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Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq

Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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Last week's thread is here.

2.3K comments

  • Bengladesh was a color revolution by US oligarchs. These "students" leading the protests are dupes. They want an obvious US State dept asset Mohammed Yunus to rule. 84 year old founder of a bank.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus

    awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance.

    He first received a Fulbright Scholarship from the US State Department, then received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009

    , and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. In 2020, he also signed a letter from the National Endowment for Democracy

    In January 2008, Houston, Tex@$$ declared 14 January as "Muhammad Yunus Day"

    Education

    University of Dhaka (BA, MA) Vanderbilt University (PhD)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_family_of_organizations

    The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it began attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells.[1] In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.

    These ventures include the Social Advancement Fund (SAF), Grameen Trust, Grameen Telecom Trust, Grameen Fund, Grameen Communications, Grameen Shakti (Grameen Energy), Grameen Telecom, Grameen Shikkha (Grameen Education), Grameen Mothsho Foundation, Grameen Krishi Foundation, Grameen Baybosa Bikash (Grameen Business Development), Grameenphone, Grameen Software Limited, Grameen CyberNet Limited, Gonoshasthaya Grameen Textile Mills Limited, Grameen Capital Management Limited, Grameen Knitwear Limited, Grameen Mutual Fund One, Grameen Kalyan (Grameen Well-being), Grameen Shamogree (Grameen Products), Grameen Danone Foods (joint venture with Groupe Danone) and Grameen Uddog (Grameen Enterprise, owner of brand Grameen Check).[

    There's a bunch more but it ticks all the

    boxes.

    • yea its very sus, Yunus is a parasite. though they say its just the interim Government and that elections would be held within three months.

      Color revolution, I still don't think is the right categorization since the previous Government wasn't exactly anti-west. Though, I'm sure U.S. didn't like them getting close with China. The protests have been captured by the right-wing Islamists and U.S. aligned neoliberals.

      Edit: Microfinance was peak 2000s neoliberalism. Instead of local loan-sharks you have legalized formalized loan-sharks.

    • An interesting Vincent Bevins' point on "color revolutions" from his book "If we burn", is that it's usually incorrect to attribute too much to responsibility to the US for "planning" these kinds of events, however it's probably correct to assume that however this situation shakes out, it's ultimately likely to end up in America's favour because the united states is the only global actor with the resources and the will to intervene and take real advantage of these unstable situations.

      The empire doesn't just strike goals, it can also play defense, from the little I know about bangladesh it doesn't seem like a colour revolution where america just struck a goal by supporting protests that took down and opponent, but now that there are going to be real elections it's going to mobilize its means to play defense and certify that they don't lose out on this. Hopefully Bangladesh's proximity to China means the americans don't have too much free reign to do whatever they want.

      Seeing as the military stood down (for now) and now there are going to be elections I'm curious as to whether this will go like Egypt, with an already organized islamist organization (muslim brotherhood) defeating a divided unorganized left

      grandep

    • Grameen Bank

      my IMF anticommunist professor (no phd btw) was talking about this at length for a whole class. at the time I did not know the issue with this beyond the obvious that it looks like financialized bootstrap garbage

    • @Commiejones@hexbear.net

      Cynical tankies are always right. It was a color revolution led by idealist compradors like I said

      • Or the comparators were the only ones with their shit together enough to take power after the government collapsed under its own mistakes. If it was a color revolution why is it being mumbled about in the western press and not being celebrated and congratulated? The western press is burying it in Olympic drama not acting like it is a major win for FreedomandDemocracy™.

        I still don't see how throwing a color revolution would benefit usa. The old government was plenty friendly to them.

        The underlying conditions that lead to the protests were working conditions and wealth inequality even if the job quotas were the rallying point. I don't see how a american backed interim government is going to address that. More likely the new government is being put in place to insure western investors get their money out of the country. They are trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

        • The old government did not recognize Israel and was part of Belt and Road

          • The old government was a secularist party while most of the opposition parties are Islamist parties. A coup isn't likely to soften their line on israel.

            Everyone is part of BnR, australia (the nation paying bilions into usa's sub construction, in exchange for second dibs on any leftover retired subs) has BnR deals.

2290 comments