Some of that democratic Iraq, reported by The Independent’s Robert Fisk: Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come. The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the prisons run by…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
The forgotten minority
There are around 4,500 Mandaeans from Iraq and Iran living in Australia, making them the second largest community outside of the Middle East. Who are they?
Vibewire on The Blogging Revolution
Vibewire is one of Australia’s finest online youth portals (I used to write a regular column for them years ago.) I was recently interviewed by one of their writers, Jacqui Dent, about my book, The Blogging Revolution: Blogging is being used increasingly to speak out against oppression in authoritarian regimes and speak up amidst mainstream…
Get off their lands
Robert Fisk, on Democracy Now!, on the insidious role of the US in the Middle East: It was a baker in Baghdad who asked me this very obvious question. He said, “Why are you””–you” meaning Western military”–Why are you in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, French air base at Dushanbe running close as support for the British…
The American concentration camp
What really happened at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib? An American guard who was there tells all.
We wuz wrong, kinda
So the New York Times finally acknowledges its inability to seriously challenge Bush administration spin before the Iraq war?
Putting a country back together
The repair of Iraq is a slow process (not helped by reports that Islamist death squads are hunting down homosexuals and killing them): Municipal authorities in the southern city of Basra have mounted a campaign to clean up the Jewish cemetery there. The cemetery is seen as one of Basra’s ”˜cultural landmarks’ and the authorities…
Torturing their way to freedom
America in Iraq: a lesson in how to make friends and influence people: Torture and other abuses against detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq were authorized and routine, even after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, according to new accounts from soldiers in a Human Rights Watch report released today. The new report, containing first-hand accounts…
How to avoid realities
John Pilger, New Statesman, September 24: Britain’s political conference season of 2008 will be remembered as The Great Silence. Politicians have come and gone and their mouths have moved in front of large images of themselves, and they often wave at someone. There has been lots of news about each other. Adam Boulton, the political…