Niqash reports: Iraqi maternity hospitals are seeing a new born trend: children given “neutral” names that don’t reveal their family’s religious or political affiliations. Because in Iraq, having the wrong name in the wrong place can still get you killed. On a Tuesday in mid-May the office at the entrance to the Salam Hospital in…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
What real war coverage should look like
This is remarkable. Returned US army vets giving back their medals of honour near this week’s NATO conference in Chicago. Powerful, poignant and the kind of voices almost never heard in the mainstream media. Much easier and safer to interview generals (hello ABC TV’s 7.30 last night) about a war in Afghanistan that they’ve ruined…
Thank you Saudi Arabia for expanding drone war in Yemen
That’s what a good, autocratic ally does for America; remain dictatorial while “fighting terrorism”. The New York Review of Books: The United States is quietly being drawn into an escalating conflict in Yemen. Following the discovery earlier this month of a new bomb plot aimed at American airliners, the US government has been aiming drones…
Complete lack of accountability in media and political class for backing war
It’s a theme I discuss in my chapter in the forthcoming book I’ve co-edited with Jeff Sparrow, Left Turn. Foreign Policy’s Steve Walt addresses it: I gave a lecture last night at the… Cape Ann Forum,… on the topic of America’s changing position in the world and what it might (should) mean for U.S. grand strategy. My…
Iraqi officials dare to call for independence from America
This is what you call a necessary attempt to assert sovereignty. One question; how many private contractors have been involved in this sordid process? The New York Times reveals an important American embarrassment and Iraqi assertion of independence: In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the…
Step by step, private companies must be held accountable for torture
Positive news: Today, a federal appellate court dismissed the appeals of two private military contractors who had argued they were immune from litigation when they engage in torture.… The corporate defendants, CACI and L-3, have argued that they should receive the same protections as the United States government and that, therefore, any of their wartime…
New Zealand radio interview about Wikileaks
I was interviewed last week by the independent program Earthwise. We discussed the importance of Wikileaks and its challenge to the mainstream media:
Are only multinationals with bad records able to continually secure contracts?
The global onslaught of vulture capitalists continues space: Giant US military-industrial company Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is in the running to win a slice of a controversial …£1.5 billion (US$2.43 billion) contract to transform the West Midlands and Surrey police forces in Britain, The (London) Times reported.… Hailed as the largest police privatization scheme…
Nobody said US war-making was smart; paying insurgents off who then attack us
No commentary required (and similar things are clearly happening in Afghanistan, I heard it discussed routinely during my recent visit there). Eli Lake reports for The Daily Beast: During the war in Iraq, battalion commanders were allocated packets of $100 bills and authorized to use them for anything from repairing a schoolhouse to paying off…
The vast, unprecedented web of American surveillance
We are being watched and monitored on a scale never seen in human history. National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney spoke to Democracy Now! last week and said that he… estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion “transactions” — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This probably includes copies of almost…