Imperialism & war

Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, is seeing an unprecedented surge of energy for her campaign in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Stein said donations to her campaign increased tenfold in the 24 hours after Sanders’ July 12 endorsement. Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, is seeing an unprecedented surge of energy for her campaign in the wake of Bernie Sanders' endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

British Labour Jeremy Corbyn's name should automatically be on the ballot paper in the Labour Party's leadership contest, the party's national executive committee (NEC) ruled on July 12.

The victory of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) in the June 23 referendum was the result of — and is intensifying — a huge right-wing anti-immigration campaign.

US soldier Chelsea Manning, jailed for handing over classified files to pro-transparency site WikiLeaks, was hospitalised, her attorney said on July 6. The comment came after media reports that Manning had attempted suicide. One of Manning's attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said she was outraged over the release of her client's confidential medical information to the media.

A truck bomb exploded in Baghdad on July 3, killing at least 292 people and wounding hundreds of others. The bombing, for which ISIS claimed responsibility, had the highest death toll of any terrorist bombing in Iraq since the US, Britain and Australia invaded the country in 2003.

President Barack Obama, calling Afghanistan's security situation precarious, said on July 6 he would keep US soldier levels in the country at 8400 through the end of his administration. He had pledged to cut soldier numbers to 5500 by the year's end. Obama's plan still calls for a cut in US soldier levels from the current roughly 9800.

Destruction wrought by Turkish state in Diyarbakır. Three-hundred-and-fifty thousand. That is the number of people displaced since the Kurdish-Turkish “resolution process” was interrupted by the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last year.

The release of the Chilcot Report on July 6 has led to renewed calls for former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in starting the Iraq War.

Tomas Young's War Mark Wilkerson Haymarket Books, 2006 225 pages, US$17.95 Tomas Young never even fired his weapon. He was gravely wounded on his fifth day in Iraq in 2004. What followed was a story of unimaginable grit, courage, love, inspiration — and tragedy.

The Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War has prompted calls for a similar inquiry into the Coalition government, then led by John Howard, taking Australia into war in 2003. Andrew Wilkie, the only intelligence official from the US, Britain or Australia to dispute the official explanation for the Iraq War, said on July 7 there should be an investigation into the Howard government's decision to go to war.

British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on July 6 that public opposition to the war in Iraq had been “vindicated” — and called on politicians who ignored pleas for peace to “face up to the consequences”.

For some people, it was impossible to believe that this day would come. Seven years after John Chilcot started to take evidence in a British inquiry into the Iraq War and 12 years after the previous inquiry into the war, many anti-war protesters could be forgiven for being sceptical about what the report would say. First impressions, announced over microphones and megaphones while being read from mobile phones, were met with a militant response. There was a sense of vindication for those of us who opposed the war from the outset and has renewed our determination.