Fascinating information, if true, by David Ignatius in the Washington Post: Among the last known images of Osama bin Laden is a video seized at his compound the night he was killed, which shows the al-Qaeda leader hunched before a television screen studying a video of himself. It’s testimony to bin Laden’s obsession with the…
What our media don’t tell us about the Middle East
Yet more fascinating insights from the recently released Wikileaks documents of Stratfor, published by Lebanon’s… Al Akhbar. One: US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see “how they can help in regime change,” the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email…
Echoes of Breivik cloud France and race-baiting media and politicians should look in mirror
After last year’s horrific massacre in Norway by Anders Breivik, an attempt to target the Left and multiculturalism, defenders of the status-quo said it was merely the act of a lone lunatic. The book, On Utoya (I wrote a chapter about the far-right’s increasing embrace of Israel) challenged this notion. Now with a horrible shooting…
MSM ignore it but past spin, AfPak war now about face saving for America
Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray cuts through the lies and unloads: UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s visit to Tashkent on 28 February was not covered in any UK mainstream media that I can find, which is peculiar, given the media’s obsession with covering anything to do with “Our heroes” in Afghanistan. It was…
Leading American Zionist calls for “Zionist BDS”
Something is stirring in the American, Jewish, liberal, Zionist heartland. Peter Beinart, former supporter of the Iraq war and tough Zionist, has become a very vocal and very public critic of occupying Israel. His “dream” is still to maintain so-called democratic Israel, an inherently undemocratic outcome for the countless Palestinians inside Israel, but this is…
Sri Lanka’s killing fields – unpunished war crimes
The latest in a series of stunning Channel 4 documentaries about war crimes in Sri Lanka (here’s the first part from last year):
What Israeli attack on Iran may bring
Gideon Levy in Haaretz on the real consequences of an Israeli strike against Iran (a message to be given to the litany of neo-cons and Zionist fanatics itching for war): Even the strongest supporters of an attack – whose numbers, scarily, are increasing – admit there is no chance that Iran will sit idly by,…
Who loves war? Corporations (so thank you America post 9/11)
Turning a profit from war is an old story, way before September 11, 2001, but the last decade has seen an explosion of companies making a killing from countless, Washington-led wars. This recent story in USA Today is a cracking yarn and reveals how deeply problematic is vulture capitalism: As the Pentagon has sought to…
South Africa understands oppression in Palestine
Via the Electronic Intifada: In a first ever musical collaboration between South Africa and Palestine, South African band, The Mavrix and Palestinian Oud player, Mohammed Omar, have released a music video called “The New Black.” The song is taken from The Mavrix’s upcoming album,… Pura Vida, set for release in June. The release of the song…
What we do to Afghans every week is terrorism
Michael Hastings: They say [the shooter] has a traumatic brain injury. But what we see on a weekly basis is”¦Afghans being killed. It happens because we have 100,000 troops in Khandahar who know that we’re leaving”¦ If he’s insane, he’s a symptom of an insane policy.