If you followed most US corporate media coverage you might believe that (1) the only important news in Afghanistan today is what’s happening in and near Kabul airport; (2) all “sane” Afghans want to leave their country; and (3) the best way Westerners can help is by bringing these people to our shores and integrating … Continue reading Beyond Kabul airport: Humanitarian crises in all of Afghanistan
Might “Gaza-ification”– a Gaza-style form of stabilization that is still a long way from a stable peace agreement– be a viable way of alleviating the currently dire humanitarian situation of the residents of Syria’s northwestern Idlib province? This prospect might seem little better better than the current situation of Idlib’s three million or so residents, … Continue reading Idlib: Is ‘Gaza-style’ stabilization possible?
For legitimate international aid organizations, the intense needs of the three million or so residents of Syria’s war-torn Idlib province pose a sharp moral (as well as legal) dilemma, since the many very needy noncombatants there have effectively been held hostage for more than two years by the genocidal coalition of militias led by the … Continue reading Idlib and the “Interahamwe aid trap”
The New York Times been continuing its wilful hiding of the political facts around the fighting in Syria’s Idlib province. In yesterday’s print edition, the paper had yet another humanitarian-only tearjerker, “reported” by Carlotta Gall (who should know better!) out of Reyhanli, Turkey. Her piece quoted some of the small numbers of people crossing the … Continue reading US corporate media and the suffering in Syria (contd.)
If you rely only on the New York Times to understand events in Syria, you likely have the idea that the peaceable people of the Idlib province in the northwest of the country have for some years now been subjected to gratuitous attacks by the Syrian and Russian air forces that, for some unknown reason, … Continue reading What the New York Times doesn’t want you to know about Idlib
I am old enough to remember when a “humanitarian intervention” meant organizing collections of food and blankets to send to distant communities in distress. Heck, in my elementary school in England we knitted little 6-inch squares to make up such blankets: they were taken away, sewn together, and delivered to the Red Cross by the … Continue reading On “Humanitarian Intervention”
It is a time of great uncertainty in international affairs. U.S. troops are deploying to Saudi Arabia for the first time in 16 years, presaging an increasingly probable showdown with Iran. The Anglosphere is likely to soon see a second, intensely nationalistic and straw-maned populist rise to the seat of government. The U.S. president has … Continue reading Reviving Westphalia
In the northwest Syrian province of Idlib, three million civilians find themselves at the vortex of large-scale battles as the Syrian government and its allies seek to retake the area from the rebel forces that have controlled the region for nearly eight years. Idlib is now the beleaguered last redoubt within Syria of the armed … Continue reading The Real Plight of Idlib’s Civilians
