Translation

Michele Stoddard

26 articles

"Before our very eyes"

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 15 November 2012
The United States proclaims that it is a model for the rest of the world and wants to export by force its concept of democracy. Still, as with all empires, it is not itself a democracy. At the risk of sounding insolent, Thierry Meyssan compares its political system with that of Syria, the one it is attacking and attempting to overthrow.

"Before our very eyes"

The Sore Losers of the Syrian Crisis

by Thierry Meyssan

Beirut (Lebanon) | 1 November 2012
In 2010, France made the choice to breath new life into its colonial policy. This led her to instigate a regime change in the Ivory Coast and Libya, and to aim for the same result in Syria. But faced with the fiasco of the latter operation, Paris got carried away by the wave of events that she herself unleashed. After having armed and trained terrorist groups in Syria, the DGSE has now struck at the heart of the Lebanese capital.

"Before our very eyes"

Currently showing : the U.S. Election Spectacle

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 22 October 2012
Over the last 30 years, no U.S. presidential election has signalled a change in Washington’s foreign policy of Washington. Important decisions have been made outside this timeframe. It is quite obvious that the president is the superintendent of a policy of which he is not the architect. Will Yankee imperialism perform better under Obama’s or Romney’s smile?

"Before our very eyes"

NATO packs it in; Turkey on the verge of a nervous breakdown

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 16 October 2012
On October 8, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO) began maneuvers dubbed "Inviolable Fraternity" ("НЕРУШИМОЕ БРАТСТВО"). The scenario focuses on the deployment of a peace force in an imaginary country where international jihadists and terrorist organizations operate against a backdrop of ethnic and confessional divisions. The accredited diplomatic corps, which was invited to attend the exercises, listened attentively to the opening address of the deputy secretary general of the organization. (...)

"Before our very eyes"

Towards a Western retreat from Syria

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 9 October 2012
The Syria war drags on. Continuing it has become too expensive and too dangerous for its neighbors. Russia, which aims to re-establish itself in the Middle East, is trying to show the United States that it is in their best interest to allow Moscow to resolve the conflict.

"Before our very eyes"

U.N. Monologues

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 1 October 2012
Every year, for one week the world’s heads of state gather in New York to participate in the opening session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The reunion has, however, lost its functionally constructive dimension and has become instead a televised spectacle whose significant moments are watched by an audience surpassed in size only by the Olympics or the World Cup.
The most-awaited speech is that of the U.S. president, invited to take the floor after the Brazilian president (...)

"Before our very eyes"

The Powerplays behind "The Innocence of Muslims"

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 25 September 2012
Israel’s big ploy moves ahead in the shadow of the demonstrations and reactions to the film "The Innocence of Muslims." However, the appearance of Hezbollah on the scene has reversed the situation, which could prompt Tel Aviv to call off the operation.

"Before our very eyes"

Blasphemy as a tactic

by Thierry Meyssan

Tehran (Iran) | 17 September 2012
The dissemination of a video clip from the film "The Innocence of Muslims," depicting an offensive image of Islam, has sparked a wave of anger in the Arab world. For Thierry Meyssan, things are more complex than they might seem because the clip was first released in Arabic on YouTube and broadcast by the Salafist Egyptian Al Nasr TV channel. The film targets neither the U.S. nor the Muslim public, but only the Arab world. Its distribution was organized by the same people who also called for its prohibition. What lies behind this provocation?

"Before our very eyes"

Washington’s double-take at the Non-Aligned Movement revival

by Thierry Meyssan

Tehran (Iran) | 12 September 2012
The 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM ) took place in Teheran, from August 26 to August 31. Most of the Western media ignored the event. In their view, the Movement is of no importance. Yet, 120 states participated, representing the majority of the world’s population as well as the world’s economy. Are we really supposed to believe that all these delegations made the trip for no reason?
Historically, the Non-Aligned Movement created by Nasser, Nehru, Tito, Sukarno and Nkrumah in (...)

