By ARNO J. MEYER CounterPunch International Posted by Bulatlat Israel is in the grip of a kind of collective schizophrenia. Not only its governors but the majority of its Jewish population have delusions of both grandeur and persecution, making for a distortion of reality and inconsistent behavior. Israeli Jews see and represent themselves as a…
Category: International
Obama in Cairo: High Words, Low Truths
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN CounterPunch International Posted by Bulatlat As they drafted his speech to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo on Thursday, June 4, President Obama’s speech writers strove to suggest that cordiality towards Islam is soundly embedded in America’s cultural history. The first Muslim congressman, Obama confided to his vast audience across the Muslim…
Obama Speaks: Will Palestine or Pakistan Decide?
By STEVE WEISSMAN Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat From his first “greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum,” President Barack Hussein Obama showed how to use the bully pulpit. Some listeners might have found him pedantic or even preachy, but he was delivering his sermon to American and Israeli audiences as…
Who Rules America?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Countercurrents.org International Posted by Bulatlat What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups? A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with…
Changing Obama’s Mindset
By HOWARD ZINN Progressive.org International Posted by Bulatlat We are citizens, and Obama is a politician. You might not like that word. But the fact is he’s a politician. He’s other things, too—he’s a very sensitive and intelligent and thoughtful and promising person. But he’s a politician. If you’re a citizen, you have to know…
Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest
The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia By NOAM CHOMSKY The Nation Posted by Bulatlat The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so. For one thing, even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why…
Can Treasury Sneak IMF Money Through the Supplemental?
By ROBERT NAIMAN International Posted by Bulatlat Almost completely lost in the drama over the war supplemental for Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is a sneaky play by the US Treasury Department to get $108 billion in tax dollars for the International Monetary Fund through the supplemental. Of course, if Treasury can get the money through…
How Long Does It Take?
BY ALEXANDER COCKBURN CounterPunch Posted by Bulatlat How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, “decapitation” strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses the far end of the globe? There’s nothing…
Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism; Cheney Breaks the Taboo
BY RAY MCGOVERN CounterPunch Posted by Bulatlat If we hear in the coming days that former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters — or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz — it will be clear why. Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an…
Cheney Intervened in CIA Inspector General’s Torture Probe
BY JASON LEOPOLD Truthout Posted by Bulatlat Former Vice President Dick Cheney intervened in CIA Inspector General John Helgerson’s investigation into the agency’s use of torture against “high-value” detainees, but the watchdog was still able to prepare a report that concluded the interrogation program violated some provisions of the International Convention Against Torture. The report,…
Afghanistan/Pakistan: Where Empires Go to Die
BY DR. WILLIAM J. LEON III Truthout INTERNATIONAL Posted by Bulatlat Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001, attacks in America, the United States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. They dubbed this invasion Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 41 told the American people that the US strikes were,…