I’m on a number of global email lists that discuss privatised security post 9/11. This is from an anonymous retired navy captain: Somebody’s civilian friends or benefactors have always been making money on our wars. The funny twist is how the “military industrial complex” of years gone by has evolved into a “personnel support complex”…
Showing all posts tagged United States
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…
Mining in Afghanistan unlikely to bring stability to the nation
When the war in Afghanistan is truly over – ie. never – mineral exploitation is likely to bring further strife to the country. Western multinationals aiming to make a killing? Alas, yes, writes McClatchy: An Afghan-American company that failed to win a multibillion-dollar contract to develop one of Afghanistan’s most lucrative mines alleges that the…
American “freedom fighter” in Libya
Matthew VanDyke fought alongside Libyan forces opposed to Gaddafi. His message when he returned to America? It [Libya] will be a democratic, capitalist country. Apparently that’s what freedom means:
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…
What you need to know about the Afghan war and aren’t afraid to ask
With the war in Afghanistan an unmitigated clusterfuck, it’s remarkable still how many voices in the corporate press talk about goals, achievements and possibilities (usually given by anonymous “officials”). American journalist Michael Hastings obtains a fascinating document recently that reveals the depth of the mess: Earlier this week, the… New York Times’ Scott Shane published… a bombshell…
Civil strife serious possibility in PNG due to vulture capitalism
My following investigation appears in Crikey today: The story led the business pages in Papua New Guinea’s… Post-Courier… in early February. “Analyst: PNG on verge of change” screamed the headline. British-based market analysts Bdaily Business Network praised the $US17.3 billion Exxon-Mobil led LNG project. “[It] is the most important single development in the history of PNG”, it…
Remember MSM role over war; what the state says we report
Post 9/11, it was Afghanistan. Then Iraq. Then drones over Pakistan. Bombs against Gaza. Counter-terrorism in Somalia and Yemen. Now the main target is Iran. The vast majority of corporate media hacks in the West hear a statement from Israel and America and simply report it without question. That’s called stenography. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald writes:…
What austerity really means in capitalism; private companies reaping rewards
One small example, via the Huffington Post, of how corporations are looking to maximise profits at the expensive of society: As state governments wrestle with massive budget shortfalls, a Wall Street giant is offering a solution: cash in exchange for state property. Prisons, to be exact. Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of…