Review of 2018, Part 4 (October–December): Nationalism, Deglobalization, plus the US exit from Syria

OCTOBER Where US–Canada relations were concerned, as well as Trump’s trade strategy, NAFTA was the leading event opening the month of October. The US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) On Monday, October 1st, came the striking news that at the last minute the US and Canada signed a new agreement which, together with Mexico, would replace NAFTA. While […]

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Book Review: Afghanistan Post–2014—Misreading Afghanistan’s Crypto-coloniality

Review of: Afghanistan Post-2014: Power Configurations and Evolving Tragectories. Edited by Rajen Harshe’ and Dhananjay Tripathi. (New Delhi: Routledge), 2016, pp. xix+248. The colonial and postcolonial writings about of Afghanistan are marked by the absence of a systematic and critical awareness about the country as an offspring and dependency of Western colonialism. The ethnographic, historic […]

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Donald Trump and Empire: An Assessment

“There is something unseemly about a nation conducting a foreign policy that involves it in the affairs of most of the nations of the world while its own domestic needs are neglected or postponed, just as there is something unseemly about an individual carrying all the burdens of the Community Chest and the PTA while […]

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Bagram Santa

Easily lending themselves to multiple forms of misunderstanding, the Pentagon nevertheless regularly produces images of military personnel dressed as Santa Claus. This too is a pattern, minor in terms of the number of such photographs, but still a recurring feature. The images in this third and final photo essay of this series, come out of […]

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Empire’s “Mimic Men”

Imperialism by Invitation or Imitation? US efforts in remaking the international system according to an image reflecting the US are not usually in complete vain since the track has already has already been cut. To continue with the analogy, US policy planners and military analysts are concerned about widening and then paving the track so […]

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Rula Ghani: Preaching for Christianity, Israel and Empire

In the name of liberating Afghan women several American feminist organizations joined forces with various American Zionist groups (including the Zionist “neocons”), manufacturers of weapons, and other American militarist groups to invade Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 incident. There is a substantial volume of academic and popular literature dealing with this general subject. This […]

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Encircling Empire: Report #24—Regime Change

In this report, our first for 2014, the reader will find links and article extracts for a selection of some of the very best resources to have been published online, focusing on the topic of regime change, along with an extended essay on Imperialism and Democracy. Here we address the current cases of Venezuela and Ukraine, and […]

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Sochi, Sexuality, and Empire

Only When in Russia When were the last modern Olympic games that openly endorsed gay rights? Where were those Olympic games held? The short answer is: never, nowhere. However, suddenly, gay rights issues matter when deciding to attend the Olympics. Sochi, for reasons that are not altogether mysterious, now stands out as an exception being […]

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Distorting Theory and Misreading Society in Afghanistan

This is in response to M. Nazif Shahrani’s piece titled “The Taliban Enigma: Person-Centered Politics & Extremism in Afghanistan” published in ISIM Newsletter 6, October 2000, pp. 20-21. Crucial ethnographic details, structural principles and historical processes, especially those dealing with social inequality and political instability in contemporary Afghanistan, are misunderstood, garbled, and oversimplified by the […]

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Bradley Manning: The U.S. on Trial for War Crimes

The following statement by Julian Assange was first posted on the WikiLeaks website. In addition to this, please see the Bradley Manning Trial FAQ, the “Opening statements on Bradley Manning’s intentions: trial report, day 1” on the Bradley Manning support Network website, and “Bradley Manning’s personal statement to court martial: full text.” Assange Statement on the […]

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Drones and the Production of Terror in Afghanistan

In his “Drone Strikes” (Anthropology News, March/April 2013) Daniel Varisco softly counsels the raging and confused American warfare machine about the futility of its bloody military operations in the lands of the Others in pursuit of its sadomasochistic “war on terror”.  I partially agree with Daniel Varisco; yes, the acts of terror committed by the […]

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