Frank Rich in the New York Times inserts some sense into the Wikileaks debate and argues that the significance lies in confirming people’s views on a failed war (just like Vietnam). Last week the left and right reached a rare consensus. The war logs are no Pentagon Papers. They are historic documents describing events largely…
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Necessary protection for Wikileaks
Now we learn that a MIT student is being questioned about possible involvement in the Wikileaks saga – there’s something almost comical about watching this, as if a host of other leakers within the establishment won’t follow in their footsteps, such is the dismay with US foreign policy – this piece of information is curious:…
Saving the environment doesn’t come at the cost of people
Here’s a novel and worrying way to engage in the population/immigration debate and one that many Western leaders may embrace in the race to the political bottom: In January 2010, national leaders in ecology, sustainable business, and the larger environmental movement gathered in Washington to grapple with the problem of building “The New Green Economy.”…
Many truths within Wikileaks, if you care to look
The faux outrage over the Wikileaks revelations related to Pakistan’s closeness to the Taliban should be dismissed as propaganda (a point reinforced by Tariq Ali in the Guardian yesterday). Wikileaks has announced that more “secrets” will be forthcoming, despite the group’s testy relationship with corporate media. Here’s founder Julian Assange’s modus operandi: We have clearly…
Obama’s Bush mannerisms
The ACLU on Obama’s morphing into George W. Bush: In the eighteen months since the issuance of those executive orders, the administration’s record on issues related to civil liberties and national security has been, at best, mixed. Indeed, on a range of issues including accountability for torture, detention of terrorism suspects, and use of lethal…
BDS backers are basically terrorists in disguise (in hasbara minds)
This is almost funny. Palestinian activists and writers, such as Ali Abunimah and Diana Buttu, backing BDS are, according to this Zionist propaganda video, “anti-Israel” because they don’t accept the two-state solution, a pipe-dream that is both impractical and immoral. Seriously, this is what Zionism is left with; smearing Palestinians who demand full rights instead…
Google and CIA work together
Just what the world needs: The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future. The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to…
Knowing that Afghanistan is a failure
Simon Jenkins writes in the Guardian that the Wikileaks war logs are significant. But will the media war cheer-leaders be listening? Is it the death of war? In Vietnam the horror of fighting was brought to TV screens in real time. Such was the reaction that American citizens withdrew their consent. In the 1980s computers…
What if Wikileaks does nothing at all?
What if the political elite dismisses public opinion so greatly that revelations by groups such as Wikileaks simply change little or anything in public policy? A GritTV discussion with Jay Rosen and Michael Otterman.
Navigating the Wikileaks leak, from the man himself
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on ABC TV Lateline last night: TONY JONES: You said in your press conference that you and the conventional journalists you’d worked with had only managed to read between one and 2,000 of the reports properly. Is that correct? JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, that is true. To read and to read them…