In a world dominated by American exceptionalism and neo-colonialism, hunger has become a weapon of war. “The use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare is prohibited” under international humanitarian law yet the U.S. regularly reduces entire nations to dangerous levels of food insecurity in order to subjugate them.
This is not a column defending Donald Trump.
Across my career, I have said more positive words about the scolex family of intestinal tapeworms than I have said about Donald Trump. (Scolex have been shown to read more.)
No, this is a column about context. When The New York Times reports anonymous sources from the intelligence community say Russia paid Taliban fighters to kill American soldiers, context is very important.
The visit by newly-elected Tunisian President Kais Saied to France on June 22 was intended to discuss bilateral relations, trade, etc. But it was also a missed opportunity, where Tunisia could have formally demanded an apology from France for the decades of French colonialism, which has shattered the social and political fabric of this North African Arab nation since the late 19th century.
Palestine has been annexed, occupied, stolen, and Palestinians have been dispossessed,
Rahway, New Jersey (Scheerpost) — When Lawrence Bell, an orphan living in an abandoned house in Camden, New Jersey, went to prison he was 14-years-old.
The painful truth is that the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has already ceased to exist as a political body that holds much sway or relevance, either to the Palestinian people or to Abbas’ former benefactors, namely the Israeli and the American governments.
New York City (BAR) — Besides not being Trump, the Democrats offer nothing but think they can win with a candidate who has no constituency, charisma, or any platform positions that would attract more voters.
This presidential election season bears a striking resemblance to that of 2016. We were assured by pundits, pollsters, Democratic politicians, and million-dollar consultants that Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win. Except he did win and the aforementioned experts should have been discredited and forgotten.
The calls “Black Lives Matter” and “Free, Free Palestine,” serve to remind us that Palestine is not free and that if the lives of Black people mattered, there would be no need for the call. In both cases, people are in the grips of a cruel, racist system that refuses to let go. In both cases, people are being hunted down, caged, strangled, and shot to death, and the root cause of their suffering is rarely addressed.
Talib Mu’alla served as a soldier in the Syrian Arab Army before he was wounded in Aleppo in 2014. As he described the multiple shots he took to his body, I thought it remarkable that he survived.
“A shot (bullet) to my chest, a shot to my stomach, three shots in my spine. My chest, stomach, and intestines ruptured, and I lost a kidney. I was also shot in the right side of my face,” he recounted. “I fell into a coma for 25 days, then woke for a few days and fell back into a coma for another 16 or 17 days. It took two years for me to be able to walk again.”
