the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Democracy Now!   Reporter Matthieu Aikins on how his investigation for The New York Times found an August 29 U.S. drone strike, which the Pentagon claimed targeted a facilitator with the militant group ISIS-K, actually killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children and Zemari Ahmadi, an Afghan engineer who had worked since 2006 for an American aid group.  A review of video evidence by the Times shows Zemari loading canisters of water at the charity’s office, after the Pentagon claimed surveillance video showed Zemari loading what they thought were explosives into a car at an unknown compound earlier in the day. “ We put together evidence that showed that what the military interpreted as a series of suspicious moves from the sky was, according to his co-workers and colleagues and video evidence, just an ordinary day for this aid worker, ” says Aikins.

Democracy Now!   CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who for years has called for an end to the longest war in U.S. history says “ We didn’t want it to end like this, and there should have been better planning in terms of getting people out of the country, but we were very clear we never wanted the U.S. to go in to begin with. ” She also warns the end of the War in Afghanistan will encourage the Biden administration to pour more money and resources into a rivalry with China. “ It is a delusional idea that we should be focusing on China as an enemy, ” she says.  

failed evolution   World's number one political prisoner, Julian Assange, still in high security prison for exposing horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   The only thing that stands between the ruthless imperialists and their plans to exterminate Julian Assange are the thousands of people protesting against his extradition to the US. Among them, famous names from the global political, economic, academic, intellectual and arts sectors.   More and more people should join the fight until full drop of charges against Julian Assange and his release.   So, until then, we should make sure that the clear message will reach the power centers of the worst liberal establishment ever: if you dare to harm Julian Assange, get ready for a non-

Glenn Greenwald   George Bush was once castigated by liberals as a new Hitler, a war criminal, and a primitive imbecile who stole not one but two elections. Yet they swooned for him on 9/11 because he gave them what they most crave: the view that Al Qaeda is comparable to those who protested at the Capitol on 1/6. 

Under the cover of counterterrorism, AFRICOM is beefing up Nigeria’s military to ensure the free flow of oil to the West, and using the country as a proxy against China’s influence on the continent.   by TJ Coles  Part 1 Last month, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times . It might as well have been written by the Pentagon. Buhari promoted Brand Nigeria, auctioning the country’s military services to Western powers, telling readers that Nigeria would lead Africa’s “war on terror” in exchange for foreign infrastructure investment. “ Though some believe the war on terror [WOT] winds down with the US departure from Afghanistan, ” he says, “ the threat it was supposed to address burns fiercely on my continent. ” With Boko Haram and Islamic State operating in and near Nigeria, pushing a WOT narrative is easy. But counterterror means imperial intervention. So, why is the Pentagon really interested in Nigeria, a country with a GDP of around $430 billion – so

Biden’s popular and long overdue withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered a big media meltdown that exposed its de facto merger with the military.   by Gareth Porter  Part 3 - Flournoy obscures the real cause of military failure The Washington Post ’s national security reporter, Greg Jaffe, took a different tack from most of his Beltway colleagues in his coverage of the Afghanistan endgame. In an August 14 article, Jaffe implicitly acknowledged the widely-accepted fact that the war had been an abject failure, contradicting claims by military leaders. Unfortunately, the reporter offered space for one particularly credibility-deprived former official that was obviously designed to deaden popular hostility toward those responsible for the fiasco. Among the most questionable characters to lay into Biden’s withdrawal strategy was Michelle Flournoy, who was expected to be appointed as the next Secretary of Defense until Biden froze her out because of her role in advocating the failed troop surg

Le simple fait de compter le coût de l’intervention occidentale en Afghanistan en vies militaires américaines ou britanniques constitue la preuve ultime que nous sommes une civilisation en décomposition   David Hearst Partie 1 Lorsque les États-Unis ont envahi l’Afghanistan le 7 octobre 2001, la couverture du magazine Time proclamait : « Les derniers jours des talibans ». C’est ainsi qu’a débuté ce que l’on a qualifié de « guerre contre le terrorisme », la quête néoconservatrice visant à remplacer la défunte Union soviétique par l’islam au rang de menace mondiale. En décembre de la même année, le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies a créé la Force internationale d’assistance à la sécurité (FIAS) pour superviser les opérations militaires et former les Forces de sécurité nationale afghanes. La guerre en Afghanistan a été perdue par une alliance occidentale hypertrophiée qui pensait pouvoir démolir les talibans et construire un nouveau pays à partir de rien Depuis lors, plus de 2 000 mi

To count the cost of the West's intervention in Afghanistan in US and UK military lives alone is the ultimate proof that we are a civilization in decay by David Hearst   Part 5 - Blunt truth   There is an alternative to that mad logic of thinking that you are promoting democracy by dropping drones on poor people thousands of miles away. Just imagine if the US had spent $2 trillion on the Afghan people themselves. Just imagine if it had sought to influence religious conservative movements like the Taliban, not through warfare, but by engagement. Not through drones, but through dialogue. Just imagine where Afghanistan would be now, and just imagine how much soft power the West would still have. A US in retreat cares even less for the people it abandons than it does for the people it occupies. There is an exodus right now at Kabul airport. Where will these Afghans end up? Certainly only a fraction of them will arrive in the UK or the US. They will head for Turkey and Europe as they ha

Going Underground   Social Media Producer Farhaan Ahmed speaks to Pablo Vivanco, a Chilean journalist and the former director of TeleSUR English for the 48th Anniversary of the US-backed, CIA-facilitated coup in Chile which saw the death of democratically-elected socialist President Salvador Allende and the beginning of an era of neoliberal fascism.    He discusses the events on the day of the coup, the US’ campaign with Chilean allies to sabotage the Allende government and foment economic chaos, the Pinochet regime’s transformation of Chilean society into one modeled off of the Chicago Boys’ neoliberalism, conditions for the working class during the Pinochet regime and the rise of a continent-wide purge of the left through the US-organised Operation Condor, Britain and the US’ role in supporting the Pinochet dictatorship, the 2020 referendum which saw Chileans reject the Pinochet constitution and the Chilean general elections in November.

The Grayzone   Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton discuss the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks with Professor Asad Abukhalil, and the millions of victims of the "War on Terror." They also speak about US meddling in Lebanon, devastating sanctions on Syria, and the never-ending regime-change operations targeting Iran.