Staff Sgt Robert Bales of the 3rd Stryker Brigade on his 4th tour of duty left his military base, loaded his kit and set off for the village of Panjawi in Kandhahar province of Afghanistan and went on a killing spree that will cost the US quite a lot of political goodwill and credibility. On several past occasions I have drawn attention to the systematic rampage of US military personnel in Iraq and even when the killers were identified as was the case in the Mahoumadiya incident, the culpr...
One one really likes the Col and he is an unsavory sort of fellow. A megalomaniac with vision of grandeur extending throughout North Africa. It appears that al-jazeera is extremely influential; in the Arabic world just as I pointed out in an earlier blog. However, this channel is successful against secular dictators and is making no headway in countries like Saudi Arabia in which repression is a way of life. Col Gadaffi is unlikely to give in to the US backed EU enforced no-fly zone. Benga...
The flurry of activity in the US State Department, with the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton making a brave attempt to explain to the world that US policy remains on course in spite of the free wheeling nature of the documents outed by Wikileaks. Though I have not gone through more than a small fraction of the documents, I cannot imagine any real probblem emanating from the publication of the embassy records. Of course there is that odd bit of political gossip, a carping comment, a biting sacr...
On September 23rd, 2010 a woman , was stretched out on a duree to have her arm punctured with a lethal cocktail of chemicals designed to stop a working, healthy heart. This scence that played itself out in Greensville Corectional Center sent shock waves across the world. For one, this incident put the USA in the same league as Iran, China and sundry other countries which routinely carry out executions and i mpose the death penalty even on women. I must say that I do not think that a criminal ...
The Af-Pak War has finally found a dubious notoriety, in the same manner as the Vietnam War found its in New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers. The founder of WikiLeaks Jackie Assange, the Australian founder of this web site, has declared that the documents revealed on his site make a strong case for war crimes. This statement is sheer hype and the real story lies in the sordid nexus between the Government of Pakistan and its Army under Genaral Kayani and the Taliban. Du...
The US war effort in Iraq is undermined by the very savergery of its sometimes unrestrained killing. Of course, in a war zone the forces are at liberty to shoot and shoot to kill if need be, but it apperars that gratuitous acts of great violence are being carried out without any tactical advantage or objective. On July 12, 2007 an employees of Reuters, Baghdad,Namir Noor-Eldeem who was all of 22 years old was killed by a deadly burst of 30 millimetre M230 chain guns mounted ...
Each war faught during the course of this century of "extremes" as one prominent historian put is has had its own unique features. The horrendous bloodletting in the trenches during World War I, captured so evocatively by Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front, the large scale destruction of cities and civillian life and property at Dresseden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to forget the Japanese atrocities at Shanghai and Nanking, the Nazi genocide planned and executed by the state, are a...
When the American constitution was being debated and faught over, there was only one point on which there was consensus across the board: no royalty, no highness and no titles of nobility. I think the US for all its not so pleasant attributes has lived up admirably to the ideals of a truly republican constitution. In the US there is no real taste for high sounding titles. Even the most powerful president is addressed asm Mr Presisident and there are no apparent distinguishing marks of distincti...
The military victory announced by the President of Sri Lanka over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam marks the end of 25 years of one of the most brutal and ruthless insurgent movements of the 20th century. Unfortunately many of the western powers such as UK, the EU, even USA before 9/11 identified the LTTE as a genuine liberation movement and extended both political and diplomatic support. The large Tamil diaspora spread out all over the world, in its shortsighted pursuit of identity p...
Like the rest of the world, I too sat up late watching a moment when History is made right before our eyes: The installation of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the USA. The crowds that swept into Washington DC to watch the first African-American take the "sacred oath" as Obama put it, was unprecedented. The music that was strummed up for the occasion was a blend of blues, country, jazz and rock: a mixture that will appeal to all ages. First of all, Obama slipped in taking the oath. H...
9/11 changed US perception of the world forever. Nolonger does the US see the world in terms of our "freedom fighters" versus their "terrorists". During the days of Ronald Reagan, the contras were viewed as terrorists by the rest of the world but the US saw them as freedom fighters. During the same period the US along with its western allies aided and encouragred by the Arab world set training camps all over Pakistan and the tribal areas abutting Afghanistan to train Islamic terrorists who were ...
As we had been saying all along, the junior Senator from Illinois Barack Obama has become the 44th President of the USA. The imporatance of this event cannot be gainsaid: the perception of the world will change dramatically in favor of the USA not because an African-American has been elected but because Barack Obama has quite convincingly sold the messaGE OF hope. Now with the reality of power breathing down, Obama will realise the fact that the hopes that he has engendered all over the world w...
George Bush has done something that no true conservative would ever dream of doing. By using federal resources to buy up the bad debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the leading mortgage firm in the US, Bush and his Treasury Secretary have in effect nationalised the company, a policy that runs counter to the basic principles of fiscal conservatism. Yesterday that bailout was further extended with the 85 billion $ bailout of Lehman Brothers. Henry Paulson has set a very bad precedent and the US ...
This is Barack Obama addressing a rally in Rhode Island, one of the 4 states headied for the primaries on March 4, 2008. So far he has run a very positive campaign stridently putting forth calls for change in an increasinly bitter politicaldiscourse. John Mccain, the Republican front runner, is trying to focus on the Iraq War in the hope of whipping up a patriotic fervor that will help swing votes in his direction. From all accounts the American people have gotten sick of the war and want t...