Is the British rule that massive aid to poor countries can mostly come after a disastrous Western invasion and occupation? Britain is to double to …£3.8bn the amount of aid money spent on war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, raising fears among charities that national security priorities will determine development spending. As David Cameron warned that…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Assange; the importance of making powerful enemies
In the annual “50 People Who Matter 2010” for New Statesman, John Pilger endorses Julian Assange and Wikileaks; guts that matters and so necessary: The arrival of WikiLeaks is one of the most exciting developments in the enduring struggle of ordinary people for the right to call secret power to account. This is what journalism…
Moving forward? Australia’s relationship with Israel is dire
My following lead essay appears in the Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings: I first discovered the importance of the Israel/Palestine conflict in my early teens, in Melbourne. I remember sitting around the Sabbath table with my parents and cousins, discussing the events of the week as we consumed schnitzels, soggy vegetables and chicken soup.…
Outsourcing detention centres open to mental and physical abuse
The following article is in this week’s Green Left Weekly newspaper: During recent protests in Villawood Detention Centre that followed the September 20 suicide of detained Fijian exile Josefa Rauluni, detainees who tried to help rooftop protesters with water and blankets were stopped by security. One man was bashed. Hunger strikers were kept quiet in…
Australia may have followed Julian Assange into the toilet
Exposing state crimes in the “war on terror” comes with a price. And don’t expect governments to protect you: Australian spy agencies may have monitored the WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange, and the Attorney-General would welcome prosecution of the group’s members if offences could be proved. The new claims come less than three weeks before the…
Hello my name is Barack and please don’t hate me for begging Israel on a daily basis
So, two years into the Obama administration and America is again rightly viewed as hopelessly compromised in the Middle East and a backer of Israeli apartheid, repression across the region, occupations etc etc: Approval of U.S. leadership is now similar or lower than what it was in 2008 in several of the Middle East and…
Disaster capitalism envelops us all
My following article appears in the Sydney Morning Herald today: Last year’s cessation of hostilities between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, after up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were murdered in the last months of the conflict, has heralded a Beijing-led invasion of the island. The authoritarian Rajapaksa regime was assisted by Chinese…
Mearsheimer/Walt enter the best-seller list via Franzen
Great post by MJ Rosenberg on Jonathan Franzen’s new best-seller Freedom and its deep message about the Zionist lobby: I just want to comment on a minor stream that runs through the book: it is that neo-conservatives are loathsome, that they joined up with war profiteers to get us into Iraq, and that they were…
Why on earth would America want to help the people they’ve invaded?
While reading this story about a new British documentary explaining the decision of the Iraqi insurgency to stop fighting the Americans and battle al-Qaeda instead in the years after the 2003 invasion, this quote is astounding: As General Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the US Army, admitted in an interview at…
Here’s what Iraqis need; iTunes
Here’s a plan. Invade a country. Destroy the infrastructure. Refuse to compensate. Remain an occupier. Computer anybody? The shipment of laptop computers that arrived in Iraq’s main seaport in February was a small but important part of the American military’s mission here to win hearts and minds. What happened afterward is a tale of good…