In a Sunday New York Times magazine feature about the Little Green Footballs blog – a once virulently bigoted website that seemed to thrive on hating Arabs, Muslims and anybody who didn’t crave American bombing campaigns – founder Charles Johnson is shown to have tolerated the sadly common bile directed at Palestinians: If the tone…
Showing all posts tagged United States
Sri Lanka faces a choice between two war criminals
Tomorrow sees Sri Lanka’s first election since the government’s defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009. Perhaps the most revealing comment of the campaign that I’ve read is from the US Ambassador to the country: The US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Patricia Butenis, was moved to warn yesterday that election violence threatened to reverse…
LA Jews challenge Israel
It may not be a strong movement yet, but American Jews are starting to speak out against Israeli crimes. Here’s LA Jews for Peace and friends in front of the Federal building on the one year anniversary of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza:
Petraeus receives some important medicine from believers in human rights
On Thursday, January 21, 2010, General David Petraeus addressed Georgetown students and faculty in Gaston Hall. Approximately 10 student protesters gathered inside and outside Gaston to condemn Petraeus’s strategy in the Middle East – paying off “enemies” and using tactics of brutal counter-insurgency to “win” the local population – and the university’s decision to invite…
Chomsky on what should happen to Haiti right now
The following letter appeared in the London Guardian on 22 January: We the undersigned are outraged by the scandalous delays in getting essential aid to victims of the earthquake in Haiti (‘Chaotic and confusing’ relief effort is costing lives, aid agencies warn, 19 January). As a result of the US decision to prioritise the accumulation…
The most accurate assessment of the real Obama presidency
Howard Zinn on Barack Obama’s one year in the top job: I’ve been searching hard for a highlight. The only thing that comes close is some of Obama’s rhetoric; I don’t see any kind of a highlight in his actions and policies. As far as disappointments, I wasn’t terribly disappointed because I didn’t expect that…
Obama is like Bush is like Clinton is like Bush
The status-quo lives on: President Barack Obama says his administration overestimated its ability to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians to resume meaningful peace talks. Obama says both parties have been unwilling to make the bold gestures needed to move the process forward. If the U.S. had anticipated that earlier, Obama says he might not have…
Christ loves Washington’s terror victims
I’m sure the victims of American “freedom bombs” will be pleased that they’ve been blessed by Jesus: ABC News revealed that Trijicon, the company that provides high-powered rifle sights to the U.S. military, inscribes the sights with coded references to biblical texts about Jesus Christ. The company inscribes the codes immediately after the model number,…
What was Israel’s involvement at Abu Ghraib?
This story requires far more investigation (something that has been sorely lacking in the last years): The former American military chief of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq reiterates the Israeli involvement in the US-run facility, where hundreds of Iraqi suspects were tortured and sexually abused by US soldiers and interrogators. Shedding further light…
Haiti from the centre of hell
The devastation in Haiti is heart-breaking but most of the Western media is missing the key reason behind the chaos; the militarisation of humanitarian aid. Some of the finest reporting I’ve seen is from Democracy Now!, now in Haiti itself. Here’s Amy Goodman explaining the chaos and producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous detailing the trauma. Jeremy…