September 2013 - Page 4 of 6

The Startling Size of US Military Operations in Africa

Nick Turse September 12, 2013 Nick Turse

They’re involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the US military is at work. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network, all undeniable evidence of expansion—except at US Africa Command. read more

David Harvey: The importance of postcapitalist imagination

David Harvey September 11, 2013 David Harvey

Source: Red Pepper

Five years ago next month Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in US history. Its collapse was to signal the beginning of the Great Recession – the most substantial world historic crisis of capitalism since the second world war. How should we understand the fundamentals of this system now in crisis? And, as it wages war on working people under the guise of austerity, how can we imagine a world beyond it?

Few have been as influential in answering these questions as Marxist geographer David Harvey. He spoke to Ronan Burtenshaw and Aubrey Robinson about these problems earlier this summer. read more

Egypt: When Armies Are in Power

Immanuel Wallerstein September 11, 2013 Immanuel Wallerstein

It is almost always bad news when armies are in power. In Egypt, the army has been the deciding force since 1952. The recent destitution by the Egyptian army of President Mohamed Morsi was not a coup d’état. One cannot commit a coup d’état against oneself. What happened was simply that the army changed the way it was governing Egypt.

The Crisis of Humanitarian Intervention

Walden Bello September 9, 2013 Walden Bello

Supporters of an impending U.S. strike on Syria claim that it is necessary to punish the Assad regime for using chemical weapons on its citizens and to prevent it from further employing them. The situation, says Washington, calls for “humanitarian intervention.”

Protesting Torture, with Torture, at the White House

Elizabeth DiNovella September 9, 2013 Elizabeth DiNovella

Source: The Progresive

U.S. hunger striker and activist Andrés Thomas Conteris will be force-fed in front of the White House today. The force-feeding is being done in public to draw attention to the force-feedings happening daily to prisoners in Guantánamo Bay.

Dozens of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay began a new hunger strike began last February due to deteriorating conditions. They are subjected to force-feedings in which tubes are sent through the nose to the stomach.

(The Miami Herald has a great graphic about the Gitmo hunger strike, listing daily details. For example, 31 men were tube fed on September 5.) read more

Syrian Anarchist Challenges the Rebel/Regime Binary View of Resistance

Joshua Stephens September 9, 2013 Joshua Stephens

As the US intensifies its push for military intervention in Syria, virtually the only narrative available swings from the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad to the role of Islamist elements within the resistance. But the network of unarmed, democratic resistance to Assad's regime is rich and varied, representing a vast web of local political initiatives, arts-based coalitions, human rights organizations, nonviolence groups and more.