I lead a sheltered life. Apart from visiting Afghanistan once during a war, the closest I come to danger is in sports, and the closest I come to violence is in emailed death threats from war fanatics — and even those pretty much dried up when the president became a Democrat.
Some might think it strange for a country founded on a proposition of equality to send so much aid to regimes that are doing everything they can to disfigure it. Of course, slipping on one’s Orwellian eye wear, it makes perfect sense. Freedom is Slavery, not just in Oceania. And that is the proper perspective in which to digest the perversity of market incentives in three specific areas: foreign aid, defense contractor stocks, and—that bête noire of peace—the stock price of oil companies.
Most Americans apply a yardstick to America’s actions which is very different than the yardstick they apply to Russia’s actions. Whenever their bias in favor of their own nation gets into conflict with the truth, the odds are that the bias will prevail.
Kabul — Outside the windows of the room where I sleep here in Kabul, the Afghan Peace Volunteer (APV) women’s community maintains a small walled garden filled with roses. The community planted tomatoes, cilantro and greens. An apricot tree grows in one corner, a mulberry tree in another. The prayer Afghan Peace Volunteer (APV) call, chanted from a nearby mosque, awakens me just before dawn. Light appears in the sky around four, and soon after, the doves and neighborhood children begin to stir.
An article on page 6 of The Times on 6th June 2015 appeared under the following title: “Cameron to rally G7 leaders in global fight against corruption“.
The article opens with a reference to a recent scandal about corruption in how world football is managed, and then continues:
Introduction
Frontline is an influential television program which examines important foreign and domestic issues. The shows tend to be technically well done – combining concise writing with compelling video. Many North Americans watch and have their beliefs shaped by Frontline documentaries.
Last week Public Broadcasting System channels across North America broadcast the Frontline special titled “Obama at War”. The 52 minute video portrays the following:
* Origins of the Syrian conflict
* Response of the Obama administration
The candidate I’m voting for acknowledges that forgiving and forgetting U.S. war crimes has not worked. They continue to haunt and hamper us. Former administration officials who lied us into war in Afghanistan and Iraq must be brought to justice. We need to know who falsified the intelligence and why. Remember their catchy slogan: “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”?
Hundreds of thousands have died and many innocents continue to suffer for this cynical deception.
Only a few weeks into Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government, the intense strain of trying to square its members’ zealotry with Israel’s need to improve its international standing is already starkly evident.
The conundrum was laid out clearly by Tzipi Hotovely, a young political ally of Netanyahu’s recently appointed to oversee the foreign ministry on his behalf.
They have deranged smiles, hefty laughs, sometimes, like John McCain, seven homes, a cool twenty million in the bank, and that syphilitic grin.
I was in Vietnam, 1994, talking with people in Hanoi. Saw the photos of children all lined up in the courtyard of an orphanage. Oh, maybe 20 in one shot, 10 in another, and the story was repeated through narratives, both visual and oral.
There are three characters in Yemen. Each has a separate tale to tell.
The first lives in Aden. His house is bombed, his family slain.
The second is a Saudi fighter pilot who delights in bombing civilians’ houses.
The third is Barack Obama who puzzles over what to do next in Yemen.
The story explores the helplessness of civilians in the current conflict in Yemen. It demonstrates the mindless brutal violence of Saudi Arabia. And it exposes the fact that the whole event is set up to benefit US financial interests.
Yemen
