This is typical corporate media reporting on “our” wars. Ideologically embedded New York Times reporters in Washington DC are handed information from the White House and essentially write a press release for the Obama administration. Any mention of the huge role of private contractors in Afghanistan, a group that will continue to grow, like in…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
While Israel and its Western lobbyists push for war against Iran, some history
Robert Fisk explains (and mainstream journalists, including on ABC Radio’s AM this morning, who continually repeat White House and Tel Aviv propaganda against Tehran, should take note): Turning round a story is one of the most difficult tasks in journalism – and rarely more so than in the case of Iran. Iran, the dark revolutionary…
Would Iraq, still under Saddam, have embraced the Arab Spring?
With over one million Iraqis dead and millions displaced since the 2003 invasion, it’s a fascinating question asked in Foreign Policy… (though the idea of US military intervention is hardly an answer to anything, as history always shows): In a tumultuous year that witnessed the fall of Arab tyrants and the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, proponents…
Iraq, quasi independent, dares challenge mercenaries
Being a truly independent nation, which Iraq clearly is not post US occupation, would mean that foreign security forces and private contractors would have strict rules of operation. Supporters of this ever-growing global movement might not like it, but this could well be the beginning of something important for the failed nation; exercising real autonomy…
Thanks Tom Friedman for telling Egyptians what their revolution should be
The New York Times foreign affairs columnist is rightly ridiculed for pontificating as if he sees himself the spokesperson for America itself. What’s good for the US often seems to be his priority. He recently spoke in Cairo (in between interviewing Muslims he didn’t think the West should bomb, yet), and found some people less…
This is how our empire rolls; take resources and kill civilians
American imperialist arrogance is almost comical in its ineptitude. Invade Iraq, kill so many and still make off with the oil contracts. This piece in the Washington Post by John Tierman is that rare piece of remembrance of the mostly nameless civilians we kill in the name of freedom and democracy. And we wonder why…
Big Brother shouldn’t be listening but he does 24/7
When this kind of information circulates around the world… Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what. Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring…
Media wanted to back Iraq war (and the military merely helped the process)
Michael Hastings is one of America’s finest young journalists, an outsider who penetrates the system he’s paid to investigate. Unlike most hacks who love to be close to power and befriend those they’re supposed to critique, Hastings has a history of listening and reporting the reality behind the cretins and fools who run our criminal…
Iraqis should be thanking us for all we gave them (apart from mass death, of course)
“Most people don’t understand what they have been part of here,” said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. “We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them.” “It is pretty exciting,” said another…
Memo to blind Zionists; never-ending occupation is having a PR problem
Interesting piece in Salon that will be familiar to many of us but the key theme is that debate in the US over Israel/Palestine is shifting and the Israeli Foreign Ministry can’t dictate as much as before: Criticism of the special relationship, once rare, is now frequent.… Newsweek/Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan … has become a… regularsource… of attacks on…