Towards a global perspective . . .

I have been reading Tariq Ali’s most recent book, “The Duel, Pakistan on the Flightpath of American Power”   I recommend the book if you are like myself, and don’t know a lot of the history of the relationship between Pakistan and the US.   Here is one thread that kind of jolted me.   I have long been aware that the US has consistently supported Pakastani Military Dictators, and that General Zia-ul-Haq was a significant ally during the time we were building the Mujahadin movement to fight the Russians for us in Pakistan.

According to Mr. Ali’s book,   Zia had been spent time in the US training early in his career.  Later he was sent to Jordan where he led the Jordanian Military in a massacre of Palestinians known as Black September.   Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few days, much has been made of Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s speech at the United Nations Conference on Racism.  His speech was quoted and replayed all over the news, couched in indignant reciprocal accusations of racism, antisemitism, war mongering and holocaust denial, and accompanied by video footage or descriptions of horrified European representatives silently rising and leaving the room en mass.   I will argue that this is a storm in a teacup.   The real scandal is that the perpetrators of some of the most racist policies in the world boycotted an international world referendum on racism.  In that light, Ahmadinejad is a sideshow.

Prior to the conference, the US, Israel, Canada and a few other Western Countries decided not to attend, ostensibly due to a concern that the conference might become a platform for a critique of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.   It does seem kind of strange, since if there were any issues to debate, one would think they would make a showing to engage that debate.   Read the rest of this entry »

The 2007 Surge in Iraq was accompanied by the creation of the Awakening Councils or Sons of Iraq.     Essentially, the US paid groups from the Sunni insurgency to support our goals against any other Sunni insurgent groups that chose not to work with us.  Although the Surge was given credit for the lessening of violence, many experts think that it was actually the ‘Sons of Iraq’, which removed fighters from the insurgency, combined with the decreased population and ethnic isolation due to the ongoing civil war that have caused a period of relative peace.

The US cut the  ‘Son’s of Iraq’ loose a couple of months ago, under the assumption that the Al Maliki Government would absorb them into the army.   Unfortunately, Al Maliki appears not to have been just ready to absorb this branch of his former enemies into his military organization.   In fact, he publicly said so.   Only a few were given paying jobs in the Iraq Army, and the rest were abandoned.   Recently some of these abandoned and jobless Sunnis have committed acts of violence against their Shia neighbors in Baghdad.   Al Maliki’s Iraq Army then cracked down on the presumed perpetrators and assassinated a couple of leaders of the ‘Sons of Iraq’ now living in Baghdad.   Are we heading back to Civil War?

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