What the West has left Iraq

Anthony Shadid writes a powerful piece in the New York Times on the deadly legacy of America in Iraq, in 2003, today and into the future. The occupation isn’t about to end: The morning after President Obama spoke of bringing the war in Iraq to “a responsible end,” insurgents planted their black flag on Tuesday…

New York Times wanted to be scooped on Wikileaks data

Last night’s SBS Dateline featured a fascinating piece about the background to the recent Wikileaks release. Check out the whole thing but this bit interested me particularly: As the new material starts to circulate between the three publications the full scope of the data becomes clearer, and one of the partners seems to be getting…

Today’s Pentagon Papers may have similar effect

Frank Rich in the New York Times inserts some sense into the Wikileaks debate and argues that the significance lies in confirming people’s views on a failed war (just like Vietnam). Last week the left and right reached a rare consensus. The war logs are no Pentagon Papers. They are historic documents describing events largely…

Many truths within Wikileaks, if you care to look

The faux outrage over the Wikileaks revelations related to Pakistan’s closeness to the Taliban should be dismissed as propaganda (a point reinforced by Tariq Ali in the Guardian yesterday). Wikileaks has announced that more “secrets” will be forthcoming, despite the group’s testy relationship with corporate media. Here’s founder Julian Assange’s modus operandi: We have clearly…

Navigating the Wikileaks leak, from the man himself

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on ABC TV Lateline last night: TONY JONES: You said in your press conference that you and the conventional journalists you’d worked with had only managed to read between one and 2,000 of the reports properly. Is that correct? JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, that is true. To read and to read them…

How the Wikileaks story came together

The Wikileaks controversy is still swirling. Official Washington is fuming. The Guardian’s investigation’s editor explains the importance of the Afghan war logs and why his paper featured them so prominently. A partnership between old and new media gave this story its global significance (and amen to that). Perhaps the most fascinating insight into this yarn…

Wikileaks releases the new Pentagon Papers?

The Wikileaks story about leaked documents over the Afghan war is racing across the world. Some analysis and further news is here, here, here and here. Releasing sensitive information in the age of the web is a marvel of new technology. Here the New York Times explains its reasoning behind publication. The job of journalists…

Aslan says 2-state solution is dead, and Indyk calls him a liar

My following article is published today on US website Mondoweiss: “The future of relations with the Muslim world” was the UN-sponsored event hosted at the New York Times building in central Manhattan on 21 July. Filled with journalists from Egypt, China and Turkey and the foreign policy establishment, roughly 150 people came to hear Roger…

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