When countless journalists refuse to take responsibility for accurately reporting on the reality of wars in Iraq, Syria or Libya, it’s unsurprising that the effect on civilians can be so easy ignored. Medialens explains: Last month, a… ComRes poll… supported by Media Lens interviewed 2,021 British adults, asking: ‘How many Iraqis, both combatants and civilians, do you…
Showing all posts tagged terrorism
Watch the NSA leak like a sieve
There is a world of intelligence gathering that staggers in terms of size and depth. Here’s James Bamford in Wired on a future over which citizens have no say: Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards. But that was to…
Israel unleashes terror on Palestinians because it can
Beyond all the political posturing over Israel and Palestine, the reality of occupation grinds on. Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz of just one such event: The Israel Defense Forces’ Duvdevan unit is just about the very best, albeit with slightly less luster than the Shayetet, the Tayeset and “The Unit” − the IDF’s elite naval…
Lessons in real journalism from Jeremy Scahill
Best-selling author Jeremy Scahill… talking to the LA Times on the making of Dirty Wars: “You come across people and they’ve lost something incredible, like their family has been killed, or someone’s been maimed. They don’t understand why a raid happened. And no one from the military has said, ‘This is what happened, here’s compensation.’ So…
The last thing Syria needs, or the Middle East, is more Western “engagement”
Stunning Simon Jenkins piece in The Guardian that explains why Western imperialists, of the liberal and conservative kind, just need to butt out of the Middle East: There could no more dreadful idea than to pour more armaments into the sectarian war now consuming Syria.… Yet that is precisely what Britain’s coalition government wants to do.…
Full transcript of my interview with Jeremy Scahill
Australian publication New Matilda published my interview with journalist and author Jeremy Scahill yesterday.… Our recent conversation covered many areas so I’m publishing below a full transcript of the interview conducted by phone on 15th May: Where are the main places US is using armed drones outside Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia? One area that…
Talking to Jeremy Scahill on war, drones and Wikileaks
My following interview appears in today’s New Matilda: Journalist Jeremy Scahill has spent his life exposing the dark recesses of US foreign policy. He talks independent media, drones and terror in this exclusive interview with Antony Loewenstein The Weekly Standard is the neo-conservative bible that backed the US wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and today…
What’s happening at Guantanamo Bay is daily torture
Independent journalist Jason Leopold just visited Guantanamo Bay and sent this report and photos (see this link): Last week, thanks to the generous support of the Freedom of Press Foundation, I traveled to Guantanamo during the height of a mass hunger strike to tour the detention facility, along with four other members of the media.…
Obama’s war on terror could last for decades
The open-ended nature of this “war”, plus a plethora of global targets, should make us concerned. Resistance is vital. Here’s Charlie Savage in the New York Times: A top Pentagon official said Thursday that the evolving war against… Al Qaeda… was likely to continue “at least 10 to 20 years” and urged Congress not to modify the…