Why are we surprised that Iran worked to influence events in Iraq after the 2003 invasion? Wikileaks shows the extent of Tehran’s understandable role. When America invades a country, it’s called liberation. When Iran “meddles” in Iraq’s internal affairs, it’s called terrorism.
Showing all posts tagged terrorism
What Iraq looked like for Iraqis in 2006
The UK Guardian unpacks the latest Wikileaks Iraq logs, interactively: 17 October 2006 was a typical day in one of the bloodiest years of the Iraq conflict – 136 dead Iraqis, 10 dead Americans and hundreds of violent incidents. Watch the 24 hours of carnage unfold, log by log, minute by minute.
Wikileaks Iraq logs show our damned contempt for Arabs
Welcome to our legacy in the Middle East: A grim picture of the US and Britain’s legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of…
A one-eyed view of Sri Lanka
My following article appears today in ABC’s The Drum Unleashed: A Western journalist visits the Sudanese capital Khartoum to interview President Omar al-Bashir. The reporter, after calling him “controversial” due to his “bloody” record in fighting terrorism, gives the leader a platform to explain his views and tactics. The only other voice featured in the…
Who knew that occupation caused Muslims to hate us?
Robert Pape tells us what we should already know. When the West occupies and kill Muslims, they may want to respond in kind. Funny that: More than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation, according to extensive research that we conducted at the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and…
Back on ABC TV News24 talking Afghanistan, drugs policy and 9/11
I appeared again last night on ABC TV News 24 The Drum with former politician Kerry Chikarovski and ABC journalist Chris Uhlmann (previous appearances here). The show is available here. We discussed Australia’s role in Afghanistan and whether the country should maintain troops there. It appears that the US alliance and “national security” reasons are…
If the Taliban can be engaged, why not the other “terrorists”?
So Richard Barrett, the coordinator of the United Nations Al Qaeda-Taliban monitoring team, thinks it’s time to “talk to the Taliban.” Guess the next major piece in the New York Times will be that Israel should talk to Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran.
So many innocent drone victims
Remind me who the terrorists are again? New information on the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan directly contradicts the image the Barack Obama administration and the CIA have sought to establish in the news media of a program based on highly accurate targeting that is effective in disrupting al-Qaeda’s terrorist…
Resistance vs terrorism is a complex beast; enter the Tamil Tigers
Post 9/11, finding nuance in the state view towards “terrorism” was rare, indeed. But here is a challenging example, questioning the idea that every form of resistance is somehow connected to al-Qaeda: More than three years after federal agents locked up a Sri Lankan immigrant they say was the top U.S. representative of the Tamil…
Wikileaks and avoiding September 11
A provocative question in the LA Times: If WikiLeaks had been around in 2001, could the events of 9/11 have been prevented? … Decisions to speak out inside or outside one’s chain of command — let alone to be seen as a whistle-blower or leaker of information — is fraught with ethical and legal questions…