Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
After two years of bombing, the U.S. recently marked a horrendous milestone in a war with no clear end in sight.
Vocativ reported that the American-led coalition in the Middle East has now dropped 50,000 bombs in the ongoing campaign against Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the terrorist group commonly known as ISIS or ISIL in the West) that began in August 2014.
The analysis noted that bombing has increased with time, peaking in June when coalition forces dropped 3,167 bombs on Iraq and Syria.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Despite its reputation as our less war-inclined neighbor to the north, Canada has become second only to the United States in weapons exports to the Middle East.
The increase in military equipment and weapons sales was noted by IHS Jane’s in its annual “Global Defence Trade Report,” published June 13 by IHS, Inc., a corporate data analysis think tank.
“Canada is the second-largest exporter of defence equipment to the Middle East with $2.7 billion in sales, moving the UK down the table to fourth place, just behind France,” IHS reported in a press release.
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The Saudi-led attack on Yemen has drawn international criticism for the extremely high civilian death toll, including many children, and the brutal war crimes that have caused widespread starvation and suffering.
So how did the Gulf kingdom and its allies get taken off a United Nations blacklist of countries which harm and kill children? Apparently, the Saudis threatened to cut funding to crucial programs, or even place the U.N. under an Islamic religious ban through a mass fatwa.
It’s a move that’s drawing renewed criticism of the Saudi role in the international peacekeeping authority, even from the highest offices in the U.N. itself.
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Despite reassurances by U.S. government officials that Saudi Arabia is taking steps to end slavery within its borders, human rights experts believe the problem is still widespread, especially among the Gulf kingdom’s domestic workers.
“I thought they would kill me. I had to escape. I wasn’t given enough to eat. They had my wages, my passport, my phone,” said Kasthuri Munirathinam, a domestic worker from India who escaped imprisonment in Saudi Arabia, in an interview with Thomas Reuters Foundation.
“She had been in Saudi Arabia for just two months, one of thousands of Indians heading to the Gulf states every year for work, but was terrified she would never see her family again,” Anuradha Nagaraj reported on May 3.
Last September, news of Munirathinam’s daring escape from a second floor apartment went viral. Her employer chopped off her hand during her efforts to free herself, an injury that would ultimately require the amputation of her arm.
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In the aftermath of the Iraq War, Iraq’s seed and agriculture industry was destroyed by U.S. corporations, with the aid of the U.S. government.
In May 2003, after the war officially ended, U.S. diplomat Paul Bremer became the head of the occupational authority, essentially controlling Iraq’s government. He issued 100 orders that set the strategy for rebuilding efforts, including Order 81, “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law.”
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, a physician and environmental activist, explained the devastating impact of this order in a 2008 speech.
“Before 2003 they had a well functioning, centrally-controlled seed industry that had developed over the years a rich seed variety for almost variation of wheat in the world today,” she said.
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Tuesday marked the 100th anniversary of a decision by French and English diplomats to divide the Middle East into competing empires — a decision that continues to influence unrest in the region even today.
The historic Sykes-Picot agreement, named for its authors, diplomats Mark Sykes of Great Britain and François Georges-Picot of France, was secretly signed on May 16, 1916, although the world was not aware of its existence until after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Signed by the U.K. and France during a meeting at Downing Street in London, with the agreement of the Russian Empire, it was intended to divide the two imperialist nations’ sphere of influence after an anticipated victory against the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
Britain took control of land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, including modern-day Jordan, southern Iraq, and the Mediterranean ports of Haifa and Acre. France took parts of Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, while Russia took Istanbul, Armenia, and the Turkish Straits.
