The Forgotten War: 12 Years in Afghanistan Down the Memory Hole
Will the U.S. still be meddling in Afghanistan 30 years from now? If history is any guide, the answer is yes. And if history is any guide, three decades from now most Americans will have only the haziest idea why.
Edward Snowden: The Work of a Generation
Source: Common Dreams
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s words were entered as testimony at the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee in Brussels on Monday.
Jesselyn Radack of the US Government Accountability Project (GAP) and a former whistleblower and ethics adviser to the US Department of Justice, read Snowden’s statement into the record.
Ms. Radack came to prominence after she revealed that the FBI had committed what she said was a breach of ethics in its interrogation of John Walker Lindh, who was captured during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and dubbed the “American Taliban.”
A Syrian Solution to Civil Conflict?
Source: The Independent
Six weeks ago, a two-man delegation arrived in secret in Damascus: civilians from Aleppo who represented elements of the Free Syrian Army, the rebel group largely composed of fighters who deserted the regime’s army in the first year of the war. They came under a guarantee of safety, and met, so I am told, a senior official on the staff of President Bashar al-Assad. And they carried with them an extraordinary initiative – that there might be talks between the government and FSA officers who “believed in a Syrian solution” to the war.
Survival of the Nicest: The Other Theory of Evolution
A century ago, industrialists like Andrew Carnegie believed that Darwin’s theories justified an economy of vicious competition and inequality. They left us with an ideological legacy that says the corporate economy, in which wealth concentrates in the hands of a few, produces the best for humanity.
Greece: Behind the Rise of the Golden Dawn
Source: The Progressive Magazine
Three years of hard economic crisis, poverty, and misery have nourished the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which has emerged as a significant force in the Greek Parliament.
The criminal activities of Golden Dawn have long been known to the Greek and other European governments. Even while participating in the Greek Parliament, the Golden Dawn continued its goon squad activities: engaging in acts of violence even in schools, issuing death threats, and abusing and even murdering immigrants.
Rapping About Land Rights and Revolution in Panama: Mother Earth vs. Carbon Trading
Inatoy Sidsagi and his cousin Esteban Herrera, from the indigenous Kuna Yala (also known as Guna Yala) nation in Panama, make up the indigenous rap group Kunarevolution. They rap about Mother Earth and the Kuna’s inalienable right to protect their lands and waters.