Showing all posts in June 2019

This report in Murdoch’s Australian carries moral weight (a possible first for that paper): “Nobel Prize-winning author JM Coetzee yesterday launched a thinly veiled attack on Australia’s proposed anti-terrorism laws, likening the Howard Government’s controversial reforms to human rights abuses under apartheid in his native South Africa.” The suspension of law and order and imposed…

Britain’s Sunday Telegraph publishes an interesting report: “Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed. “The poll, undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks…

New York Times, October 23: “More than a month after the elections, nearly all provisional results have finally been released for Afghanistan’s Parliament and provincial assemblies, cementing a victory for Islamic conservatives and the jihad fighters involved in the wars of the past two decades.” An unsurprising result. And a government likely to become aggressive…

An Iranian blogger has been sentenced to one year in jail and 124 lashes. Committee to Protect Bloggers reports: “Omid was first arrested last year, confined for two months, including one in solitary confinement, and tortured, due to his blog which featured satire on the Iranian situation. “When he was brought to court on October…

LA Times, October 22: “A top U.S. official for aid to Iraq has accused the Bush administration of rushing unprepared into the 2003 invasion because of pressures from President Bush’s approaching reelection campaign. “Robin Raphel, the State Department’s coordinator for Iraq assistance, said that the invasion’s timing was driven by ‘clear political pressure,’ as well…

Or so says the US about Venezuela. And yet the Israeli arms industry cares little for diplomacy or morality, unless its hand is forced: “Israel cancelled a lucrative deal to upgrade Venezuelan warplanes under American pressure, Israeli media reports said Thursday. “Israel Television said Israel was to install its own systems in U.S.-made F-16 fighters…

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian is a shameless apologist for Israeli terror. Today, Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan continues the delusions and praises the Australian government for taking a brave stand for Israel at the UN: “The [Prime Minister John] Howard-[Foreign Minister Alexander] Downer duumvirate in Australian foreign policy has changed our position on the Middle East at…

The Bush administration and its various proxies have been arguing this point for years though increasing evidence suggests otherwise. I’m reminded of a comment by Noam Chomsky: “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.”

The Guardian’s Baghdad correspondent, Rory Carroll, recounts his harrowing kidnapping experience: “It was 2.15pm on Wednesday, and a moment I had dreaded since moving to Iraq nine months earlier had arrived: kidnap. A potential death sentence for Iraqi staff as well as the foreign correspondents who are the targets. Since hostages started having their heads…