The United States finds its increasingly clumsy, circular foreign policy looping back once again to accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” being inexplicably used against a civilian population, this time in Syria’s northern city of Idlib currently serving as the defacto capital of terrorist organizations including various Al Qaeda affiliates, most notably the US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization, al-Nusrah […]
Considering the rush by the corporate media to blame Assad for the recent apparent gas attack in Syria, we feel it is timely to remind ourselves of Seymour Hersh’s 2014 piece examining the response to a previous chemical weapons incident in the country. Legendary journalist Hersh was sidelined by the mainstream news establishment for daring to do a journalist’s actual […]
With the latest hasty judgment about Tuesday’s poison-gas deaths in a rebel-held area of northern Syria, the mainstream U.S. news media once more reveals itself to be a threat to responsible journalism and to the future of humanity. Again, we see the troubling pattern of verdict first, investigation later, even when that behavior can lead to a dangerous war escalation […]
Dr. Steve Best is Associate Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas. He has written 13 books. He engages the issues of terrorism, liberation politics, animal rights, capitalist domination, biotechnology, ecological crisis, mass media and culture. Interview by John Hoch: JH: Why do you think there’s so much hostility between the anti-capitalist Left and the animal […]
The Washington Post falls back into its 2005 mode of blaming Iran for the capabilities of a local insurgency. This time it is not Iraq where Iran is allegedly providing to insurgents, but Bahrain. Old and debunked claims are hauled up and propaganda from the U.S. proxy Sunni dictatorship is cited as “evidence”. It is a top-right front-page story in […]
Outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday there were jubilant scenes from his supporters as Alexander Blackman (formerly Marine A) had his murder conviction for shooting dead a man wounded in a helicopter attack in Afghanistan reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to a ‘combat stress disorder’. Among those celebrating were Royal Marine veterans vocal […]
When you hear the word “intellectual,” who is the first person that comes to mind? For me, that person is Professor Noam Chomsky: linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, political activist, and author of over 100 books. In this article, I will be dissecting Noam Chomsky’s book Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, in an attempt to […]
This article reports updated findings I obtained in a further examination of videos published by the White Helmets, which aimed to represent consequences of an alleged gas attack in Sarmine in March 2015 [See my first report of March 6, 2017]. [1] The videos depict a medical rescuing scenario focused on ‘lifesaving’ procedures on children. The new findings, which have […]
The Arabic language al-Hadath news website reported that several US military helicopters landed on kilometer 10 of Deir Ezzur-Hasaka road and evacuated a number of ISIL commanders from the region. “After the helicopter landed, several US marines took 10 ISIL commanders on board and left the region,” the report said. “Abu Dajane Fransawi has most likely been among the top […]
WikiLeaks is due to release its mysterious and spectacularly-hyped “Vault 7” drop within hours of this writing. A few hours later we’ll probably all be arguing about its contents, so I figure it’d be helpful to tap out a few of the most shockingly moronic things that people often say about WikiLeaks in online discourse to give my readers some […]
MOST accounts of trade union struggles in the 1980s are dominated by the miners’ strike, but a dispute took place in 1983 which has been largely forgotten. It was a victory for one woman, her union and the many people who stood in solidarity with her on the picket line outside the Lady at Lord John women’s clothes shop in […]
The title of the editorial said it all: ‘The Guardian view on George W Bush: a welcome return’ In a tongue-in-cheek, almost jovial, piece the Guardian unsubtly rehabilitated a man responsible for crimes that are among the most egregious in all history. Bush was responsible for the destruction of an entire country, the killing of one million Iraqis, the wounding […]
