We have been warned: When young dissidents in Egypt were organizing an election-monitoring project last fall, they discussed their plans over Skype, the popular Internet phone service, believing it to be secure. But someone else was listening in—Egypt’s security service. An internal memo from the “Electronic Penetration Department” even boasted it had intercepted one conversation…
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Evidence that world powers think always about oil
Confirmation: Of the 251,287 WikiLeaks documents McClatchy obtained, 23,927 of them — nearly one in 10 — reference oil. Gazprom alone is mentioned in 1,789. In the cables, U.S. diplomats can be found plotting ways to prevent state entities such as Gazprom from taking control of key petroleum facilities, pressing oil companies to adjust their…
Remembering the war against Tamils; accountability required
Sri Lanka remains a country talking about recovery after decades of war and yet Colombo refuses to accept responsibility for the crimes committed during the conflict. This recently Wikileaks document from May 2009 gives an insight into the final days of the civil war, when the lives of civilians were irrelevant to government forces (and…
What’s Australia’s real role in pursuing “war on terror” in Muslim world?
Back in November I broke a story that detailed covert Australian missions across the Middle East, mostly off the books and often skirting legality. Today’s piece in the Sydney Morning Herald by Rafael Epstein appears to add important points to the role Australia is playing alongside the US and Britain in these war zones but…
The West has much to learn post Bin Laden death
My following article appears in today’s ABC’s The Drum: The triumphalism after the American targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden is a sure sign that the US is incapable of understanding the significance of the painful years since September 11. We suffered and now you must, too. “I’ve never been so excited to see the…
Hizbollah ain’t a tumour for Arabs backing resistance
Lebanon is a fractured society partly controlled by Hizbollah. Many in the public back this reality and yet: Lebanon’s prime minister-designate Najib Mikati describes the powerful Hezbollah, whose backing was key to his nomination, as a “tumour,” in a 2008 US diplomatic cable revealed by a Lebanese daily on Tuesday. The billionaire businessman, who was…
The official, New York Times approved version of OBL’s death
Here it is: After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August. A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American…
In case it wasn’t clear; Australia is America’s bitch
Really: Australia secretly worked with the United States to weaken a key international treaty to ban cluster bombs, leaked US diplomatic cables show. Despite taking a high-profile stance against cluster munitions – condemned as the cause of large numbers of civilian casualties – Australia was privately prepared to pull out of international negotiations on a…
Read here to understand why US created hatred post 9/11
The recently released Wikileaks files on Guantanamo Bay showed a US empire arrogant on fear and power. But here’s an insight from Lawrence Wilkerson, retired Army colonel who served as Colin Powell’s right-hand at the State Department, that explains a lot. From a speech in 2009 on the “mosaic philosophy”: This philosophy held that it…
ABCTV News24 on human rights in China, Gitmo torture and Sri Lankan war crimes
I appeared last night on ABCTV News 24’s The Drum alongside ABC journalist Marius Benson and lobbyist Sue Cato (video here). While China, we learn via Wikileaks, ignores Australia’s supposed concerns for human rights, I asked if Prime Minister Julia Gillard actually cared about human rights as there had been no public comments from her…