My following essay appears on the American website Mondoweiss today: The drive from East Jerusalem to Tel Aviv takes around one hour. It’s a stinking hot day and I’ve come from Ramallah in mid-August 2012. Despite flying into Ben Gurion airport in the morning I am stopped and initially refused entry by the Israeli border…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
How neo-Nazis infiltrate the US military
More on a fascinating upcoming book by Matt Kennard called, Irregular Army: How the U.S. Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror.
What everybody has done to Afghanistan (screw it up)
The legacy of 30 years of war in Afghanistan is profound. A recently released report of atrocities during the Soviet era highlights individuals currently in high positions of government. So much for accountability and thank you Western nations for ignoring such things when enabling these forces. And if you think the US-led occupation is coming…
Wikileaks documents know more about Afghan war than US military
Almost funny. This is what a floundering empire looks like (via Wired): Insurgencies are amongst the hardest conflicts to predict. Insurgents can be loosely organized, split into factions, and strike from out of nowhere. But now researchers have demonstrated that with enough data, you might actually predict where insurgent violence will strike next. The results,…
The US still doesn’t know who the Taliban are and have thankfully lost the Afghan war years ago
Via Wired: Since January 2011, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan claims it’s killed or captured over 100 insurgent “leaders.” Too bad it doesn’t have any clear idea what “leader” means. Any insurgent who commands another person apparently qualifies. And worse, by that criteria, Taliban and aligned insurgents have killed twice as many U.S. troops in…
Memo to Murdoch; Iraq was a disaster you led
Rupert’s tweet today: What was wrong with Iraq war? Sad dam Hussein evil major killer, etc. Execution another matter.. Afghan bad every way now. Perhaps if Murdoch actually read real news, he’d know that violence is escalating every day in Iraq.
Footage of my 2012 PEN Free Voices lecture
I was invited this year to give the 2012 Sydney PEN “Free Voices” lecture on free speech, censorship and war. It was delivered at the Sydney Writer’s Festival in May and in Melbourne in June. ABC published an extract recently. Film footage of the Sydney event is now available. May you be provoked: