by Ghassan Kadi I will again reiterate, in this very first sentence, that Islam is a religion of wisdom and peace. But this same approach did not stop critics in the past from throwing accusations that I was insulting Islam and the Holy Quran, and I am certain that similar accusations will be made now. In reality however, those who are insulting Islam the most are the Muslims who commit
by Gary Flomenhoft This whole Bernie thing has got people debating about what socialism is. Is it New Deal liberalism? Scandinavian welfare statism? State communism? Or what? Let me simplify it for you. Socialism is basically anything run by or paid for by government. Socialism is what free enterprise needs to operate. You might even call it the operating system for business. Business needs stable government, a strong judiciary to
by Leon Tressell The recent bout of in-fighting within the Kiev junta has been accompanied by warning’s from the IMF that Ukraine must do more to deal with the massive problems of corruption before it receives any more loans. The in-fighting between the various oligarchs and their political puppets within the Rada reflects the failure of crony capitalism to deal with any of the pressing economic, social and political problems
by Stefan Karganovic Two recent judgments handed down at the end of March by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in the Karadzic and Seselj cases, may turn out to have serious implications for peace and stability in the Balkans. To be sure, most of the Karadzic trial judgment was standard ICTY prose – “victors’ justice” unconvincingly disguised as legal, and even historical, analysis. The defendant Karadzic,
by Gavin Don An old Chinese curse runs “may you live in interesting times”. These are interesting times. Today’s geopolitical strategists learned their trade in a bi-polar world, in which two clear competing ideologies wrestled for global dominance within a fairly weak framework of international law. Occasionally the wrestling match became violent, but for the most part lethal violence was confined to wars between states – North Korea against South
by Ghassan Kadi When the so-called “Arab Spring” took off, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, made a televised speech to Libyans warning them, and the world, of what would happen should the central government in Tripoli fall apart. His predictions included that Al-Qaeda would come in and Libya would be partitioned into at least three states. Apart from being unable to predict that the resurrected Al-Qaeda was going
Moscow-Beijing Express The China-Russia alliance is in full bloom – if you know where to look By: Jeff J. Brown http://chinarising.puntopress.com/ Any questions about Russia’s and China’s long term cooperation were put to rest, after conducting research on what these two Anti-West colossuses are doing, on a daily basis. (Image by www.politrussia.com) This week, I did a web search on the popular internet engines, Google and Bing. I did this,
by Ghassan Kadi Islam, real Islam, is a religion of piety, wisdom and peace, and Muslims, real Muslims are not terrorists. Even though all terrorists that have been caught involved in terrorism are “Muslims”, this does not give a blanket description of all Muslims as beings terrorists. Those who “use” terrorism to spew hatred towards Islam and indiscriminately against all Muslims have their own agenda. These are the true Islamophobes.
by Pepe Escobar for RT Color revolutions would never be enough; Exceptionalistan is always on the lookout for major strategic upgrades capable of ensuring perpetual Empire of Chaos hegemony. The ideological matrix and the modus operandi of color revolutions by now are a matter of public domain. Not so much the concept of Unconventional War (UW). UW was spelled out by the 2010 Special Forces Unconventional Warfare manual. Here’s the
by Ghassan Kadi My previous article titled “Kurdish Autonomy; Partition Or Master Plan” was met with some controversy. Some readers seemed to have missed a very basic point it raised. Others misunderstood the main issue and tried to put words into my mouth saying that the article condoned partition and argued that Syrian Kurds should not be given independence and a separate state, even though the article clearly indicated that
by Cathal Haughian 250,000 capitalists read the Financial Times, and it has been our undertaking to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book The Philosophy of Capitalism. A USA led team has answered the question ‘What is The Nature of the Monetary System?’ The Monetary system has three layers – the core is Religion and the unconscious mind – as they formed first. The outer layer is operational and
[Note from the Saker: I take no position on the thesis presented in this article, but I do find it very interesting and I therefore decided to submit it to you all for discussion.] by Brandon J. Ferro for Only Price Matters In the chart below I plot crude, the Russian Ruble (RUB) and OPEC production. From 2012 through mid-2014 all three print sideways. However, to the day beginning on 7/29/14,
By Aram Mirzaei Three weeks ago, the first round of the Iranian parliamentary elections & Assembly of Experts elections took place. The elections for the clerical institutional body known as the “Assembly of Experts” is considered to be crucial, as they are believed to be faced with the choice of selecting a new Supreme Leader. Understanding the complexity of Iran’s political system requires a historical insight. The historical political landscape
by Ghassan Kadi No one can claim to understand what goes on within the Kurdish mind except the Kurds themselves, perhaps not all the Kurds do either. It is rather amazing that non-Kurds expect Kurds to have one voice, one aspiration, one political orientation, and as if all other nations are united in a manner that is manifested in a single voice. How interesting! Is there a single nation on
by Ghassan Kadi The enemies of Syria have been gleefully watching Syria getting dismembered, its people killed and its infrastructure destroyed for five long years. Every time an icon was destroyed, they leaped with joy. Every time they conjured up a plot to widen the scope of the war and involve NATO, they impatiently sat in front of their televisions waiting and bracing to hear that the presidential palace has
by Andrew Korybko The Balkan region bore the brunt of the immigrant wave that first crashed into Europe last year, becoming the geographic bottleneck through which over one million people had to pass in pursuit of their cherry-picked welfare resorts in Western, Central, and Northern Europe. Just as they’ve historically functioned for centuries, the Balkans reemerged as the critical link in connecting Europe with the Mideast, and in what has
By Brainstorm On March 14, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria beginning the next day. Russia will, however, keep its military presence at the port of Tartus and at the Khmeimim airbase to supervise the observation of ceasefire agreements. “I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is
by Alexander Mercouris for Russia Insider Increasingly frantic diplomatic efforts by European leaders show growing desperation to settle Ukrainian crisis before failure of sanctions policy becomes obvious. As the political situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate – with the government paralysed as a result of the power struggle between Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk – the Europeans are becoming increasingly desperate. They are also becoming increasingly frustrated with the Ukrainians whose intransigence
by Ghassan Kadi In an article published in the Lebanese daily Assafir on 12th of March 2016 under the title of “Saudi Arabia paves the way for an Israelis war on Lebanon”, (1) the political editor sarcastically and mockingly made a comment to the effect that after the Arab League declared Hezbollah a terrorist organisation, it may formally ask Israel to engage in a war against it. As a matter
by Cosimo A A few people asked me if there’s any reason to hope for France to get better. This is my 2 cents worth. I might shock you by commenting that as things stand, France is in a much better situation that the US. Let’s start with a nice fun slice of reality, a pleasant truth. Here’s a 1 minute Youtube of Dieudonné, the humorist, at the Zenith hall in
