Just what the Middle East needs; more meddling in its affairs, because the current state of the region shows a wonderfully happy place. Only in America could “stability” be defined as backing Zionist occupation and Arab dictatorships: There’s a raging debate on Capitol Hill surrounding huge cuts to foreign aid funding proposed in the House…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
What New Delhi can learn from Cairo
My following article is published by leading Indian magazine Tehelka: The Middle East is the region where global empires lavishly exercise their chequebook. Since the Second World War, America has bribed, cajoled and backed autocratic regimes in the name of stability. Israel, self-described as the only democracy in the area, has been insulated from the…
Who says Abu Ghraib is bad for business?
Private contractor CACI provided some of the torturers at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. So it therefore makes sense, following the rules of crony capitalism, that a rebounding economy is suiting CACI just fine: CACI, an Arlington County-based defense contractor, hired 3,500 people in its last fiscal year and plans 4,000 hires this year. It has…
Wikileaks: Not all leaks are created equal
My following essay appears today in Online Opinion: The Obama administration is pursuing Wikileaks and its Australian founder Julian Assange for alleged criminal activity in releasing classified documents. The US Department of Justice has ordered Twitter to hand over private messages sent by parties close to Wikileaks and the whistle-blower website says that even the…
America isn’t leaving Iraq for years to come
Don’t believe the political and media hype that Washington is on its way out. Quite the opposite, explains private military contractor writer David Isenberg: You thought private security and military contractors were downsizing in Iraq? Think again. On February 1 the… Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report “Iraq: The Transition from a Military Mission…
American propaganda watch
It must be seeping into the water: The American Museum of History, on the Mall in Washington, DC: One of the popular exhibitions in recent years was “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War”. This included a tribute to the “exceptional Americans [who] saved a million lives” in Vietnam, where they were “determined to stop…
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…
Don’t forget every “expert” who embraced Mubarak and his kind
The embedded journalists, writers, commentators and think-tankers who spend their hours urging “moderate” regimes in the Middle East – namely Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others – never cared too much about the democratic aspirations of the Arab people themselves. Too messy, too inconvenient. And as long as Israel was happy, well, Washington (and…
People of Gaza and Egypt need freedom from our thug
Burn, baby, burn. Israel and America are scurrying for some kind of response to the Egyptian uprising. The poor lambs. What on earth will they do if a compliant dictatorship actually falls? For example, the siege on Gaza may well be about to change. I hope. And so do the people of Gaza. They deserve…
Watch the emotional power of whipping Mubarak
Two very clever tweets from Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker. One: Israel’s analysis of Egypt is looking like the biggest intelligence failure since Iraqi WMD Two: Israel should henceforth be referred to as “the only democracy in the Middle East that supports dictators”