote the
restoration project from the opposite side of the globe. However, it is a
blessing to be able to assist in healing my homeland.

I remember the years of frustration as I helplessly watched the destruction
of the marshlands from afar. Now I find joy in paddling through the
marshlands and witnessing their miraculous rebirth.

Photographs:

Marsh Cows

Marsh Boats 

Marsh Arabs 

——————–
Azzam Alwash and Suzanne Alwash are the founders and directors of the Eden Again Project. This version of their article appeared in the Fall, 2004 issue of PULSE, the newsletter of Planet Drum Foundation, a voice for bioregional sustainability and culture based in San Francisco. Membership is $25 a year. A longer version of this article appeared in the Environmental Law Institute newsletter, 2004

RESOURCES:

Eden Again

Iraq Foundation’s website

See also WW3 REPORT #96
——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, Nov. 6, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution

WW3Report.com

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