Month: September 2014

Source: The Nation

There’s a frightening enthusiasm for war among pundits—and now the public seems ready to go along too.

Do not be misled by White House double-talk: the United States is embarking on another Long War in the Middle East. This one will belong to Barack Obama, and it may extend beyond his presidency. Secretary of State John Kerry said as much. “It may take a year. It may take two years. It may take three years. But we’re determined it has to happen,” Kerry vowed.

Actually, it may take ten years, or longer. Americans have heard this bold, brave talk before. It has led to costly failure for our country and horrendous losses for humanity. The United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and finally intends to withdraw in 2016—making it the longest war in US history. The Taliban, though, are almost as strong as ever, merely waiting for US troops to leave. Washington launched its unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq in 2003, conquered the country and installed a new government, but troops were not withdrawn until the end of 2011. Now Iraq’s civil war has reignited, only on a much broader front that includes the devastating civil war next door in Syria. Fight we must, Obama says. It’s as if we’ve learned nothing from our post-9/11 failures. read more

Source: The New Internationalist

We hear much about countries battling over control of oil, far less about the struggle to secure fair use of water. 

Water is a vital resource, even more essential than oil for everyday human existence. As it becomes an increasingly scarce resource across the globe, water has also become a major trigger point in conflicts.

Countries that get their water from a common source often misuse it, causing far-reaching social and practical problems for those who share the resource. This is especially true in the Middle East today. read more

Source: In These Times

This Changes Everything argues that only grassroots movements, not politicians or the 1%, can prevent climate disaster.

It is fitting that Naomi Klein’s latest work, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, was released this week in September. On Sunday, tens of thousands will pour into the streets of midtown Manhattan for the People’s Climate March. On the eve of yet another United Nations summit aimed at slashing global greenhouse gas emissions, the action could well be the single largest environmental demonstration in history.    read more

Source: Counterpunch

Edited by CounterPunch regular Alexander Reid Ross and newly published by AK Press, Grabbing Back: Essays Against the Global Land Grabassembles a formidable collection of articles and reports written by scholars and activists from North and South alike who are concerned with the distressing acceleration of massive land-expropriations executed by capitalist interests in recent years. Otherwise known as the “New Scramble for Africa,” the “New Great Game,” or the “Global Land Rush,” the global land grab has involved the acquisition by foreign power-groups of anywhere between 56 and 203 million hectares of lands belonging to Southern societies since the turn of the millennium. The corporations responsible for this massive privatization scheme hail from both wealthy and middle-income countries: India, South Korea, Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, China, and the U.S., among others. read more