"Before our very eyes"

The Brahimi Plan

by Thierry Meyssan

29 August 2012
The Western press is saluting the audacity of Lakhdar Brahimi for having picked up the gauntlet by accepting to replace Kofi Annan as Special Representative of the Secretary Generals of both the United Nations and the Arab League in Syria. However, according to Thierry Meyssan, the truth of the matter is starkly different. Given the current failure of outright regime change in Damascus, this NATO confidence man has been entrusted with the task of unleashing all-out civil war in Syria.

"Before our very eyes"

France Falls Victim to Its Allegiance to the U.S.

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 21 August 2012
Most French people are primarily concerned about the economy and don’t see international issues as something that affects them directly. They deplore the submissiveness of their leaders to the United States, but have learned to live with it. However, as argued by Thierry Meyssan, it is precisely the choices made at the foreign policy level that determine the currently poor health of the French economy.

"Before our very eyes"

Syria is only a pretext

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 14 August 2012
The permanent representative of Russia, Vitaly I. Churkin, raises his hand to ban war against Syria (Security Council, July 19, 2012).
Over the past few weeks, the international diplomatic scene has been again taken over by the Syrian crisis. A double veto occurred in the U.N. Security Council, the General Assembly voted on a resolution and the special envoy of the Secretary General resigned. All this activity, counterproductive in diplomatic terms, harmonizes with other objectives than (...)

France According to François Hollande

by Thierry Meyssan

4 August 2012
François Hollande’s slogan has been "Change is Now!" Two months after his election, while he has broken with the style of his predecessor, the new French President is bent on pursuing identical policies. For Thierry Meyssan, this repudiation is the product of an ideology clearly revealed in the speeches of the new president, one of collaboration with the current-day Empire

"Before our very eyes"

The West and the glorification of terrorism

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 3 August 2012
This new column by Thierry Meyssan is devoted to the analysis and commentary of an official statement or of a topical issue. Paying attention to silence as much as to words, he has focused this week on the reversal of the Western doctrine toward terrorism.

Syrian Conflict Threatens to Degenerate into World War

Russian Warning Shots

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 11 June 2012
The nature of the Syrian crisis has changed. The process of destabilization that was to open the path for legal military intervention by the Atlantic Alliance has failed. Removing its mask, the United States has publicly announced the possibility of attacking Syria without the approval of the Security Council, as it also did in Kosovo. Washington must be pretending not to have noticed that the Russia of Vladimir Putin is not that of Boris Yeltsin. After being assured of Chinese support, Moscow literally fired two warning shots in the direction of Washington. The continuing violations of international law by NATO and the GCC threaten to unleash a global conflict.

Propaganda ploys

Syria: What the Security Council Said

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 6 June 2012
It is a classic propaganda technique to present a particular opinion as a consensually agreed-on truth such all that those who contest it are made to feel marginalized. Applying this mechanism to Syria, the press outlets of both the West and the Gulf falsely attribute to the UN all kinds of positions that it has never taken. In response to mail from readers, Thierry Meyssan traces these manipulations of vocabulary.

NATO glorifies its decline

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 2 June 2012
The 25th NATO summit ignored the nagging question which has haunted the Organization since the collapse of the Soviet Union: what is its real utility to the ensemble of its members, outside the United Kingdom and the U.S. Any questions concerning the massacre of 160,000 Libyans or a cessation of the attack on Syria having been disallowed, the heads of state were simply commanded to finance the military industrial complex of the U.S.

Post-Sarkozy : Revolt against the Euro and alliance with the BRICS?

by Alfredo Jalife-Rahme

Mexico City (Mexico) | 22 May 2012
For Alfredo Jalife, Nicolas Sarkozy’ascent to power in France has considerably weakened Europe and strengthened the Tel-Aviv-London-Washington axis. Now that a new geopolitical balance is forming around new gas delivery routes, will European nations be able to seize the opportunity emerging from these new alliances and will they resist the strategies being implemented by the Israeli-Anglo-American camp ?

