The Israeli group Breaking the Silence recently released a report about alleged crimes by IDF officers during the Gaza war. The response from many in Israel was to attack the messenger rather than examining the charges. Benjamin Netanyahu continued this onslaught during his visit to London: “They are breaking their silence about the only democracy…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Bloody ungrateful Iraqis
Conservative, Republican blog Powerline offers this nuanced analysis of America’s wars: But the future of Iraq doesn’t look at all bright now that the Americans are fading from the scene. It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing to be done. The Iraqi government wants us out, the American government wants to get out, and the Iraqi and…
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…
US aims to convince Muslims that killing them is for their own good
Barack Obama films a Ramadan message and tells the Muslim world that he cares deeply about Pakistan, Afghanistan and a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet again, this is effective PR dressed up as policy. Muslims across the globel aren’t going to be seduced by pretty words from the US President when Israel…
Killing white South Africans was fine with me
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the BBC: Yes, there are circumstances in which it [terrorism] is justifiable, and yes, there are circumstances in which it is effective. The importance for me is that the Israel example proved something remarkable: the apartheid regime looked like a regime that would last for ever and it was…
Afghanistan: just like Israel?
This Washington Post article outlines the cluster-fuck that is Afghanistan. No real plan, no real direction, lives being lost for no reason, a fundamentally corrupt, US-backed government and a nation that always beats occupiers. Barack Obama, the same old tune. But then this: “We are looking at two decades of supplying a few billion a…
Get out of Afghanistan and soon
Support for the war in Afghanistan is diving in the US. The general public is often more switched-on about futile wars than our docile politicians and media elite.
The price for Western crimes always ignored
I concur with leading Australia international relations expert Scott Burchill: Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, one of the men charged this week [in Australia] with preparing a terrorist act, told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday he was not a terrorist and accused Australian troops of killing innocent people overseas. “You call me a terrorist but I’ve…
The price of living in a post 9/11 world
An incredible interview with parents of the “American Taliban”, John Walker Lindh.
Evil gone, reports serious journalist
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has spent the last while hanging out with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concludes the following: After spending a week traveling the frontline of the “war on terrorism” — from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan in the seas off Iran, to…