The largely secret war now being fought by unaccountable private firms. This is how the West fights battles: More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields. More than 250 civilians working under U.S. contracts…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Petraeus believes in forever conflict
Just in case it wasn’t clear, America’s “war on terror” in Afghanistan may last, well, for decades. Here’s Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, quoted in Bob Woodward’s new book: You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little bit…
Revisiting an op-ed that raised the prospect of US crimes
What an interesting idea. The New York Times interviews Joseph Wilson, seven years after writing his incendiary column on Bush lies over Iraq.
Private contractor Serco escapes scrutiny in the detention debate
My following piece appears today in Crikey: I visited Villawood on Sunday”‰—”‰alongside a delegation of union leaders and Greens Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon”‰—”‰and met several asylum seekers subsequently involved in the protest that ended peacefully last night with the arrival of UNHCR officials. We spent hours conversing with men in their 20s and up from Iraq,…
How the Arab music world can see our noble soldiers in war
Waad Argoub – Shadha Hassoun Uploaded by dawebni. – Watch more music videos, in HD! This fascinating video, by Iraqi singer Shadha Hassoun, has caused a sensation in the Middle East: The raging questions about America’s role in Iraq came to a boil earlier this year with “Arqoub’s Promise,” a controversial music video which captured…
Asylum seekers all over the news but Serco’s role remains covered
From this morning’s ABC AM: TONY EASTLEY: A police investigation will continue today into the death of a Fijian man at the Villawood Immigration detention centre in Sydney. The 36-year-old, who jumped to his death yesterday morning, was due to be deported back to Fiji. Overnight, tensions remained high at the centre when a group…
A day at the Villawood detention centre, Australia’s mental trauma ward
I spent today at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre for refugees and met men from Iraq, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Stories of pain and trauma. All refugees can’t understand why the Australian government keeps them in limbo for months and years deciding on their fate. They fear being returned to Iraq, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka and…
Some drugs and loss in the noble US army
This is what war does to the occupier: When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq’s most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission. What he found, he said,…
We weren’t in Iraq for the cheap booze?
Futility and criminality yet no accountability: British soldiers in Iraq were “dying for no strategic benefit” because Tony Blair’s government did not appreciate what it was taking on when it planned the invasion, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of defence staff, has told MPs. There was a “failure of strategic thinking” in…
What the unhinged Israel lovers want next
Blogger Andrew Sullivan, recently made aware of the disastrous and destructive actions of radical Jews and hardline Zionists, gets it in one: Peter Beinart heralds it in: “Ever since 9/11, according to opinion polls, Republicans have worried more about terrorism than have Democrats. Initially, this fear translated into overwhelming support for military action abroad. But…