Private security companies have been causing chaos in the country for years. It’s something I examined during my recent visit to the country and will be appearing in a book and documentary on disaster capitalism in 2013. Here’s just the latest example of of unregulated chaos (via UK Telegraph): The American military is investigating allegations…
Category General
What war feels like in Damascus
Understanding life in Damascus today is difficult. It’s a rare journalist who captures the mood.… Janine di Giovanni (who’s reported from the country before) has a new and devastating dispatch in the New York Times: Rifa was growing frantic. Her husband had called to say that he and her brother were stuck on their way home…
How the US lost in Afghanistan against a guerrilla movement
More than ten years after 9/11, it’s still little appreciated how America and its allies have lost two wars comprehensively, Iraq and Afghanistan (though a friend today said to me that the former was a success, with any number of oil contracts going to North American firms). Here’s Gareth Porter in IPS with some fascinating…
How “liberal media” covers all those war-mongering Western leaders. Oh wait…
A typically astute Medialens analysis: Liberal journalism is balanced, neutral and objective, except when it’s not. A BBC news report on Hugo Chavez’s latest election triumph in Venezuela… commented: ‘Mr Chavez said Venezuela would continue its march towards socialism… butalso vowed he would be a “better president”.’ (Our emphasis. The article was subsequently amended, although the ‘but’…
My chapter on Wikileaks in new book edited by Dr Helen Caldicott, “Loving this Planet”
I’ve been writing and speaking about Wikileaks since 2006, its year of inception. I support the group for its belief in transparency. There’s a new book just out, through The New Press in the US, that features a range of voices that discuss any number of issues, from climate change to nuclear weapons and US…
Rewarding failure; Australia keen to embrace G4S to “manage” refugees in PNG
What does it take for a corporation to be shunned? Clearly not massive failure, like G4S. The Australian government needs its head read but it shows that firms like G4S sell themselves as invaluable and “efficient” service providers: The Federal Government is looking to have the Manus Island immigration centre run by G4S, the same…
Challenging #firstworldproblems in Haiti
This is an interesting campaign and certainly eye-catching that makes a viewer uncomfortable. Perhaps for a place like Haiti, that I visited recently, we need to be shocked out of our inertia:
America is blind in Syria
The lead story in today’s New York Times is comical. Almost. What’s clear is how little Washington understands the Syrian revolution, who is fighting and why. Its intelligence is clearly suspect and hardline Islamists are being strengthened. America learns nothing from history.… Afghanistan in the 1980s, anybody? Most of the arms shipped at the behest of… Saudi…
America’s (almost) silent drone war and mainstream media largely ignoring civilian murders
America’s unrelenting drone war in Pakistan and elsewhere receives little accurate media coverage. The reality of civilians living in these areas are often ignored. Instead, we’re told “militants” are being killed. But who is really telling us this? A friend, Justin Randle, recently attended the Imran Khan anti-drone march in Pakistan (his report is here…
Haiti, in need of real support, faces shoddy aid “support” from US star
Most of the world’s media ignores Haiti. Too poor and too complex. The New York Times routinely frames the country as desperate with no interest in true independence. During my recent visit there I examined the reality behind the headlines, how multinationals and well-meaning souls are doing more harm than good. But now and then…