Oriental Review

Who Bin Laden’s Skull Is Grinning At?

A decade since the terrorist attack that shook the US on September 11, 2001, we are at the point where it is appropriate to revisit the lessons the world learned from the drama and to reassess its global impact. Instead of ending with some kind of a result that could be offered as its justification, [...]

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US War on Terror: Provocations, Mystifications, and Illusory Feats

A decade ago, the World Trade Center was destroyed in “a terrorist attack” on September 11 in New York. Contrary to all efforts made by the Empire’s propaganda and (dis)information machine, the belief in the complicity of hawks from G. Bush’s Administration in the whole story did not recede from public discourse but, instead, gained [...]

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Shifting Contours in the New Great Game after Abbotabad

The Abbotabad episode leading to the end of bin Laden will impact the geopolitics of the Af-Pak region and beyond in more than one way. The post-Abbotabad developments have brought into picture more intensely the widening fissures in the so called strategic partnership between the US and Pakistan. It has almost sent the relations into [...]

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Disposable and Expendable

Disposable: Osama As more ‘facts’ emerge about the assassination of Osama bin Laden, one thing is clear: that there has been active collaboration between the Empire and the media in suppressing the true nature of the events surrounding bin Laden’s death… [1]. For starters, are we to believe that the army of corporate media mavens [...]

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Time to Bring Warriors Home

The party is over. With the excitement in the United States over the killing of Osama bin Laden showing signs of slackening, serious political stocktaking has begun. The United States Congress has held hearings. The USA Today reported from Washington, “The death of the terror network’s leader and an intensified debate about how to cut [...]

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In Wake of Bin Laden Killing: US Targets American Citizen in Yemen

Barely five days after the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the US launched a Predator drone strike aimed at assassinating an American citizen in Yemen. The May 5 drone attack, which took place in Yemen’s Shabwa province, was planned as a targeted assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born Islamic cleric with US [...]

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America Needs Osama Again

The situation of the West, especially of the United States, has been getting worse on the world scene in recent weeks. The United States has been swept by the most powerful demonstrations of protest since early this century, with socio-economic demands chanted together with the slogan: “Down with the Dictatorship of Oligarchy!” Unrest in the [...]

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What Really Happened In Abbotabad

The White House claims Navy seals carried out an operation and killed Osama bin Laden. But basically there is no fact to back this claim. Let us go over the known facts from residents and the non-US media. During the night, there was an electric power cut. Helicopters were heard moving very low. Gun fire [...]

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Obama Killed Osama

The spontaneous celebrations of the assassination of Osama bin Laden that are spilling across the US reflect the extent to which the American society was traumatized by the September 11 drama. In the aftermath of media reports of the killing of “the number one terrorist” along with his innocent relatives, crowds are rejoicing noisily in [...]

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The War on Terror Is Over?

We have already noted at the mayhem of 2011 Middle East-North Africa protests that Muammar Gaddafi fighting pro-Al-Qaeda Islamists is now replacing Ben Laden as incarnation of ‘absolute Evil’ in mainstream media. On May 1, 2011 we got a logical consequence of this political trend: President Obama has declared Osama dead. Just imagine how the [...]

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Al-Qaeda Is Crippled, Forget It

Evgeny Kirsanov (Russia) CIA Director Leon Panetta recently issued a public statement saying that American intelligence has managed to inflict serious damage on the Al Qaeda hierarchy and has reduced its capabilities to their lowest level in its history. He said that Al Qaeda has been transformed into a poorly organized, fragmented body that has [...]

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