Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Indiscriminate airstrikes have been a U.S. hallmark from the “banana wars” to the forever wars. Related Legacy of Violence My Lai 1968 Source: britannica.com

“Despite  being funded  in a fashion beyond compare and spreading its peculiar brand of destruction around the globe, its system of war hasn’t triumphed in a significant conflict since World War II (with the war in Korea remaining, almost three-quarters of a century later, in a painful and festering stalemate).” This is a liberal nationalist view of a former American military professor and Air Force officer. All his emphasis on ‘lies’ by the military and the propaganda of war without mentioning what he calls the ‘truth’ is keeps the reader wondering, bewildered perhaps. Not a single mention of the political economy of war , especially of the nature and functioning of American capital. You just get the impression that a few liars at the top cause wars as if politicians, strategists of empire, ruling classes, advisors, etc think and work outside a socio-political frame work of power structure and power relations domestically and internationally. There is a mention of ‘honour’ a...

Law man

A couple of points need updating–the death toll of the sanctions on Iraq, for example–but it is still accurate and prophetic. Arundhati Roy in September 2001: Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place. Operation Enduring Freedom is ostensibly being fought to uphold the American Way of Life. It'll probably end up undermining it completely. It will spawn more anger and more terror across the world. For ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived in a climate of sickening uncertainty: will my child be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? The US government, and no doubt governments all over the world, will use the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts of money to the defence i...