Shameful: The Obama administration, which famously pledged to be the most transparent in American history, is pursuing an unexpectedly aggressive legal offensive against federal workers who leak secret information to expose wrongdoing, highlight national security threats or pursue a personal agenda. In just over two years since President Barack Obama took office, prosecutors have filed…
Showing all posts tagged Bush administration
Hypocrisy trumps policy in Western alliance with Libya
My following article appears today on ABC’s The Drum: The latest BBC interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, situated in a fancy restaurant on the Mediterranean, was painful to watch. Clearly delusional and blaming drug-addled youth and al-Qaeda for the ongoing revolution in his country (which he claimed he didn’t lead, the “masses” were in…
“This will be a war in part because we support the Israelis”
Hearing Michael Scheuer on the Colbert Report talking about al-Qaeda and its ilk hating America and the West because of our support of Arab “tyranny” and Israel is refreshing. And true:
West has rather liked Gaddafi for quite some time
These were the good old days; 2005: As it struggles to combat Islamic terrorist networks, the Bush administration has quietly built an intelligence alliance with Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, a onetime bitter enemy the U.S. had tried for years to isolate, topple or kill. Kadafi has helped the U.S. pursue Al Qaeda’s network in North…
Bush won’t be the last former leader who should watch where he travels
A small victory: George W Bush has had to call off a trip to Switzerland next weekend amid planned protests by human rights groups over the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and the threat of a warrant for his arrest. David Sherzer, a spokesman for the former US president, confirmed the move in an…
Wikileaks shows that Egypt/US cuddling achieved little positive
Wikileaks cables released this week show the real relationship between Washington and Cairo, a toxic brew of money, slight pressure, fear of Islamism and reliability. Who needed whom more? US diplomats and their masters never imagined a different Egypt because they never wanted it to happen. It suited America just fine. The real rights of…
Fatah, US and Israel all conspire to kill independence
It just gets worse and worse. But really, what can be expected when one side of a conflict is funded, armed and backed by the occupier? One: British intelligence helped draw up a secret plan for a wide-ranging crackdown on the Islamist movement Hamas which became a security blueprint for the Palestinian Authority, leaked documents…
Are we expecting Palestinians to thank us for building a dictatorship?
If any more evidence was required that Washington, no matter who runs the place, only acts towards Israel with uncritical affection, the Wikileaks cables confirm it: CounterPunch has accessed Wikileaks’ file of cables on Israel’s Gaza assault two years ago (Operation Cast Lead, December 27, 2008 through January 18, 2009). Though the cables often… simply…
Tunisia shows bankruptcy of US supporting brutes
Former long-time CIA officer Bruce Riedel wonders what the US should do in the Arab world in light of the upheavals in Tunisia. What about the people living in US-backed dictatorships across the region, or is the only concern how poor little Washington may handle it? Barack Obama’s challenge in Egypt will be to avoid…