Time for a Marxist interlude. Inherent contradictions of capitalism, anyone? Intrinsic instability? Or perhaps we could risk the simple rhetorical questions Herr Marx somehow forgot to ask. To wit: have you ever seen a poker game in which no-one can ever lose? And would you, in your right mind, ever trust such a game? BY…
Category: International
US Reported to Kill 12 in Pakistan
As the American campaign against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas seemed to intensify on Friday, two missiles fired from remotely piloted American aircraft killed 12 people on Friday in an attack on a village compound in North Waziristan, according to a local journalist and television reports. BY PIR ZUBAIR SHAH…
Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan
President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials. BY ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI New York Times Posted by Bulatlat Vol. VIII, No. 32, September 14-20,…
US-Iraq Agreement Leaked
A leaked version of last month’s draft of the proposed US-Iraq status of forces agreement (SOFA) suggests that the Iraqi parliament may not be consulted before it is signed, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s promises to do so. The pact would govern the future US presence in Iraq. The draft indicates no intent to set…
Former “Bush Puppet” Iraqi PM Calls for US Withdrawal
Dr. Ayad Allawi, the former interim Iraqi prime minister previously referred to even by US Congress members as a “Bush puppet,” voiced his strong support for a US withdrawal timeline during a Wednesday Congressional hearing. BY MAYA SCHENWAR, T r u t h o u t Posted by Bulatlat.com Vol. VIII, No. 31, September 7-13,…
Bush’s Deal with Iraq: A Time Bomb Set to Explode
Iraq, like Vietnam, is a conflict where political realities on the ground will trump America’s overwhelming military force. BY STEVE WEISSMAN T r u t h o u t | Perspective Posted by Bulatlat Vol. VIII, No, 30, August 31-September 6, 2008 Back in January, the Bush administration proposed a Status of Forces Agreement to…
Not the Same as Being Equal
Violence against women is “epidemic.” Eighty-seven percent of women complain of domestic violence. Half of those cases involve sexual violence. Sixty percent of marriages are still forced. Fifty-seven percent of brides are still under the legal age of 16. What would you call this massive use of force, complete with torture, if not “war” –…
Globalisation, Lawyers and the State
The traditional role of lawyers has been challenged in recent decades by the growth of social movement lawyering which emerged from two developments. First, the radical lawyer movements of the mid-sixties and seventies4 and, second, the emergence of human rights legal activism which has seen lawyers involved in a wide range of issues and movements.5…
Making a Killing
The Military and the Monetary, they get together whenever they think its necessary, they’ve turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries, they are turning the planet, into a cemetery (Gil Scott-Heron) BY AZIZ CHOUDRY GATT Watchdog Contributed to Bulatlat.com Vol. VIII, No. 28, August 17-23, 2008 In the late 1990s, well before Bush’s ‘war on…
GlobalUSAtion: Lawyers, Human Rights and the Contradictions of the Legal Order
BY GILL H BOEHRINGER Division of Humanities, Macquarie University Sydney, Australia Contributed to Bulatlat.com Vol. VIII, No. 28, August 17-23, 2008 “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II [Act 4, Sc.2] “First they came for the lawyers…” News commentator, re Musharraf’s sacking of Pakistan judges, 2007 “If they…
War in the Caucasus: Toward a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?
BY MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY Global Research, August 10, 2008 ALTERNATIVE READER Posted by (Bulatlat.com) Vol. VIII, No. 28, August 17-23, 2008 During the night of August 7, coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgia’s president Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. The aerial bombardments and ground…