If this is the future of warfare and intelligence gathering, rest assured it won’t only be Washington doing it. Last month philosopher Patrick Lin delivered this briefing about the ethics of drones at an event hosted by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture-capital arm (via the Atlantic): Let’s look at some current and future scenarios. These go…
Showing all posts tagged terrorism
Drones won’t be bringing freedom to anybody anytime soon
Many in the corporate press love to luxuriate over drones, those seemingly silent and deadly killers against America’s “enemies”. The reality is rather different, explains Nick Turse in TomDispatch: According to statistics provided to TomDispatch by the Air Force, Predators have flown the lion’s share of hours in America’s drone wars.… As of October 1st,…
How Fox News serves us daily a whole heap of goodness
2011 has been a Fox News year with a Muslim American President, socialism in the class room, terrorists in the White House and: Elie Wiesel, Mr Murdoch, is a Holocaust survivor but he has used his fame to care about all kinds of causes (including, according to Norman Finkelstein, exploiting groups and firms involved in…
Iraqi “liberation” keeps many US secrets
Interesting piece on the New York Times At War blog: Several weeks ago, we heard that a local businessman had purchased some trailers from a closing American base. We were told the trailers were parked at a nearby junkyard, so one afternoon I headed out with our security team to find them. I didn’t believe…
Understanding humanity in the back of an ambulance
My friend Benjamin Gilmour, author of the wonderful new book Paramedico… – he works alongside ambulance workers across the world – speaks on commercial Australian TV and mentions US crimes with drones against the people of Pakistan:
America’s Gitmo problem
More than ten years after 9/11, the Obama administration remains determined to maintain flawed military trials for terror suspects but as this New York Times investigation reveals, housing people on the US mainland hasn’t caused the end of America: It is the other… Guantánamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away…
Israeli journalism is (mostly) about repeating government talking points on “terror”
As ever, Gideon Levy in Haaretz nails the counter-narrative in the Zionist state: Israeli journalism censors itself to the point of harm. Part of it has become a means of entertainment while inciting our more base passions. Part of it now appeals to emotions, not reason, and deals with trivial rather than important issues, taking…
Three examples of disaster capitalism in action
One (via Wired): An obscure Pentagon office designed to curb the flow of illegal drugs has quietly evolved into a one-stop shop for private security contractors around the world, soliciting deals worth over $3 billion. The sprawling contract, ostensibly designed to stop drug-funded terrorism, seeks security firms for missions like “train[ing] Azerbaijan Naval Commandos.” Other…
NGOs and engaging “terrorists”
Now this is interesting. Since September 11, 2001, we’ve heard constant bleating from many conservatives and keyboard warriors that we shouldn’t “deal with terrorists” (er, apart from our friends who practice terrorism, of course). The Guardian on reality in the real world: A controversial new book produced by one of the world’s best-known aid agencies,…