The idea that the Western powers want freedom and democracy in the Middle East is a joke that’s not lost on the Arabs living there. Adam Shatz, writing in the London Review of Books, outlines brilliantly today’s messy region: One evening in January at a hotel bar in Manhattan, I tried to ingratiate myself with…
Category General
Beware slam dunk “intelligence” over Syria
The rush to war against Syria is gathering pace. But beware slimy politicians offering certainties (or the Zionist lobby). The truth is murky. One of the finest dissenting US journalists is Gareth Porter. His latest is essential reading (via TruthOut): Secretary of State John Kerry assured the public that the Obama administration’s summary of the…
How vulture capitalism evolves in Afghanistan
A key theme in my new book Profits of Doom… are the ways in which corporations enrich themselves in times of war. Here’s the latest example, via the New York Times: Dollar for dollar, Mahmood Karzai may well hold the title for getting the least value out of his pricey American lawyers. Mr. Karzai, a brother…
Challenging US-led Dirty Wars
My book review appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Days after the Boston marathon bombings in April, the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reportedly told authorities that he and his brother, Tamerlan, watched online the sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born cleric who was killed by an American drone in Yemen in 2011. It was just…
Missing the biting wit of George Carlin skewering US men loving war
We need such comedians today, people unafraid to call bullshit on futile wars:
Right Now radio interview on Profits of Doom
The human rights group Right Now has strongly covered my new book Profits of Doom. I was interviewed on their radio station on Melbourne 3RRR on vulture capitalism and the dangers of outsourcing asylum seekers to private corporations:
Questioning an ever-increasing and corporatised aid budget
My following article appears in the Guardian today: I couldn’t believe my ears. I was in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby,… in 2012 and a local Oxfam employee told me that he wished Australia would again take control of his country. He argued that in the nearly four decades since independence, the state had not…
Right Now positively reviews Profits of Doom
The great publication Right Now (they recently published an extract from my new book, Profits of Doom, on Christmas Island) today publishes a strong book review by… Maya Chanthaphavong: The drive by governments to privatise what are usually key governmental functions, such as refugee processing and detention, reform and prison, and health care is one that…
Here we go again; another Western-led war in the Middle East
The Guardian’s Seumas Milne on the seemingly inevitable war against Syria: All the signs are they’re going to do it again. The attack on Syria now being planned by the US and its allies will be the ninth direct western military intervention in an Arab or Muslim country in 15 years. Depending how you cut…
Weekly reminder to assist my documentary on disaster capitalism
A week after launching my Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000 for my documentary with New York colleague Thor Neureiter, on the subject of disaster capitalism and Profits of Doom, we’re close to 30% of our target with many more pledges still to come, I’m told. Thanks for all your support thus far. But we have…