The following article is in this week’s Green Left Weekly newspaper: During recent protests in Villawood Detention Centre that followed the September 20 suicide of detained Fijian exile Josefa Rauluni, detainees who tried to help rooftop protesters with water and blankets were stopped by security. One man was bashed. Hunger strikers were kept quiet in…
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Disaster capitalism envelops us all
My following article appears in the Sydney Morning Herald today: Last year’s cessation of hostilities between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, after up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were murdered in the last months of the conflict, has heralded a Beijing-led invasion of the island. The authoritarian Rajapaksa regime was assisted by Chinese…
American priorities in Pakistan are keeping drones dry
This is pretty extraordinary (and therefore has received no mainstream media coverage). Feryal Ali Gauhar, Pakistani actress, filmmaker, writer and human rights activist, appears on Democracy Now! and reveals the real role of the US in Pakistan after the devastating floods: …But it is well known, if not acknowledged by—particularly by the state, that the…
Mercenaries are ripe for business
Leading private military contractor CACI were deeply involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal. In the world of America’s elite, the same company remains a key cyber-contractor in today’s new decade. CACI are like Blackwater; seemingly untouchable no matter how many alleged crimes they commit.
Scahill on the war on terror’s endless run
One of the finest independent, American journalists, Jeremy Scahill, spoke this week at the Centre for American Progress on Barack Obama, Wikileaks, Blackwater and the “war on terror”.
The Gulf of Mexico isn’t for public eyes
Here’s the future. A disaster happens. Public scrutiny is essential. Media must be allowed in. But who is really colluding here? BP, in a move destined to go down as one of the bestest public relations moves ever, has apparently hired a private security company to help to keep pesky reporters from covering the unfolding…
Scahill: embed ourselves with victims of US foreign policy
One of America’s finest journalists, Jeremy Scahill, has won this year’s Izzy Award, named after muckraking journalist I.F. Stone. He tells Alternet that independent reporting is more important than ever: I would define an independent journalist as someone that’s totally un-embedded when it comes to their relationship with the powerful. In other words, you don’t…
Analysis must not be a war casualty
My following article appears on ABC’s Unleashed: The Iraq war has virtually dropped off the media radar. The country remains far more dangerous than Afghanistan and yet Barack Obama’s “surge” against the Taliban and al-Qaeda is the biggest international story of the day. Even leading neo-conservative William Kristol writes in The Washington Post that Obama…
How to kill Arabs for fun with the US tax-payer
The New York Times continues its investigations of the rogue military contractor Blackwater, loved by the American establishment: Despite publicly breaking with an American private security company in Iraq, the State Department continues to award the company, formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them…