Author: Eric Margolis

The Saudis have made themselves even more unpopular after decapitating or shooting  47 prisoners last week. Critics are calling them, “the white ISIS.” The men, Sunni and Shia, had been convicted of “terrorism,” belonging to al-Qaida, drug offenses, or membership in proscribed Shia groups. All but two of them were Saudi citizens. Most prominent among the victims was a well-known Shia cleric, Nimr al-Nimr whose crime, it seems, was having called for democratic elections in feudal Saudi Arabia and rights for its Shia minority, about 15% of the population. Last year, the Saudis executed 157 prisoners, mostly by cutting off … Continue reading →

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A striking example of how dangerously Americans are misinformed and misled by the war party was featured in a major article on 24 December, New York Times. In “Russia Rearms for a New Era,” the authors assert Russian military spending is growing  and has risen $11 billion from 2014 to 2015. Lurid maps and diagrams of weapons make it seem that Stalin’s 210-division Red Army is again on the march – and headed into Europe. A professor at Columbia’s Harriman Institute was actually quoted claiming that President Vladimir Putin is trying to “provoke the US and NATO into military action” … Continue reading →

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The French, who know much about intrigue, have a very useful expression, “an Italian scandal.” This means a scandal or plot that is so complex or tangled it defies understanding, and never gets solved. The death of 96-year old Masonic Grand Master Licio Gelli this week reopened the mystery of Italy’s greatest and most murky political scandals.  I’ve been following this wonderful case since the 1980’s.  Gelli, a lifelong Fascist, was what was known in the US as “one of our SOB’s.” As US Republicans hysterically warn of “terrorism,” it’s useful to look back to the Cold War years and … Continue reading →

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Recent attacks by ISIS sympathizers in Paris, London and San Bernardino, California, are not random acts of mindless violence and gory atrocities. Far from it, they are part of a well-developed strategy by the Islamic State, or ISIS, to draw the western powers into a far larger war in the Mideast.   They are being aided in this quest by the loud-mouthed right of American, British and French politics. They are drawing inspiration from the defeats of the Anglo-British army of Hicks Pasha in the Sudan in 1883  that was lured up the Nile then ambushed and swamped by 300,000 Dervish … Continue reading →

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Concentration of forces is the most basic  law of military science. Victory on the battlefield is won by amassing as many troops as possible at the key point of attack, or ‘schwerpunkt,’ as it’s known in German. Unfortunately, the amateur strategists in the White House seem to have been studying social anthropology and women’s issues instead of basic military science.  What they want is, to use the term coined by Russian poet Yevtuschenko, a half war. This week, Pentagon chief Ash Carter, announced the US  would send about 200 more special forces troops to Iraq and Syrian to fight the … Continue reading →

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Turn to page 214 in the book “War-making for Dummies.” You will find: “plan air operations right on your neighbor’s border, zig in and zag out, make rude gestures at enemy pilots, and shoot them down if you can.” On Tuesday this week, the inevitable air clash occurred on the Syrian-Turkish border west of Aleppo.  From what we know so far,  two Russian SU-24 bombers that had been pounding  anti-Damascus  forces on the border  briefly   intruded on Turkish airspace for all of  17 seconds. Turkish  F-16 fighters, clearly pre-positioned in the area,  pounced on the Russians and downed one Sukhoi … Continue reading →

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Last week’s massacre in Paris was not, as almost every writer mistakenly claimed, the worst atrocity in the City Of Light since World War II. As the renowned Mideast expert Robert Fisk quickly pointed out, an even worse atrocity occurred in Paris 54 years ago, on 17 October, 1961. Paris chief Maurice Papon, a former Vichy official, who had sent over 1,000 Jews to their deaths during the war, unleashed his brutal riot squads on 30,000 Arab demonstrators calling for the independence of Algeria from French colonial rule. In an orgy of killing, some 200 Algerians were killed.  Many were … Continue reading →

