In spite of the astronomical amounts of money being spent on Iraq’s reconstruction (i.e. to rebuild what the Americans blew up in the first place) it seems that when it comes to US government contracts, you don’t always get what you pay for While in previous cases, the administration admitted that certain projects had been…
Showing all posts in June 2019
Is Israel testing new weapons on Palestinians?
The strangest paradox of Israel has been the… contradiction between its obsession with military superiority while still maintaining a canard of vulnerability and victimhood. Reports of Israel using unconventional and chemical weapons in the occupied territories are nothing new, but new reports suggest a far more sinister class of weapon being tested by Israel on their…
What the walls really mean
It is no coincidence why large concrete walls are being erected in both the occupied territories and Baghdad.… Both are unmistakable monuments to failed societies. Whether for protection and security or to contain and imprison, walls are a symbol of failure – a failure to revel in freedom and embrace our common humanity: that is…
Postponing the inevitable
It’s hard to imagine how things could possibly be worse for the Bush Administration’s ambitions for a successful outcome in Iraq. On the trail of George Tenet’s revelations that there was no serious consideration of anything other than war in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, Senator Durbin, who sat on the Intelligence…
Those best laid plans (hatched in utopia)
Why did Bush… realy invade Iraq? According to former CIA director George Tenet’s new book, it was: “the administration’s largely unarticulated view that the democratic transformation of the Middle East through regime change in Iraq would be worth the price.” Oops. Well, at least the Americans have rallied support around Iran and caused unprecedented levels of…
What will changes bring?
Fidel Castro’s apparent return to a leadership role here in Cuba is the subject of much debate in the international press (usually from individuals who are keen for the old man to die, in the vain hope that a period of disaster-style capitalism would follow.) In fact, Cubans I’ve met are worried about a post-Castro…
Encouraging war is good for one’s career
The mainstream media did a sterling job of selling the war in Iraq to a frightened public. Very few journalists questioned government lies and military dishonesty. After all, if reporters don’t regard both these institutions as organs of disinformation, then perhaps they should work in North Korea (or the New York Times, the conservative blogosphere…
Making the case for attacking Iran
In spite of the fact that every rationale being drummed up for attacking Iran continues to fall flat on its face, it seems nothing will stop them from continuing to lie. For many countries, the threat of nuclear annihilation is a theoretical issue. For Israel, the threat of nuclear attack is real, palpable, a true…
Why is the US trying to break Somalia?
Somalia was actually on a road to peace, when the US decided to… introduce their own brand of chaos to the region.… They backed Ethiopian warlords to attack the country,… and presto, 300,000 refugees were produced overnight. US and Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia has hampered international efforts to bring peace to the war-torn country, an…
Kafkaesque case of Jose Padilla continues
The past five years of Jose Padilla’s life have epitomized a living hell. To say that his life has been ruined is an understatement. The Bush administration has leapt from one absurd accusation to the next completely undisturbed by the glaring inconsistencies of their case. The prosecution’s objective is the same now as it was…