Another Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated yesterday by a magnetic bomb placed on his car, the fifth such incident in the last 2 years. This part of a covert war with Iran now under way including: (1) cyber warfare (the Stuxnet virus that shut down a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges); (2) the killing of [...]
Posts under ‘Middle East/North Africa’
The end of the biggest military disaster since Vietnam
Dec 15th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The final pull-out of US troops from Iraq marks the end, or perhaps just one stage of the end, of the biggest military disaster since Vietnam. Every US-UK goal behind the invasion has been lost, in some cases humiliatingly. Iran, the target for revenge after the sacking of the US embassy in 1979, emerges as [...]
Iraq and the Arab Spring: a thought experiment
Dec 15th, 2011 by David Osler.Very few things about the political state of Iraq can accurately be described as clear. But now that the flag has been cased and the last 4,000 US troops are on the way home, some sort of preliminary balance sheet is finally possible. As president Obama told the troops at the military base in Fort [...]
The rights and wrongs of Jewish ambassadors and Paul Flynn
Dec 1st, 2011 by Jon Lansman.John Mann, chair of the All-party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, has said that Paul Flynn MP should “start preparing for his retirement” for, allegedly, suggesting that Matthew Gould is an inappropriate British ambassador to Israel because he is Jewish. If Paul Flynn did say that, which we doubt, it would indeed be a serious matter. It [...]
Who believes what Ministers and spooks say about Nuclear Iran?
Nov 4th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Here we go again. We’re being told yet again – as well as several times over the last few years – that Iran is about to produce a nuclear weapon and must be stopped at all costs by bombing their nuclear facilities. What is asserted to be new this time is that, firstly, the International [...]
Liberal interventionism: an excuse for yet another war
Nov 2nd, 2011 by Daniel Blaney.For 10 years the peace movement has been on continuous high alert. We have had ‘liberal intervention’ in Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently in Libya. Even before September 11th 2001, we had NATO intervention in Yugoslavia and regular US/UK bombing raids over the misnamed ‘no fly zone’ of Iraq. During this time, public opinion in the UK has [...]
Bush and Blair finally lose war in Iraq
Oct 24th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Buried in all the reporting about Gadaffi’s death was a much more significant piece of news about the Middle East. Obama announced late on Friday night – with a timing very likely connected to the news from Libya – that all US troops will be withdrawan from Iraq in 2 months time. This is a [...]
What will follow Gaddafi in Libya and beyond?
Oct 21st, 2011 by David Osler.Less than 24 hours after the death of Gaddafi, thousands of people have already committed predictions for the future of Libya to print and/or cyberspace. Some of those indulging in speculation are more informed than others, but the simple reality is that nobody knows what happens next. Although I have visited the country, and have [...]
Afghanistan: What they said 10 years ago
Oct 10th, 2011 by Andy Newman.These are just some of the claims made by British politicians in 2001 justifying the invasion of Afghanistan, pretending it was a humanitarian intervention. Given that the British government would surely have known that the US invasion only succeeded due to the alliances forged with warlords just as bad as the Taliban, and that the US government had [...]
Afghanistan ten years on
Oct 5th, 2011 by David Osler.Almost ten years to the day since the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom, the fighting has yet to stop, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. One article that has confirmed me in this depressing train of thought is an offering from Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, deputy commander of US Forces in that [...]
