Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

How 'Jakarta' Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing

Dr. Matthew Alford of the University of Bath, author of National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood ,  told  MintPress  that the new Amazon product is a “disgrace of a series,” unfairly demonizing a nation at a time when the United States has its boot on the throat of Venezuelan society. The CIA's Jack Ryan Series

"One might have thought that the methods applied in the days of European colonialism and the resulting patterns were a thing of the past. But that would be mistaken. These methods and patterns are now seeing a resurgence, awakening in new and grotesque spasms. We don't even dare hope that these will be the last." Late colonial convulsions See also: A rotten legacy

Gary Stephen Webb Kill the Messenger a movie by Michael Cuesta

He caused the killings of hundreds of thousands of people, more than what Pinochet, Mubarak, Suharto or Al-Assad did. He overthrew an ally of the free world. He imposed a decades-long embargo on his own country and starved his own people, driving them to drown in the ocean. He tried to invade Miami many times in order to establish a system against human nature in the United States, but failed. He established an illegal prisoner where he held his enemies without charge, torturing them and depriving them of fair trials, because they were against his way of life. He supported dictators in many countries, providing them with hundreds of doctors in order to spread his evil ideology all over the globe and help friendly regimes maintain their authoritarian powers.  He poured them with arms and financial assistance. More fundamentally, he outlived 10 U.S. presidents, without being democratically elected once. For that the CIA made many attempts to assassinate him . 

It was good to see the man who had no qualms about dropping "the mother of all bombs" (MOAB) on  Afghanistan  or arming Saudi Arabia to the teeth to slaughter Yemenis had suddenly developed a gentle soul and felt he could not handle hearing the suffering of  a single person being strangled . How do Arabs scream in Arabic ?

I have read nothing new in this FT review, but it is a good reminder of key actors and legacies. (I got access to the piece after googling the headline below) Britain, America, and the battle of mastery of the Middle East

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)

From the archive Dedicated democracy

A book review "From 1965 to 1966, the Indonesian military and its allies massacred hundreds of thousands of Communists — often with the active aid of Western, democratic governments." Indonesia's Red Slaughter

A student of Arabic thought that the word "madrasa" in the Arab countries was like the Afghan "madrasa". No. The Washington Post  reported  in 2002: The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings …. The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books …. The Council on Foreign Relations  notes : The 9/11 Commission  report (PDF)  released in 2004 said some of Pakistan’s religious schools or madrassas served as “incubators for violent extremism.” Since then, there has been much debate over madrassas and their connection to militancy. Promoting violence — in the form of jihad against the Soviet invaders and their local proxies — was the goal of the U.S.-funded education effort in

Terrorists of feather flock together. How Britain did Gaddafi's dirty work Ian Cobain is the author of

Monje also recalls a conversation with Guevara from the pre-Bolivia period. Che had said: ‘Hey, Monje, why don’t you get a guerrilla war going in Bolivia?’ ‘What will it get us?’ Monje asked. Che accused him of cowardice. No, Monje said, you’ve just got ‘a machine-gun stuck in your brain, and you can’t imagine any other way to develop an anti-imperialist struggle.’ The nine (or so) lives of Che Guevera

CIA Covert Operations and U.S. Interventions Since WWII (made before the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq)

One more confirmation that the US imperialist, criminal regime has never planned a 'regime change' in Syria. First it called for "a Syrian regime without al-Assad, then gave limited support to the rebels, which could not even defend itself against the killing machine of the Syrian regime and its Russian backers. 

A reminder to those who oppose Trump's camcellation of the CIA programme in Syria. Against amnesia and not to forget the criminal role of US imperialism. "The main role of the CIA, from the time it first intervened in 2012, was to block the anti-Assad opposition forces from acquiring the arms necessary to bring down the regime. The most the CIA was prepared to allow was for the opposition to put sufficient military pressure on Assad to force the regime to accept a negotiated settlement. "The rationale for the arms program was, from early on, muddled. It wasn’t supposed to make rebels win outright. ... instead, the U.S. government tried to use a remotely managed proxy war to force an extremely delicate, negotiated political resolution." So much for your fantasies about "regime change". After Daesh took Mosul in 2014 even that limited support was increasingly withdrawn, as the US tried to push the opposition into abandoning the struggle against Assad and

Was modern art a weapon of the CIA? (the BBC)

How the CIA secretly funded arab art to fight communism

Afghanistan Surprise! Surprise! Recycling Hekmatyar, not mentioned here, but it is stated in the Arabic version of the article that he was supported by the U.S., including receiving money from the CIA through Pakistan.

" The story of his rise and fall offers a rare insight into how the CIA operated within the confines of  President Obama’s halfhearted Syria policy . It reveals how the rivalries between US bureaucracies — and, even more importantly, the growing divergence between Washington and its Nato ally Turkey — exacerbated Syria’s mayhem. The rise and fall of a US-backed commander in Syria