The New York Times bubble has helped Thomas Friedman for a very long time (like here). But his latest pronouncement from the mount maybe takes the cake: Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur,…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Seymour Hersh wants to take on power and be challenged on it
Leading American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, an enemy of sedentary reporters and lying governments, speaks to the New Statesman: Is it always a journalist’s duty to report the truth, even if it may damage innocents? I’m a total First Amendment Jeffersonian. It’s their job to keep it secret and my job to find it out…
The Jakarta Post: Changing people’s perceptions about Jews
The following feature by Desy Nurhayati appears in yesterday’s Jakarta Post: His recent visit to Aceh made Antony Loewenstein the first Jew that most people in the country’s devoutly Muslim province had ever met or engaged with. Some Acehnese he met were surprised to learn that the Jewish-Australian journalist, author of the controversial and best-selling…
Corporate press tells us that US military is nice and helpful
Time magazine issues a feature called, “The ’00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell“, but gives readers hope for the coming years ahead: We still have the world’s strongest military, which means we can and must lead in maintaining order and crafting peace. I’m sure the people of Palestine, Iraq, Afganistan and Pakistan…
No wonder the internet is thriving when MSM hacks have no clue
Remind me why we trust the corporate press again? Over to you, David Sirota in Salon: In the parlance of our times, the term “idiocracy” means a nation run by idiots — and the term “idiot” is defined by the dictionary as “an utterly foolish or senseless person” who exhibits “a mental age of less…
How the Israel lobby infects the brightest minds
Adam Shapiro, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and human rights activist, is currently working with the Free Gaza Movement. This is his latest article: One year ago, I watched election results coming in for Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, where my friend and colleague Tom Perriello was challenging incumbent Virgil Goode, Jr. CNN kept flipping the winner…
Right’s new radicals
My following book review appears today in Sydney’s Sun Herald newspaper: Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party Max Blumenthal (Nation Books, $49.95) Reviewed by Antony Loewenstein Christian fundamentalists have taken over the Republican Party. “It’s become the party of birthers, deathers and Civil War re-enacters,” Max Blumenthal told the Los Angeles Times…
Compassionate and anti-war, the sign of true leadership
A fine piece of analysis from leading Australian academic Damien Kingsbury published in Friday’s Crikey. Note the opposition to war, injection of nuance into the debate, avoidance of demonisation and clear moral purpose. In other words, vastly different to most “serious” academics and journalists parading themselves in the media. There’s always a war to support…
Silent but deadly US drone attacks are inspired by the Jewish state
I finally read Jane Mayer’s fascinating, recent piece in the New Yorker on Washington’s increasing reliance on Predator drones to kill “terrorists” and perceived enemies in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. I was struck by the constant references to Israel and the Jewish state’s influence on this insidious business: The advent of the Predator targeted-killing program…
Blackwater are essential to keep the Arab kill ratio up
The ongoing case of the US private military contractor Blackwater – covered extensively on this site here and here – continues. Note the seeming inability (or unwillingness, probably) of the US establishment to stop using an outfit charged with serious cases of murder and mismanagement: In the aftermath of the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in…