Robert McNamara, the architect of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, died today at the age of 93. The Fog of War is an eerie documentary about the war criminal: American leaders and generals who prosecuted the Iraq war will one day be seen as the war criminals that they are. History isn’t too kind…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Media past isn’t the prettiest place to revisit
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reminds us that the current crisis in journalism shouldn’t make us romanticise the past: One thing to keep in mind while worrying about the future of journalism is that its past hasn’t been all that great either. Journalism ought to be judged not on the profits it makes for…
Iraq has seen it all before
Global Voices editor Salam Adil expresses the appropriate skepticism towards recent development in Iraq: It is like deja-vu all over again. How many times will the media declare Iraqi Sovereignty and us bloggers are expected to stand up and respectfully applaud? First Bremmer handed over Iraqi Sovereignty in June 2004. There was a new sovereignty…
What Iraq means for the average family
A moving essay in the Washington Post, by star writer Anthony Shadid, about one Iraqi family over the last six years. The war has taken a profound toll.
Neo-conservatism in Europe
A fascinating review of a new French book about French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. The thesis, simply put, is that the humanitarian interventions pushed by the French elite are essentially the same as American neo-conservatives. Democracy promotion is the tag; military power is the supposed answer: Kouchner has spent the last three decades trying to…
Victory is not theirs
Who says the Iraq war hasn’t been a wonderful success (for imperialism and oil companies)? Furious protests threaten to undermine the Iraqi Government’s plan to give international oil companies a stake in its giant oilfields in a desperate effort to reverse a steady decline in oil production and revenue. In less than two weeks, on…
The Soviet days are back
William Blum’s Anti-Empire Report on the paucity of real debate in the US: Like clinical paranoia, “the threat from Iran” is impervious to correction by rational argument. Two new novels have just appeared, from major American publishers, thrillers based on Iran having a nuclear weapon and the dangers one can imagine that that portends —…
Obama in Cairo
My following article was published today on the popular US website Mondoweiss: Back in 2005, then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a rousing speech at Cairo’s American University. “For sixty years”, she argued, “my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East…
The luxury of distance and money
Sometimes, Jewish blogger Richard Silverstein nails it: Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. spoke in Canada yesterday, each earning more than $150K for the gig. Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone possessing enough wisdom to be worth paying such a sum to them for dispensing it. But I guess enough people are star struck that they…
What’s a few illegal wars here and there?
Zionist stenographer Jeffrey Goldberg tries to reassure a worried world: If Israel does strike Iran, it would bomb military targets while trying to minimize civilian casualties. Goldberg backed the US-led invasion of Iraq. His predictions then were almost criminally inaccurate.