Breeding terror in Guantanamo?

Al Jazeera

A September 18 dispatch from Reuters announces:

"A former prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base died fighting for anti-government rebels in Syria, according to an Islamist opposition group which posted a video of his funeral on YouTube".

Held in Guantanamo from 2002 until 2006, Moroccan-born Mohammed al Alami is reportedly the first former prisoner to perish in the war in Syria. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA. 

Iran's 'invisible army' in Latin America

Al Jazeera

When contemplating the logistics of a possible war with Iran, it is helpful to consult maps indicating the multitude of US military bases that already encircle a country under crippling economic sanctions.

No similar visual aids are available for Iranian bases in the vicinity of the US, for obvious reasons.

However, there are various ways to compensate for the lack of an apparent Iranian threat in the western hemisphere. One is to blame it on "invisibleness". READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

From banana republic to banana democracy

Al Jazeera

Banana distributor Chiquita Brands International recently published a corporate social responsibility report that swears a "commitment to high ethical, social and environmental standards across the entire organisation".

In the introduction to the report, CEO Ed Lonergan exalts the corporation's "multitude of partnerships, collaborations and local initiatives that have empowered local communities and delivered meaningful improvements to our company".

Of course, some of Chiquita's contemporary partnerships appear to be somewhat lacking in the ethical standards department. In 2007, for example, the outfit was fined $25m in a US federal court for having made payments to Colombian groups designated by the US State Department as foreign terrorist organisations. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

Different War, Same Columnist

Jacobin

Back in February 2011, New Republic offered a summary of a Thomas Friedman column “edited down to nothing but mixed metaphors and clichés.” It begins:

A wake-up call’s mother is unfolding.  At the other end is a bell, which is telling us we have built a house at the foot of a volcano. The volcano is spewing lava, which says move your house.

And so on. READ MORE AT JACOBIN.

Lebanon's permanent 'interim' UN force

Al Jazeera

The latest press release from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) concerns the August 22 firing of rockets from Lebanon in the direction of Israel and the August 23 Israeli "retaliatory bombing" of a site in Lebanon nowhere near the rocket-firing location. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

Those exotic Arabs, and other Orientalist fetishes

Al Jazeera

In the introduction to his masterpiece Orientalism, the late Edward Said writes of "the Orient" as "almost a European invention... a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences".

Indeed, the exoticisation of the "Other" is a subtler component of Western hegemony, comprised of caricatures that are premised on and reinforce a denial of indigenous agency. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

Mutual Opportunism in Ugandan–Israeli Relations

Jadaliyya

Israel’s relations with Uganda over the past five-plus decades epitomize how military ties and business investments ebb and flow with the currents of regional politics. These are halcyon days for mutual opportunism in Israeli-Ugandan relations. 

In some ways, the cooperative present harkens back to the early 1960s. In that decade of African independence, Israel was eager to win friends and influence economics on the continent. According to Arye Oded, a former Israeli ambassador to various African countries, 

Israel wanted to break through the encirclement of hostile Arab countries and open a way to a nearby continent, and especially East Africa. Moreover, as the number of independent African countries steadily increased during that decade, Israel wanted to gain their support at the United Nations and in international conferences. Israel also had commercial, economic, and strategic interests in Africa.

READ MORE AT JADALIYYA.

Thomas Friedman’s “FLOP” – First Law of Petropolitics

NYT eXaminer

This is a book excerpt from Belén Fernández’s The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work (Verso).

By Belén Fernández:

One overly simplistic theory that somehow continues to elude the very minimal amount of scrutiny that is required to debunk it is Friedman’s First Law of Petropolitics, which I will refer to by its convenient acronym. The FLOP, which debuted in Foreign Policy magazine in 2006, posits that “in oil-rich petrolist states, the price of oil and the pace of freedom tend to move in opposite directions.” READ MORE AT NYTeXaminer.

A boost for the terror industry

Al Jazeera

In the midst of the recent global travel warning and frenetic closure of 21 US embassies and consulates from Mauritania to Bangladesh , the State Department explained: "[W]e are concerned about a threat stream indicating the potential for terrorist attacks against U.S. persons or facilities overseas, especially emanating from the Arabian Peninsula". READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA.

The State Department and a tale of two coup-type things

Al Jazeera