Former CNN and Time journalist, Australian Michael Ware, writes a devastating critique of the Iraq war from the inside, as a man who spent years reporting the apocalyptic insurgency that ravaged the war-torn nation. From the Lowy Interpreter: When insurgent leadership factions first offered peace terms, at least to my knowledge, it was to prevent…
Showing all posts tagged al-Qaeda
Obama’s drone policy so broad as to include every table tennis player in Michigan
I’m not exaggerating that much (via NBC): A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders”… of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no… intelligence… indicating they… are… engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S. The… 16-page memo,…
Reflections on #ZeroDarkThirty
Last night I saw the Oscar-nominated film, Zero Dark Thirty. It’s a brilliantly made work, brutal, passionate, eerie, exciting and compelling. It’s also a shameless piece of CIA propaganda. It opens on 9/11 and frames many of the successful and failed terror attacks since then as part of one, big al-Qaeda plot, which is dishonest.…
Obama’s vast, global scope of murdering “terrorists”
The Washington Post reports the largely hidden counter-terrorism policies of the Obama administration, without oversight, legal checks or balances and media scrutiny. There’s a word for this and it ain’t democracy. Part one: Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list…
Britain as the torture-endorsing nation
Fascinating new evidence in the Guardian: Within days of the 9/11 attacks on the US, the… CIA… told British intelligence officers of its plans to abduct… al-Qaida… suspects and fly them to secret prisons where they would be systematically abused. The meeting, at the British embassy in Washington, is disclosed in… a forthcoming book by the Guardian journalist Ian Cobain.…
Just what Africa needs; a US-funded, partly privatised military force
The LA Times reveals yet another Washington-led proxy war, this time in Africa. Privatised and essentially unaccountable, this is another example of the US never learning from history. Arming and training such a force will almost inevitably blow back on the West at some point: The soldiers stood at attention, rifles at their sides, as…
Deep inside Syrian rebel territory
In a time of war, great journalists are rare. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is a truly unique reporter. His recent dispatches from deep inside Yemen, including Al-Qaeda territory, were remarkable. Now he’s inside Syria, alongside rebel forces (his photos are here). Read him to understand what is happening inside a civil war: The column of eight rebel…
How do we define terrorism? Anybody who’s opposed to us
Medialens ask the questions most in the media aren’t: When is an act of terrorism not terrorism? When the victims are officially sanctioned state enemies. This was clear from the political and media response to the assassinations of senior ministers of the Syrian ”˜regime’. On 18 July, a… bomb attack… on the national security headquarters in Damascus…
Why Wikileaks and Julian Assange are essential for functioning of real democracy
Patrick Cockburn in the Independent is spot-on with his comments about Wikileaks. Many in the corporate media have degraded themselves with petty criticisms and jealousy: As Julian Assange evades arrest by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge to escape extradition to Sweden, and possibly the US, British commentators have targeted him with shrill…