Nick Turse Mr. Turse is a Columbia University graduate student completing a dissertation on American war crimes during the Vietnam War. On October 19, 2003, the Ohio-based newspaper the Toledo Blade launched a four-day series of investigative reports exposing a string of atrocities by an elite, volunteer, 45-man “Tiger Force” unit of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division over… Read More The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of
First posted December 27, 2016 NB: An interesting obituary to a great intellectual. My knowledge of the situation is limited, but as regards this article, I’m uncomfortable with the argument that there should be no objection to the participation of communal parties in a democratic alliance. My views on this are conditioned by the history of religion-based mobilisations in… Read More Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime
To accept that the spectacle about to be staged in Ayodhya can be extricated from politics is to sanctify the falsification of our living memory KAPIL KOMIREDDI There is no ritual that can sanitise the genesis of the temple that will be consecrated in Ayodhya on 22 January. It exists because the house of worship… Read More Ayodhya event not about Ram, but coronates Hindutva as state religion
First posted June 30, 2015 The Old Astronomer to His Pupil Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of howWe are working to completion, working on from then to… Read More The Old Astronomer to His Pupil / Stunning New Footage Of Earth
Titled “Ayodhya: Where Divinity Meets Modernity,” the full-page colour ad that the Uttar Pradesh government put out in newspapers recently made me pause. Beneath the photos of the model Rama temple and of the CM of UP and the PM, the verbose ad claimed that the “double engine government” was “restoring” the “glory” of “the… Read More Chandan Gowda: Two Kinds of Hindus
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, held public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case South Africa v. Israel on 11 and 12 January 2024, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court.… Read More South Africa’s case against Israel’s ‘genocidal conduct’ at UN Court of Justice / Worldwide demonstrations in support of Palestine
NB: An introduction to this event was first posted on March 30, 2012 on my older blog; and reposted on November 26, 2022, as Another Time, Another Mosque. Readers may refer to it for the historical background which provided the impulse for this fast (Gandhi called it his yagnya, or sacrifice). It lasted till January… Read More Mahatma Gandhi’s last fast against hatred and violence began on January 13, 1948
Bharat Bhushan India-Maldives Row – Coercive diplomacy often backfires The Right-wing ecosystem, created and nurtured by the ruling BJP, has taken over, setting Indian diplomacy on a collision course with that of the tiny island nation Unless there was a deep-rooted controversy which ordinary mortals cannot fathom, it may not have been Prime Minister Modi’s intention to… Read More Old man at sea: The Maldives imbroglio
‘There are no innocent civilians in this area’: Capt. Ernest Medina officer commanding the units that entered My Lai village; the day before the murder of 350 to 500 Vietnamese civilians on March 15, 1968 ‘There are no innocent civilians in Gaza’: Israeli President Isaac Herzog, October 13, 2023 By Simeon Man March 16 marks… Read More ‘No innocent civilians’: the Violent Legacies of the U.S. War in Vietnam
Leading press freedom groups and human rights organisations have called on Joe Biden to do more to pressure Israel to “abide by international law” amid accusations that its military is targeting journalists in the Gaza war, and to hold it to account for the killings of reporters. The Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House… Read More Press freedom groups urge Biden to hold Israel accountable for killings of journalists
After the truth-shower 