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On Friday the 13th, Paris, the City of Light, was plunged into darkness and fear. At least eight young jihadists, allegedly from the so-called  Islamic State group, attacked the national sports stadium, where President Francois Hollande was attending a soccer match with Germany’s foreign minister. They also attacked  outdoor cafes, a pizzeria and a rock club. As of this writing, 127 civilians were killed and dozens wounded.  All of the attackers are believed to have died.  For the second time this year, Paris is terror-struck and shaken to its foundation.  Pope Francis aptly described the attacks as “homicidal madness.”  What … Continue reading →

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Whoever bombed the Russian airliner that was destroyed over Sinai last week must be having a hearty laugh watching the ensuing chaotic reaction of the great powers. As of this writing, it increasingly appears that the Russian Metroliner A321-200  Airbus was indeed downed by an explosion.  Curiously, no traces of explosive residues have yet been found –or at least yet reported.  There remains the much smaller probability that the aircraft’s tail may have fallen off as the result of metal fatigue caused by a ground collision over a decade ago. Egypt, whose vital tourist industry has been battered this year … Continue reading →

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Russia and US warplanes are flying way too close to one another over Syria and may soon, in Iraq. Drones are all over the place. An accident is inevitable. Civilian airliners are increasingly at risk over the Mideast. US ground troops may enter Syria. This week the missile destroyer, USS Lassen, openly challenged the maritime exclusion zone drawn by China around its latest militarized atoll, Subi reef,  in the South China Sea – a sort of poor man’s aircraft carrier that hugely annoys Washington and its Asian allies. China is building other man-made islands by dredging submerged atolls.  Japan and … Continue reading →

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Toronto- I used to call Canada ‘the land that time forgot.’ While the rest of the world lurched from crisis to crisis, Canada remained peaceful, humane, prosperous, progressive and famously polite, a sort of North American Scandinavia. Polls showed that Canada, for all its blandness and low profile, was one of the world’s most respected nations. The ethos of Canada was to make nice to everyone, aid less fortunate nations, shine at the UN and make peace-keeping a national cause. That was, of course, until the old political order broke down after a series of scandals in Quebec. The Conservatives, … Continue reading →

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Turkey, once a pillar of Mideast stability, looks increasingly like a slow-motion truck crash.   What makes this crisis so tragic is that not very long ago Turkey was entering a new age of social harmony and economic development. Today, both are up in smoke as this week’s bloody bombing in Ankara that killed 99 people showed.  America’s ham-handed policies in the Mideast have set the entire region ablaze from Syria to South Sudan and Libya.  Turkey sits right on top of the huge mess, licked by the flames of nationalist and political conflagrations and now beset by 2 million Syrian … Continue reading →

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN – “We need a new name,” a senior official in Kazakhstan  told me.  “People keep confusing us with all the other crazy “stans.”  We are not like them. Quite right.  Compared to neighboring Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan is an island of tranquility and quiet development. Kazakhstan is the world’s 9th largest nation in size, some 2.7 million sq. kilometers, but has only a modest population of some 18 million people spread from the Caspian Sea in the west (from where Russia just launched missile strikes at Syria) to the border of China in the east.  … Continue reading →

Frankfurt, Germany –Could anyone in the Obama administration have been so slow-witted to imagine that Russia wouldn’t move hard to counter US efforts to overthrow Moscow’s  ally, Syria? The Syrian war began almost five years ago by the US, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia  to overthrow Syria’s Iranian and Russian-backed government. The result so far:  250,000 dead, 9.5 million refugees flooding Europe and  Syria shattered. This is nothing new: the first CIA coup attempt to overthrow a Syrian ruler Gen. Husni Zaim was in 1949. A combination of imperial hubris and ignorance has led Washington to believe it could overthrow … Continue reading →

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!”  So echoed the cry this week from the Pentagon, the US media and  Republican candidates for president. How silly.  It seems the Russians have sent six tanks to Syria, some medium artillery and a bunch of military technicians to two bases on Syria’s coast near Latakia.   According to Republican warmongers, the wicked Soviets…ooops, sorry, Russians…are intervening militarily in the five-year old Syrian War and planning new bases in the strategic Mideast nation. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.  The United States has about 800 bases and military installations around the … Continue reading →