America, your perceived exceptionalism isn’t a view shared by millions of people who feel your freedom bombs dropping on their homes: Americans widely agree that the United States has a unique character because of its history and Constitution that sets it apart from other nations as the greatest in the world. This view, commonly referred…
Showing all posts tagged Barack Obama
Obama wants to keep suspects in jail for as long as he wants
If there are any illusions about Barack Obama, this should surely extinguish those forever: The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials. The draft order, a version of which was first considered…
David Hicks shows us what we became after 9/11
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney’s Sun Herald newspaper: AUTOBIOGRAPHY Guantanamo: My Journey David Hicks (William Heinemann, $49.95) Reviewed by Antony Loewenstein Almost 10 years after the Bush administration launched the ”˜”˜war on terror’’, the victims of the policy remain largely voiceless. The unknown number of civilians murdered by Western bombs have no…
Our wars are being controlled by somebody else
The massive expansion of privatised military forces since 9/11 is largely unreported. Death squads paid for by tax dollars. American journalist Tim Shorrock examines this huge expansion in the age of Obama. It’s a world that is so bloated and so reliant on endless American wars that it’s no wonder the arms and defence industries…
A disaster aka Afghanistan
The kind of letter that Western leaders need to read and appreciate. As the war in Afghanistan fails tragically, blood is on their hands for continuing to pursue imperial policies in a broken land: To the President of the United States: Mr. President, We have been engaged and working inside Afghanistan, some of us for…
US citizens need to realise Wikileaks significance
America under the Wikileaks spell: The reader response has been huge. Millions of page views. It’s divided between those focused on the phenomenon (WikiLeaks, our decision to report secret cables, the pursuit of Julian Assange) and those interested in the contents of the documents. The first camp outnumbers the second, and it is in turn…
Guess which two countries are most angry towards Wikileaks?
Watch the world laugh at American reactions to Wikileaks (and Australia is of course following our Washington masters step by step): For many Europeans, Washington’s fierce reaction to the flood of secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks displays imperial arrogance and hypocrisy, indicating a post-9/11 obsession with secrecy that contradicts American principles. While the Obama…
Wikileaks exposes the bromance between journalists and politics
My following article appears on ABC Unleashed today: Who can now say that the WikiLeaks cables detail no new information? It was only last week that ABC TV’s 7.30 Report featured a story with supposed foreign affairs experts, including the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove, who largely dismissed the significance of the document dump. Within a…
Google, Twitter et al on path to helping US imperialism
The introductory section of this recent essay in the London Review of Books paints a disturbing nexus between the US government and major web companies. They seem worryingly comfortable assisting US foreign policy goals. Putting a nice, sexy face to occupation. Beware: On a balmy evening in April 2009 Barham Salih, then deputy prime minister…