Private contractor CACI has done very well in the post 9/11 world (including providing the guards who tortured detainees at Abu Ghraib in Iraq). Writer Andrew Cockburn highlights a company that represents the modern world of creating something out of nothing (unless you include maintaining and protecting the bogus “war on terror” as important): The…
Showing all posts tagged torture
This is what the West has backed for 3 decades in Egypt; depravity
Remarkable documents have emerged from Egypt from inside Alexandria’s State Security compound: This past weekend, Egyptians lost their patience and simply started dismantling it themselves. After reports of documents being burned and moved out by the truckload, crowds converged on its offices in Alexandria, Cairo, and the southern city of Aswan. Once they broke in,…
Hypocrisy trumps policy in Western alliance with Libya
My following article appears today on ABC’s The Drum: The latest BBC interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, situated in a fancy restaurant on the Mediterranean, was painful to watch. Clearly delusional and blaming drug-addled youth and al-Qaeda for the ongoing revolution in his country (which he claimed he didn’t lead, the “masses” were in…
What the West saw in Gaddafi was oil and torture
The US had no issue with Gaddafi’s brutality and corruption as long as the oil kept flowing. Fossil fuel hunger has turned us into leeches: After New Year’s Day 2009, Western media reported that Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had paid Mariah Carey $1 million to sing just…
Just how many Afghans is Australia murdering in Afghanistan?
It’s called counter-insurgency but in many cases this is simply operations to train, capture and allow the subsequent torture (and/or murder) of supposed Afghan insurgents. A failed strategy that deserves exposure: Counterinsurgency, also known as COIN, is the main focus in Afghanistan. It is a partnered effort between Afghan government and coalition forces to bring…
WSJ: our autocrats are nice thugs
The Middle East has spent decades in social and political “stability” because Washington and Israel have backed brutes to torture and demean the people. Not to worry, writes Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, ignore all those deeply undemocratic states; the real issue is the Islamic Republic: The regime in Tehran—aptly described by Secretary of State Hillary…
Obama administration keen to maintain money to Egyptian torturers
Washington is extremely happy to be funding and arming an Egyptian elite that routinely tortures its own citizens and terror suspects sent from the US: U.S. military aid to Egypt has been of “incalculable value,” helping its armed forces become a capable, professional body, the top U.S. military officer told Congress Wednesday. Admiral Mike Mullen,…
Sensible American writer who doesn’t loathe political Islam
Roger Cohen in a very powerful column today in the New York Times: Perhaps the most effective antidote to 9/11 will prove to be 2/11, the day Hosni Mubarak conceded the game was up with his 30-year-old dictatorship and left town under military escort for the beach. We’ve tried invasions of Muslim lands. We’ve tried…
No peace treaty ever told Egypt to banish Arabs
Ali Abunimah is spot on: On many minds — especially Israeli and American ones — has been the question of whether a new democratic Egyptian government will tear up the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. That of course, is up to the Egyptian people, although the transitional military government confirmed in its fourth statement Egypt’s…