Home > Keywords > International > Wars and conflicts

Wars and conflicts

  • Quit Iraq, and quit fast. It’s that simple
    24 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
    35 comments

    by Simon Jenkins "The Times"
    TONY BLAIR has declared that Britain is now fighting a “new war” in Iraq. He did so on the anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem, an inauspicious precursor. Arnhem was a notorious “bridge too far”, a politico-military decision that led to defeat and the needless loss of British lives. But at Arnhem Britain knew what it was about. When Mr Blair calls on all “sensible and decent people” to support him in this new Iraq conflict we can only ask, to what end?
    When I (…)

  • Playing into the hands of Bush
    22 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    Murderous barbaric butchers betray cause
    by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
    So, Eugene Armstrong has been beheaded. The tape has been sent to the Internet. A victory for senselessness, idiocy, butchery, cruelty, mindless violence, perpetrated by the legions of Baal.
    What is the difference between slitting the throat of an American contractor and blasting away the limbs of an Iraqi child with a cluster bomb?
    What is the difference between killing an American civilian and killing an Iraqi (…)

  • Far graver than Vietnam
    17 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
    by Sidney Blumenthal
    ’Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard (…)

  • September 16, 1982: The Sabra and Chatila Massacres
    16 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Robert Fisk
    Robert Fisk is still probably the most outstanding journalist working in the Middle East. He was one of the first journalists to be present at the scene of the horrific murders in Lebanon, 1982. He has published a number of different books and writes columns for The Independant newspaper. He has received a number of prestigious awards for reporting and has produced a number of documentaries including the excellent "Beirut to Bosnia"
    What we found inside the Palestinian (…)

  • 100 Children Die Daily in Iraq
    10 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    In one month, 3000 children died in Iraq; on average, that is 100 per day. Though
    many are innocent victims of incessant clashes, most succumb to malnourishment
    and unsanitary living conditions.
    The shortage of drugs and modern equipment is worse than when Saddam Hussein
    was in power - when international embargoes isolated the country.
    Shells and shrapnel, grenades and bombs are other factors affecting the health of children. According to disclosures from the Health Care Ministry, (…)

  • Uri Avnery: How Are You, Non-Violence?
    6 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Uri Avnery*
    At the mass meeting with Arun Gandhi, the grandson of the Mahatma, in Abu-Dis, I observed the faces of the participants. While Gandhi was preaching non-violence, I imagined a debate between two young Palestinians in the audience.
    Yussuf: “He is right. The armed intifada has failed.
    Hassan: “On the contrary. Without the actions of the martyrs, the world would have forgotten us long ago.”
    Yussuf: “For half a year there were no suicide attacks in Israel, and look what we (…)

  • The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
    28 August 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    This Strips Away the Last Vestiges of Moral Authority
    By ROBIN COOK
    Those close to him mutter, under their breath of course, that Tony Blair’s only moment of doubt over Iraq came in the wake of the exposure of the Abu Ghraib scandal.
    This is plausible, as our Prime Minister possesses a Gladstonian moral imperative. He believes that any economy with the truth over the threat from Saddam’s vanishing weapons of mass disappearance would be forgiven in the short run by his electorate and in (…)

  • Israel Must Rethink Prisoner Policy
    27 August 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Uri Avnery
    "For all I care, they can starve to death!" announced Tzahi Hanegbi, after Palestinian prisoners declared an open-ended hunger strike against prison conditions. Thus the Minister for Internal Security added another memorable phrase to the lexicon of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
    Hanegbi became famous (or infamous) for the first time when, as a student activist, he was caught on camera with his friends hunting Arab students with bicycle chains. At the time I published a (…)

  • On recent US-led attacks against Iraqi towns and particularly Najaf
    25 August 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    We as members of the International Coordinating Group of the World Tribunal on Iraq wish to record the following statement:
    An appalling silence prevails about the devastation being inflicted on the people of Iraq. Having staged a show of transferring power to Iraqi authorities, the US has intensified military operations to stifle anything that dares to challenge occupation.
    The World Tribunal on Iraq refuses to be part of this silence... Based on our work to investigate and bring out (…)

  • Is the real aim of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to divert attention from Iraq?
    21 August 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Fighting a Phony War
    By Eleanor Clift
    The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stopped by NEWSWEEK’s Washington bureau this week to explain their version of what happened in Vietnam 35 years ago and why John Kerry doesn’t deserve three Purple Hearts. None were on the Swift Boat Kerry commanded, but they had charts to illustrate their contention that Kerry’s boat did not come under fire and that two of his wounds were self-inflicted, one when he hurled a grenade at a rice bin too close to his (…)