We live in a world that celebrates cowboy “justice”. A bad man is killed and the world cheers. We really have become like the Israelis, where “targeted assassinations” are simply a fact of life and yet contribute nothing to the security of the people. In fact the opposite is true. But oh well, Osama Bin…
Showing all posts tagged terrorism
Spare the celebration over Bin Laden’s death; how many dead since 9/11?
What matters to the Muslim world today? The death of an old man in a Pakistani compound? Or the stirrings of Arab revolutions against the wishes of Western forces far keener to maintain the status-quo of dictatorships? Robert Fisk, a journalist who has met Bin Laden on a number of occasions, said yesterday that Bin…
The official, New York Times approved version of OBL’s death
Here it is: After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August. A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American…
Hold the champagne, Bin Laden’s murder doesn’t remove Western occupation of Muslim lands
Time.com’s Tony Karon, one of the most perceptive journalists in the American mainstream, writes that the US killing of Osama Bin Laden is all about symbolism and will do nothing to help the Western position in the Arab world: Before leaving for a vacation in South Africa in December of 2001, my editor asked me…
Osama Bin Laden dead but “war on terror” ain’t going anywhere
Barack Obama has announced the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. So many questions, so few answers. Will his death really make a difference to the “war on terror”? Arguably not. Bin Laden has become a symbol, little more. Occupation of Muslim lands has only worsened since 9/11, so hatred of the…
Read here to understand why US created hatred post 9/11
The recently released Wikileaks files on Guantanamo Bay showed a US empire arrogant on fear and power. But here’s an insight from Lawrence Wilkerson, retired Army colonel who served as Colin Powell’s right-hand at the State Department, that explains a lot. From a speech in 2009 on the “mosaic philosophy”: This philosophy held that it…
Killing our enemies from the comfort of a distant bunker
The future of warfare is largely privatised, unaccountable, designed to kill “terrorists” and almost guaranteed to convince US war planners that conflict is cost-free in terms of American lives: Here’s how the U.S. Air Force wants to hunt the next generation of its enemies: A tiny drone sneaks up to a suspect, paints him with…
It’s my fault that Hamas is now working with Fatah?
The proposed Hamas/Fatah reconciliation is a big “what if? moment. How such a decision can operate well under occupation is the ultimate question. In this context, I just received the following email from Jeff Lenchiner, publisher and editor of InsideHoops, on US basketball. Yes, a man who loves sports thinks he should write and tell…
Obama appoints pro-war Petraeus to run thuggish CIA
This Washington Post story accurately reflects the kind of world Barack Obama both inherited and expanded; he ain’t no peace President: Gen. David H. Petraeus has served as commander in two wars launched by the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. If confirmed as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Petraeus…
What Wikileaks Gitmo files says about our Western “values”
My following article appears in today’s ABC The Drum: The Wikileaks-released Guantanamo Bay files provide an invaluable insight into the mindset of the US and its allies since September 11. An infrastructure of torture was implemented, a practice still defended by the US government today, to allegedly protect the homeland from future attack. The result…