Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg on America’s toxic political culture: Well, as I listened to Attorney General Holder on your program just now, I realize that he’s in the same position of that Attorney General Mitchell was in 40 years ago with the Pentagon Papers when they came out. We have an act of free…
Showing all posts tagged United States
Guess which two countries are most angry towards Wikileaks?
Watch the world laugh at American reactions to Wikileaks (and Australia is of course following our Washington masters step by step): For many Europeans, Washington’s fierce reaction to the flood of secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks displays imperial arrogance and hypocrisy, indicating a post-9/11 obsession with secrecy that contradicts American principles. While the Obama…
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on big Sydney Wikileaks rally
Today’s big rally for Wikileaks in Sydney (I think around 2000 people were there) saw a wide cross section of people outraged with the intimidation of Wikileaks and Julian Assange and the Gillard government’s capitulation to American demands. I spoke and chaired the event. This story appears in the Daily Telegraph: Protestors today converged on…
Wikileaks exposes the bromance between journalists and politics
My following article appears on ABC Unleashed today: Who can now say that the WikiLeaks cables detail no new information? It was only last week that ABC TV’s 7.30 Report featured a story with supposed foreign affairs experts, including the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove, who largely dismissed the significance of the document dump. Within a…
Mubarak for life is Washington’s dream
This is the reality of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Dictatorships for life: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt‘s long-serving president, is likely to seek re-election next year and will “inevitably” win a poll that will not be free and fair, the US ambassador to Cairo, Margaret Scobey, predicted in a secret cable to Hillary Clinton…
Karzai is about as statesmanlike as Mugabe
So this is what mature diplomacy means. Working with a corrupt government to further another bromance? So sweet and so revealing: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called it “extraordinarily embarrassing,” which might also describe the sentiments beneath the decorous tableau on Wednesday night in the palace of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. A little more…
Google, Twitter et al on path to helping US imperialism
The introductory section of this recent essay in the London Review of Books paints a disturbing nexus between the US government and major web companies. They seem worryingly comfortable assisting US foreign policy goals. Putting a nice, sexy face to occupation. Beware: On a balmy evening in April 2009 Barham Salih, then deputy prime minister…
Why is the national broadcaster giving so much air-time to a propagandist?
What an embarrassment. The US government is upset about Wikileaks and also pissed off that one of its best assets, Kevin Rudd, is being smeared in some leaked cables. Damage control time. But why did ABC TV’s 7.30 Report allow a senior US official 10 minutes last night to slobber over the client state known…
The rape of Africa, courtesy of shiny Shell
Who says Wikileaks isn’t providing essential new information into the public domain? The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians’ every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The company’s top executive in Nigeria…
Sydney Morning Herald on Wikileaks and Gillard government
I was interviewed yesterday by the Sydney Morning Herald online (audio here and here) to discuss the vital importance of Wikileaks for democracy and the Gillard government’s shameful damning of Julian Assange in the name of placating its Washington masters.