Tariq Ali, Fazwaz Gerges and Vali Nasr discuss Usama bin Laden’s assassination on Al Jazeera’s Empire with Marwan Bishara.
Osama bin Laden is dead. The world’s most wanted man has finally been killed after a hunt that lasted more than a decade, triggered global wars, and cost the lives of tens of thousands of people. What does it mean for US wars in the Muslim world? And will the US actions unleash a new wave of attacks around the world?
by Nafissa Assed
Today people and media all over the world are wondering about Qaddafi’s son, Saif-Al Arab, being targeted by NATO and perhaps killed. Do we really care? As for me, not really. Qaddafi and his family are welcome to surrender anytime, dead or alive. At the same time as Musa Ibrahim was claiming the death of Qaddafi’s son and his 3 grandchildren, we watched on the national Libyan TV Qaddafi’s thugs gathering in Bab Al-azziziya dancing and singing LIVE! Must be those pills again. If NATO is going to make any advance over Qaddafi, they must seriously consider shutting down Libyan state TV and its incitement. We all know that anything can be expected from Qaddafi and that he is sick enough to even fabricate the report of the death of his own son to stay in power (the al-Arabiya channel claims ‘inner circle’ witnesses say Saif al-Arab is dead, but not his children).
The war is raging in Libya and I am against NATO killing innocent children, even if they happen to be the grandchildren of Qaddafi – because this is not about him, it’s about who the decent Libyans are and the values they stand for. On the other hand, I believe it’s naïve if anyone thinks the rat Qaddafi and his family were really in that compound last night (30th May), and before anyone can damn NATO for the alleged deaths of Qaddafi’s grandchildren, wait for confirmation that they are his and not the bodies of kids he’s killed (remember the ‘daughter’ of Qaddafi killed by American bombing in 1986 was in fact posthumously adopted).
Rahimullah Yusufzai on the assassination of Usama bin Laden, the man who led all of 100 men in Afghanistan according to former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones.
Robert Skidelsky and Paul Jay discuss Keynes, the IMF, concentration of ownership, political power and rebellion.
Johann Hari on Democracy Now!
Part One
Continue reading “Johann Hari: The British Royal Wedding Frenzy Should Embarrass Us All”
by Helen Thomas
Hats off to Richard Forer, who courageously and truthfully examines an alternate viewpoint in his book, Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion — A New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict.
Forer, who grew up in a secular, unaffiliated Jewish home, is the identical twin of a prominent member of an ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism, and was himself a member of AIPAC, America’s pro-Israel lobby. He knew where his allegiances used to lie — anything Israel did was justifiable in his mind.
During summer 2006, Forer visited the Middle East and underwent a profound spiritual transformation. He saw destroyed villages, displacement, land confiscation, imprisonment without trial, torture and other inhuman treatment of the Palestinians and knew he needed to share his truth.
So many Americans of Hebrew heritage cannot face the truth of the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians in the land they conquered and now occupy. Forer emerged from the struggle to realize that he could have been wrong. It takes brave people who are willing to abandon long-held beliefs that the Israelis could do no wrong. Somehow their victimhood justified their ruthless behavior toward the Palestinians.
Hero or villian, Julian Assange stunned the world when he leaked more than 90,000 war files. Accompanying Assange through every step of the unfolding drama, this report reveals a man on a mission.
by James Abourezk
You remember Helen Thomas? She was the senior White House Correspondent who always opened Presidential press conferences and closed them by saying the magic words: “Thank you Mr. President.” Her Wikipedia entry cites her professional accomplishments:
“Helen Thomas (born August 4, 1920) is an American author and former news service reporter, member of the White House Press Corps and opinion columnist.[1] She worked for the United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau chief. She was a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House. She covered every President of the United States from the last years of the Eisenhower administration until the second year of the Obama administration. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She has written six books; her latest, with co-author Craig Crawford, is Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do (2009).”
Helen was cashiered from her position as a Hearst columnist after she answered a question by a Rabbi with a video camera who asked her to talk about Israel. She answered—honestly—that the Israelis should get the hell out of Palestine. The Rabbi’s follow up question was, “Where should they go?”
“Back where they came from,” she answered, citing Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.
Now, we all know that those countries that were so murderous and cruel to European Jews are not what they were in the 1940s. But, judging from the reaction of the media, and from Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, one would have thought that she was sending Israeli Jews back to the 1940s. It was a media firestorm that engulfed her, sending a message to anyone else who might stray from the official party line on Israel.
Continue reading “Helen Thomas and the Political Cleansing of America”
Saudi-backed Bahraini forces injured a woman who was part of a group of women trying to prevent the destruction of a religious site. In addition, two female student and four female medics have been detained. Bahrain’s Human Rights Center reports that 1,041 people have been detained since protest began, including 64 women. As part of the crackdown on anti-government protests, the Saudi-backed forces are also raiding hospitals and schools and have destroyed many mosques and holy sites.
Continue reading “Bahrain Detaining Over 1,000 Pro-Democracy Activists”
by Maysaloon
It is quite amazing to see the web of lies being woven now that the situation in Syria becomes critical. The official narrative, and one which a considerable chunk of the Syrian population wish desperately to believe, is that the protests are being provoked by unknown foreign elements that are trying to destabilise the country. The official media is focusing exclusively on the deaths of members of the security services, ignoring the hundreds of deaths amongst the mostly peaceful protesters that have taken to the streets across Syria. I say that many people wish desperately to believe the official narrative because many people simply don’t want to see more bloodshed and death on the streets of Syria. Many people are also afraid and don’t wish to be seen as accepting the fact that the Syrian government is now at war with its own people.
P U L S E 