Robert Fisk is right: Bin Laden got his just deserts – those who live by the sword tend to die by the sword – but did he get the “justice” that President Obama talked about? Many Arabs – and this theme was taken up by the Arab press, which spoke of his “execution” – thought…
Showing all posts tagged Barack Obama
The West has much to learn post Bin Laden death
My following article appears in today’s ABC’s The Drum: The triumphalism after the American targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden is a sure sign that the US is incapable of understanding the significance of the painful years since September 11. We suffered and now you must, too. “I’ve never been so excited to see the…
Obama’s Israelification of foreign policy
Killing “enemies” whenever and wherever you want. That’s the Israeli way. Leading American journalist Jeremy Scahill writes that the US President has accelerated covert methods in the last years in a futile effort to safeguard America. The opposite result is guaranteed: Both President Bush and President Obama have reserved the right for US forces to…
The official, New York Times approved version of OBL’s death
Here it is: After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August. A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American…
Hold the champagne, Bin Laden’s murder doesn’t remove Western occupation of Muslim lands
Time.com’s Tony Karon, one of the most perceptive journalists in the American mainstream, writes that the US killing of Osama Bin Laden is all about symbolism and will do nothing to help the Western position in the Arab world: Before leaving for a vacation in South Africa in December of 2001, my editor asked me…
Osama Bin Laden dead but “war on terror” ain’t going anywhere
Barack Obama has announced the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. So many questions, so few answers. Will his death really make a difference to the “war on terror”? Arguably not. Bin Laden has become a symbol, little more. Occupation of Muslim lands has only worsened since 9/11, so hatred of the…
We’re in Libya to (insert noble reason here)
Tariq Ali on the West’s gloriously clueless war in Libya: Libya is yet another case of selective vigilantism by the US and its attack dogs in the west. They can rely on the French as well. Sarkozy was desperate to do something. Unable to save his friend Ben Ali in Tunisia, he’s decided to help…
Obama appoints pro-war Petraeus to run thuggish CIA
This Washington Post story accurately reflects the kind of world Barack Obama both inherited and expanded; he ain’t no peace President: Gen. David H. Petraeus has served as commander in two wars launched by the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. If confirmed as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Petraeus…
What Wikileaks Gitmo files says about our Western “values”
My following article appears in today’s ABC The Drum: The Wikileaks-released Guantanamo Bay files provide an invaluable insight into the mindset of the US and its allies since September 11. An infrastructure of torture was implemented, a practice still defended by the US government today, to allegedly protect the homeland from future attack. The result…
Orwell is alive and well in Washington DC over Gitmo
Really: Anyone surfing the Internet this week is free to read leaked documents about the prisoners held by the American military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to print them out or e-mail them to friends. Except, that is, for the lawyers who represent the prisoners. On Monday, hours after WikiLeaks, The New York Times and other…