Does embedding with the Taliban make a journalist a traitor?
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Time Out Sydney on blogging
My following article is published in this week’s Time Out Sydney magazine: In the years after September 11, 2001, I was constantly frustrated by the failure of the Western media to examine the real reasons behind the attacks. It was as if only a Western journalist’s filter was allowed to see the post 9/11 world.…
This is done in our name
Evan Knappenberger, who served one year in Iraq with the Army 4th Infantry Division, spoke last weekend in Portland, Oregon with other returned soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan: We are responsible as soldiers, we are murderers of over one million Iraqis. I participated in burglary, trespassing, knowledgeable negligence, criminal assault and battery, rape by association,…
Killing the liberated one by one
Seamus Milne, The Guardian, October 16: This is the conflict western politicians and media continue to urge their reluctant populations to support as a war for civilisation. In reality, it is a war of barbarity, whose contempt for the value of Afghan life has fuelled the very resistance that western military and political leaders are…
A funny kind of enemy
Zionist fanatic Joe Lieberman worries that Barack Obama may not have the “right stuff” to bomb Iran. This is supposed to be a serious politician talking about serious foreign affairs issues. Back in the real world: In an effort to help the United States counter al-Qaida after the 9/11 attack, Iran rounded up hundreds of…
Killing them all
No wonder the “liberation” of Afghanistan is going so swimmingly Up to 3,200 civilians have been killed in NATO and US action in Afghanistan since 2005 but compensation payouts have been far lower than in other global cases, according to research by a US professor.
Pull out right now
Daniel Flitton, The Age, October 7: The Federal Government is yet to convincingly explain why it opposed an open-ended war in Iraq but is willing to back a seemingly endless commitment in Afghanistan. The two conflicts are linked, at least in heated argument. Along with many opponents of the Iraq venture, Labor argues that the…
Get off their lands
Robert Fisk, on Democracy Now!, on the insidious role of the US in the Middle East: It was a baker in Baghdad who asked me this very obvious question. He said, “Why are you””–you” meaning Western military”–Why are you in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, French air base at Dushanbe running close as support for the British…
All Muslims are suspect
The following DVD is currently being distributed in newspapers across the US, warning citizens about the supposed dangers of militant Islam. It’s about as subtle as a sledge-hammer. Terrorism against civilians is a crime. Resistance to occupation is not, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine:
How to buy friends and make them hate you
The United States, protector of the civilised world: The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to rearm Iraq, Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies. and From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships,…