With one month until the Australian election, the issue of Iraq has been discussed only briefly in the campaign. After all, they’ve been over one million Iraqi deaths and millions of displaced refugees. There’s certainly no chance this kind of news will even enter the minds of our politicians (or the sheep-like journalists following their…
Showing all posts tagged Bush administration
The no-chance candidate
Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential hopeful, is probably the only mainstream candidate worth considering (and he has absolutely no chance of gaining the nomination.) Too “left”, too “extreme”, too reasonable. The Beltway commentators could never allow it. And besides, he’s calling for impeachment proceedings against the Bush administration. Oh, and he’s funny, too:
The never-ending ATM
Naomi Klein, Los Angeles Times, October 20: ”˜We didn’t want to get stuck with a lemon.” That’s what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said to a House committee last month. He was referring to the “virtual fence” planned for the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. If the entire project goes as badly as the…
Killing our own
Who said the Bush administration doesn’t like terrorists? Welcome to the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group more akin to a Islamist-Stalinist cult. As if more evidence was needed, the “war on terror” has never been about eradicating terrorism or spreading freedom and democracy. It’s simply about re-ordering the Middle East to better suit…
Waterboarders are us
My friend Mike Otterman is the author of the fine book, American Torture, detailing successive US administrations’ role in the use and development of torture against perceived “enemies.” Over the last month he’s been travelling around America talking to a variety of audiences about the direction Washington has taken the country since 9/11. Torture is…
Life (and death) above the law
My latest New Matilda column discusses the role of Blackwater in Iraq: Writer Naomi Klein calls Baghdad’s Green Zone ”˜a heavily armed Carnival Cruise ship parked in a sea of despair,’ and the tag fits. The fantasy, pushed by neo-conservatives and war profiteers alike, was that Iraq would be a free-market laboratory to spread the…