Rania Khalek Dispatches from the Underclass

Tag / Syria

The population of the Palestinian refugee camp in Yarmouk, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, was once around 200,000 people. A brutal siege by the Syrian regime and an occupation by fighters from the al Qaida arm in Syria and the Islamic State dramatically reduced that number to 18,000 in March. Now, it is somewhere […]

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Crossposted from The Electronic Intifada During his 2014 address to the UN General Assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “fighting militant Islam is indivisible.” The Israeli prime minister’s crude attempts to conflate ISIS with Hamas should not be allowed to conceal an important truth: Israel aids the forces of “militant Islam” when it is considered opportune to do so. The most egregious example of […]

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/ October 21, 2014 / Comments Off on Podcast: Guantanamo Prisoner’s Attorney on Importance of Public Seeing Videos of His Forced-Feedings

Podcast: Guantanamo Prisoner’s Attorney on Importance of Public Seeing Videos of His Forced-Feedings

On this week’s episode of Unauthorized Disclosure Kevin Gosztola and I speak with Cori Crider of Reprieve about the ongoing torture of her client, Guantanamo prisoner Abu Wa’el Dhiab. During the discussion portion, we chat about the outrageous police violence and brave activism we witnessed in St. Louis during Ferguson October. (Download the episode here or subscribe for free on iTunes here). More details from […]

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/ October 5, 2014 / Comments Off on Podcast: ‘Ferguson October’ & How Community Continues to Stand Up to Police Aggression

Podcast: ‘Ferguson October’ & How Community Continues to Stand Up to Police Aggression

On this week’s episode of Unauthorized Disclosure Kevin Gozstola and I speak with Montague Simmons, the chair of the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) and founder of Hands Up United, about the latest developments in Ferguson, Missouri, where police continue to harass and arrests protesters and journalists in the aftermath of the execution of unarmed black […]

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/ September 21, 2014 / Comments Off on Podcast: As Congress Buys Into More War, CODEPINK Becomes the Conscience of America

Podcast: As Congress Buys Into More War, CODEPINK Becomes the Conscience of America

On this week’s episode of Unauthorized Disclosure Kevin Gozstola and I speak with retired Army colonel and former US diplomat Ann Wright of CODEPINK Women for Peace about the group’s protests against the Obama administration’s ISIS bombing campaign.  (Download the episode here or subscribe for free on iTunes here). More about the episode from Kevin: The […]

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For this week’s episode of Unauthorized Disclosure Kevin Gosztola and I spoke with artist and writer Molly Crabapple about her most recent piece, “Theater of Justice”, which is a scathing indictment of the American courtroom and trial process that you should absolutely go read. Molly writes that the courtroom is like a “violent theater.” “Most trials resemble […]

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“Chronic diseases have been the silent killer in the current crisis in Syria, taking the lives of an estimated 200,000 patients, much more than the 120,000 people killed by bombs, ballistic missiles and guns or the estimated 1,400 people killed by nerve gas,” writes Dr. M. Zaher Sahloul at Syria Deeply. The insanely high toll is […]

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As conditions continue to deteriorate for Syrian refugees, appeals for humanitarian aid are growing louder. Meanwhile, the countries most involved in fueling the violence inside Syria are the least willing to help alleviate the crisis. 

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Overwhelming public opposition to bombing Syria has been repeatedly attributed to the Iraq war by various media outlets. They’ve even come up with clever terms, like “Iraq fatigue” and “Iraq syndrome”, to describe the supposed illness that afflicts an overwhelming majority of the American public—because, it turns out, not wanting to drop bombs on people […]

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“All governments lie.” — I.F. Stone The mainstream media is at it again, uncritically regurgitating the vague and unverified claims of anonymous American intelligence officials who say that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has readied chemical weapons to use on his people. There’s no doubt that Assad, whose family has passed down authoritarian rule of Syria like […]

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