What unaccountable US torture looks like

Stunning post by Darryl Li at the Middle East Research and Information Project: Two of today’s headlines together provide a good example of the work of imperial forgetting. On the front page of theNew York Times, a… story… about the depiction of torture in the forthcoming national revenge flick… Zero Dark Thirty… shows how little debates have advanced over…

Does the European Left ignore Islamist violence in a mutual hatred of Israel?

It’s an interesting and long argued detail, here by Colin Shindler in the New York Times. He makes some disturbing points but ignores the elephant in the room, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and how that affects global attitudes towards Israel, Jews and Zionists: Last week, Twitter… shut down… a popular account for posting anti-Semitic messages in…

Trying to tempt Anwar al-Awlaki with the lure of another wife

An incredible story, if true, that reveals one way Western agencies attempt to target extremist enemies of the state (apart from killing them with drones). The New York Times reports: The man with the wire-rim glasses and bushy beard, speaking calmly in American-accented English, is familiar from dozens of Web videos urging violent jihad against…

What war feels like in Damascus

Understanding life in Damascus today is difficult. It’s a rare journalist who captures the mood.… Janine di Giovanni (who’s reported from the country before) has a new and devastating dispatch in the New York Times: Rifa was growing frantic. Her husband had called to say that he and her brother were stuck on their way home…

America is blind in Syria

The lead story in today’s New York Times is comical. Almost. What’s clear is how little Washington understands the Syrian revolution, who is fighting and why. Its intelligence is clearly suspect and hardline Islamists are being strengthened. America learns nothing from history.… Afghanistan in the 1980s, anybody? Most of the arms shipped at the behest of… Saudi…

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