Causing mass carnage in Iraq? Oh, that was a shame: Former US President George W Bush still has “a sickening feeling” about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, US media report. The revelation comes in his memoir, “Decision Points”, to be published next week. He also reveals that he temporarily considered…
Why there cannot be a Zionist loyalty oath
The following statement was released on 31 October by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network: On October 10, 2010, the Israeli government proposed a bill obligating non-Jewish naturalized citizens to swear loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic state.” The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) deplores this attempt to demand recognition of Israel as a Jewish state…
Will the meaningful American Left please stand up and act now?
Chris Hedges on the “phantom left” in the US and its seeming inability to rally serious support for more than empty slogans: The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy.…
No transparency in Serco dealings with contractors
My following article, with Paul Farrell, appears today in Crikey: As we reported yesterday, private company Serco contracts out some of its security personnel to MSS Security, a company owned by an Indian security company with links to Lehmann Brothers.… By outsourcing to other companies, it’s possible for Serco to distance itself from criticism and in…
Serco and G4S can’t believe their luck in a brave new world
Britain’s future is a privatised world of guards managing and monitoring “undesirables”. Australia and much of the world is following suit. Company G4S may have lost a contract to remove asylum seekers from Britain but its employees will inevitably be working elsewhere soon, possibly doing this to people: A Zimbabwean asylum seeker whose deportation from…
Has the Left not explained why capitalism isn’t working well?
Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast that the DC Rally for Sanity was a failure, and the Left just doesn’t understand why: In his closing monologue, [John] Stewart did acknowledge that Americans have legitimate fears, but the thrust of the event was that Americans would soothe their rattled nerves if only the media and…
Rupert funds things that should raise an eyebrow
The Murdoch press lacking transparency? Hold the front page: The Fox Business Network focused on what it called “The War on Business” all last week, but on Tuesday its coverage was decidedly more focused — with a series of reports about a California ballot initiative that its parent company, the News Corporation, had spent $1.3…
Aussie Jews are desperate to become the best Zionists in the world
Australian Jews are overall regarded as being the Diaspora group most closely associated with Israel. Discuss.
Paper trail of Serco’s detention centre millions raises accountability questions
My following article, with journalist Paul Farrell, appears in today’s Crikey: The recent suicide at Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney again confirmed that the situation in Australia’s immigration detention centres has become critical. But what has remained largely unquestioned is the role of Serco, the British multinational that holds the $367 million contract to run…
When Israelis call their country “apartheid”, we’re in trouble
Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz: Israel is quickly defining the borders of the Arab autonomy and through apartheid legislation it is granting the Arab minority a legal standing of enclaves with lesser rights; of a cultural-ethnic region which, because it is being expelled from the broader who, can also demand international recognition for its unique standing.