Robert Fisk in the London Independent on the current crisis in Lebanon: Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
The 1968 legacy
Noam Chomsky, New Statesman, May 8: But democracy is even stronger now than it was in 1968. You have to remember that, during Vietnam, there was no opposition at the beginning of the war…The Iraq War was the first conflict in western history in which an imperialist war was massively protested against before it had…
Is Iran next?
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: The fifth anniversary in March of the Iraq war should have given the political and media elite time to reflect on their actions since 2003. Virtually ignored by the mainstream media were stories such as life in Fallujah, where citizens remain mired in poverty and resentment. Despite…
Next stop of the war train: Iran
After years of propagating lies about Iraq and its alleged threat to the world, the New York Times continues to publish Bush administration talking points, this time outlining the supposed menace of Iran. Critical thinking? Don’t expect that from the “paper of record.”
Killing a chance for peace
Joschka Fischer, Guardian Comment is Free, May 5: President Bush’s Middle East policy undeniably managed to achieve one thing: it has thoroughly destabilised the region. Otherwise, the results are not at all what the US had hoped to accomplish. A democratic, pro-western Middle East is not in the cards. But, while things are not developing…
Iraq, the Kurds and where to from here
I was recently interviewed by Peshawa Muhammed of the Kurdistani Nwe Newspaper, the publication of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Iraqi Kurdistan (Noam Chomsky was also interviewed recently.) The article ran on May 4: Peshawa Muhammed: Five years on, how do you assess the current US policy in Iraq? Which option do you think…
Hope (in the form of freedom bombs)
Raw Story provides necessary context to the latest missive from US Vice President Dick Cheney: George W. Bush has made the world a more hopeful place. This from Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke to a crowd of Oklahoma Republicans Friday evening. “When the history is written, it will be said this is a safer…
American tax dollars at work
Corpwatch reveals why the the American mission in Iraq is going so swimmingly: When U.S. troops or embassy officials want to track and investigate Iraqis — such as interrogating prisoners accused of terrorism, doing background checks on potential employees, or even to chat with ordinary citizens on the street — the principal intermediary is a…
Gee, we were brilliant
Paul Wolfowitz, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, clarifies some “misconceptions” about the Iraq war: The fact is, however, that we did end up with an occupation authority for a full nine months, and I’m afraid that the label occupation sticks to us even to this day, although the occupation ended in June of 2004.…
The lobby gets a refit
The recent launch of new Israel lobby in the US, J Street, is an encouraging sign. Its message is fairly conventional – two states for two peoples – but it’s far more moderate than the current loudest voices in the room, the hardline Zionist extremists (the situation in Australia is little different, hence the success…