August 12, 2021 will go down as the day the Taliban avenged America’s invasion and struck the blow that brought down its man in Kabul by Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times August 12, 2021. History will register it as the day the Taliban, nearly 20 years after 9/11 and the subsequent toppling of their 1996-2001 reign by American bombing, struck the decisive blow against
By Pepe Escobar and Quantum Bird – Special for The Saker Blog The Empire of Chaos could never be accused of deploying Sun Tzu subtlety. Especially when it comes to dealing with the satrapies. In the case of Brazil, former BRICS stalwart reduced to the status of a proto-neo-colony under an aspiring Soprano-style “captain”, the Men Who Run the Show applied standard procedure. First they sent the Deep State, as
City after city have fallen from government to Taliban control but Afghanistan’s end-game is still unclear by Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted atAsia Times The ever-elusive Afghan “peace” process negotiations re-start this Wednesday in Doha via the extended troika – the US, Russia, China and Pakistan. The contrast with the accumulated facts on the ground could not be starker. In a coordinated blitzkrieg, the Taliban have subdued
By Pepe Escobar and cross posted with insideover.com You don’t argue with the Tatmadaw – the Myanmar Armed Forces. It’s always their way, or the highway. Since the mid-20th century, the Chinese have come to understand it quite well. How Beijing approaches the Myanmar maze is conditioned by four variables: natural gas; water; the drug trade; and the fractious clashes between the Tatmadaw and a dizzying patchwork of over 135
By Cynthia Chung for The Saker Blog “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” – Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” We are living in a world where the degree
by Francis Lee for The Saker Blog Nomenclature Below – Men and Ideas 1. INTERACTIONISM/PHENOMENOLOGY Wilhem Dilthey (1833-1911) Edmund Husserl (1859-1958) Max Weber (1864-1920) Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936) Karl Mannheim (1893-1947) 2. EXISTENTIALISM F.Nietzsche (1844-1900) Martin Heidegger (1899-1976) Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1985) 3. HUMANISTIC MARXISM Georgy Lukacs (1885-1971) Karl Korsch (1886-1961) 4. THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL Herbert Marcuse Walter Benjamin Theodor Adorno Max Horkheimer Erich Fromm Neo-Frankfurt Jurgen Harbermas PART
Note by the Saker: considering the fact that the anti-COVID-Crusaders desperately want to peddle their theories on this blog (Ron Unz just got hit with over 1200 comments!!) I am not allowing comments under this (excellent) report by Mansoureh Tadjik. I apologize to Mansoureh and to all the sane readers: I am swamped with work, I am about to interview a very famous personality (in 2 weeks) and I have
by Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as the 8th president of Iran this Thursday at the Majlis (Parliament), two days after being formally endorsed by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei. Representatives of the UN secretary-general; OPEC; the EU; the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU); the Inter-Islamic Union; and quite a few heads of state and Foreign Ministers
By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog ‘The dependency thesis, like all good (and great) theories can be summed up in a single phrase: Modern ‘’underdevelopment’’ is not ‘’historical backwardness’’ the result of late and insufficient development; it is the product of capitalist development, which is polarizing by nature’. (Andre Gunder Frank -1996.) The leader of the UK Conservative Party, Mrs Thatcher, first came to power in the UK in
China and Russia will be key to solving an ancient geopolitical riddle: how to pacify the ‘graveyard of empires’ By Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times So this is the way the Forever War in Afghanistan ends – if one could call it an ending. Rather, it’s an American repositioning. Regardless, after two decades of death and destruction and untold trillions of dollars, we’re faced
by Batko Milacic for the Saker Blog The world Olympic movement has always been based on the principles of equal and impartial attitude towards athletes – representatives of all states of the world. The Olympic Games were designed to stop wars and political strife, to unite representatives of all countries of the International Olympic Committee. One of the main Olympic principles was peacekeeping – the opportunity for the strongest athletes
by Pepe Escobar with permission and widely cross-posted Assaulted by cognitive dissonance across the spectrum, the Empire of Chaos now behaves as a manic depressive inmate, rotten to the core – a fate more filled with dread than having to face a revolt of the satrapies. Only brain dead zombies now believe in its self-billed universal mission as the new Rome and the new Jerusalem. There’s no unifying culture, economy or geography knitting
By Hans Vogel for the Saker Blog What is a journalist? Essentially, a journalist is a person who writes articles for a newspaper or a website. Journalists come in two varieties: reporters, who tell what they see on location, and investigative journalists, who work with looser deadlines. The latter has a broader perspective, trying to give the public a fuller picture of what is truly going on. It is the
The race is already on to build and extend Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure as rival powers advance competing initiatives by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Over a week ago the excruciatingly slow Doha peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban resumed, and then they dragged on for two days observed by envoys from the EU, US and UN. Nothing happened. They could not even
By Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog The recent air strikes on the Taliban positions in Afghanistan is an open breach of the Peace Treaty signed between the Taliban and Trump administration in February 2020. Pentagon officials said earlier this month that the commander of U.S. forces in the region, Central Command’s General Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, would retain the authority to call for airstrikes in support of Afghan forces until
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog Washington Post recently ran an article with headline which contained the two phrases “civilized nations” and “deter Beijing and Moscow” (see a review here). Use of the latter phrase in the headline shows clearly that the phrase “civilized nations” here has undisguised, in-your-face geopolitical motivation. But “civilized” and “deter” is in fact a very strange combination of words, tempting and encouraging us to
by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times The annual MAKS aerospace show kicked off its 2021 installment at Zhukovsky Airport outside Moscow – not with a bang, but with multiple bangs. MAKS – whose name is an acronym for the Russian mouthful Mezhdunarodnyj aviatsionno-kosmiches, literally international aviation and space show – is famous for showing off the latest hits in aerospace and defense technology from major Russian
By Batko Milacic for the Saker Blog Just a few months since Joe Biden’s election, the Western idea of terrorism has radically changed. With the media having spared no effort making people believe that the real terrorists are indeed the armed supporters of the Republicans, who are ready to take on the crowd of BLM “looters” and express their right to protest by demonstrating that rights at the Capitol. As
By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog “The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. And one should help them to do so … What is more harmful than any vice? Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak.’’ (1) The Beast awakens – Second Time Around Such were the sentiments – customarily referred to by Charles Darwin as the ‘’survival of the fittest’’ and of Friedrich Nietzsche’s
By Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog With the beginning of the 20th century, geopolitics was changing rapidly. The centries old, empires, Kingdoms, Dynasties were facing severe challenges, and many revolutions were witnessed. The biggest change was the Russian revolution in 1917, as the Marxist first country in the world. People fed up with imperialism, feudalism, capitalism, and Western Style liberalism, democracy, and colonialism were looking at the Russian revolution