The Art of War

Whose atrocities?

by Manlio Dinucci

Rome (Italy) | 16 May 2012
Since The end of WWII and the Nuremburg Trials, international justice and the denunciation of crimes against humanity have operated according to a double standard. The right of the strongest has functioned best for the U.S. and its allies which have accumulated crimes with complete impunity, all the while presenting themselves as the guarantors of human rights. International courts, organizations and the media, far from denouncing this state of affairs, support this “humanitarian” farce. Hence, for Manlio Dinucci, Obama’s newly-created Atrocities Prevention Board is just another tool for placing the humanitarian rubric at the service of warfare.

Market massacres

by Marco Revelli

13 May 2012
The sociobiologist and philosopher Henri Laborit once enunciated the hypothesis that human beings confronting oppression had only three choices: submission, struggle or flight. Within the frame of his sociobiological analysis, suicide constituted the most extreme form of flight. In the face of the programmed crisis being unleashed across Europe, may the victims of injustice never forget that the best antidote for the suffering engendered by any system is to combat it.

THE ART OF WAR

South Sudan: Realities and Fictions

by Manlio Dinucci

Rome (Italy) | 10 April 2012
The case of South Sudan is an exemplary illustration of the success of Israeli strategy in Africa. Relying on the armed forces of the United States, as in Iraq and Libya, the Hebrew state and its ally have been able to divide the country and thereby eject their most important commercial rival, China, from the part of Sudan richest in resources. Symbolically, the media promotion of this operation fell to the Hollywood actor, George Clooney, prodigal son and spokesperson for the marriage of convenience linking Israeli and American colonial interests.

SECOND "FRIENDS" OF SYRIA CONFERENCE IN ISTANBUL

The Syrian debacle

by Thierry Meyssan

Damascus (Syria) | 5 April 2012
With 83 states and intergovernmental organizations represented, the second "Friends" of Syria conference was a media success. Yet, all the glimmer and gloss cannot hide NATO’s and the GCC’s defeat in Syria, which after a year of low intensity war have failed to bring about regime change and are now compelled to retreat in the face of the Russian-Sino-Iranian front. Thierry Meyssan sheds light on this bizarre diplomatic conference where words were not used to communicate but to obfuscate.

THE ART OF WAR

The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa

by Manlio Dinucci

Rome (Italy) | 26 March 2012
The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa is one of two “commands” of AFRICOM, the new Unified Combatant Command of U.S. forces in Africa. Originally conceived by the Israeli-American Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, AFRICOM is the central command for the new ambitions of empire in Africa. The most recent illustration of this is the creation of the no-fly zone used in the conquest of Libya, allowing the United States to seize the oil resources of that country and the state of Israel to rid itself of its most serious rival on the African continent.

Alain Juppé accused by his own Administration of having falsified reports on Syria

22 March 2012
On 19 March 2012, a high French official invited Arab journalists based in Paris to inform them of the internal battle being waged within the French government and, in particular, the Quai d’Orsay [the French Foreign Ministry] regarding Syria. According to this person, the French Ambassador in Damascus, Eric Chevallier, whose embassy had just been shut down and who had returned to Paris, challenged Minister Juppé in front of his colleagues. He accused Alain Juppé of having ignored his embassy (...)

THE ART OF WAR

The Army’s new "diet"

by Manlio Dinucci

Rome (Italy) | 14 March 2012
Mario Monti, of Goldman Sachs, the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission and currently Prime Minister of Italy, has just announced that the Italian Army will go on a strict diet. In reality, he will maintain the costly investment program for U.S. F-35 fighter planes despite their design problems and has put forward strategic choices that reveal the true nature of the coming changes. Briefly put, the "Senator-for-life" is reorienting his defense policy toward future wars of aggression.

THE ART OF WAR

The privatization of war

by Manlio Dinucci

Rome (Italy) | 12 March 2012
Before being an economic doctrine, neoliberalism is a political project. Wherever it has extended its influence, even the armies have been put through the privatization grinder. As Manlio Dinucci explains, today’s wars are increasingly conducted by private companies and less and less by States. Since neoliberalism is based on the privatization of profits and the socialization of costs, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and in Libya proved very costly to the States, for little return. Wars in this neoliberal era are not necessarily waged to appropriate foreign resources, but to siphon the wealth of the conquered populations towards the private military sector of the conquering nations.