I was asked by Osman Faruqi, editor of the University of New South Wales student newspaper Tharunka, to write a column: The role of the US hegemony is over. Washington no longer controls the world by charm and force. It’s a multipolar planet with countless centres of power. Wouldn’t this be something to celebrate? In…
Category General
Daily brutality in Syria’s Aleppo
Remarkable footage by German filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen for Britain’s Channel 4:
US-trained death squads in Iraq are our legacy
A remarkable documentary, by the Guardian and BBC Arabic, on the role of US-funded death squads in Iraq via torture skills honed in Latin America during the “dirty wars“. Powerful, explicit and brutal (though there are critics), such films are essential to challenge the spurious argument that the war was anything to do with freedom…
Radio Live in New Zealand on 10 year anniversary of Iraq war
The ten year anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq will leave the media agenda now. It should not. The country we invaded and occupied remains broken. I was interviewed this morning by New Zealand’s Radio Live about the conflict (starting at 19.52).
How anti-Semitism became normalised in the British Muslim community
Mehdi Hasan writes in the New Statesman about an issue that receives far too little coverage: Growing up, I always assumed that this obsession with “the Jews” was a hallmark of the “first-generation” immigrants from the subcontinent. In recent years, I’ve been depressed to discover that there are plenty of “second-generation” Muslim youths, born and…
What imperial cluelessness looks like in occupied Iraq
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…
ABCTV News24’s The Drum on Iraq, Palestine and media reforms
Last night I appeared on ABC TV’s The Drum (video here) on the 10th anniversary of the 2003 Iraq war. We discussed the appalling legacy of the Iraq invasion, the massive loss of life and continued chaos of the country. Accountability, in the political or media elites, is far and few between. I argued that…
The necessary reckoning for the Iraq war
Jeremy Scahill explains on MSNBC the American agenda in Iraq, from the early 1990s, was to destroy and control Iraq: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Lest we forget who led coalition of fools into Iraq
Today, the 10 year anniversary of the disastrous Iraq invasion, is time for reflection, anger and honesty. Too many politicians, journalists and war mongers want to forget. We should not allow it. Medialens is right: What was truly shocking in March 2003 was that Blair was able to weave this obvious web of deceit and…