On 30 August, elite troops slaughtered over 50 civilians planning to protest perceived foreign interference in the eastern DR Congo, three months ahead of elections. The government has asked the UN for an “accelerated” withdrawal. Crisis Group experts Richard Moncrieff and Onesphore Sematumba explain the stakes.
Twenty years after the events of 9/11, 2001, and in the midst of the messy withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, it seems apropriate to question the validity of the so-called “War on Terror”. The Costs of War project estimates the America’s 20-years of wars, initiated with the supposed intention of fighting terrorism, have killed almost a million peoiple, displaced 37 million, and has cost the US government 8 trillion dollars. If the intention of these wars was to reduce terrotism, they have failed, since every bomb dropped on civilian populations has produced more terrorists, If the intention was to enrich arms manufacturers, the “War on Terror” has succeeded,
Twenty-first-century fascism is the dictatorship of big money. Finance, fossil fuels giants, other large corporations, and the military-industrial complex, have effectively merged with the state, calling the shots in Washington. An immense surveillance and propaganda machine is at their disposal. Narrative and information control is the first line of defense but the militarized police state acts when all else fails. Big money wants total control and tolerates no rivals.
ISIS orchestrates ‘prison breaks’ in order to provide manpower for the group’s resurgence. In the last decade, mass escapes have taken place under the watch of Americans, Kurds, and some Iraqis, whose dedication to containing and punishing the thousands of incarcerated terrorists in their custody must seriously be questioned.
The volatile South Caucasus region has once again seized the world’s attention as a fresh wave of conflict erupted this week between Azerbaijan and the Armenian ‘separatists’ of Nagorno-Karabakh. Against the backdrop of a protracted nine-month Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin Corridor — a lifeline that binds Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia—the region finds itself at a pivotal juncture, teetering yet again on the brink of uncertainty and unrest.
Foreign intelligence agencies, including Israeli and US intel and their regional partners, have been instrumental in fueling recent anti-government protests in Suwayda, just as they did in 2011.
On 17 August, anti-government protests erupted in Suwayda, a province in southern Syria with a Druze-majority population. These demonstrations were triggered by the Syrian government’s decision to lift fuel subsidies, which came amidst a severe economic crisis exacerbated by US economic sanctions.
Africa’s renaissance is already underway through partnerships with Eurasian powers Russia and China, whose significant contributions are already visible in security, economic, and institutional sectors throughout the continent.
In Africa, injustice looms large, marked by poverty, warfare, and famine. Despite post-WWII political gains, economic independence, a vital component of true freedom as envisioned by Pan African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and Haile Selassie, remains elusive.
The ambition of Turkish Aircraft Industries today is to build the first indigenous Turkish fighter jet, which could also be the world’s first Muslim fighter aircraft, and it has invited friendly nations Azerbaijan and Pakistan join the effort. Meanwhile Turkey is trying hard to support its assertive regional policy with military might.
There is a problem: With a fleet consisting mostly of ageing F-16s and a per capita income of barely $9,000 Turkey cannot play the role of a major power.
The peace movement in various parts of the world has emphasized in various contexts that if the huge amounts spent on various wars had been spent instead on meeting essential civilian needs, then apart from avoiding the loss of lives caused in actual fighting and bombing or due to the loss of health infra-structure destroyed by bombs, many lives could have been saved also by diverting war expenditure to essential civilian needs presently unmet.