After America withdraws most of its troops, the New York Times, a key paper that backed the invasion in 2003, editorialised yesterday and sounded contrite (a little, though no mention of the mainstream media’s drum-boat towards the conflict): America’s reputation has yet to fully recover from the horrors of Abu Ghraib. The country is still…
Showing all posts tagged Bush administration
America’s Gitmo problem
More than ten years after 9/11, the Obama administration remains determined to maintain flawed military trials for terror suspects but as this New York Times investigation reveals, housing people on the US mainland hasn’t caused the end of America: It is the other… Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away…
How Romania became key site for Washington’s torture plans
“Democratic” America post 9/11 (via Associated Press): In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect. For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed “Bright Light” — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable…
We don’t live in a democracy, repeat after me
Spot on, argues Roger D. Hodge in Harpers: The corruption of our institutions manifests itself in a variety of ways, but in none so dramatic as the imbalance of national wealth, which in recent decades has shattered records formerly set in the late 1920s. Although it is often claimed that the gap between rich and…
Condi Rice reassures world; Bush made space for Arab Spring
Yes, and Iraq is a liberated nation with peace and tranquility. Delusional: “The demise of repressive governments in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere during this year’s “Arab spring,” she says, stemmed in part from Bush’s “freedom agenda,” which promoted democracy in the Middle East. “The change in the conversation about the Middle East, where people now…
The out of control drone future
So this is where our supposed civilised world is heading. A disturbing piece in the weekend’s New York Times: At the Zhuhai air show in southeastern China last November, Chinese companies startled some Americans by unveiling 25 different models of remotely controlled aircraft and showing video animation of a missile-armed drone taking out an armored…
This is what American “reconstruction” looked like in Iraq
Former Foreign Service Officer at the US State Department, Peter Van Buren, has written a book about the disastrous Iraq invasion, of which he was a part. It’s an (almost) comical account of the gross ineptitude of the occupation and the massive amount of money wasted. Tax-payer money: Very few people outside the agricultural world…
What legitimate civil disobedience against a war criminal looks like
Bravo: On Monday 26 September, three members of Veterans For Peace and a member of Code Pink confronted Donald Rumsfeld at a Boston stop of his book tour. I attempted to make a citizen’s arrest. Police hustled all four of us out, while a hostile rightwing crowd shouted and jeered. To get in, we had…
Former NYT head admits backing for Iraq war because he wanted to be manly
The New York Times after 9/11 was notorious for consistently siding with the Bush administration, especially backing the Iraq war thanks to the stenography of Judith Miller. Bill Keller has just stepped down from his role as Executive Editor of the paper and writes this revealing essay about why he and many “liberals” embraced the…