US imperialism
Cuito Cuanavale: How Cuba fought for Africa’s freedom
By Barry Healy
India: US imperialism’s new cop on the South Asian beat
By Kavita Krishnan
Fidel on Obama: The empire's hypocritical politics
By Fidel Castro Ruz
May 25, 2008 -- It would be dishonest of me to remain silent after hearing the speech Barack Obama delivered on the afternoon of May 23, 2008, at the Cuban American National Foundation, created by Ronald Reagan. I listened to his speech, as I did [John] McCain's and Bush's. I feel no resentment towards Obama, for he is not responsible for the crimes perpetrated against Cuba and humanity. Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favour. I have therefore no reservations about criticising him and about expressing my points of view on his words frankly.
Yugoslavia, Washington and the `Balkanisation' of Bolivia
By Michael Karadjis
I feel forced to write to correct some confusion that has been circulating regarding the current US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, who has been supporting the so-called ``autonomy'' referendum by the Bolivian oligarchy.
A continuous line has come out that Goldberg ``has experience in partition'' because he allegedly participated in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. This tends to be a secondary point alongside a more general point that erroneously compares actual oppressed nations, such as the Kosovar Albanians, the poorest people in Europe, who have striven for independence for over a century, with the rich oligarchy of low-lands Bolivia, engaged in an imperialist-backed destabilisation of the Bolivian revolution.
Along with Kosova, some also list Tibet and other examples of so-called ``secessionism'' as being related to the Bolivian oligarchy's campaign. One feels compelled to add Palestine, Eritrea, Bangladesh, East Timor, Aceh, Tamil Ealam and other national liberation struggles by oppressed peoples just to make it consistent.
PAKISTAN: How Washington helped create a nuclear 'rogue state'
By Norm Dixon
18 February 2004 -- As proof continues to mount that US President George Bush's administration systematically lied about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to justify invading the oil-rich Persian Gulf country, it has been revealed that Pakistan, one of Washington's closest allies, has been peddling nuclear weapons technology for more than a decade.
On February 4, Abdul Qadeer Khan, dubbed the “father” of Pakistan's nuclear bomb by the corporate press' cliche mills, appeared live on national television. He confessed that he single-handedly commanded a complex trade network in nuclear weapons technology with Iran, North Korea and Libya, which has operated since at least 1989.
In a carefully scripted address, Khan stated that “there was never, ever any kind of authorisation for these activities from the government”.
ISRAEL: Washington backs Middle East's `nuclear outlaw'
March 24, 2004 -- “Every civilised nation has a stake in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction... We’re determined to confront those threats at the source”, US President George Bush declared in a February 11 speech.
“We will stop these weapons from being acquired or built. We’ll block them from being transferred. We’ll prevent them from ever being used. One source of these weapons is dangerous and secretive regimes that build weapons of mass destruction to intimidate their neighbours and force their influence upon the world.”
Arguing for combative new “arms control” measures that would further entrench the West’s control over nuclear weapons, Bush casually repeated the now thoroughly exposed lie that the US-led war against Iraq was launched because Baghdad “refused to disarm or account for ... illegal weapons and programs”.
Bush used the speech to signal that Iran remains in Washington’s gun-sights, alleging that Tehran “is unwilling to abandon a uranium enrichment program capable of producing material for nuclear weapons”. Bush also demanded that North Korea “completely, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear programs”.
LIBYA: More 'weapons of mass distraction' uncovered
Norm Dixon
On January 4, while addressing British troops in Basra, British Prime Minister Tony Blair attempted to defend his government's participation in the US-led war against Iraq. In an embarrassing Freudian slip, Blair referred to “weapons of mass distraction” as the justification for the illegal war. On December 19, the US and Britain revealed that similar weapons had been uncovered in Libya.
On that day, the Libyan government issued a statement that announced that — after months of secret talks with agents of the British and US governments, which included visits to at least 10 sites in Libya — it had agreed to get rid of “substances, equipment and programs that could lead to [the] production of internationally banned weapons”.
US covered up Somalia massacre
By Norm Dixon
US “peacekeepers” in Somalia in 1993 massacred more than 1000 people, including civilians and children, in a single afternoon. While western media reports focused on the deaths of 18 US soldiers, broadcasting shocking pictures of a dead pilot being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, the fact that hundreds of Somalis (200, according to the US government) died in the clash was barely mentioned. A US journalist's investigation has revealed the US covered up the terrible extent of the bloodbath.
Mark Bowden from the Philadelphia Inquirer, who is researching a book on the US occupation of Somalia, interviewed former US soldiers and officials as well as Somali witnesses. His findings were published in the London Observer on March 22.
The US invaded Somalia on December 9, 1992, under the guise of a “humanitarian” operation to protect aid workers distributing food. The US handed over control to the United Nations in May 1993. At its height, the operation involved 35,000 troops from 20 countries, 24,000 of them from the US.
SUDAN: Can the northern elite allow peace to flourish?
Norm Dixon
January 9 marked the first anniversary of the historic “comprehensive peace agreement” (CPA), which ended the devastating 21-year war in the south between the central government in Khartoum and the impoverished people of southern Sudan. Despite the enthusiasm of the anniversary celebrations in the ramshackle southern capital of Juba, there are growing concerns that Sudan’s powerful northern elite is not committed to peace and may again plunge the south into war.
Review rejects key Lockerbie ‘evidence’
By Norm Dixon
By Norm Dixon
How the US armed Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons
By Norm Dixon
August 28, 2002 -- On August 18, 2002, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, “Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas”. Quoting anonymous US “senior military officers”, the NYT “revealed” that in the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan covertly provided “critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war”. The story made a brief splash in the international media, then died.
While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq's Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.