Tag: Terrorism

Praising Trump for Betraying Kurds?

Syrian Civil War Map

This week, a humanitarian crisis erupted in northern Syria, thanks to America’s autocrat Donald Trump and Turkey’s Regip Tayip Erdoğan, a tragedy which opponents to US interventions in sovereign affairs should take notice and register harsh opinions. Trump relinquished US interest in the region and Erdoğan swiftly capitalized on that decision.

Dave Lindorff is a principled progressive voice who has for years taken on the injustice, duplicity, and corruption of America’s duopolistic political system. He’s one of five fire-in-the-belly proprietors of the blog This Can’t Be Happening! that calls itself “a major destabilizing influence.” There he covers economics, politics, healthcare and environment. See his articles here.

His most recent, from October 8th, however, leaves much to be desired.
Headlined Sure Trump is ‘Betraying the Kurds!’ but What’s New about That? and subtitled “The US has a sordid history of betraying minority groups that do its fighting,” it praises Trump for pulling the US military forces from northern Syria, also known as Rojava, and not inserting them into any new wars (hmm, not even Yemen?). The article also appeared in CounterPunch this weekend, and so a lot of people have read it.

It’s true, we came close to the brink of peace with North Korea and haven’t (yet) attacked Venezuela, thanks, perhaps to The Donald, but pulling troops out of Syria has produced a nightmare there overnight, something that many predicted and Lindorff seems blind to.

Continue reading “Praising Trump for Betraying Kurds?”

Publishing Made Tedious: The Birthing of a Politically Incorrect Novel

The 2400 words that follow encapsulate three years of struggle to produce and publish a book into a somewhat coherent memoir. Should your interest start to flag as you skim through, don’t abandon ship; simply scroll to the end for a summation and a special offer.
~ Geoff Dutton

Once upon a time, when my life was in upheaval, in an urgent act of therapy I channeled my angst into a novel. It seemed necessary at the time, but as my situation improved my motivation ebbed and I abandoned it halfway through. Twenty years later, I began another one. It too was an act of therapy, but for society rather than myself. And because its topic—the threat of radical Islamic terrorism—was all over the news, I wanted it to be reality-driven, socially relevant, politically provocative, and an antidote to Islamophobia.

My unaccountable passion to tell that story and my determination to finish it drove me to write 120,000 words over 18 months and badger dozens of literary agents and publishers. After nine revisions, it weighed in at 105K words and just under 400 pages, a bit obese for a first novel as some literary types informed me. But it is what it is, I decided, and started peddling it again. Six months later—just a few days ago—it was published, but not as I had envisioned.

Let me tell you how all that went. Continue reading “Publishing Made Tedious: The Birthing of a Politically Incorrect Novel”

America 💖s Islamic Terrorists (abroad)

ISIS as Proxy US Mercenaries

By all accounts, wherever the Islamic State has gained and held territory, its residents suffer terrible oppression and deprivation. Unless you are on their wavelength, you most likely agree that ISIS rule has been calamitous for its subjects. Both Obama and Trump have pointed out their badass nature on numerous occasions, not so much in sympathy for those they oppress but to raise fear levels of ISIS-inspired badassery here at home. And yet, both regimes have actively, secretly, and materially supported the advance of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, fully aware of who they were and what they were up to. Say what? Isn’t “material support of terrorism” a Federal crime?

Continue reading “America 💖s Islamic Terrorists (abroad)”

Down Memory Lane with ISIS

My first foul whiff of the Islamic State came in June of 2014, when I sensed their gathering ominous presence in Syria and Iraq. Little did I know how bad they would make life for the people of those countries or how complicit my country was in facilitating their rise. True, some of my predictions were wrong; Iraq did not fall. But ISIS isn’t over yet. As long as it continues to make trouble, I’m sure the Trump regime will react stupidly, at great cost to taxpayers, and even greater cost to Middle East citizens and refugees. All it takes is for some sorry-ass immigrant to mow down a few people—as in lower Manhattan recently—for the government to amp up the fear level and intervene in more places they want to destroy in order to control. Continue reading “Down Memory Lane with ISIS”