After 9/11, the West invaded Afghanistan under the guise of eradicating terrorism and helping its poor people. Years later, this is our legacy: The Afghan government should release the approximately 400 women and girls imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The United States and other…
Showing all posts in June 2019
“Paper of record” still too keen to report US/Israeli view over Iran
Editor of the New York Times Jill Abramson claims her paper’s coverage on Israel and Iran is impartial and there’s no chance the “flawed” 2003 reporting over Iraq could happen again (via Politico): Q: What are the concerns and considerations you take into account when covering the tensions between Israel and Iran, especially in light…
Iran’s horrific death penalty poison
Amnesty International releases its 2012 report on executions globally and Guardian Films features one story from Iran about a lawyer who saves juveniles from the hangman:
One loaded British Tory who just happened to love Libyan rebels
This is how power works, a rare window into modern politics. If you thought the war in Libya was truly about liberating the Libyan people, 99% of players behind it had other ideas. Here’s the UK Telegraph: A major Tory donor whose oil firm was given government help to set up a supply deal in…
How Australia enjoys being a client state part 975432
The Washington Post explains how Canberra is desperate to help America maintain hegemony: The United States and Australia are planning a major expansion of military ties, including possible drone flights from a coral atoll in the Indian Ocean and increased U.S. naval access to Australian ports, as the Pentagon looks to shift its forces closer…
Hello America, my name is Australia and we’d love to help you isolate Wikileaks
Is there anything Canberra won’t do to please its Washington masters (hint: no)? New Matilda reveals just the latest episode: As Julian Assange tilts at the Senate, new laws have been passed that will make it harder for organisations like Wikileaks to operate legally – and there are more to come, writes Matthew da Silva…
Nothing to see here: world continues funding Israeli occupation
Amira Hass in Haaretz on the international community’s continual insistence to fund the Palestinians to remain occupied: Israel’s position in its periodic report to the donor-coordination group for the Palestinian Authority reminds one of the boy who kills his parents and then demands an orphan’s pension. Israel describes the failings of the Palestinian economy as…
Assessing the “only democracy in the Middle East”
A true democracy is a nation that respects the rights of all its citizens (or at least strives to). Israel is not that country. More evidence for the prosecution by Dimi Reider in the New York Review of Books: This should be a year in which Israeli democracy is much on display. Prime Minister Benjamin…
“Law of the jungle” for unregulated Pakistani security firms
The explosion of these companies post 9/11, increasingly operating in developing countries with little oversight, shows no sign of abating. Today’s Express Tribune in Pakistan confirms it (though the role of foreign mercenaries is yet another area requiring far more investigation): Private security guard companies continue to operate in a legal black hole, as key…
One more Western government far too keen to assist the private security industry
A worrying global trend sees Western officials increasingly working with unaccountable private security firms in the name of “efficiency”. Canada’s conservative government is joining in: This fall the Government of Canada will reintroduce… legislation that would expand the power of citizen’s arrest. In 2010 Bill C-60, as it was called, died on the order paper; this…