Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

What is common in these two stories? 1. Canadian PM " Trudeau has denied wrongdoing and says any lobbying by him or his inner circle for engineering giant SNC-Lavalin was done to protect jobs. SNC-Lavalin is one of the world's largest engineering and construction companies. The company faces fraud and corruption charges in relation to approximately C$48m ($36m; £28m) in bribes it is alleged to have offered to Libyan officials between 2001 and 2011, when Muammar Gaddafi was in power." In 2016 Canada was the second provider of weapons to the Middle East.  2. " UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia ruled lawful . Equipment sold to Saudi Arabia includes Typhoon and Tornado fighter jets, as well as precision-guided bombs. The sales contribute to thousands of engineering jobs in the UK, and have provided billions of pounds of revenue for the British arms trade."

There is nothing strange or shocking here (it is on wikipedia), but confirms the hypocrisy of "democracy", and capitalist realism. We don't see such reports about The World Bank and the IMF as institutions which prolongue the lives of authoritarian regimes and maintain the interests of the major powers. After all, attacking a well-known and established firm like McKinsey is not good. Shouldn't we have concerns about jobs that might be lost if the firm stop working with some regimes? Wasn't the same concern expressed by the British arms industry when it was told by some activists to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia because the weapons are being used against Yemenis? The High Court ruled in favour of the arms industry and thus saved thousands of jobs! Capitalism realism means both hypocrisy and making fuss out of nothing to sell it to the public. "Mckinsey work in Russia is extensive. Its Moscow office, the largest of the Western consulting firms worki

Britain drifts [more] towards repressive regimes as Brexit looms

"Processes of capitalist urbanization may be thriving in the region, but city life for far too many urban residents appears suspended over the abyss of the anti-city." The Urbanization of Power and the Struggle for the City

This headline is on Foreign Policy, not on a marxist website America is committing war crimes and doesn't even know why (In the url the adjective 'awful' is added to describe the crimes. I am not aware whether under Obama, for example, the likes of FP, ever called the actions of the US "war crimes").  Personally, I began to learn about the crimes of American imperialism only in the build up to the 2003 war on Iraq. At that time, it was through books and documentaries by authors such as Noam Chomsky and William Blum. Before that I mainly knew the crimes of Stalin, Mao, Saddam Hussein ...  The claim in the FP article that Iran has been supporting the Houthis is flimsy and has been disputed by a few analysts  who qualified such "a support".    Here is one of those analyses . Related One of Blum's book is the famous Rogue State . Ironically, it is endorsed by Osama bin Laden and available on the CIA website. No, it is not a conspiracy theory

Trailing ... The Mujahidin, Taliban and the CIA  (wikipedia) Sleeping with the devil (the Washington Post) The CIA and Islamic fundamentalism   (Weekly Worker) How the Taliban got their way in Afghanistan (the New York Times, a review of Ahmed Rashid's Taliban ) Political Islam in the service of imperialism (Samir Amin)

"Admitting" crimes? "Top three stunning admissions" from the top U.S General in the Middle East Note: Saudi Arabia in heavily involved in the Yemn war. The UK High Court has ruled that selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is lawful. When they (Russian and Syrian regimes) do it, it is a crime. When we do it, it is legal. The reversal of a fact: students are taught that "democracies" retaliate when a violence is inflicted on their citizens. The fact is: individual terrorists retaliate against the structural violence of imperialist and local states. Students are taught that the Western rich states, the World Bank and other institutions are helping in developing the poor countries. The fact is: through blunder and exploitation by multinationals, debt, support of dictatorships, and other mechanisms, the poor countries are developing the rich countries .

US votes against  UN resolution condemning  gay  sex  death penalty , joining Iraq and Saudi Arabia

More than a spat Qatar and its Gulf neighbours See also The deal

The world hasn't had this many people dying of famine and diseases since WWII "The international response? Essentially, a giant shrug of indifference." and Invasion of fall armyworms ravages crops in 20 African countries