John Chuckman
The sobering fact for many Americans is that the world would be a better, far more peaceful place if only their government spent more time and resources tending to their own country's onerous social needs. Needless to say, America would be a far better place too for its citizens.
But this eminently reasonable outcome won't happen under present circumstances because US governance relies on imperialist conflict-making abroad.
Al-Akhbar | March 26, 2014
A Bahraini court on Wednesday jailed 29 people, including an award winning photographer, for up to 10 years for an alleged attack on a police center in April 2012.
A judicial source and activists said the verdicts were based on defendants’ confessions that were extracted under torture.
Part I – An Aggressive Anachronism
Saudi Arabia is one of a handful of Middle East anachronisms: a family-based monarchy that believes it sits at the right hand of God. The Saud clan that rules in Saudi Arabia is both insular and fanatic. It is devoted to the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, perhaps the most strict and intolerant manifestation of the religion.
Writing in The Washington Post on February 27, 2011, Rachel Bronson asked: “Could the next Mideast uprising happen in Saudi Arabia?” Her answer was: “The notion of a revolution in the Saudi kingdom seems unthinkable.”
However, on September 30 the next year, the senior foreign policy fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Bruce Riedel, concluded that the “revolution in Saudi Arabia is no longer unthinkable.”
On 24 February 2014 US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held a press conference to announce some of the details of Pentagon’s 2015 budget. Beyond the news of cuts in war fighting machinery and personnel — and the pox of “irresponsible” sequestration on the federal government — Hagel made a point of indicating that the world is becoming an increasingly volatile place. He also seemed to express a bit of disgust for nation building of the type attempted by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Al-Akhbar | February 26, 2014
A 23-year-old Bahraini man who was detained in December and accused of smuggling weapons died from an illness in custody on Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said, the second death of a person held on security-related charges this year.
Jaffar Mohammed Jaffar was arrested in a raid that the government said broke up a plot to bring in detonators and explosives by boat and use them to launch attacks in the island kingdom.
(Alalam) – Families of Bahraini political prisoners say their children and relatives are suffering from horrible torture and sexual abuse in Al Khalifa regime jails.
By David Swanson – February 17, 2014
I had a heck of a time making sense of the U.S. Navy’s new motto “A Global Force for Good” until I realized that it meant “We are a global force, and wherever we go we’re never leaving.”
For three years now people in the little island nation of Bahrain have been nonviolently protesting and demanding democratic reforms.
I had a heck of a time making sense of the U.S. Navy’s new motto “A Global Force for Good” until I realized that it meant “We are a global force, and wherever we go we’re never leaving.”
For three years now people in the little island nation of Bahrain have been nonviolently protesting and demanding democratic reforms.
