US officials have been dropping hints the past few months that the Pentagon is going to get even more aggressive in attacking defenseless countries and people. It’s not quite cast that way, though. Instead we are told that the US military is not able to keep up with all the new threats that keep arising. In addition, worries about harming innocents hampers the ability of American troops to get the job done. The natural conclusion …

In earlier posts I had expressed the worry that the recent wave of anti-US protests in Afghanistan might (1) have been started by fundamentalist clerics mainly to serve the needs of warlords, and (2) then used for political gain. The first of my fears was unfounded, according to a very trusted source, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Emails from RAWA members Selay and Friba indicate a much more grassroots origin …

Sonali Kolhatkar asked RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) what they thought of the anti-US protests in Afghanistan, the desecration of the Koran, and the prisoner abuses. The answer of RAWA member Selay is printed below.

This puts Rahul Mahajan and my discussion, and my article, in a little better context. Clearly I misjudged the extent and depth of the anti-US movement: it is long term and …

Friend Rahul Mahajan and I had an extended correspondence on some of the issues I’d raised in my post on the anti-US demonstrations in Afghanistan. Our discussion centered mostly on where one draws the line between accepting fundamentalist religious popular movements as valid expressions of anti-imperialist struggle, despite their reactionary qualities; and criticizing them openly. After this discussion, copied below, and some feedback from the folks at ZNet, I submitted a revised version …

A recent wave of anti-US protests in Afghanistan indicates widespread resentment of the foreign troop presence, especially US troops, in the country. According to some, this reflects a country-wide sentiment that all foreign troops should leave the country immediately. In my view, it is too soon to tell if this is true. What is true is that, like in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan most likely to take advantage of the anti-US feeling are not progressive secular …

A revised version of this piece will appear on ZNet.

A recent wave of anti-US protests in Afghanistan indicates widespread resentment of the foreign troop presence, especially US troops, in the country. According to some, this reflects a country-wide sentiment that all foreign troops should leave the country immediately. In my view, it is too soon to tell if this is true. What is true is that, like in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan most …

It was the best of times,…it was the age of wisdom,…it was the epoch of belief,…it was the season of Light,… it was the spring of hope…

“The jig is up. The puzzle pieces are beginning to fall into place, and the truth is beginning to be exposed.” For those of us concerned about the reputation of Wendy’s restaurant, we can stop worrying. The San Jose Finger Mystery has finally been solved! The woman who supposedly …

Early Monday morning, over 10 police officers fired 120 rounds at Winston Hayes, an unarmed man driving an SUV, who they had been chasing through a residential area in Compton. “The deputies had been told in radio calls that a man in a white SUV had fired shots about 11:51 p.m. and was a possible suspect in a shooting…Deputies started pursuing Hayes because his truck was similar to the one in [the] radio broadcast.” And …

A recent Asia Times commentary by Bhaskar Dasgupta rightly claims that the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty is a “crock” that “has proven to be spectacularly ineffective in the past decade.” What he doesn’t say is that the treaty was largely meaningless from the beginning since it never called for the nuclear-armed powers to destroy their arsenals, only for other countries not to get nuclear weapons. In other words, the word “nonproliferation” only applies to our adversaries. …