Month: August 2013

US government hypocrisy undercuts demand for Snowden’s extradition

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National Catholic Reporter, August 29, 2013
Reasonable people can disagree on whether former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden should be celebrated as a whistleblower for revealing widespread U.S. government spying or whether he should be tried and punished for leaking classified documents. However, the Obama administration’s extraordinary hypocrisy in demanding his immediate extradition to the United States, despite the lack of an extradition treaty with Russia, while refusing to extradite far worse criminals to countries with which the United States has such treaty obligations, denies the U.S. government any credibility…

Interview: What should be the US’s next step in Syria? (89.3 KPCC, National Public Radio Los Angeles audio)

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KPCC (NPR) LAist AirTalk August 27, 2013
In a statement yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry called the use of chemical weapons in Syria “a moral obscenity” that demands action from the U.S. Now the question is what action the U.S. will take against Syria for crossing the “red line” President Obama outlined against the use of chemical weapons?

Interview: The Impact of Drone Strikes on Yemen (audio)

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Uprising Radio August 12, 2013: Obama has escalated the U.S. unspoken war on the Gulf Arab state of Yemen with 9 drone bombing raids in 10 days killing about 3 dozens Yemenis… apparently in response to an Al Qaeda terrorist threat which both the U.S. and Yemeni governments have cited in recent days, at the same time as the closures of American embassies in the Middle East and North Africa. But the people of Yemen are puzzled and more than a little angry…

Restless Nation: The Real Meaning of Iran’s Elections

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[YES!, Transcend.org and Transnational.org Blog, August 13, 2013]
Iran inaugurated its new president, Hassan Rouhani—clearly the most moderate candidate in the running. This outcome illustrates the growing desire for change among the people of Iran. The situation resembles Eastern Europe in the 1970s: The people are not yet at a point where they can bring down the regime, but the ideological hegemony that kept the system intact is gone.