The Afghans love us for destroying them

Balloon Juice highlights a startling passage in a Washington Post story: But many residents near Kandahar do not share the view. They have lodged repeated complaints about the scope of the destruction with U.S. and Afghan officials. In one October operation near the city, U.S. aircraft dropped about two dozen 2,000-pound bombs. In another recent…

What “Miral” does for the Palestinian cause

Last night in Sydney at the Palestinian Film Festival I saw an amazing new film by Jewish film-maker Julian Schnabel, Miral. This is a deeply moving tale about the Palestinian experience, from the 1948 Nakba to the Deir Yassin massacre, the 1967 war and the first intifada. Is it this generation’s Exodus, asks Mondoweiss? Its…

Nazis in public radio; call the police

Fox News head Roger Ailes displays his charming side (for which he later apologised): They [National Public Radio] are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout…

Who makes money when more “illegals” are locked away?

While corporate politicians mostly talk about increasing prison numbers and locking more people away, public opinion over the issue is far more complex (if tabloid hysteria is ignored). However, in an increasingly privatised world, this recent NPR story in the US speaks volumes about an unhealthy relationship between a cash-strapped government and private interest: Last…

Washington’s global footprint is as subtle as the BFG

We often hear about the military industrial complex, but what does it mean in practice? Exhibit number one: The construction projects are sprouting like mushrooms: walled complexes, high-strength weapons vaults, and underground bunkers with command and control capacities — and they’re being planned and funded by a military force intent on embedding itself ever more…

John and Julie in Alaska are paying for Israeli apartheid

What Israeli “democracy” is all about, funded by the US taxpayer: Travelers along the “original” West Bank roads, the ones enabling drivers to bypass Palestinian villages, can see signs declaring “USAID from the American People.” The roads are one of the initiatives of the United States Agency for International Development for building infrastructure in underdeveloped…

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