Patrick Cockburn on al-Qaeda’s resurgence in Syria | PODCAST

Al-Qaeda is creating its most powerful stronghold ever in north-west Syria at a time when world attention is almost entirely focused on the impending defeat of Isis in the east of the country. It has established full control of Idlib province and of a vital Syrian-Turkish border crossing since July. “Idlib Province is the largest al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11,” says Brett McGurk, the senior US envoy to the international coalition fighting Isis.

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Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West

Some wars America remembers, some wars we work to forget. William Hogeland gives a dramatic telling of the war that we have never really talked about, despite being the war that made us the global military power we are today. The Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware communities were robbed and devastated by a conflict they in no way provoked―and defeated by an American general named Mad Anthony, conquering land that President George Washington had long coveted. It’s a harrowing story, brilliantly told, and a radical re-look at the ragged collective of colonies who fought for their own liberty and then, once getting it, set out on the warpath, an empire bent on taking its neighbors’ liberty away.

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The crisis of neoliberalism | Platypus

On February 18, 2017, as part of its third European Conference, the Platypus Affiliated Society organized a panel discussion, “The Crisis of Neoliberalism,” at the University of Vienna. The event brought together the following speakers: Chris Cutrone, President of Platypus; John Milios, former chief economic advisor of SYRIZA; Emmanuel Tomaselli, of the International Marxist Tendency; and Boris Kagarlitsky, of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements in Moscow. What follows is an edited transcript of their discussion.

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The YPG’s American in Syria | CHAPO TRAP HOUSE PODCAST

A very special, surprise episode: We make contact with YPG’s American in Syria, @PissPigGranddad. He talks to us about his current situation fighting ISIS with the men and women in the Kurdish forces, cannibalism, big changes coming under Trump, good dogs, and just how he ended up there in the first place.

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-82-war-is-heck-feat-pisspiggranddad-21317

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Acceptable Losses | Andrew Cockburn | WAR NERD PODCAST

In Washington, I asked an intelligence official in close touch with the Yemeni situation, who asked not to be named, what the Saudi plan had been at the outset. “Plan?” he replied in exasperated tones. “There was no plan. No plan at all. They just bombed anything and everything that looked like it might be a target. Trucks on a highway — that became a military convoy. Buildings, bridges, anything. When they did find a military target, they bombed it, and then went back and bombed it again.”

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The Druze | Podcast

The esoteric Druze sect sprang out of Shia Islam about a thousand years ago. Some scholars say they absorbed ideas from Sufism, Greek philosophy and from Gnosticism. Ideas like the ‘Word/ logos’ and the ‘Nous/ universal mind’ are familiar in their teaching, hence being disowned by many Muslims.

And like the ruling Alahwi sect in Syria, many Druze also believe in re-incarnation (human being to human being only)- which is certainly not your run-of-the-mill Islam.

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/sundaynights/201207/r976804_10645330.mp3

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/sundaynights/201208/r991344_10943990.mp3

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