Americans think they’re special; we don’t

America, your perceived exceptionalism isn’t a view shared by millions of people who feel your freedom bombs dropping on their homes: Americans widely agree that the United States has a unique character because of its history and Constitution that sets it apart from other nations as the greatest in the world. This view, commonly referred…

Of course empire spokesmen hate Wikileaks

Jeffrey Bleich, US ambassador in Australia, writes an embarrassing defence of secrecy post-Wikileaks, claims lives have been lost (with no evidence) and wishes for the good old days of governments sharing secrets because they know what’s best: Before I became an ambassador, I worked for many years as a lawyer advocating for freedom of expression…

Assange and the Jewish analogy

Not quite sure of the accuracy of this comparison; institutional anti-Semitism against Jews wasn’t just in the establishment, it was widely shared across the community: The founder of WikiLeaks has compared his treatment by the Swedish authorities seeking his extradition over sexual assault allegations to the persecution of the Jewish people in the last century.…

WTF, indeed

Yes, America is run by paranoid children who loathe light being shone on its activities: The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks. Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it’s mainly…

The minor taste of accountability in Afghanistan

Expect these kinds of stories to happen far more often. Lawless contractors in a lawless land is a recipe for disaster: Afghan authorities arrested an employee of a British private security company this week and sentenced him to eight months in jail, the latest move in the government’s crackdown on private security firms. Global Strategies…

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