Antony Loewenstein

Robert Mugabe’s brutality in Zimbabwe has forced the opposition to boycott the election. Was there truly any choice?

The level of violence is real and worsening.

Be prepared to be sickened.

Advertising in the internet age:

$34 billion is being spent in 2009 on the Pentagon’s classified weapons purchases and development.

Something to make you sleep well at night.

Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, June 20:

After the unremitting hell that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, one can only feel relief and even joy at the ceasefire agreed between Hamas and the Jewish state that took effect this week. Its significance extends well beyond Gaza and opens new possibilities as the disastrous Bush Doctrine begins to lose influence.

Some have sought to exclusively blame Hamas for the high Palestinian death toll, saying that the rockets resistance fighters were firing into Israel were “useless” and “toys,” and gave Israel the excuse to “retaliate” implying that resistance itself was to blame for the occupier’s violence. But the fallacy of this claim is exposed by the fact that the absence of rockets fired from the West Bank and the renunciation of resistance by the US-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, has not spared Palestinian communities there from daily and escalating Israeli violence.

A US Marine emails blogger Andrew Sullivan about the use of torture in Iraq – he claims he never saw Americans do it but Iraqi troops was a different story altogether – and his feelings towards the occupied nation:

To tell you the absolute truth, I had many moments in Iraq when I could see the benefits of genocide, and I thought that maybe we just put the wrong people in the ovens. I came to really, viscerally hate Iraqis. Everytime we had a marine, soldier, or sailor hit I felt that way. But I recognize that as just a gut reaction to the frustrations of the moment. In the end, acting out of that kind of instinctive urge for revenge will derail an operation of the kind we are trying to bring off over there. You have to calm down and think rationally, and that is what I hope our countrymen do. Calm down, think about it. This is not who we are.

Take the conservative test from blogger Michelle Malkin.

(Yes, killing some enemy Ayrabs is a sign of real conservatism.)

Why George W. Bush has been a disaster for Israel.

One minute of Fox News (enough to last you for weeks):

Who is really assisting the killing of the world’s Third World population? Yes, the United Kingdom:

A controversial deal with Saudi Arabia catapulted Britain to the top of the world arms export league last year, as UK firms won a record £10bn in orders from overseas, official figures show.

The figure amounts to a third of all worldwide export orders for military equipment, ministers and arms companies reported. An essentially political, government-to-government contract – the sale of 72 Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft, for £4.4bn, to the Saudis – accounted for Britain’s number one position, the figures make clear.

Gordon Brown’s Britain, merchant of death.

The Associated Press and bloggers, an unhealthy relationship.

How Google, Yahoo and Microsoft assist censorship of the internet in China.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reveals the parlous state of world affairs:

At least 82 journalists fled their native countries under threat or harassment in the last 12 months, with more than half coming from conflict-ridden Iraq and Somalia, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in a new survey. The rate of journalists going into exile—about seven per month—is double the average that CPJ has recorded since it began compiling such data in 2001.

In the majority of cases, journalists literally ran for their lives. CPJ found that 51 journalists worldwide fled their homes after being assaulted, threatened with violence, or threatened with death. Severe harassment—such as police surveillance, repeated interrogations, and sporadic detentions—drove another 19 journalists to flee worldwide. The threat of imprisonment prompted 12 to seek exile.

This is even more reason why a new monument in London pays tribute to journalists killed in the line of duty. Ironic, isn’t it, that Iraq and Somalia, both nations with American occupation or meddling, are suffering the most?