After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for …
IN THE SAME WEEK, THE U.S. AND U.K. HIDE THEIR WAR CRIMES BY INVOKING “NATIONAL SECURITY” – GLENN GREENWALD
Colonel Ian Henderson was a British official dubbed “the Butcher of Bahrain” because of atrocities he repeatedly committed during the 30 years he served as chief security official of that Middle Eastern country. His reign of terror began in 1966 when Bahrain was a British “protectorate” and continued when the post-“independence” Bahraini King retained him in the same position. In 1996, The Independent described him as …
“First Strike” Attack against Iran? Washington’s “Missile Defense” Deal with the Gulf Monarchies – Bruce Gagnon
This is what it has all come down to…. the US and the corrupt, dictatorial Gulf monarchies meeting at Camp David Thursday and agreeing on a plan to flood the Middle East with ‘missile defense’ (MD) systems. These Gulf monarchies are the essential allies of the US in the world now (in addition to a few other fascist-leaning nations). Together …
The Era of Pretense – John Michael Greer
I’ve mentioned in previous posts here on The Archdruid Report the educational value of the comments I receive from readers in the wake of each week’s essay. My post two weeks ago on the death of the internet was unusually productive along those lines. One of the comments I got in response to that post gave me the theme for last week’s essay, …
War Threat Rises As Economy Declines – Paul Craig Roberts
The defining events of our time are the collapse of the Soviet Union, 9/11, jobs offshoring, and financial deregulation. In these events we find the basis of our foreign policy problems and our economic problems. The United States has always had a good opinion of itself, but with the Soviet collapse self-satisfaction reached new heights. We became the exceptional people, …
Splitting Up Iraq – MIKE WHITNEY
“Iraq’s fate was sealed from the moment we invaded: it has no future as a unitary state … Iraq is fated to split apart into at least three separate states…This was the War Party’s real if unexpressed goal from the very beginning: the atomization of Iraq, and indeed the entire Middle East. Their goal, in short, was chaos – and that is …
Amnesty whitewashes another massacre – Paul de Rooij
Amnesty International has issued four reports on the Israeli massacre in Gaza in 2014.1Given the scale of the destruction and the number of fatalities, any attempt to document the crimes committed should be welcomed. However, these reports are problematic, and raise questions about the organisation itself, including why the reports were ever written at all.2They also raise questions about the …
The U.S. Encouragement of Fanatic Islamism in the Arab World – GARY LEUPP
A beautiful essay posted on Medium.com, entitled “A Marine in Syria: Silhouettes of Beauty and Coexistence before the Devastation” by Brad Hoff, draws our attention to what for the warmongers in Washington is a highly inconvenient truth: the secular dictatorships in the Middle East the U.S. has sought to destroy since 9/11 (including most recently that of Libya) have been far more tolerant towards …
Billionaires Hoard $100 Million Homes At Record Pace: “Beats Gold, Because You Can Boast” – Tyler Durden
Nowhere is the new normal more evident than the frenzied hording of so-called “trophy homes” by the world’s 1800 billionaires.As Bloomberg reports, the ultra-luxury housing market is scaling new heights as a record number of properties around the world command prices topping $100 million. Demand is growing among affluent Americans and Europeans; billionaires from unstable economies, such as Russia and Middle …
The New York Times deploys to Nepal – For What Real Purpose? – Bill Van Auken
“First comes the missionary, then the soldier,” was an old maxim borne out by the bitter experience of a century of bloody colonial conquest in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The missionaries are still at it, particularly in lands where souls can be bought most cheaply, but they hardly play the role allotted to them in the 19th century. …