Why can’t we just stay in Afghanistan forever?

The last decade has seen an explosion in private security and intelligence companies making a killing in the “war on terror”. And now, with growing anger towards both mercenaries and the Western occupying forces that use them, this suggestion seems both delusional and symptomatic of the rot that imperial thinking guarantees: The chairman of the…

Wikileaks unloads with the Global Intelligence Files

The role of private companies in spying, monitoring and controlling public (and private) policy and debate sorely needs investigation. It’s not just about Western firms assisting repressive states censor the internet. Today Wikileaks launches the Global Intelligence Files: Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails…

America wants “human terrain” to whitewash occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan

Years after 9/11, the US military believed that counter-insurgency meant learning about the countries you were invading and occupying. Sensible decision but nothing could alter the fact that America was conducting a brutal occupation of Muslim lands. Resistance rightly followed. “Human Terrain Systems” were employed – anthropologists, social scientists and others – to be the…

American disaster in Yemen; Jeremy Scahill on blowback personified

American independent journalist Jeremy Scahill believes in actual reporting. Controversial idea in an age where the vast majority of corporate hacks in the MSM barely leave the office or simply receive sanctioned leaks. He’s just returned from Yemen where he finds the Obama administration conducting a violent counter-terrorist program that is achieving little more than…

Murdoch thuggery in America; his paper calls for war against Iran

This is how Rupert and friends roll (via the New York Post editorial). Because Murdoch’s support for the Iraq war hasn’t already caused enough mayhem: How’s this for astonishing: NBC News is reporting that Israeli spies have been involved in the assassinations of five Iranian nuclear scientists. So far, not so bad. We’d say the…

At least MSM admits that CIA’s role is to ruin independent nations

This is classic mainstream “journalism” in the Washington Post. America has the right to intervene anywhere, haven’t you heard? The CIA is expected to maintain a large clandestine presence in Iraq and Afghanistan long after the departure of conventional U.S. troops as part of a plan by the Obama administration to rely on a combination…

Four handy rules to understand American empire

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald provides direction: The Rules of American Justice are quite clear: (1)… If you are a high-ranking government official who commits war crimes, you will receive full-scale immunity, both civil and criminal, and will have the American President demand that all citizens Look Forward, Not Backward. (2)… If you are a low-ranking member of the…

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