It’s like Iraq’s Oil for Food program all over again. This New York Times article is fascinating yet one wonders if any examples can be given of the corporate world not colluding with dictatorships in the name of making profits: The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other…
Showing all posts tagged Bush administration
Violence is a means and an end: an interview with Mark Danner
My latest article for New Matilda is an interview with leading American reporter Mark Danner: Leading US journalist Mark Danner calls a spade a spade and examines the political value of violence in this exclusive interview with Antony Loewenstein Mark Danner has some unusual characteristics for a mainstream US journalist. He has published in some…
Bush administration kindly asked soldiers not to kill innocents in Iraq
America, an army politely instructed to avoid massacres: A 2003 handbook for the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq exhorts soldiers to “Do your best to prevent war crimes” and warns that “when an Arab is confronted by criticism, you can expect him to react by interpreting the facts to suit himself or flatly denying…
The brutality of American exceptionalism
Former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo continues to be verbally attacked in the US. Imagine if this information emerged from any other country. The outrage would be utterly justified: The chief author of the Bush administration’s “torture memo” told Justice Department investigators that the president’s war-making authority was so broad that he had the constitutional…
Standing up peacefully against the tyranny of torture
There appears to be a recent surge in the US for civil disobedience against alleged war criminals. Recently the Israeli ambassador Michael Oren was heckled. And now another wonderful example of action against Bush administration lawyer John Yoo who is accused of finding creative legal ways to authorise torture:
Is anybody taking America seriously in the Middle East?
Barack Obama has behaved in the Middle East exactly like his predecessor, George W. Bush. Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas is right: Barack Obama does have a foreign policy. It’s called war. But wait, pleads Hillary Clinton, we’re trying so damn hard: Call it Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Keep Hope Alive” tour. The secretary of…
Over one million killed in Iraq but let’s not focus on details, writes Murdoch editorial
Unsure what to really think of the Iraq war? Let Murdoch’s Australian guide you through the complexity: Tony Blair was called a murderer on Friday by outraged activists after his evidence before the Chilcot inquiry into the origins of the war to remove Saddam Hussein. It is the sort of foolish sloganising that always characterised…
American arms despots, hopes for peace and good outcomes
This is the wonderfully concise, humane and sensible approach by the Obama administration to bring peace to the Middle East; more weapons: The Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid…
Shock! Horror! Former Bush official sees anti-Semites everywhere
The former senior Bush official, Elliot Abrams, is given a friendly interview by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. I guess it’s too much to expect that Abrams will be challenged on his utter failure over the last eight years to pursue peace and the resultant declining position of Israel. When asked about the boycott, divestment and…
Obama is like Bush is like Clinton is like Bush
The status-quo lives on: President Barack Obama says his administration overestimated its ability to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians to resume meaningful peace talks. Obama says both parties have been unwilling to make the bold gestures needed to move the process forward. If the U.S. had anticipated that earlier, Obama says he might not have…