United States

Why does France want to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic?

When President François Hollande re-launched the war against Syria, in July 2012, he maintained – and this is unique in the history of France – his predecessor’s private chief commander, General Benoît Puga. He has adopted the rhetoric and the mannerisms of colonialism. He declares that the Syrian Arab Republic is a « bloody dictatorship » – (meaning we have to go in and « liberate an oppressed population ») – and that the power in Syria has been confiscated by an Alawite minority – (meaning that we have to « emancipate » the Syrians from this horrible sect.) He forbids Syrian refugees in Europe to participate in the elections being held in their home country, and decides in their stead that the Syrian National Council – non-elected – is their legitimate representative. His Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, declares that the democratically elected President, Bachar el-Assad, « does not deserve to be on this Earth ».

US Must Call Off Dogs of War in Syria

US President Barack Obama and his top diplomat John Kerry have repeatedly insisted that Assad must stand down in any eventual political outcome. In other words, the Americans want regime change by hook or by crook against what is, as Putin has clearly stated, the “legitimate government of Syria” – and a long-time strategic ally of Russia to boot.

US, Russia & Syria: The Problem With Faking It

The great danger of faking your ability to do something in the public square is that someone with an actual desire to the job you are pretending to do might come along and show you up.

This is what has just happened to the US in Syria with the entrance of Russia into the fight against ISIL.

The Final Leaked TPP Text is All That We Feared

If you look for provisions in the TPP that actually afford new benefits to users, rather than to large, rights-holding corporations, you will look in vain. The TPP is the archetype of an agreement that exists only for the benefit of the entitled, politically powerfully lobbyists who have pushed it through to completion over the last eight years.

Tell Washington to Get Lost

The question that the supine Western media should be asking the NATO chief and his Washington superiors is this: if you can so clearly quantify and delineate the IS and Al Qaeda bases, then why has the US-led coalition evidently been wasting 12 months bombing empty desert spaces instead of degrading and defeating these groups, as vowed by US President Barack Obama over a year ago?

From Afghanistan to Syria: Women’s Rights, War Propaganda and the CIA

In the 1980s, Kabul was “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs.” There were female members of parliament, and women drove cars, and travelled and went on dates, without needing to ask a male guardian for permission.

WikiLeaks Reveals How the US Aggressively Pursued Regime Change in Syria, Igniting a Bloodbath

In 2010, WikiLeaks became a household name by releasing 251,287 classified State Department cables. Now, a new book collects in-depth analyses of what these cables tell us about the foreign policy of the United States, from authors including Truthout staff reporter Dahr Jamail and our regular contributors Gareth Porter, Robert Naiman, Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes. “The essays that make up The WikiLeaks Files shed critical light on a once secret history,” says Edward Snowden.

Putin’s “Endgame” in Syria

Everyone knows what’s going on. Barack Obama is not going to initiate a confrontation with Russia to defend a fundamentally immoral CIA program that has gone south. He will, however, do what the US always does when dealing with an adversary that can actually defend itself. He’s going to hector, harass, threaten, demean, demonize, ridicule, and bully. He might launch another attack on the ruble, or fiddle with oil prices or impose more economic sanctions. But he’s not going to start a war with Russia, that’s just not going to happen.